I totally dropped the ball yesterday on eBay Prop-Watch. With Michael Jackson's memorial service playing in the background and all sorts of cool happenings on the MTV blog network, it just kinda got away from me. I'm back today, and with a pair of cool items to make up for my absence.

On the blog yesterday I ran a small photo gallery featuring stills from Sidney Lumet's silver screen adaptation of the Broadway musical "The Wiz." The story is an urbanized reimagining of L. Frank Baum's classic book "The Wizard of Oz," which most know for Victor Fleming's 1939 Judy Garland-led movie. In a weird "six degrees of separation" twist, the two eBay items I stumbled across this morning both come from that earlier film. Read more...

As the world bids farewell to Michael Jackson today, I want to take a moment here on MTV Movies Blog to look back at the pop sensation's first foray into film. Sidney Lumet's "The Wiz," released in 1978, is an urban reimagining of L. Frank Baum's literary classic, "The Wizard of Oz." The film is actually adapted from Charlie Smalls' award-winning mid-70s musical.

Diana Ross stars as Dorothy in "The Wiz," opposite Michael Jackson's brainless Scarecrow. The songs have more thump than they do in the 1939 adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" (the one starring Judy Garland) and Lumet's otherworldly "Oz" setting is clearly a fantastical reworking of New York City. I've assembled a small gallery of images here for your perusal; if you've never seen "The Wiz," I recommend sitting down with it today as we look back on Jackson's good old days. Read more...