Don't think Diana was at fault for how The Wiz turned out. Turns out Sidney Lumet stepped over his boundaries trying to produce a BLACK musical...
Had some things have been different like the cinematography and special effects, it would've turned out to be a better film.
That said, ONE thing the film had going for it was the music. Everyone - except Nipsey Russell lmao - was brilliant with the songs they sang.
Diana slayed "Home". And MJ's studio version of You Can't Win remains an underrated masterpiece in the MJ canon:
BUT I still love that part where things changed colors and people reacted according to the color change.
The film version of "The Wiz" is pretty campy and with campy films, that's all you need, forget everything else. Everything can go wrong but as long as if it has something campy in it, it's forgiven. That seems to be the case with "The Wiz".
Plus Luther's "Everybody Rejoice [[Brand New Day)" shows that early on before he became
Luther Vandross, he was already a force to be reckoned with.
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