The Wiz [MQFF]
"This landmark 1978 film adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name is an all-Black, Afrofuturist reimagining of The Wizard of Oz - and how! With our queen, Diana Ross (soon to record "I'm Coming Out") as Dorothy, heading an all-star cast including a teenaged, pre-solo career Michael Jackson, legendary singer, actor and civil rights activist, Lena Horne, America's "poet laureate of television"", Nipsey Russell and iconic comedian Richard Pryor - that's how! The legendariness far from ends there, mind you - produced by Universal Pictures and Motown Productions, The Wiz was scored by 28-times(!) Grammy Award-winner Quincy Jones, and boasts a soundtrack of glorious gospel, soul and R&B-infused bangers. Director Sidney Lumet - ever one of the most socially engaged of Hollywood filmmakers, known for 12 Angry Men (1957) and Network (1976) - was among the first Hollywood filmmakers to provide sympathetic, nuanced representations of out gay/bisexual and trans characters in 1975's Dog Day Afternoon. Here he piloted the production of a film that "in the 'Emerald City Sequence' alone has informed everything from the black queer ballroom scene to Béyonce" (Gerrick D. Kennedy, Los Angeles Times)." Rated: G
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$0.00 -
2 February 2025 -
140 minutes -
20:00 -
Fed Square
