2. Sidney Lumet - The Wiz (1978)
Sidney Lumet made some of the greatest movies of the '60s and '70s, many of which you probably consider to be some of your all-time favourites. That's the kind of guy that Sidney Lumet was: he made movies of quality for you. Movies like
Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Network, 12 Angry Men, The Wiz... wait,
The Wiz? Surely I mean
The Wizard of Oz, right? Nope, because Sidney Lumet was about fourteen-years-old when that movie came out. I'm talking about
The Wiz, an urbanised re-telling of L. Frank Baum's classic, starring - yes - Michael Jackson. This isn't a movie I've suddenly conjured out of thin air because I'm trying to freak you out - Sidney Lumet really did direct an African-American version of
The Wizard of Oz, and Michael Jackson really did play the Scarecrow. It's about as terrifying as you think. Diana Ross was Dorothy, of course, and for some reason the screenplay was written by Joel Schumacher. It's almost as if Hollywood got a group of random people into a room and told them to think of something to shoot. As a Lumet film, it's nuts. As any film, it's enough to warrant a sectioning.