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...have been showcased in a series of sold-out London concerts. The ill-fated tour, billed as “the final curtain call” by Jackson himself, is now the subject of a documentary entitled “This Is It.” Directed by Kenny Ortega, Jackson’s creative partner, the film provides an unusually pared-down view of the performer at work, far from the manic frenzy that seemed to characterize much of his esteemed career...

Author: By Roxanne J. Fequiere, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER | Title: “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” | 10/30/2009 | See Source »

...unimpeachable source.) Michael's stalwart buddy Elizabeth Taylor, who attended an early screening last week, effusively tweeted that This Is It was "the single most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen." And she was in The Sandpiper. (Read a Q&A with director Kenny Ortega...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Michael Jackson's This Is It Review: He's Still a Thriller | 10/28/2009 | See Source »

...takes place almost entirely onstage. A no-warts hagiography that still gets the audience closer to the real Michael Jackson - MJ the performer, that is - than anything in the man's avidly documented history. Wisely and decently ignoring the circumstances of his death and the circus that followed it, Ortega focuses on the re-creation of about a dozen Jackson standards for the concert. ("Beat It," "Billie Jean," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," "Black and White" and "I'll Be There" are all here.) At times several takes of a song are edited into one performance; you know because Jackson...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Michael Jackson's This Is It Review: He's Still a Thriller | 10/28/2009 | See Source »

...calculatedly scandalous Truth or Dare, and closer to old let's-put-on-a-show musicals like the Busby Berkeley 42nd Street, the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney Babes in Arms and the Broadway standard A Chorus Line. It has all the elements: the big star (Jackson), the guiding impresario (Ortega) and, supporting them, a whole retinue of gifted, ambitious singers and dancers. The movie opens with the prospective dancers' declarations of the inspirational impact that Jackson has had on them. (O.K., they really need this job, but the effusions sound genuine.) Later, the men have to rehearse one of Jackson...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Michael Jackson's This Is It Review: He's Still a Thriller | 10/28/2009 | See Source »

...Ortega and Jackson had some Berkeley-size production numbers in mind. A version of "Smooth Criminal" interpolates Jackson into antique movie clips with Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. "They Don't Care About Us" sends 1,100 CGI soldiers marching down a kind of Champs-Elysées whose Arc de Triomphe is bent into an M for Michael. "Thriller" was to boast 3-D effects. And "Earth Song," the rain-forest-message number, has a dewy child (a girl, if you're wondering) facing down a bulldozer, which was then to motor toward the front...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Michael Jackson's This Is It Review: He's Still a Thriller | 10/28/2009 | See Source »

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