I stumbled on this video and I thought it was way cool.
I think this is the reason why musicals are so fantastic.
Think of a musical song as a “song with context”.
Meaning, a musical song actually has full relevance to what is currently happening.
It’s as if you’re expressing whatever you’re saying in a song…as if the words you say are somehow put to music, and they all rhyme perfectly.
And obviously, saying it in a song gives so much more impact that just saying the words “I love lunch”.
A song adds both colour and emphasis to what you’re trying to bring across.
Of course, we all know that in real life, nobody actually pauses at opportune moments to break out in song (unlike what you see in the movies), but wouldn’t it be so cool if we actually treated real life like a musical…just like in the clip above?
I don’t think there is a Michael Jackson fan out there that would not enjoy the movie “This Is It”.
It is essentially just rehearsal footage of MJ shot at the Staples Centre, before he was to go to London to perform 50 sell-out concerts at the O2 Arena…until news of his unfortunate “death”, that is.
(Those who know me well would know that I still believe that MJ never really died. But that is a story for another day.)
But I guess MJ is the only entertainer in the world that could make a movie consisting only of rehearsal footage interesting.
No one else in the world could pull it off.
I’m really glad they featured some of my favourite songs such as “Human Nature” and “Man in the Mirror”.
Now on to the movie proper:
In our constant haste to label MJ horrible names such as “wacko” or “eccentric” or “pedophile” during his career, we have always overlooked the fact that MJ was a gifted musician and of course, a supreme performer.
There were a few things that struck me about the movie.
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Perfectionist
One, it is that MJ is a perfectionist.
He knows exactly what he wants to achieve in his performance, be it in terms of choreography, or every single note that the musicians are playing, or the synchronisation between dance moves and music, or intentional pauses in the song, etc.
He has it all mapped out in his head, and he makes sure it is delivered.
He was not the eccentric, spaced-out weirdo that we all believed him to be.
In fact, he was all business during the rehearsals.
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Gifted Musician
Two, it is that MJ is a gifted musician.
Maybe not a gifted “instrumentalist”, but definitely a gifted musician.
He “feels” the music in every sense of the word.
After all, this is the same MJ that led the Jackson 5 group – one of the most gifted child performers the world has ever seen.
It’s still the same guy.
He has such an incredible feel for the music, and he knows exactly how he wants the music to be presented for maximum effect.
I really enjoyed watching the part when he was guiding the musicians as to how he wanted them to play certain parts of the songs.
And there was also one scene early in the movie when he publicly gave the bassist a dressing-down cos the bassist wasn’t giving him the groove that he wanted for “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”.
That was a cool scene.
It shows you that you still can’t mess around with MJ when it comes to music.
Oh and by the way, it is a very overlooked fact that MJ actually wrote songs like “Heal The World”, “Billie Jean”, “Earth Song”, “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Smooth Criminal”, “Black or White”, “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Beat It”, and many others.
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Professionalism
Three, I was struck by MJ’s professionalism as demonstrated in the movie.
He always made sure he was in good form even during the rehearsals.
His moves were still slick as ever (even for a 50 year old), and he never missed a step.
As one of his musicians commented, he still knows all the lyrics of all the songs.
C’mon, this is a 50 year old guy we’re talking about, and he hasn’t been performing for quite awhile…and yet he looked as if he never left the stage the last few years.
Still on top of his game.
And his voice was still there too, although he kinda conserved it cos these were just the rehearsals.
If I’m not wrong he still hit the same keys for all his songs (except for the Jackson 5 songs, which had to be transposed down).
I spent about two hours tonight taking in Game 6 of the World Series, soaking in the sights and sounds of the first Yankees World Series title since 2000, and their 27th in franchise history…way more than any other team.
And boy was it sweet.
This has been an incredible season for the Yankees.
They’ve had other seasons whereby their team was equally stacked with talent, but somehow this season’s team had the right chemistry to win the title.
This ‘09 Yankees team was just the perfect mix.
Derek Jeter, my favourite baseball player of all-time, being the ever-consistent player week in and week out…playing with class above everything else.
A-Rod, with his first ever World Series ring. He really earned it, after such an impressive performance this post season with so many clutch hits.
Mark Teixeira, who often carried the team through the regular season.
Mariano Rivera, for once again proving that he is the greatest closer ever, bar none.
Jorge Posada, for delivering clutch hits on occasion.
Andy Pettitte, for his impressive pitching throughout the World Series. And CC Sabathia as well, for that matter.
Hideki Matsui, for his legendary performance in today’s Game 6 with 6 RBIs.
Johnny Damon, for his never-seen-before double base steal in Game 4.
Joe Girardi, for validation after an entire season of being under constant fire. I’m really happy for this guy.
I recently heard this piece of advice from a friend of mine to another friend who was getting married soon, and I thought it was very well-put.
He said something like: “While it is good to spend time preparing for your wedding (婚礼), ultimately the most important thing is to spend time preparing for your marriage (婚姻).”
How true.
I think people are sometimes too preoccupied with preparing for their wedding (i.e. the ceremony), that sometimes they may neglect preparing for their marriage (i.e. the state of being in union).
I recently read that Glen Goei sold his London apartment in order to self-fund his latest movie project “The Blue Mansion”, so I decided to give the movie a try cos one, it looked interesting, and two, I applaud his taking this leap of faith and wanted to support him as best I could.
But I also recently heard through the grapevine that Glen Goei comes from a very wealthy family, so I suppose the outcome of this movie venture would probably not threaten his very existence as much as we think it would.
Which is just as well, cos I honestly didn’t think the movie impressed in any way. (But this is just my personal opinion.)
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Identity
I think the main problem with the movie is that it had no “identity”, and that is always going to be a problem with any movie.
You need to establish your “identity”, or your “tone” early…which I think “The Blue Mansion” failed to do.
It tried to be too many things, but ended up being nothing much.
By watching the trailer, you’d think that you’d be set up for an intriguing whodunit in the classic style of Agatha Christie or what-have-you, with subtle yet vital clues being peppered throughout the movie, with provocative plot twists that lead to an ultimately explosive and unexpected finale.
Sadly, it never materialised.
And the movie tried to be funny at times, but I guess the attempts at humour didn’t really fly with the audience.
It was a confusing mix of suspense, parody and humour…which resulted in the net effect being the audience not knowing how to take in the movie.
I personally found it difficult to get myself emotionally involved in the movie throughout.
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Parody
One thing you can’t accuse the movie of is being “subtle”.
One can only wonder what the movie might have been trying to parody by introducing a rich, powerful family with three children (two sons and a daughter) – the eldest son having had an ex-wife who committed suicide due to unrelenting pressure from the disapproving parents for having borne a child who was abnormal, and the daughter being unmarried after all these years…amongst other things.
Yes, if you wanted to draw parallels between the movie and a certain real-life family, you probably could have drawn many…but my question ultimately is: Was there a point?
What was the point of all the parody?
I really couldn’t see it.
At times it felt to me like it was parody for the sake of parody.
(And blatant parody at that.)
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Concluding Thoughts
I thought the movie was filled with a wealth of acting talent, what with Adrian Pang, Lim Kay Siu, Tan Kheng Hua, Neo Swee Lin, Karen Tan, Emma Yong, Pam Oei, etc. acting in it.
There was even a hilarious short cameo by Sebastian Tan.
And director Glen Goei himself made an appearance in the movie too.
Ultimately, I felt that the actors could have been rewarded with perhaps a better script, and I also felt that perhaps there were a few roles which seemed rather superfluous. (Four daughters for Wee Bak Chuan’s brother? Was that necessary??)
In all honesty, I felt quite disappointed with the movie, as I didn’t think it satisfied the movie-goer in me.
The denouement, I felt, was quite a mess and was utterly unfulfilling.
In all fairness, I thought it was quite admirable and refreshing to see someone else other than the usual suspects trying to make a local movie, so kudos to the team for that.
(Please note that I’m not trying to slam local works. I’m just trying to give my honest, unabashed review.)
Have been thinking about a few songs these few days, in view of the upcoming Songcraft concert as well as Christmas.
I’m quite thankful that these few days have been quite creatively rewarding for me, for some strange reason.
Perhaps I’m just entering a short creative spurt.
I’m more or less done with the Christmas song for the children, and I’m quite pleased and excited about it.
I also presented my two songs that I’m doing for the upcoming concert at last week’s Songcraft and I’m glad that at least one of them (“Fly”) was quite well-received.
(Well, one out of two aint’ that bad.)
I’m quite excited about that song for the concert.
