[img]396|left|Alex Campbell||no_popup[/img] Dear Readers,
My friend Amy is getting better. Thanks for all of your support and prayers over the past few weeks. Due to her progress, I’ve been able to return to somewhat of a normal existence, i.e. going to the movies.
Guess what I saw twice in one week? Michael Jackson’s “This Is It.” Guess who didn’t see it? The rest of Massachusetts. It opened on Wednesday. Two friends and I went to see it Thursday. We thought there’d be a line out the door. We bought special seats in anticipation. It was only showing for two weeks!
We went in and looked around. Lots of empty seats. Lots. There must have been about thirty people in attendance. I was pretty disappointed. Maybe it was because we were in a suburb. Never had I felt like such a New Yorker. At various times during the movie, I shouted out, “Where’s the LOVE, people?” No one got up to dance. No one. I thought about it several times, but it can be hard to dance by oneself in a movie theatre. It’s much nicer to have someone to do it with. I settled for bopping around in my special chair that was cushy and swiveled.
The movie itself was great. SPOILER ALERT! It’s made up of footage taken from the rehearsals of an amazing concert he was going to perform in London. You see dancer auditions, rehearsals and amazing set design. So much work went into this show—it would have been awesome.
Interestingly, I didn’t get very sad. I was more excited to see Michael Jackson doing what he did best—performing. The man could sing! We now know he was drugged into sleep at night. You’d never know it to see this fifty-year-old man dance. The passion seeped through his pores. Sure, his body certainly did not resemble those of the dancers he’d hired. In fact, as my friend Vanessa pointed out, his looked more like the body of an eleven-year-old boy, but he moonwalked, threw himself on the stage, and sang his heart out. What a tragic loss.
No Improvement
I went again on Sunday afternoon, with Vanessa, after putting out an invitation to an email list of about fifty people. Vanessa is from Amsterdam. Yes, I sent out the invite a little last minute. Sure, people already had plans or hadn’t checked their email by the time we decided we were going. That would have been fine if we had had some support at the theatre itself.
We went to a theater closer to the city this time. And counted about seventeen people in attendance. On a weekend. For some reason, I got really down about it. Was it the location of the theatre? That’s what the girl at the ticket counter said. Someone else said that Boston was such college town, people were too young to appreciate M.J. Another person remarked that if it had been a U2 movie, it would have been sold out.
Upon further research (read: informal Facebook poll), I heard that things were very different in L.A. Sold-out shows, people standing in long lines, tears shed for the loss. Was this because he lived there? I wanted to cry and dance with those people!
I grew up in New York City. M.J. was huge when I was in 8th grade. My friends and I danced and sang in the streets, and really expressed ourselves. Although I didn’t hear from any New Yorkers in my poll, I am sure there was lots of love for M.J. in The Big Apple.
I just heard that the movie will be extended. I’m going to NYC or L.A. to see it. Who’s coming with me? Show the LOVE, people!
Ms. Campbell may be contacted at campbellalexandra@hotmail.com
