Monday, November 2, 2009

Michael Jackson's 'This is it'-A Review

Even the high end on-line movie reviewer Rottentomoes.com didn’t have an advance review. I had heard that the movie was coming out and that AEG the guys who had hired Michael Jackson for the mind-boggling 50 shows in London had sold their rights to SONY pictures. My first instinct was that Sony wanted to make a buck on the back of the global outpouring of emotion that followed Michael Jackson’s untimely death.
I always trust Rottentomatoes whenever I need a quick opinion on a new movie. They even award percentage scores and declare a movie fresh or otherwise depending on the verdict of their several seasoned reviewers.
But not even Rottentomatoes had prior knowledge of ‘This Is It’.
I then decided I had to check it out –this ’musidocumentary’.
Even in Kampala where you hardly find a full capacity movie theater on a day like monday it was full house.’This Is It’ has been declared a two-week release since 27th October and there will not be the traditional prolonged play at theatres.
And there he was, doing his thing like only he could. Vintage Michael Jackson in a series of rehearsals at the Staples centre in Los Angeles under the master direction of Kenny Ortega with whom they worked back in the day.
‘This is It’ is no movie or even autobiography. It is simply a testament of Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for the sold-out scheduled July 2009 London shows just a few days before his tragic death. It offers a uniquely intimate portrait of Michael Jackson. A portrait we have not seen anywhere before. Besides being an exceptionally gifted performer- the ‘king of pop’, a perfectionist who is never satistified with a perfomance he turns in,we see that Michael was also a creative genius and he is very much part of the creative drive behind the shows.
We see Michael Jackson keep up with dancers half his age with incredible physical stamina for a 50 year old man. His vocal ability is clearly not what it used to be at his peak but he still recalls all the lines to his greatest hits.
This is supposed to be a rehearsal but he gets carried away on a couple of occasions when he gets lost into the music and he is in his element.
‘This is It’ is clearly a film made for the true Michael Jackson fan. Its a parting gift from a master showman. There will never be another Michael Jackson.

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