The WIZ and Michael Jackson''s Movie Legacy  

Michael Jackson - the WIZ

"A movie like no other"

Diana Ross

THE WIZ 1978 heads up all African Americans!


''Ease On Down the Road'': Diana Ross and Michael Jackson The Wiz (1978) This song has a great beat and Diana and Michael dance their butts off on the yellow brick road. The image of Manhattan as the Emerald City across the Brooklyn Bridge is stunning.

Sidney Lumet ''s 1978 film version of the Broadway musical reworking of The Wizard Of Oz sounds a dubious prospect on paper, but on screen there''s an energy and charm to Michael Jackson''s exuberant turn as the Scarecrow that reminds us why, before his later troubles, Jacko was a resilient performer to be reckoned with. Also starring Diana Ross and Richard Pryor as Dorothy and the eponymous Wiz respectively, The Wiz flopped at the box-office, grossing $13,000,000 in the US (just under half its budget), but retains its status as a cult fave - and with Michael Jackson''s Scarecrow quoting Cicero, William Shakespeare and Bacon, it may be something an underestimated intellectual epic too. Maybe

Named after his trademark dance move, Michael Jackson''s 93 minute Moonwalker is essentially a series of music videos - but oh, what music videos. The tagline promised "a movie like no other" and Moonwalker delivers, with most of its estimated $22,000,000 budget right up there on the screen, despite cash-flow issues meaning that the film only received a straight-to-video release in the US. Rightly remembered for the striking sequence where Michael morphs into a Bertone Stratos car during the Smooth Criminal gangster narrative segment, Moonwalker boasts not only arresting visuals, but also a near-unrivalled string of classic pop hits, with a soundtrack including Beat It, Thriller, Billie Jean, Bad, Smooth Criminal, and - as the compilation CD ads say - many, many more.

Like most of Michael Jackson''s film output, Ghosts isn''t a full-length feature, but the 1997 Stan Winston-directed fantasy was one of The King Of Pop''s more extensive acting gigs: he is credited in no fewer than five roles - Maestro, Mayor, Ghoul Mayor, Super Ghoul and Skeleton. The soundtrack features songs taken exclusively from HIStory and Blood on the Dance Floor and indeed Ghosts can be seen as simply a long-form promotional video along the lines of Moonwalker or Thriller. But Ghosts does have a slightly more linear narrative, concerning a spooky Maestro who entertains children with magic tricks until he is chased out of town by their angry parents. Certain tragic parallels in this plot to Michael Jackson''s own media travails may not be entirely coincidental: he helped write the script himself.

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Ease On Down The Road

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