ViewGuide

Created Nov 03, 2009 08:59PM PST • Edited Jan 28, 2014 10:56AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Michael Jackson – like Elvis – left the building at a shockingly young age, inadvertently bestowing this rehearsal documentary to posterity. It’s quite the confection, demonstrating the singular brilliance of an otherworldly showbiz creature while leaving us wanting more.

   The movie makes clear that Michael’s nonpareil performing talent remained undiminished. It also makes clear that the forlorn London shows would have been spectacular. Finally, it makes clear that MJ achieved the showbiz apotheosis he compulsively sought. And then he died.

   Worth seeing by more than just hard core MJ fans, This Is It entertains and illuminates in equal measure.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Michael saved his voice while rehearsing the company, making many songs sound like karaoke tracks. Fortunately the dancing, music and production are so stupendous, MJ’s absent lead vocals only dent the performance, not destroy it. Plus his marvelous instrument is shockingly compelling when he gives full voice to Beat It, Black or White and a handful of other songs.

   Come to think of it, the karaoke-like numbers will probably be hugely popular when TII comes out on video since MJ fans will be able to karaoke with the man himself.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   Kenny Ortega, middle-aged director and choreographer, hardly looks like a guy who can bust some moves, making it a clear if unconscious demonstration of huge talent when he transforms into a lithe and hip dancer to demonstrate how Michael will perform a song.

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Cinéma vérité brilliance: of movement, of rhythm, of production, of pop. The show that Kenny Ortega was cooking up with Michael comes across as a cutting edge spectacle, illuminated in the film by vignettes with the video production team, costume designers, lighting designers, choreographers and band members.

    Given structure by the creation of the show itself, the film opens with dancers being auditioned, followed by musicians rehearsing, the star making his first rehearsal appearance, etc. It ends with a group pep rally where Kenny Ortega speaks for the entire company in pledging fealty to Michael. Shortly thereafter, the star overdosed and died, an unpleasant turn of events the film scrupulously avoids.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Very Good 3.5

    A few genuine laughs get triggered, as when a girl singer duetting with MJ can’t break her gaze from him.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    MJ’s great taste in guitar has always been reflected in his outstanding guitarists: Eddie Van Halen on Beat It, Slash on Black or White, and here Tommy Organ and Orianthi Panagaris, killer and femme fatale axmen respectively. (Hmm, think a bigtime guitarist with a name like Tommy Organ gets laid much? OTOH, maybe he takes after his boss.)

    Best Songs

    • Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough
    • The Way You Make Me Feel
    • I Want You Back
    • Beat It
    • Black or White
    • Man in the Mirror

    Almost Best Songs

    • Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)
    • I’ll Be There
    • Billie Jean

    Bad Songs

    • Earth Song

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    His face works perfectly in performance, sculpted literally and figuratively into the heroically cute visage he’d imagined: button nose pointing up, cleft chin broad and strong, eyes wide and expressive. If he achieved this level of design success with skin and bones, imagine how stupendous the show he was crafting: the special effects glorious but on-point, costuming glittery but clean, choreography familiar but still breathtaking.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.4

    Crotch thrusting, dick grabbing and pole dancing make a mockery of MJ’s protestations about a too crude world. More innocent fun comes from the made-up goblins in Thriller.

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

    Michael made girls quiver, yet apparently never fully rode the boogie with anyone carrying XX chromosomes or out of their teens. Instead his intense romanticism got sublimated into music (clear in TII). This was weird and damaging to those in his personal orbit (MIA from TII), but he’s hardly the first great artist who’s personal life was a shambles. See:

    • Allen, Woody
    • Picasso, Pablo
    • Ali, Muhammad
    • Sinatra, Frank

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Polite 1.0

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    Much as I hate to admit it, Michael Jackson’s music is central to the soundtrack of my life. ABC and I’ll Be There were on heavy rotation in my fifth grade class. A decade later, boys in the Port couldn’t stop playing Beat It. “Beat it, beat it, don’t you wantto…” over-n-over-n-over again, up and down the block, boom-box on shoulder, one white kid in particular pedaled his bike back and forth, repetitively listening to the same f-in’ song. “Fuck” I’d sigh.

    The hell with my life however: In the history of showbiz, no star ever burned brighter than MJ.

    • Biggest child star since Shirley Temple.
    • Elvis Motown upon breaking out the moonwalk in ’83.
    • Thriller the following year sold 110,000,000 copies, most all time.
    • First MJ to mind? Michael Jordan for me. Type Michael in Wikipedia and Jackson comes up first, followed by the Archangel Michael, then Jordan. That’s the wisdom of crowds for you.
    • Liz Taylor led his superstar fan club.¹ Diana Ross was the virtual den mother.
    • He followed the tragically hip credo: “Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse.”

    This Is It shows that none of that was a fluke. Now he’s truly a showbiz immortal.
    -————————————————-

    ¹ La Liz dubbed him the King of Pop.

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0