MICHAEL JACKSON?S ?THIS IS IT? is a must for all music lovers to watch. The movie, drawn from more than 100 hours of behind-the-scenes footage of MJ?s rehearsals for 50 sold-out concerts that would have been staged last July in London, is No. 1 worldwide.
Even non-MJ fanatics will be mesmerized. I got goose bumps during the celebrity premiere, with the audience applause reverberating after every number. I wept at the thought that MJ did not get a chance to show the world something that he worked for so painstakingly. But through the film, at least, we got a sneak peek at the magic he was raring to unveil.
The King of Pop?s awesome performance here belies his age. (Was he really 50? Obviously, he still had so much to give. There was just no way he could have been sick. He was full of energy and joie de vivre, which he spread around so generously during rehearsals. That?s why it made me all the more sad that he died the way he did.)
?This Is It? is the next best thing to watching MJ live. It gives a glimpse of his gentle and child-like nature, in the way he jokes around with his crew and back-up dancers/musicians. One touching moment is when he tells his lady guitarist, ?It?s your time to shine. [I] will be here for you.?
I have become an even bigger MJ fanatic after watching this movie. I love MJ with every beat of my heart and miss him with every breath that I take. That will always be that. And this will always be this. Michael is IT! No other entertainer comes close.
Bonus treat
As a bonus treat to all MJ diehards, Sony Music Entertainment?s Columbia/Epic Label Group has released a two-disc album, ?Michael Jackson?s This Is It.?
Disc 1 features the original album masters of some of MJ?s biggest hits such as ?Billie Jean,? ?Smooth Criminal,? ?Human Nature,? and ?Thriller? arranged in the same sequence as they appear in the film. The disc ends with the original and orchestral versions of ?This Is It,? a never-before released song by MJ. It includes backing vocals by his brothers.
Disc 2 offers fans the early demo versions of classics ?She?s Out of My Life,? ?Wanna Be Startin Somethin,? and ?Beat It.? It also includes a recently discovered spoken word poem from MJ entitled ?Planet Earth? and a 36-page commemorative booklet featuring exclusive photos from his last rehearsal. It is yet another way of consoling die-hards like me that the King of Pop has never really left us.
Early start
Just as MJ started singing at a very young age, ?Eat Bulaga?s? Birit Baby 2009 Grand Champion, Jude Matthew Sevilla, learned to sing at age 5. His soulful rendition of Wency Cornejo?s ?Hanggang? so endeared him to televiewers, that he got the People?s Choice Award with a total text votes of more than 70,000.
The 12-year-old brought home cash prizes, and now he has a thrice weekly slot in ?EB.? His segment, ?Songs From The Heart,? will feature Jude singing televiewers? requests. He admits that his sad experiences and his family?s hard life in the province motivated him to pursue his dreams. So things are really getting better. TAPE Inc., producer of ?EB,? is sending him to school and taking care of their place in Manila. Birit Baby is off to greater heights, higher than all the ?birits? he belts out.
E-mail: wateringholeshangrila@yahoo.com
