Latest on MJJC

Reviews And New Tidbits About Spike Lee BAD25 Documentary

GreenEyes

Proud Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2012
Messages
1,352
Points
0
Location
Ohio, USA
First off, for the most part many in the media cannot bring up Michael Jackson without calling him bizarre... so just ignore that reference in the article and read on about some details about the documentary that was just shown at the Venice film festival.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bloomberg News
Michael Jackson Glorified in Spike Lee Movie in Venice
By Farah Nayeri on August 31, 2012

Twenty-five years to the day after Michael Jackson released his chart-topping album “Bad,” director Spike Lee rolled out his documentary on the making of the album at the Venice Film Festival.

Lee’s two-hour artistic tribute completely dismisses the tabloid reports of Jackson’s bizarre personal life, his pet monkey, plastic surgery and oxygen tank.

“It’s like saying there’s a cobweb on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” says producer-composer Quincy Jones early on in “Bad 25.”

The documentary gives a blow-by-blow account of how the “Bad” album came about, focusing on the music videos for a more visual moviegoer experience.

Director Martin Scorsese is interviewed at the start about his 18-minute video for the “Bad” single, shot in the New York subway. Scorsese confesses that Michael’s signature crotch touch was a surprise to him -- and kept it in because it didn’t look inappropriate.

We hear of Jackson’s rivalry with Prince, and their frosty meeting, at which Prince appeared with a voodoo box that Jackson was convinced would put a spell on him.

Beating ‘Thriller’

Jackson had a motivational message of “100 million albums” which he inscribed in a mirror even before “Bad” came out, so determined was he to match and exceed the popularity of the previous album “Thriller.” His record producer also notes that Jackson had a business mind and would count his royalties.

Many segments are devoted to Jackson’s dance moves and choreographies. The film shows his well-publicized admiration of Fred Astaire and classic musicals, as well as of the more recent “All That Jazz.”

The movie ends with participants describing where they were when they heard of his death. The final shots, taken at the end of a mega-concert, are of Jackson saluting the audience with his arms stretched out in a crucifixion-like position.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-31/michael-jackson-glorified-in-spike-lee-movie-in-venice
 
Here is another review!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bad 25: Venice Review
6:09 AM PDT 8/31/2012 by David Rooney

The Bottom Line
Even those of us who developed a Michael Jackson allergy during the saturation attention that followed his death will find rich rewards in Spike Lee's terrific documentary tribute.

Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition)

With
Mariah Carey, Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Sheryl Crow, Chris Brown, Cee Lo Green, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Martin Scorsese

Director
Spike Lee
Spike Lee captures a specific pinnacle in Michael Jackson's career and a precise period in American popular music culture with his comprehensive recap of the making, marketing and legacy of the 1987 album, 'Bad.'

VENICE – Michael Jackson continues to be bigger dead than alive. It might have seemed that Kenny Ortega had his legacy covered with the 2009 documentary This Is It, but Spike Lee goes one better with Bad 25, an obsessively detailed quarter-century anniversary tribute to the 1987 album that capped the three-prong commercial tsunami Jackson began with “Off the Wall” and “Thriller.”

The film is a sensational snapshot of the peak of the music video as art form, as well as the intricately layered process by which superior pop is crafted. More poignantly, it serves to remove the veil of late-period craziness and allegations and restore the reputation of Jackson as a multi-hyphenate musician of peerless discipline, professionalism and perfectionism – not to mention a pioneering influence in dance and fashion. Following its Venice and Toronto bows, Bad 25 is scheduled to air on ABC at Thanksgiving.

Lee directed Jackson’s 1996 music video for “They Don’t Care About Us.” Despite conducting the interviews personally, he keeps himself out of the picture here aside from one or two audio snippets. But it’s clear that his connection to this material runs deep, revealing itself, for example, in his exhaustive attention to the making of Martin Scorsese’s short film for the album’s title track. No less fascinating is his recap of the multiple choreographic influences that went into the video for “Smooth Criminal,” ranging from Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon to Soul Train to Bugs Bunny to Buster Keaton. The wealth of primo talking-heads fodder makes this of interest far beyond Jackson fans to anyone curious about the production and marketing of popular music.

The director’s appetite for trivia is contagious. Who remembered that Wesley Snipes made his acting debut in the “Bad” video? Or that the arcane refrain “Shamone!” was Jackson’s homage to Mavis Staples? Or that the line “Annie, are you OK?” was inspired by the standard name given to CPR demonstration dummies?

It’s obvious that Lee is having as much fun as the audience sitting in with Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker as they look back over their work on the Bad short 25 years on. Writer Richard Price, who scripted the film for Scorsese, is – forgive me – priceless, discussing how an asthmatic Italian and an asthmatic Jew were enlisted by Jackson to make a video “to show the brothers that he’s down with them.” But Lee also gives serious consideration to the ways in which Jackson reaffirmed his connection to the black community.

Despite acknowledging the album’s flaws – everyone, including Stevie Wonder, agrees that his duet with Jackson, “Just Good Friends,” was a dud – the film is not guiltless of hagiography. But the fandom of interviewees like Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Cee Lo Green, Chris Brown and Sheryl Crow, who performed as a big-haired backup singer on the Bad Tour, is generally disarming. (Perhaps the exception is Kanye West, who seems too self-regarding to really serve someone else’s tribute.)

Arguably, Lee’s one significant misstep is to lurch abruptly – at the end of a meticulous track-by-track reconstruction of the album’s recording and the shooting of its many music videos – to footage of Jermaine Jackson announcing his brother’s death. Lee then strings together a series of “Where were you when you heard he’d died?” responses, holding the camera on the subjects as they tear up. This feels manipulative and heavy-handed compared to the stimulating social context and illuminating insights that distinguish the doc and pinpoint it at a key moment in Jackson’s career.

But that’s just nitpicking. As forcibly inserted as they are, the memorials do serve to usher in a stirring assessment of “The Man in the Mirror” as a master class in how to build the perfect anthemic pop song. Input here comes from co-writers Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett, as well as producer Quincy Jones and choirmaster Andrae Crouch, among others. The knockout closing footage of Jackson performing the song in a 1988 Wembley Stadium concert, accompanied by 72,000 screaming fans, is the film’s emotional high point.

It’s to Lee’s credit that he doesn’t just go for the famous faces. Instead he digs into every aspect of the music by talking with engineers, arrangers, session musicians, vocal coaches, video actors, dancer-choreographers, recording industry execs, managers, lawyers, biographers and music journalists. Particularly humorous is plain-speaking Joe Pytka, who directed the “Dirty Diana” and “The Way You Make Me Feel” videos. But invaluable contributions come from a wide variety of sources.

The film doesn’t shy away from the negatives. It covers the inescapable hype that accompanied the album release; the “Wacko Jacko” stigma; the specter of racism; the animosity toward Jackson in some circles for his stratospheric success; and the perceived encroachment on sacred terrain when he purchased the Beatles catalogue. Significant time is spent on the goldfish-bowl vulnerability of being in the spotlight since childhood, reflected in the song “Leave Me Alone,” with its “Gulliver’s Travel”-style, tabloid-nightmare photo-animation video.

Mostly, however, Lee keeps the focus on the extraordinary professional achievement that the album still represents, capturing Jackson at the apex of his quest for full creative independence. Beyond its value as a deep-probe portrait of the artist, this is a superb account of the music business and an indispensable pop-cultural time capsule.

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition)

Production companies: Optimum Productions, Forty Acres & a Mule Filmworks, Optimum Productions

With: Mariah Carey, Kanye West, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, Antonio L.A. Reid, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, Walter Yetnikoff, Larry Stessel, John Robinson, Ollie Brown, Martin Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker, Cee Lo Green, Joe Pytka, ?uestlove, John Branca, Joe Vogel, Richard Price, Siedah Garrett, Glen Ballard, Ruben Blades, Steve Stevens, Tatiana Thumbtzen, Will Vinton, Jeffrey Daniel

Director-producer: Spike Lee

Executive producers: John Branca, John McClain, Antonio L.A. Reid

Director of photography: Kerwin DeVonish

Editor: Barry Brown

No rating, 129 minutes

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/bad-25-venice-review-367157
 
Re: Some New Tidbits About Spike Lee BAD25 Documentary

GreenEyedOne said:
The movie ends with participants describing where they were when they heard of his death. The final shots, taken at the end of a mega-concert, are of Jackson saluting the audience with his arms stretched out in a crucifixion-like position.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-31/michael-jackson-glorified-in-spike-lee-movie-in-venice
Click to expand...

Man In The Mirror :)

Tbh i feel it is very uneccesary to mention his death in this doc. This is suppose to be a celebration, we already know he is not here with us no need to keep bringing that up imo.
 
Last edited:
Re: Some New Tidbits About Spike Lee BAD25 Documentary

Themidwestcowboy said:
Tbh i feel it is very uneccesary to mention his death in this doc. This is suppose to be a celebration, we already know he is not here with us no need to keep bringing that up imo.
Click to expand...

Agree. Especially if this film is supposed to live for years as a visual documentary, with time that part will look less and less relevant to the subject.
 
Re: Some New Tidbits About Spike Lee BAD25 Documentary

Yeah, the "Where were you when he died" question is getting really old. I'm not really interested in those people's whereabouts... This documentary was about the Bad era, so they should have stuck to that time-period. Michael didn't die in the 80's...
 
Re: Some New Tidbits About Spike Lee BAD25 Documentary

I don't mind people telling where they were when they heard of his passing. In the future this might be an element showing the spectators that the documentary was in fact made well after the Bad era itself.
 
Spike Lee's love letter to Michael Jackson rocks Venice

US director Spike Lee brings together Michael Jackson's old studio hands and previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage for a documentary that premiered Friday at the Venice film festival.

"Bad 25" deliberately leaves out the scandals surrounding the late pop legend in favour of an in-depth look at the making of "Bad" -- 25 years after the release of what became one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Home videos shot by Jackson himself or by his closest collaborators during rehearsals will delight fans, revealing the king of pop's impish sense of humour, unflagging creative energy and meticulous attention to detail.

"For me this is a love letter for Michael Jackson," Lee said at a press conference in Venice, explaining that the film was made in collaboration with the Michael Jackson estate giving access to new documents and videos.

"This is a very special day. Twenty-five years ago today the 'Bad' album was released," said the director. The lifelong fan also said he was "out of it" for a month after Jackson's death and played his songs every day for a year.

"I think that for too many years we've concentrated on stuff about Michael Jackson that has nothing to do with the music. This is a time to concentrate on the music, on the genius of Michael Jackson," he said.

"It was a chance to appreciate his creative process."

John Branca, the documentary's executive producer and a longtime producer for Jackson, said: "'Bad; was a real coming out artistically for Michael. We felt it was important to celebrate Michael's work on the anniversary."

He said the film would be shown to Jackson's kids Blanket, Paris and Prince.

Many of the interviews were shot in the studio where "Bad" was recorded and bring out the still-raw emotions over Jackson's 2009 shock death from choreographers, sound technicians and musicians who knew him at his best.

The documentary is a treasure trove for nostalgics for big hair and pop beat days, with tributes from singers Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey and Stevie Wonder as well as Lee's voice heard off camera chuckling during the interviews.

Conversations with Martin Scorsese, who filmed the music video for "Bad", and concerts and footage of screaming fans also bring back memories of the anticipation surrounding the release of the album in pre-Internet days.

It is perhaps weighed down, however, by the bewildering quantity of the interviews and very little footage of Jackson himself talking about his work.

A half-hearted attempt to affirm Jackson's place in the tradition of African-American soul singers is also perhaps insufficiently explained.

The documentary is scheduled for general release next month.


http://news.yahoo.com/spike-lees-tribute-michael-jackson-rocks-venice-110523200.html
 
Bad 25 – review
In his warm and affectionate study of Michael Jackson's Bad, Spike Lee displays an exuberant reverence for the King of Pop

Peter Bradshaw (gave 4 star out of 5 for this document)
guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 August 2012 15.39 BST


Spike Lee and Mariah Carey celebrate Michael Jackson's achievements in Bad 25
Michael Jackson revisionism gets a huge boost with Spike Lee's new film, a terrifically warm, affectionate and celebratory study of Jackson's 1987 album Bad. Lee wants to clear away the tabloid smoke and spite, and bring the focus back to Jackson's professionalism, his craftsmanship, his artistry and his pop genius; the movie defiantly insists that Jackson was and is superior to his detractors.

Lee uses richly evocative clips and unseen archive material, including Jackson's stunning and mesmerically bizarre video demo of how he wanted the cartoon raisins representing him to behave for a TV ad. Lee doesn't try to pretend that he was not eccentric, but insists that Jackson's eccentricity isn't the point. He interviews the people who are influenced by Jackson now and those who were around him then – creatives, technicians, legal eagles – the massed Houston team that launched this heroic pop astronaut into space.

Lee begins by looking at Jackson's earlier album, Thriller, which established his extraordinary global dominance. Interestingly, Bad came along at a time when Jackson might have been beginning to feel his star was actually, if only by a millimetre, beginning to wane. Prince was the new pop sensation and hip-hop was emerging. Moreover, he felt criticised on the issue of African-American solidarity and also for having allegedly failed to exert enough raunchy heterosexiness.

Bad was going to change all that: a ferociously competitive counter-attack or rearguard action, the first album to be conceived on a stadium scale. He had in mind a bold new video, or "short film" as Jackson always high-mindedly called it, based on the true-life story of a black boy shot by a New York cop. Scorsese directed the film that showed Jackson as a shy student, confronting Wesley Snipes's tough guy, outfacing him with his dance moves and finally getting street respect: he's Bad. There is a very funny interview showing Scorsese and his editor Thelma Schoonmaker watching the film now, with a touch of bemusement. Obviously, he isn't convincing as a warrior, but the point is that Michael Jackson, that delicate pop aesthete, alchemises his vulnerability and naivete into pure strength. And it works: he really is Bad.

His utterly distinctive dance style is related by Lee to a tradition encompassing Fred Astaire and Buster Keaton, and he makes a persuasive claim that he is a centrally important figure in that tradition. Unlike Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley, Jackson did not make conventional feature films, and so we don't have that as a visual resource, and of course the videos and live footage, startling and brilliant though they are, can't give us an extended view of what Jackson was like in ordinary, walking-and-talking real life. And his interviews were rare, and guarded.

Spike Lee's emphasises instead what Jackson's achieved in the public sphere: in music and in dance, and his exuberant reverence for the lonely King of Pop is contagious. It's impossible to watch this film without a great big smile on your face.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/31/bad-25-spike-lee-review?newsfeed=true
 
Last edited:
Where are the press getting this information from that the film will receive general release next month?
 
ChrisC said:
Where are the press getting this information from that the film will receive general release next month?
Click to expand...


They are BAD25 Documentary Reviews of the Premiere at Venice Film festival and it will also Premiere in Paris Sept 1st and in UK Tomorrow Sept 2nd / remember We offered 20 free seats to our members for the Uk Premiere
 
Comprehensive & Warm Look At The Making Of Michael Jackson's Album

REVIEWS BY OLIVER LYTTELTON
AUGUST 31, 2012 7:36 AM


A couple of years ago, before he set up his low-budget comeback film “Red Hook Summer," Spike Lee was planning another NYC-set project, “Brooklyn Loves MJ,” with the story taking place on the night of the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson in June 2009. Said to star Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore, Anthony Mackie and more, the film never came together (although Lee told us recently that he hoped to get it going again), but the director’s been able to pay tribute to the late King of Pop in a couple of other ways. For one, he’s helped to organize a semi-annual Brooklyn Loves MJ party (although it didn’t take place this year or last for various reasons). And then there’s the director’s latest film, and his second of 2012, “Bad 25.” The subject matter is less weighty for the man behind such stirring docs as "4 Little Girls" and "When The Levees Broke," but the results are no less pleasing for this effort which delves into the making of Jackson's Bad, the fifth biggest-selling LP of all time.

Bad might seem like an odd focus point, besides the obvious anniversary – it’s before some of the more dramatic moments in Jackson’s personal life and is generally less well regarded than debut Off The Wall or blockbuster Thriller (the biggest selling album of all time). But Lee’s film certainly makes the case for Bad being Jackson’s finest hour, and it’s clear from the film’s opening that Lee sees a certain drama in the period of time leading up to the record – the artist was faced with following up a monster hit that had made him the biggest star on the planet, and Bad was certainly his last consistently great album.
It’s in the opening that the film falters a little. Lee doesn’t have much time to introduce the players and set up the context in which Bad was created, and so rushes through interviewees and topics of conversation, almost manically, and as such, the first twenty minutes or so feels quite disjointed and piecemeal. But there’s a reason for wanting to get through it upfront – Lee has structured the film so that each track of the record is examined (mostly) in order, and in some detail, and it turns out to be a rather more elegant and academic approach than trying to latch an artificial narrative onto the film.


As that structure might suggest, this is a film that’s focused on Jackson the artist rather than Jackson the man (although some touching and unguarded portraits emerge thanks to archive video footage). But it’s also a document of his collaborators, from duet partners Stevie Wonder and Siedah Garrett, to keyboard player Greg Phillinganes and Wilfred Brimleyish master engineer Bruce Swedien, to video directors Joe Pytka and Martin Scorsese (the latter’s rewatch of his epic "Bad" video provides one of the more interesting parts of the film), which makes it clear that as phenomenally talented as Jackson was, the record was the product of many heads.
All kinds of trivia is dropped along the way as well. The record was going to be called Smooth Criminal until producer Quincy Jones objected, a duet with Prince was mooted at one point, and playwright August Wilson (“Fences”) was approached to write the video for “The Way You Make Me Feel.” But there’s also real insight into the creation of the music, the accompanying visuals (Lee, as a filmmaker, is just as interested in the short films released alongside the record as he is in the songs), and Jackson as a performer.


The filmmaking is technically sharp too. Lee’s editing shifts seamlessly between interviews new and old, archive B-roll material, behind the scenes footage, and the finished videos, while his decision to often keep the tracks playing low in the mix over interviews give the film a propulsion, almost the feel of a visual commentary to the record. He resists the temptation to insert himself into the film too much (you hear a voice a few times, but he never appears on camera), and knows when to sit back and let the music do the talking – the film plays out on an unbroken live performance of “Man In The Mirror,” which is probably the best possible finale he could have gone for.
Some of the interviews with contemporary performers are less insightful. The Roots’ ?uestlove is brilliant – one senses the film could have been nothing but a conversation with him and still been engaging – and even Kanye West sheds a little light, but Justin Bieber’s appearances mostly feel like a sop to younger audiences, while it’s pretty disappointing that Lee includes Chris Brown, who has nothing to add and leaves a sour taste every time he’s on screen.

There are a few big gaps, most notably Quincy Jones, who only appears in vintage interviews. It’s unclear why he didn’t take part, but as the producer of the album, it definitely feels like there’s a hole where his presence should have been, even if the insights of his collaborators and the archive footage fill in most of the blanks. And the film doesn’t really cover the aftermath of the record’s release, meaning it lacks a little perspective. But as a making-of documentary, it’s fascinating, warm and immensely watchable stuff, and fans of both Jackson and pop music in general will surely eat the film up.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...-bad-25-is-a-comprehensive-and-warm-making-of
 
qbee said:
^^ The Film Just premeired at Venice Film festival and will also Premiere in UK Tomorrow / remember We offered free seats to our members
Click to expand...

That's not general release. And in the case of Venice, nor is it 'next month'.
 
Oh I misread your post- Im not sure what that even means. "General release" we will have to investigate
 
Other articles have cited the ABC broadcast. I'm just wondering if this is a simple error, or if they know something we don't...

Why this wouldn't go to cinema I don't get. There must be some reason.
 
Can't wait to see this :), "everyone, including Stevie Wonder, agrees that his duet with Jackson, “Just Good Friends,” was a dud"
I really like Just Good Friends I'm not here surely
 
Does anybody know why Quincy Jones didn't participate in the documentary? I liked seeing him at Graumans chinese theater when the kids honored their Dad.
I am curious...
 
ilmjj said:
Does anybody know why Quincy Jones didn't participate in the documentary? I liked seeing him at Graumans chinese theater when the kids honored their Dad.
I am curious...
Click to expand...

Strange isn't it. I'd like to know too. He'd be an essential interviewee, to me.
 
Quincy gave his 50cent more then enough. ok, mostly about thriller. but i think its better to keep him off this. he is bitter that he didn't have the saying like on thriller and cause michael left him after Bad. would just ruin the docu. that my opinion.
 
qbee said:
They are BAD25 Documentary Reviews of the Premiere at Venice Film festival and it will also Premiere in Paris Sept 1st and in UK Tomorrow Sept 2nd / remember We offered 20 free seats to our members for the Uk Premiere
Click to expand...

I'll be there ! :yes:
 
lom kit said:
Quincy gave his 50cent more then enough. ok, mostly about thriller. but i think its better to keep him off this. he is bitter that he didn't have the saying like on thriller and cause michael left him after Bad. would just ruin the docu. that my opinion.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. They weren't even working in the same studio while recording BAD, rumour has it that things weren't good between Q and Mike:)

No, I wouldn't like to see Quincy's sour face in this document or hear his sour comments:D
 
Bad 25
31 August, 2012 | By Mark Adams, chief film critic


Dir: Spike Lee. US. 2012. 123mins

As a snapshot of a time, a talent and an album, Spike Lee’s absorbing, moving and resolutely toe-tapping documentary about the music and impact of Michael Jackson’s album Bad, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is a wonderfully complex look into the creative genius of Jackson, and as importantly brings into focus the supremely talented individuals who worked with him to bring his music to life.

Bad 25 is brimming with facts that fans will love, and on the whole the interviews are illuminating.

Spike Lee’s Bad 25, which received a special screening at the Venice Film Festival where Lee received the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award, is certainly one for fans – especially those who embrace Kenny Ortega’s 2009 documentary This Is It in vast numbers, but it is more than a tribute film – it is a gripping examination of a great (and perhaps vastly misunderstood) talent.

Lee gets some great access to those who knew Michael Jackson well and who worked closely with him – though noticeably there is no new interview with music producer Quincy Jones, who produced Bad with Jackson, instead the film relies on archival material – and given that this is a Spike Lee film, it its especially appropriate that there is special focus on the ‘short films’ (don’t call them pop videos) that were made to accompany several of the tracks.

Running more than two hours – and set to screen in the US on ABC television later this year – it is certainly a film that packs in a lot of material. And while there is a niggling early concern that there might be just too many talking heads offering insight, in fact the running time allows the audience to get to know and appreciate the various characters. Plus the format has to allow for plenty of musical footage and behind-the-scenes material.

After dwelling on Michael Jackson’s determination to create an album that would be a rival to his earlier hit Thriller, Spike Lee arranges the film in a fairly linear order and uses the running order of the tracks to allow examination of the creative process involved in composition, recording, presentation and filmed accompaniment.

First up is Bad itself, with special attention paid to the short film directed by Martin Scorsese from a script by Richard Price (and which features a memorable early role for Wesley Snipes). The filming process was exhaustively filmed which offers a great insight to the style of the film and the choreography, with a contemporary interview with Scorsese allowing him to look again and reminisce about his work with Jackson.

Bad 25 is brimming with facts that fans will love, and on the whole the interviews are illuminating. Cheryl Crow talks about her time as back-up singing on the Bad world tour; Stevie Wonder admits his duet with Jackson, Just Good Friends, was the worst track on the album, and Nelson George offers intelligent analysis of how Jackson was perceived at the time the album was being made, and what Jackson was trying to achieve.

If Lee makes one mis-step, it is a brief section of ‘where were you when he died’ interviews, leading – naturally – to tears and sadness, which brings the film to a momentary halt and slightly punctures the sheer warmth that permeates Bad 25. But luckily he quickly brings it all back on course again and take the film into an emotional and uplifting climax as there is full analysis of how song The Man In The Mirror was created leading to an enthralling live performance by Michael Jackson while on tour in London.



Production companies: Optimum Productions, Forty Acres & a Mule Filmworks

Producer: Spike Lee

Executive producers: John Branca, John McClain, Antonio L.A. Reid

Cinematography: Kerwin DeVonish

Editor: Barry Alexander Brown

With: Mariah Carey, Kanye West, Sheryl Crow, Nelson George, Stevie Wonder, Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, Walter Yetnikoff, Larry Stessel, John Robinson, Ollie Brown, Martin Scorsese, Cee Lo Green, Joe Pytka, John Branca, Richard Price, Siedah Garrett, Glen Ballard, Ruben Blades, Steve Stevens, Tatiana Thumbtzen, Will Vinton, Jeffrey Daniel

http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/...icle?blocktitle=Latest-Reviews&contentID=1479
 
Oh come on Stevie! just good friends was a great track! I admit the chorus and bridge was a little cheesy, but i absolutely loved the verses, they're one of my favorite parts of the album. Most of Stevie's uptempo tracks are kinda happy and uplifting anyway, the duet was kinda always going to end up sounding like that between the two of them, i admit they could have done even better as the duet was two huge names, but i don't see how it could have worked with still managing to achieve a fusion of the two styles, a better record for me would have just been an MJ tune with Stevie singing, or a Stevie tune with MJ singing, i doubt he'd be saying that if the song was a massive hit ;) Not ment as a major dig, just a cheeky comment btw haha, Stevie is one of my favorite artists, he's been a brilliant friend to MJ and i have the up most respect for him!
 
lom kit said:
Quincy gave his 50cent more then enough. ok, mostly about thriller. but i think its better to keep him off this. he is bitter that he didn't have the saying like on thriller and cause michael left him after Bad. would just ruin the docu. that my opinion.
Click to expand...

^^^ I agree with this. Possibly Spike Lee may have interviewed him and decided to keep it out of the documentary. I think Quincy still has a chip on his shoulder after all these years.
 
Re: Some New Tidbits About Spike Lee BAD25 Documentary

etoile 37 said:
Yeah, the "Where were you when he died" question is getting really old. I'm not really interested in those people's whereabouts... This documentary was about the Bad era, so they should have stuck to that time-period. Michael didn't die in the 80's...
Click to expand...
Agreed. If they really wanted to include that they could have put it on the blu-ray special features. My guess is that Spike hasn't had the opportunity to make his own artistic audiovisual comment on Michael's death yet, so he chose this as a vehicle for that. I don't agree with it, but nothing we can do really.
 
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by etoile 37
Yeah, the "Where were you when he died" question is getting really old. I'm not really interested in those people's whereabouts... This documentary was about the Bad era, so they should have stuck to that time-period. Michael didn't die in the 80's...
Click to expand...


Yeh i mean why does that even matter anyway ? i hate even thinking bout that
 
Re: Just Good Friends. I always liked that song. It always makes me happy.
 
Oh, that comment about just good friends from Stevie really surprised me...... c'mon! but yeah, waiting to see this to give a personal review on it, thanks for posting some though.
 
Not pining for Quincy Jones. Lately you are unable to comprehend anying he utters.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top