Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Film What IS it About Michael?
Posted by Gina Young on Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 3:31 PM
Michael Jackson's This Is It (in theaters tonight for a two-week limited engagement) starts with tears.
It's a prescient moment, as the gushing Jackson backup dancers interviewed no doubt little suspect that their hero will be dead before they ever get the chance to feel the applause.
Starting on that blue note, Kenny Ortega's documentary proceeds to straddle the fine line between fan letter and expose. MJ appears momentarily— looking as prosthetic and skeletal as can be— and I seriously wasn't sure whether I was supposed to cheer or to cringe. Dressed in a series of interesting jackets and never without his shades, Jackson rehearsal-marks his way through a catalog of his greatest hits against a backdrop of stunning green screen film footage created especially for the tour-that-never-was.
Not much else happens. For the next two hours, we watch Jackson be, at turns, megalomaniacal, charming, childlike, creepy and cracked out. It isn't the prettiest of pictures, but it's a testament to his enormous talent that even at his gauntest, freakiest and most drug-addled... he can still dance circles around any of us on our best day.
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