Product Description
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Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT is a rare, behind-the-scenes look
at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his
sold-out concerts at London’s O2 Arena. Chronicling the months
from April through June 2009, this film was produced with the
full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more
than one hundred hours of behind-the-scenes footage featuring
Jackson rehearsing a number of his songs for the show. In raw and
candid detail, Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT captures the singer,
dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius and great artist at
work as he creates and perfects his planned final London shows.
.com
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It's hard not to watch This Is It without feeling a mixture of
sorrow and elation. When he passed away in the summer of 2009,
Michael Jackson was in the midst of rehearsals for his final
tour, an ambitious 50-date engagement. In editing 120 hours of
rehearsal footage together, Jackson producer Kenny Ortega proves
that it would've been an event for the ages. Michael performs
material that spans his career, from a Motown medley to
multi-platinum hits from Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad. Though
he hadn't toured in 10 years, it becomes instantly apparent,
despite rumors to the contrary, that Jackson was still in full
possession of that unmistakable voice--high-pitched whoops and
all--and that he still had the gravity-defying moves of a man
half his age. Jackson and Ortega also collaborated on some real
showstoppers, such as a graveyard-set "Thriller"; an imposing
"They Don't Care About Us," in which several dancers appear to
morph into thousands; and a film noir sequence in which the
singer slides in and out of Gilda and other black-and-white
classics, singing "Smooth Criminal" all the while. Not everything
works, like the Jackson 5 numbers, in which he flubs a few
lyrics, cling that his earpiece isn't working properly, but as
he readily acknowledges, "That's what rehearsal is for." It's a
tragedy that he didn't get the chance to share this dazzling show
with the world, but Ortega allows fans to feel as if it actually
happened--at least onscreen. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Michael Jackson: This Is It (Click for larger image)
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Review
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Off the Wall was a massive success, spawning four Top Ten hits
(two of them number ones), but nothing could have prepared
Michael Jackson for Thriller. Nobody could have prepared anybody
for the success of Thriller, since the magnitude of its success
was simply unimaginable -- an album that sold 40 million copies
in its initial chart run, with seven of its nine tracks reaching
the Top Ten (for the record, the terrific "Baby Be Mine" and the
pretty good ballad "The Lady in My Life" are not like the
others). This was a record that had something for everybody,
building on the basic blueprint of Off the Wall by adding harder
funk, hard rock, softer ballads, and smoother soul -- expanding
the approach to have something for every audience. That alone
would have given the album a good at a huge audience, but it
also arrived precisely when MTV was reaching its ascendancy, and
Jackson helped the network by being not just its first superstar,
but first black star as much as the network helped him. This all
would have made it a success (and its success, in turn, served as
a new standard for success), but it stayed on the charts, turning
out singles, for nearly two years because it was really, really
good. True, it wasn't as tight as Off the Wall -- and the
ridiculous, late-night house-of-horrors title track is the prime
culprit, arriving in the middle of the record and sucking out its
momentum -- but those one or two cuts don't detract from a
phenomenal set of music. It's calculated, to be sure, but the
chutzpah of those calculations (before this, nobody would even
have thought to bring in metal virtuoso Eddie Van Halen to play
on a disco cut) is outdone by their success. This is where a song
as gentle and lovely as "Human Nature" coexists comfortably with
the tough, ed "Beat It," the sweet schmaltz of the Paul
McCartney duet "The Girl Is Mine," and the frizzy funk of "P.Y.T.
(Pretty Young Thing)." And, although this is an undeniably fun
record, the paranoia is already creeping in, manifesting itself
in the record's two best songs: "Billie Jean," where a woman
cls Michael is the her of her child, and the delirious
"Wanna Be Startin' Something," the freshest funk on the album,
but the most claustrophobic, iest track Jackson ever
recorded. These give the record its anchor and are part of the
reason why the record is more than just a phenomenon. The other
reason, of course, is that much of this is just simply great
music. --Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
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