Everything Wrong With Michael In 20 Minutes Or Less

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[01:04] And after you check out, they'll ask where you heard about them. Let them know cinema sin sin cha. Want to be starting something plays over a full minute of logos proving this movie does

[01:22] not in fact want to be starting something bad start Michael bad start Michael Jackson demonstrates the emotional state of every cinemasins writer assigned to a biopic also Comcast chip credits case you confused it with Gary Sineese also movie introduces Gary

[01:39] before Michael. How's the beeping Michael? How's the beep? Michael Michael. I give back and I. Movie King Richards itself so hard from the get go I felt like I was getting slapped in the face by Will Smith in front of a live audience.

[01:51] Thank goodness that's not something Will Smith would do to anyone in real life. This makeup occupies the fascinating middle ground between Joseph Domingo and Coleman Jackson. This Volkswagen product placement is directing interested customers to the year 1966.

[02:03] Mikey, why are you playing with your food? We have time to prove that those give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything commercials, we're always bull. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be the only girl in the Jackson family

[02:15] because Joseph and Katherine Jackson only had the one daughter. No need to fact check. Look, I made a face. Just count Mr. Bill. Let me tell you something because it's the fastest who gets paid and it's the fastest who gets laid.

[02:27] Y'all some poor black kids from Gary Indiana, nothing will be handed to you. Joseph Jackson is saying an uncomfortable truth here the problem is that acknowledging structural realities of race and poverty makes him a considerably more complicated antagonist

[02:39] than your typical stock abusive father. And the movie never fully develops him into a person whose worst behaviors were built around some very real observations. No more Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlin. Or Janet, Randy, or Rebe, either, apparently.

[02:51] Throwing coins at performers on stage. I have school in the money, what do you mean? The movie spends a lot of time showing the Jackson's practicing and almost no time showing what they were practicing. Did Joseph Jackson have an actual teaching philosophy or was his entire curriculum just again?

[03:06] You tired? You think you did good? Is that right Michael? Seriously, the heavy makeup and prosthetics can be so distracting at times, I think I'm about to hear Eddie Murphy's impersonation of a queen's barber whenever he opens his mouth.

[03:18] The biopic equivalent of planting a tree whose fruit is future plastic surgery. Captain Hook met his fate in the jaws of his old enemy. Actually, in just about every version of Peter Pan, Captain Hook survives this.

[03:31] So also, the other Jackson kids are sleeping surprisingly well with Michael inventing the audio book and all. So, I'm just curious to have confused emotional processing with evidence for the audience creation. Living room rehearsal. Joseph asking Michael to keep his eyes on him. More living room rehearsal.

[03:43] Exciting. The movie has given this Volkswagen bus more screen time than several family members. Reading, the audience knows Michael will eventually star in the Wiz. So, the movie plants the Wizard of Oz in his childhood as a retroactive destiny marker. The movie spends a lot of time showing us how Michael Jackson assembled his identity as a

[03:57] performer. Every influence becomes a future dance move, vocal choice or stage persona. By the end of the film, Michael Jackson feels particularly constructed as an entertainer and strangely underdeveloped as a human being. Joseph's narrative function as an abuser continues replacing his character with a living,

[04:11] breathing trauma explanation. Laughing together as a family gets reduced to a montage footnote while every trauma receives a full, congressional hearing. Also generic shot of a family laughing around the dinner table during a montage is generic, and montage-y.

[04:23] We are laughing. Am I removing a sin for never can say goodbye? Yes. Am I adding a sin because we aren't even into 1969 yet and they didn't release this song until 1971? Also yes. I'm deaf.

[04:36] Laughing at a noun. I'll be in touch with Mr. Jackson. Suzanne says she'll be in touch but gives Joseph a card with her number on it and doesn't get his number. Is she going to call her own number? Also the movie wants us to believe that Suzanne to pass a discovered the Jackson 5 and brought

[04:48] them to Motown Records, but in reality a Canadian soul band helped them get a recorded audition at Motown that convinced Barry Wardie to sign them. So the scene is always his Canada. Also also the Jackson 5's brief and exciting search for industry connections has been completed

[05:01] at the speed required by the runtime. Nice year. Let's start with Michael. This subtle foreshadowing of Michael as the alpha and the omega of pop music, having Lorenz Tate and Neal along both in the same movie but not giving them one scene together and the

[05:13] proper reunion that all of us love Jones fans have been jonesing for. Michael, is this Clint Fandango? Can you hear me? Say Joseph, won't you worry about keeping the boys on schedule? We got this over here. Joseph Jackson's displacement becomes one of the movie's biggest recurring tracks.

[05:27] The deeper cuts appear to have been left off the album, but also scene sets up all this tension between Joseph and Barry Gordie that has never brought up again. Gordie is only in a couple more scenes after this bit, and they're basically drive-by's. Pointless tension at his pointless. I've been doing this a long time.

[05:40] Never heard a voice quite like yours. The Supreme, the Four Top, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder have all entered the chat. What's your cue? Equalization. An Antoine Fuqua directed the Equalizer, which can't possibly be unrelated. Movie treats this hug like a major transfer of emotional power, yet there are no signs that

[05:56] either Joseph or Barry experienced the quickening. And by most accounts, Barry Gordie was an influential figure in Michael's life, but judging by Lorenz Tate's screen time, Michael never asked him another question that the movie thought was relevant.

[06:08] In his business, you can make up just about anything. Bold statement coming from a movie based on a true story, humanity briefly considered making television almost round. Michael? How old are you? Presenting child superstardom as a fascinating fact, rather than a potentially alarming situation.

[06:22] In this press conference, Michael has asked how old he is, and even though he's 10, he says eight, like Barry Gordie instructed him to. So this movie has now spent two goddamn scenes on this kid lying about his age by two whole fucking years, and yet it gives us zero explanation as to why that's important, and it never comes

[06:36] up again. Musical BioPick has a random insert of the billboard chart showing the song's climb to the top cliched. This peacock reminding me I need to cancel peacock before I get billed again. There is more Disney masturbation going on in this movie than in most movies that are actually

[06:48] produced by Walt Disney. And make sure you put your red in the case this time. Movie accidentally credits Marlon Jackson on Mel and Colley and The Infinite Sadness. Skipping the casual chain of why security and jumping straight to the narrative importance

[07:01] of this guy. Also Bill Bray spends the rest of the movie appearing to be both head of security and all of security. I don't know why this line is trying to make me think Bill eventually took a bullet for Michael instead of living to be 80 years old.

[07:15] Pretending there's even a good part in singing in the rain. Also Michael watches singing in the rain and the movie immediately starts refining it into the fuel room for some future performance. Ignoring the possibility that he simply enjoyed a film one time.

[07:27] In Lama's have three stomachs so they can digest their food because all they eat is vegetables. Support for my argument that I'm anatomically obligated to eat cheeseburgers somehow makes it into the script. So you want me to bring some spit and agitated animal into my house.

[07:39] Katherine hacks like she didn't raise nine children. And you don't eat another pet. They're not my pets. They're my friends. And as generic and tiresome as much of this movie can be, one striking thing is the performances.

[07:51] And while Jafar Jackson is rightly credited for bringing the pop singer to life as an adult, we shouldn't discount Juliana of all these performances as a young Michael. He makes acting seem like it's ABC. Easy as one, two, three. Sorry I'll leave now. But don't you want to meet real friends like kids at all age?

[08:06] I'm not like the other kids. They don't treat me like a real person. All they want to do is stare and take pictures of me. The psychology of growing up famous enough that your peers stop treating you like a person may have deserved more than one conversation in a movie covering the entirety of his youth.

[08:19] And you know what Jehovah says? Seen that mentions Jehovah does not also contain a last crusade. Need let your life shine. Understanding skip. Michael delivers an emotionally convincing performance of Al B. there in a movie mostly uninterested

[08:31] in the question of where a child acquired that emotional vocabulary. Serenading an audience member without their explicit consent. I know it's the 70s and I have heard to Steve Harvey bit, but God damn, this popular suggestion five word at this point, they couldn't afford to have more than one mic on stage.

[08:45] Peer escape is in Quincy. And if Far Jackson nails the voice without making it weird, well any weirder than Michael Jackson's voice already wants. Just the tip of the iceberg on what we'll hear about Joseph's feelings on Michael's solo career while the movie remains considerably less curious about his brother's opinions

[09:00] on the matter. I need you to tell my father that the solo album is your idea. I hope you enjoy the Michael decide something he wants to do but is scared to tell his dad so he'll have someone else do it until finally he kind of does it himself in the end stick because it will happen around 87 more times.

[09:13] I need the freedom to write the music and lyrics that pop into my head. The movie treats this like a major creative breakthrough without ever fully explaining what was stopping Michael from writing songs in the first place. It's not like we all arrived at the theater with a working knowledge of 1970s Motown songwriting

[09:27] policies. I own his ears from 9 to 5. Painting the life of a rock star as a Monday through Friday 9 to 5 situation might be the most unbelievable part of this movie. You get some sleep, Louis. The movie keeps presenting potentially deeper character revealing behaviors and then filing

[09:40] them away under Michael was quirking. Also, kissing a llama without his explicit consent. To be fair, llamas are statistically better drivers than 98% of humans.

[09:55] The fact that this movie thinks Michael not being able to keep his feet still and recording studio is an interesting enough subject that it had to be broached twice. Using a discount Stuart Smalley guide to hyping yourself up in the recording studio.

[10:09] The song he is singing don't stop till you get enough becomes a musical metaphor for consuming enough great Michael Jackson songs that you stop noticing how little new information you're learning about Michael Jackson.

[10:22] I hope Michael asked the air for consent for gyrating that forcefully but I doubt he did. The days when tower records still existed in the US got damn you Spotify. Fan mail will consume a surprising square footage of this house and then this movie's runtime. Michael's charitable work isn't really up for debate here.

[10:35] The movie's tendency to deploy it as supporting evidence absolutely is. Scarface money counting meme energy. Oh man, they drive poor Robbie Williams into this mess. I want you to be my new friend Bubbles. Seeing does not contain the relief on Joseph and Catherine's face when the Bubbles Michael's

[10:49] is referring to ends up being a chimpanzee and not a random stripper he brought home. Also, we are currently in the year of our Lord 1980 and while the exact year that Michael adopted Bubbles has never been agreed upon publicly, it was definitely closer to 1983 than 1980.

[11:01] Movie doesn't adopt Bubbles correctly. I rescued him from this awful place, you know, where they're detesting on animals. But I left all the other animals there because f***ing am I right? Chimps are sensitive though, you know, to certain sounds and people.

[11:13] Movie thinks it has time for a quick lesson on the safety measures to take around chimpanzees and it does not. This is neverland. Movie repeatedly points us toward a connection to Peter Pan as though the reference itself constitutes an explanation. What?

[11:25] Lost boys? Seeing mentioning the Lost Boys does not contain a keeper William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland. Somehow certain topics became mandatory stops on the Michael Jackson story time express.

[11:37] You see my face isn't symmetrical. It is. You're the boss. Bruce Springsteen has entered the chat trying to touch the whole world without enthusiastic consent. Maybe I should get a nose job. Sisters. Muzzle says everybody does.

[11:49] Pinky, your plastic surgery advice from a python has reported in many medical journals, pythons give terrible medical advice. Also, using everybody does it as your reason for doing said thing everybody is doing. The Jackson family is the brand.

[12:01] That's our Coca-Cola. The rock and roller-cola wars are never credited on this film. Post don't go out there and stop buying some Pepsi. They will not. Husker. Michael storms out of the family meeting to find Billy ready and waiting by his cars may have really happened this way.

[12:13] But it's still hella convenient that he wasn't taking a poop. Wait to bill read the script. One minute of mopey motor moving. No matter what you do, he's only ever going to see it as a family success. This count denvies will encourage you to move against the family.

[12:25] Who knows? Movie really spells this one out for us and underlines it. Multiple times. The fact that skinny ties were ever in fashion. I mean the whole point is going solo right? Alex Hanold every time he walks past something that doesn't need to be climbed somehow makes

[12:37] it into the script. You want to be the biggest star in the world? Can you help make that happen? They could have just smashed cut to Michael standing on the torch of the Statue of Liberty and gotten me out of here in under an hour. Wow. Because I believe there's no one like you. John Branco was just asked how he could make Michael the biggest star in the world

[12:51] and instead of answering specifically how he would do it, he just blew more smoke up Michael's ass and so this works. Joseph did not get fired by facts machine in real life. And I don't mind the movie attempting to make this a more dramatic kind of thing than what was

[13:03] probably a boring meaning in real life. But fired by facts isn't exactly light in the place on fire either. This Joker's got terrible marksmanship. I'm not signing this. Signing something that the person is now forced to purchase in order to keep the autograph.

[13:15] Also, autographing items in a store before the customers have bought said items. Guys, what? I got a twister. I can't figure out if it's weirder that Michael thinks his grown brothers would want to play a twister or that if he was that into board games, he didn't already own twister.

[13:28] Or maybe I'm just weird. Let's just send all three. Who be asked time for this? His dad is right there when he turns around because being caught off guard remains one of the cheapest ways to manufacture tension. Also, Michael seems surprisingly unprepared for the possibility of encountering the angry man he just fired

[13:41] and the house they both lived in. Probably your own father. Thinking that's worse than exploiting your own son for your own financial game. And maybe that's the point that God damn it. Still hate fathers like Joseph. So I'm gonna send the fuck out of him. You better let the learn about family.

[13:53] Joe will continue trying to get this movie to cross over into the fast franchise. He's a actor, he's a movie director, and he writes songs. I have a dog. Kids. It's a dog send. He's getting fat. Body shaming your pets.

[14:05] What an asshole. The Paley's comic came every year. Just year after year. Would you look at it? Yes. Humans line up for Manhattan Hinge every year, Michael. We are not complicated. I'm not here to receive these ideas.

[14:17] God might give them the prince. But also, that's princess. I can't imagine a world where taking your llama for a walk makes you the weird one. This finger snapping song forming sequence just beats it for all the some time.

[14:32] As someone who believed before the movie that the man had thoughts and took notes. I find that not much is being revealed here. I think music and dance is what we all have in common. Michael gives a stump speech about why gang violence is bad. And the movie seems prepared to declare mission and cure the world of gang violence accomplished.

[14:47] We're still beaten at y'all. The movie's idea of people working on this together is less meaningful rhetorical exchange and more watching Michael and professional dancers rehearse choreography. Considering Michael's infamous sponsorship of Pepsi Coke's product placement in this movie,

[14:59] might be the biggest f*** you. And I don't hate it. I'm gonna send it, but I don't hate it. CBS wants you to call the album Michael Jackson. Do you want to go sentry? But this is not his first album. You would call the first album Michael or Michael Jackson not a later album. So the scene is always his record executives.

[15:12] And Michael Jackson since in 2010, he would release an album called Michael, like an asshole. If a horror movie is being shown on television within a movie, 9 times out of 10, it's night of living dead because it's in the public domain cliche. That's rockin' roll.

[15:24] That's some band hailey f***. I mean, maybe some Van Halen III s***. But otherwise, it most definitely is not. I get you can't do a Michael Jackson movie covering the 80s without showing some of the thriller video, but still cliche as hell. And not as thrilling as the movie would lead you to believe.

[15:37] And definitely getting sent. Also, it's a great music video. I've seen it a thousand times. However, watching it again, somehow still doesn't tell me much about the man making it. If this kid did the duet with Reaper, we'd own the goddamn country charts.

[15:50] You're okay, Shrek. We need to get his videos on MTV. MTV tries as hard as it can to not play music cliche. Believe me, John, I have tried. With love, Walter. Please try harder. And this record executives' heart grew with three sizes that day.

[16:03] He was having a coronary, but once word spread of Michael's powerful and vengeful magic, a fear for their lives compelled MTV to embrace Black artists while somehow continuing to grow more racist with each successive season of the real world. That is still second row.

[16:15] You don't want to be in the front row for them. Those French artists then that's so big on showering. That's Frenchist. Also, how would being only one row back help you get away from the stench? You can put them all in a plastic bag. Cover the plastic bag in Crisco.

[16:28] And then shove them up your ass. Yeah, your butthole. Crisco later issued guidance that this was outside the intended use and put you at higher risk for cholesterol related heart disease, but stop short of actively discouraging it.

[16:40] Also, the idea that the head of MTV would have to have the meaning of ass explain to him. Movie makes it seem like Michael performed Billie Jean at the Motown Special after he filmed the thriller video that the Motown Special was filmed in March of 1983, when aired in May of 1983.

[16:53] The thriller video didn't even start filming until September of 1983. This movie sure is a lot of tell and no show. Maybe we could have at least seen a little more of how he revitalized the music business and less shopping for toys.

[17:05] This singular dance move blew the world's collective mind loads, so it would be criminal for Michael Jackson biopic not to include him. However, this doesn't mean that the process by which a human being first conceived moving like that must remain classified.

[17:17] Movie acts like this crowd is any different than a typical day in New York City. Random final appearance of Barry Gordy is random. I love the way you promote your fatties. You're a king of marketing. Don King was a hell of a marketing genius, but there were also countless marketing geniuses that actually worked in the music business

[17:31] that Joseph would have been able to contact just as easily. Just because the Don King connection really happened doesn't make it any less weird. I may have some for you. Don King survives this. People who lays around the house watching television who don't take off their ties first.

[17:44] Why are you here? Well, he's here because the movie remains convinced that Joseph Jackson was the only obstacle in Michael's life story and will continue to act accordingly. Can a father visit his son? Equating visiting your son to snooping around your son's bedroom when they aren't there.

[17:56] How many do you do this for me? For your family? The movie remains frustratingly vague on whether Joseph needs the victory tour for his family, his finances, his legacy, his ego or some combination thereof. There you'll be with all the money in the world.

[18:08] It's right about people who say yes to everything. Joe is kind of right here, and the movie does want you to know that, but it never really wants you to feel that. Pepsi almost killed arguably the most popular person on the planet and didn't have to shut down.

[18:20] The whole thing is f*** up, but in a weirdly impressive way. I mean, two hours of that legal minefield might have been a more revealing narrative. I have to stay on the demoral for a while. I don't want to take medication. Through line to the circumstances of his ultimate death is hinted at here as if it is out of necessity.

[18:34] Even though it is not in service of this story. You see the number of people you have already gathered outside the hospital. If that isn't a testament to the star power of Michael Jackson, I don't know what it is. It's also the testament to how nosy and unaware of personal boundaries most people are f***ed for whatever reason.

[18:49] The news never reports that aspect. I'm not trying to downplay the extent to which prescription meds led to the eventual death of Michael Jackson, but this movie's obvious and somewhat tackless way of pointing us to where it started is obvious and tackless. This movie beats us over the head with the Peter Pan metaphor harder than Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare.

[19:05] I didn't actually see that movie, but just wanted to point out the absurdity of a slasher film called Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare. What about the other boys? And the toy again just go f*** yourself, I guess. Jafar Jackson's state performance as Michael is very effective. I don't have an interesting way to say everything.

[19:18] Jeez. The Dodgers. This is our last and final tour. I get the telling his dad to f*** off part of all this, but his brothers have done nothing. And I feel like at the very least, Michael could have let them in on this plan. Making me kind of dislike the title character less than 10 minutes from the ending is a weird shift, but here we are.

[19:33] Movie ends on 4 minutes and 4 seconds of a bad performance. Also, this movie is 75% musical montages and performances. And while considering it's a movie about arguably the most famous musical artist ever, it makes sense we'd hear some songs.

[19:45] But there is so little story in between that it almost feels like a selection of home videos versus an intricately laid out story. And maybe you'd say, I just came to hear the songs. And then I would say, that's what Spotify is for, asshole. And then you would say, why so hostile?

[19:57] And then I would give my best Julia Stiles impression and say, I'm not hostile. I'm annoyed. And then you would say, oh god, 10 things I hate about you is a bigger insult to Shakespeare than she's the man. And then I killed you. Jackson posing the possible death of this woman with Michael Jackson lighting up the crowd was a choice.

[20:12] And that was it. Nothing else ever happened of any interest in Michael Jackson's life. That is the end of the story. Oh, it's not the end of the story. I've just decided to build two biopics for twice the price.

[20:31] Why does it hurt so much?