Wizard

[ateolf]

Mary Beth and I went to Paradiso to see a screening of The Wiz. Never seen it before...it's...! Some of the set design is pretty incredible. I mean, lots of fever dream, nightmare fuel shit. I imagine seeing it as a kid and having the crap scared out of me (I did not see it as a kit and only just saw it for the first time). A lot of it felt more akin to Return to Oz than The Wizard of Oz (I know The Wiz came before Return, I'm just using the reference point of Oz with a creepier vibe). I'm not one to go for musicals so that aspect went as expected. (A few of the songs that hit the funk were pretty good, if I recall more were interstitial and weren't as much for the big singing numbers though...maybe some exceptions...I dunno). One thing I found weird is that they gave all of the characters a bit of their own spin, but the Cowardly Lion is pretty much exactly like the one in the original movie. There's a lot that's definitely uneven about this movie, but it often hits a wonderfully bizarre note. I think that's about it for now.

Comments

[symbioid]

Heh one of my BFF's was the Dorothy in our schools version, I think it was the first time I didn't do any singing/acting in the musicals, I stayed on stage crew instead.

Have you ever seen The Coup's "We Got the Guillotine" video? Definitely inspired by it (AFAIK not any samples or anything like musically inspired, just the whole "black musicians doing oz" thing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ

[ateolf]

I hadn't seen it. That's awesome!