DVD release - THIS IS IT

THIS IS IT is a masterpiece of editing. HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL director, Kenny Ortega, cuts down hours of concert rehearsal footage into the skeleton of a live show. We have two further things to be thankful for. First, that the rehearsals were shot on hi-def Red One digital cameras with rich sound. Second, that Michael Jackson is so astonishingly talented that even watching him marking out steps and singing every other line is fascinating enough to sustain our interest. The resulting movie is a pretty simple film documenting what would surely have been a remarkable live concert - combining Michael Jackson's superlative choreography, extravagant sets, and intensive use of CGI rich video footage. As a film, I can't fault THIS IS IT. It does what it's meant to do: it provides ticket-holders with a vicarious experience of the concert they will never attend; and it provides the concert-backers with some financial recompense. Everyone goes home happy. And if you go home with the Blu-Ray disc you get the video shorts for Thriller and Smooth Criminal that would have been played before the performances and further behind the scenes footage of the casting process and production design. You even get members of the production reminiscing about Michael - a video eulogy. Stuff to keep the fans happy.

Still, my experience of watching this film was conflicted. Once again, that's nothing to do with any flaws in the film-making, but rather to do with the complex nature of our relationship with Michael Jackson as a media object. I grew up in adoration: going to the Bad tour concert at the Milton Keynes bowl was by far the best concert experience of my youth; we played the Thriller cassette on constant loop for about a year, so much so that we bought about 5 versions because they'd wear out or get caught in the car cassette player; my cousin Miguel had a mini Beat It jacket and new all the dance steps. Michael Jackson was just part of what it was to be a kid in our house. But by my late teens, Michael was already Wacko Jacko - a man who had too much money, too much fame, and was surrounded by too many yes-men. His music didn't seem relevant. His persona was just weird. And then, as the nineties continued, he became sinister. Even if you didn't believe the worst of the allegations, his apparent erasure of his racial identity through plastic surgery, his bizarre marriage and child-rearing - it was all too tragic to contemplate. There was something hypocritical and patronising about Earth Song and Black and White. So when Jarvis Cocker mooned Michael at the Brits, I was with Jarvis, not with Michael. In later years, as he became even more reclusive, paranoid, persecuted, one couldn't help wonder why someone didn't just take him in hand and tell him to stop. And finally, in La La Land, Michael bought access to anesthetic drugs and died.

So, when the movie came out in theatres I didn't want to watch it for the same reason that I didn't want to go to the concert. I wanted to remember Michael as the sweet kid in the Jackson Five, or as the charismatic young man in Off the Wall, or as the icon in Billie Jean live at Pasadena for Motown 25. I didn't want to see a financially desperate man forced into touring - who died during the preparation - pimped out by his concert promoters, who were shamelessly exploiting the grieving fans. The film gave me another chance to marvel at Michael's talent. But it wasn't happy viewing because it just makes you think, yet again, how wasted that talent was in his final two decades, and how corrupted our memory of that talent will always be by the controversies surrounding his private life. You look at the concert footage and you see him direct everything just as he wants it, but never raise his voice. Sure. He doesn't have to. The deference, the worship, is palpable. No wonder he ended up in the mess he did.

THIS IS IT is a deftly edited concert rehearsal video of a superlative talent. But it's also documentary evidence of the hermetically sealed world in which a megastar was allowed to indulge his every fantasy to whatever end. As such, I found it a profoundly sad film to watch.

THIS IS IT was released in October 2009 and is released in the UK on DVD and Blu-Ray on February 22nd.

HANNAH MONTANA/MILEY CYRUS - THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

This is paint by numbers concert video of the real life teenage pop star Miley Cyrus and her Disney TV alter-ego Hannah Montana, along with some songs from the manufactured boy band THE JONAS BROTHERS. Director Bruce Hendricks doesn't add much with a few bland behind-the-scenes shots and interviews with over-eager fans. The only reason I rented this flick was a prurient desire for back-stage footage of Miley and her father Billy after those rather questionable Vanity Fair shots. There's some justice in the fact that my prurience was soundly beaten by the smooth defenses of the Disney machine.

HANNAH MONTANA/MILEY CYRUS: BEST OF BOTH WORLDS 3D opened in Spring 2008 and is available on DVD.

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 - creepy fun

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 is the first of the successful Disney teen musical franchise to get a theatrical release. Everything is bigger and shinier but the plot is essentially the same. Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) is conflicted. He's the high school basketball star and his dad wants him to take up a sports scholarship to his alma mater. But Troy also loves singing in high school musicals with his girlfriend Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), the math geek who might leave before Prom for the Stanford summer school. Meanwhile, Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) wants to steal Troy and Gabriella's limelight (and a scholarship to Juilliard) and enlists her brother Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) to help. Troy and Gabriella provide the gloopy romance and ballads - Ryan and Sharpay provide the comic relief. It's a simple formula and it works well. The dance numbers are professionally done with lots of energy. The kids clearly have buckets of talent.

So, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 is a good movie. It gives the fans exactly what they want: more of the same. Parents and guardians may, however, be less happy to sit through HSM redux and find themselves wondering how healthy it is for their kids to think that the world is filled with squeaky clean straight kids whose biggest problem is whether to accept that ivy league scholarship or that place at the prestigious music school. I grew up watching GRANGE HILL where Zammo got hooked on smack. This whole movement seems spookily STEPFORD to me.

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 is on release in the US, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Egypt, France, Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kuwait, the UAE, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Italy, Belgium, Indonesia, Peru, Portugal, Iceland, Italy and Panama. It opens in Russia, Romania and Turkey on November 14th; in Chile and Vietnam on November 20th; in Argentina, Slovakia and Venezuela on November 28th; in Australia, the Czech Republic and New Zealand on December 4th; in the Netherlands on December 10th; and in Japan on February 7th.

Random TV review - HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 1 & 2

In a totally unexpected move, the Disney Channel has done what most studios would kill for - they've created a bona fide money-spinning franchise. And as this blog is all about following the proverbial phat cash, a review was sure to follow.

The set-up for HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL is basically GREASE without the unwanted pregnancy. Troy (Zac Efron) is a cool jock and Gabrielle (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) is a maths geek. By the rules of High School Cliques, established in THE BREAKFAST CLUB, they are destined never to meet. However, by a quirk of movie fate they end up successfully auditioning for their high school musical. In the process, they alienate their respective jock and mathmo friends and severely piss off the incumbent musical leads, Sharpay and Ryan. But, as this is a relentlessly up-beat, optimitistic, feel-good movie, it all works out for the best.

The original movie is surprisingly good fun. The dance numbers (choreographed by director Kenny Ortega) are really well done and the kids are all hugely talented. The story is hokey but the cast members are so earnest you can't help getting involved with it. The production design is all primary colours and bright sunshine, and that's basicslly how you feel when the curtain comes down.

Given the whirlwind success of the original show, Disney was always going to be under pressure to come up with a sequel to justify all that merchandising. The big problem is that the stories tied up neatly at the end of the first installment. So, with everyone already living happily ever after, the screen-writers needed to inject an artificial obstruction for Troy and Gabrielle to over-come. We find ourselves in summer vacation. Rich kids Ryan and Sharpay are staying at their parents' luxurious hotel, which conveniently has an end of summer talent show. The other high school kids take summer jobs in the resort. Sharpay arranges for Troy to be talent spotted by a University sports team. If he turns his back on his friends, he's guaranteed a hefty sports scholarship. Of course, Sharpay is also keen for him to dump Gabrielle and sing with her at the end of summer talent show.

As hokey as the Geeks versus Mathmos storyline was, at least its founded in truth. High School really is cliquey. By contrast, the lines of attrition in High School Musical 2 seemed utterly fake to me. Choosing universities inevitably means parting from some high school friends, but it seems ridiculous to accuse a kid who's taking an opportunity of being treacherous. The movie seemed to have a severe case of tall poppy syndrome. There's also a bitter irony in Troy asking Sharpay whether she just sings for fun rather than for fame! So, the storyline is much weaker in the sequel, but what of the all-important song and dance numbers? I found the songs less catchy than in the original show, but you just can't fault the kids talent and energy. In particular, Lucas Grabeel as Ryan trumps Efron and Hudgens as the stand-out cast member.

Overall, then, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL comes across as a genuinely fun teen romance that could easily have warranted a theatrical release. The sequel is, however, better suited to its DVD release.

The original HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL aired in 2006 and the follow-up aired in 2007. Both are available on DVD.