"This Is It! This Is It!"

Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' is a horrific piece of work. I'm not a fan of the man-- I've said as much before, in previous blogage. But I do believe he was the one and only King of Pop, and from what I've seen of his interaction with the members of the ensemble he had arranged for the blow out final tour known as 'This Is It'. He brought people out into the spotlight, and I'm sure stars would have been born if the tour actually happened. But he's a broken man in this thing. He spouts religious rhetoric as if he's had a stroke, repeating the same sentence-- "God bless you."-- again and again, so people can hear him.

But here's the thing-- he was the King of Pop. And I don't know if 'This Is It' was always intended to be released but... it shows him at his weakest. At his lowest. This was rehearsal footage, was it not? Not him being the brilliant entertainer we know him capable of being. This him going through the motions of getting a tour together. This isn't what people want to see, is it? Well, actually, it is, more than likely. I sometimes forget that I'm apart in my opinions from the general populous.

I have celebrity, or, to be more specific, our celebrity-obsessed culture. So this piece of exploitation is something bound to get on my wick, is it not? I have to admit, hearing the songs is a delight, but his voice quality isn't what it was. No way. It's depressing to see a once great performer slumming it through songs, so he doesn't 'strain his voice' for the actual performances.

Boo.

Here's what I would have preferred to see-- a retrospective. A collection of concert footage, videos, etc, that showed him at his best, not his worst. 00s Jackson was never going to surpass 70s/80s Jackson, and that's plain to see for those watching. But people won't care. They'll just want to 'meet the man you never did/will' or whatever the film's tagline is. People want a piece. Constantly, unrelentingly, and it's sick. It's like trying to get bits of his body from the open casket, hair and skin and fingers and rings and stuff, just like they used to do with Popes.

The one good thing to come out of this though, is that I got to hear the Vincent Price Thriller rap in a cinema screen. That shit is sexy HOT. God love the man.