Just couldn’t wait until Friday to post this amusing review of This Is It. From TIME magazine of all places, the Mbird-worthy passages of which include (major ht Jeff Dean):

Death and resurrection. That’s the scenario not just for gods but for pop stars who earn fans’ ardor with an electrifying presence and their sympathy with very public private lives of addiction and misbehavior. The stars’ talent makes them unique; their transgressions make them human… It took death to restore [Michael Jackson’s] standing as one-of-a-kind entertainer — to bring him back to life.

But full redemption, not to mention true resurrection, requires a personal appearance. And on the 125th day he rose from the dead, at least on screen, with Michael Jackson’s This Is It, a docu-musical record of the star’s rehearsals for his comeback London concert series that was to begin in July.

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.”

For a modern entertainer who dies before his time, immortality is measured in residuals — the money from commemorative projects like this. Michael Jackson will have no resurrection — in the end, that was that — but the movie does earn him a redemptive legacy. It proves that, at the end, he was still a thriller. Fans and doubters alike can look at the gentle, driven singer-dancer at the center of this up-close document and say admiringly, This was him.

See you in line! In the meantime:

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