By Steven Suskin
31 Jan 2010

What are we to make of Michael Jackson's This Is It [Sony], a "making of" chronicle of something that never was? "This Is It": a look at the grand concert engagement fated never to be? "This Is It": the really big deal, the grandest personal appearance by the greatest performer ever? "This Is It": all there is, the end of the line, kaput? What have they come up with — they meaning director Kenny Ortega of "High School Musical" fame (and, Broadway-wise, Marilyn, a fabled two-week flop of 1983); the promoters of the concert, who had all sorts of money tied up in the enterprise, and who had to refund all that ticket money; and the tangled web of heirs, whose lusting over rights and royalties has been publicly on view, and not very pretty.

I suppose the correct answer is "all of the above," a combination of the three. Jackson was a distinctive entertainer, for sure; I think it's safe to say that we've never seen anyone quite like him, nor are likely to do so in the future. It goes without saying that his fans should be ecstatic over "This Is It"; for the rest of us, it is a look at a fascinating if perhaps not quite understandable phenomenon. I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether to take a trip — a final trip — with that masked-and-gloved man. I don't suppose you will be bored; and, really, this is not the sort of thing some folks in the storyboard dept. could come up with.

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Blu-ray continues to take vintage films and reinvigorate them. We've seen this on a variety of early films, yes, but not on something so old and so brilliant as Buster Keaton's The General [Kino]. Here comes the fabled historic locomotive steaming down the track once more, and it is even grander than the last time around. Kino gave us a fine "Ultimate 2-Disc Edition" restoration of the 1926 film just two years ago, as it happens, outfitted with three complete musical scores and a handful of intelligent and interesting bonus features. All are repeated on the Blu-ray disc; those who bought the 2008 release won't find any new material. But Blu-ray enhances the film far beyond what you might think possible. (And far beyond anything that Mr. Keaton might have thought possible — or perhaps seen the need for.) For the viewer, this gives the film even more life than previously; there are no words and there are title cards interspersed, but after a few minutes you really don't feel like you are watching a silent movie. Rather, just one of the finest comedies ever, one of the finest adventure stories ever, and one of the most astonishing combination of special effects ever. (That last might be something of an exaggeration, but these special effects were filmed without any of the tricks of the special effects folk.) Blu-ray gives us the remarkable Buster Keaton and his remarkable "The General" in more splendor than thought possible; you can even see, literally so, the whites of their eyes.

(Steven Suskin is author of the forthcoming updated and expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)