Michael Jackson's This Is It
The footage from the shamelessly exploitative This Is It is culled from rehearsals for Michael Jackson's ill-fated comeback concerts, and the product is less a concert film and more a rehearsal film: After running through performances, Jackson looks like a brittle skeleton as he gives bewildering instructions to various yes men. ("Just bathe it in moonlight—you have to let it simmer," he tells the show's musical director about "The Way You Make Me Feel.") Despite Jackson's frailty--the cameras keep their distance, rarely giving us a good look at his papery, gaunt face--he could still move, and here he does so with a vigor and grace that, even now, astonishes.
by Erik Henriksen