Extraordinary forces — knee-jerk wariness of capitalism, ordinary standards of human decency in the face death — conspire to give This is It the stench of a robbed grave. A rushed release of footage documenting rehearsals for a series of concerts Michael Jackson was about to launch when he died in of a drug overdose in June 2009, bought in a bidding war by Sony for a reported $60 million and edited by concert director Kenny Ortega (whose most impressive cinematic credits heretofore consist of Newsies and all three widgets in the High School Musical franchise), This is It exists on this earth only because Michael Jackson no longer does.
The problem is not just that Jackson’s death has changed the commodity value of this material from questionable to infinite, but also that it’s so clear that the Michael Jackson presented in the footage would never have sanctioned this release. Depicted here as a gentle genius who insists on having the last word in every aspect of the massive production (even if that word sometimes takes the form of impenetrable similes such as “play it like you’re getting out of bed” — which takes on extra mystery coming from a man who apparently used intravenous anesthetic as a sleeping aid), it’s unfathomable that Michael Jackson would have allowed the world to see footage of him shuffling through blocking and stopping mid-number to nitpick, often dressed in mismatched layers (a bomber jacket and massive Ed Hardy sweats, a boxy silver lame blazer and orange jeans) that fail to obscure the boniness of his frame. How does he look? Like a 50 year old man who has had a lot of surgical procedures. This is not exactly a revelation, but it’s not flattering, either.
And so, it goes without saying that This is It is vile. But it’s also fascinating as a portrait of how far one man would go (and how many millions of dollars and thousands of workers and hours of labor he’d be able to employ) to restore his public persona in the image of his ego after years of undeniable damage.
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As long as X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a success this weekend (and despite all its “bad luck,” it should do very well), Fox will follow it with another X-Men spin-off, this one detailing the back story of Magneto. Outside of that project, which has been in the works just as long as the Wolverine film, there’s interest in solo movies for Gambit, Deadpool and Emma Frost (White Queen), as well as a spin-off about the original X-Men team as students.
Recently, in another list, we called for an Origins film focused on the shape-shifting villain Mystique, for which we even suggested Brian DePalma to direct. That spin-off is still our first choice, but since there are so many great mutant characters in the Marvel Universe, we’d like to pitch ten more X-Men origin movies to Hollywood (not just to Fox). To go along with the studio’s idea of hiring an unqualified filmmaker (Gavin Hood) for the job, we also recommend a barely appropriate director for each film.
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In yet another sign that 2008 is the new 1928, Hollywood, impressed by the massive first-weekend success of High School Musical 3, is rushing a number of music-based projects into production. 
