Gordy himself directed 1975’s “Mahogany,” another Oscar-nominated, Ross-starring hit whose title theme (“Do You Know Where You’re Going To?”) became another Top-40 juggernaut.īut nobody paid attention to anything behind, or in front of, the curtain for 1978’s “The Wiz,” Motown’s adaptation of a Tony-winning R&B musical spin on “The Wizard of Oz.” Then the most expensive movie musical ever, “The Wiz’s” whiff crushed Ross’s acting career, lost today’s equivalent of $36 million for Universal and Motown, and sent Gordy’s film division off to lick its wounds. 1 album of Diana Ross singing Holliday’s classics. Motown’s first film, 1972’s Billie Holliday biopic “Lady Sings the Blues,” gave the company a box-office hit, five Academy Award nominations and a No. The silver screen seemed a natural expansion for Berry Gordy Jr.’s musical empire - one that came to define sounds, cities, people and generations and whose films came with prepackaged cross-promotional opportunities to sell more records. But it also might not strike the funky, daffy sweet spot with which “The Last Dragon” takes an inner-city poke at the hero’s journey without ever taking the piss out of it - a surprisingly shrewd play that elevated a last gasp of Motown’s film shingle to cult status. Ah, but what about the seemingly inimitable Sho’nuff, Shogun of Harlem and the meanest, prettiest, baddest mofo low down around this town? Could be the role of a lifetime for a bulked-up, bewigged Keegan-Michael Key.Ī remake could bring more cohesion to a film with a genre identity crisis it always feels a half step away from truly capitalizing on any of the three. Jordan as heroic martial-arts disciple Leroy, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as his musical lady-love Laura, Paul Giamatti as the villainous Arkadian and Jenny Slate as his dim-bulb, good-hearted moll, Angela. A Top 40-targeted soundtrack? Hand that off to your musical impresario of choice. But the PG-13’s contemporary elasticity could give it a tougher touch it may need to transcend today.
Then in its baby-step stumbles as a rating, the PG-13 slapped on the film felt perhaps too harsh. Kinetic film-fight choreography has only gotten more dizzyingly creative over the last 30 years, and “The Last Dragon” is a clear forefather to the no-big-deal urbanity that has made “The Fast & the Furious” a billion-dollar franchise here, as in “F&F,” Chinese guys, black youth, Italians and other Europeans all grind it out in a commingled Chinatown-uptown neighborhood.
Can today’s technologies and tastes enhance the artistry and themes of a story? Does the modern-day ratings system’s permissiveness allow pushing the necessary boundaries to get it to a wider audience than it might have found initially? Could you immediately rattle off perfect contemporary casting for the film’s five biggest roles?īy those standards, a 21 st-century reimagining of 1985’s “The Last Dragon” - a daffy hodgepodge of martial arts, musical and Blaxploitation - should have shown up by now. Set aside craven calculations of nostalgia and name recognition, and consider that sometimes there are some reasonable criteria that make a remake acceptable. The rules: No Oscar nominees and no films among either year’s top-10 grossers. In the “Class of …” series, Nick Rogers takes a monthly look back at films celebrating either their 20th or 30th anniversary of initial release this year - six from 1995 and six from 1985.