Years ago before I did film reviews, I worked at a textbook publishing house, and after a project ended, a bunch of the writers there bought a gift for our editor. She was grateful and went on to tell us all the ideas she had for gifts for us, even though we never got them. Awkward, to say the least... and quite a bit disappointing.
I felt very similar while watching the pseudo concert film “Michael Jackson’s This Is It.” Rather than a concert film, or a documentary about making the concert (which could have been good, along the lines of “Madonna’s Truth or Dare”), the movie is a rehearsal film that dares to say, “Look how awesome this concert would have been if our goofy star hadn’t overdosed on drugs in June.”
What we get instead is a hodge-podge of archival video footage that was never meant to be seen by anyone outside of the production. The camerawork is shoddy, and watching the pixilated footage on the big screen gave me a headache. It’s like watching a two hour YouTube video on a 20-foot screen.
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