Michael Jackson Film

Hope you guys had a wonderful Derby this past weekend. This episode is about the Michael Jackson film that just came out in April. I share my thoughts on the film and what knowledge I gained from watching this film. Was it worth a watch. Will part 2 of this film be just as good as part one.

Here is a link to my other podcast-

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-simple-discussion/id1843198044

https://open.spotify.com/show/6dTngjtXoqqBomtzGyzKFH

https://castro.fm/podcast/1e732887-adca-4052-afd4-4dbce3d1caf8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Let's Talk podcast. My name is Hannah Covington, and I am so glad to be back with you again for another episode. I hope you like this episode. If you can't tell by the name of the episode, we're gonna be talking about another film I have watched. Gonna be giving my thoughts on this episode. So I hope y'all had a good derby weekend before we dive into this episode. I am recording this before derby, but by the time you see this, it'll be after Derby. I hope y'all enjoyed your derby. I hope you guys enjoyed yourselves that you stayed dried and stayed warm. Because I heard it was a cold one from the weather I've been seeing before the derby happened, but this is after derby. So just wishing that luck on the future me and the future people that hopefully watch the derby when this episode will come out. Is there any new things I've tried since the last time we talked? No, sadly, I have not tried anything new lately. It might be a little boring on that part for a while until something new comes out that I want to try. But I can mention this real fast. I have actually tried and I haven't talked about it. I tried the Duncan Zero Calorie Refreshers they have came out with. And what are my thoughts on these new refreshers that Duncan has come out with? They are good. They do taste a little bit different than what the original ones taste like. They do mix well with iced tea. I will say that. If you're wanting to mix it with something else other than lemonade or water, highly recommend getting it with a black tea. Or if green tea fan sees you, get green tea. Because I'm pretty sure they sell green tea. I'm not for sure, but I know they sell black tea because most of the time when I go there, I get black tea in my refreshers when I go to Duncan. I tried the Glamberry Zero first, wasn't a huge fan of it. I drank it, but I was like, I won't be getting this flavor again, was my thoughts after trying it. Not a huge fan. Now, the peach flavor by itself, I enjoyed very well. It was really, really good. I would probably get the peach again, probably, if I had to choose a zero calorie refresher off that menu. It was really good. But these zero calorie ones reminded me of a drink I grew up drinking. Only if you're from a certain part of the 2000s, you'll probably remember these drinks. They have been discontinued a long time ago, but I drank these all the time. And as soon as I say it, you'll be like, oh my gosh, I remember these. There was kind of like a fruity low-calorie drink called Fuse, if I'm correct. And that's what these zero calorie refreshers reminded me of. And I wanted to address that before I forgot because I was like, oh yeah, forgot I tried those. And I was like, wait, I hadn't talked about those, and I'm glad I did. If you want to risk and try these, I recommend trying them. They are worth a good try by me. If you're looking for a little bit of a healthier refresher, there are still caffeine in these refreshers, if anybody's wondering, it's really good. And then Starbucks, a little bit after that, came out with a new version of their refreshers. I don't know if y'all had heard about this refresher, but they're calling them energy refreshers because they have a hint more caffeine in them than their regular refreshers. It makes me scratch my head of how much caffeine is in their regular refresher and how much more did they add to this new energy one. But I have tried it and have had it a couple of times as well and can give a little bit of my thoughts on it. Which one did I try? Real fast. Let me get on my Starbucks app because your girl forget stuff. We ain't perfect. Okay, so let's look at their menu if they will let me. Good lord. It was called a mango strawberry refresher that was really good. And instead of the mango dragon fruit pieces, they put strawberry pieces in it, which I was totally down with. But the last time I got it for the third time, they kind of messed it up a bit because uh I don't think the person was understanding my order per se. They got it mixed up with their regular mango dragon fruit refresher when I was trying to ask for the mango strawberry refresher with black iced tea, which instead of lemonade or water, add black iced tea. It's really, really good, very refreshing. Or add green tea if you want green tea. But I know I'm talking all refreshing drinks you can drink during the spring and summery months, but that's all I've been trying. And there's also some new drinks dropping in early May by McDonald's. I'm overhearing as well, and that they're trying to compete with these fancy soda shops and coming up with some drinks, and also kind of competing with Starbucks, Duncan, and Dutch Bros, with one of the drinks they have created. But I can't remember those drinks off the top of my head, but it's been popping up in my feed before the launch of these, but it will be interesting to see people's reactions once it launches. I feel like the McDonald's dry-throughs will be pretty busy getting these drinks, and I feel like they're gonna sell out pretty fast with how the soda trend of fancy sodas are going lately. I could digress and talk about that as a whole as well. Why we have fancy soda shops is all because of the Mormon Wiv show, which I don't watch because I don't have Hulu, so I can't talk about it because I've never watched it because it's on Hulu. I want to move into today's topic, which you probably could tell by the title, which I said at the beginning before I kind of talked about some stuff I've tried, but I was trying to go see this film as soon as it came out. It came out, they did a pre-showing on the 22nd and it came out on the 24th. So I was I was about six days out from when it did the early release, and five when it went to all the theaters. So I was this is the earliest I've seen a film since I guess when they did that specialty showing for the Hamilton, the musical film that you can go watch in theaters, which I have done an episode on. Please go listen to it. If you have not listened to it and you're listening to this episode, I would have really appreciated if you would. But the movie or movie/slash film I'm going to talk about, I'm pretty sure my buddy Ryan will probably do an episode on this on my other podcast I do with him at some point in the near future when he does another film episode. If not, this will also be on a simple discussion podcast. If you can't find it on this podcast, so you might have two places to listen to this episode, possibly. But this film was very much well talked about leading up to the release of this film, which is this film is called the Michael movie, which is about Michael Jackson. And yes, there will be a sequel coming out in the near future. They did announce that at the end of the film, and the person who played Michael, which was Michael's nephew, Jafar Jackson, which some people don't agree with, by the way. They don't agree, and this is coming from the Jackson family, by the way, from all the gossipy entertainment interviews I watched on YouTube leading up to me going to see this film, which also led to me wanting to go see this film as well. Is some of the Jackson clan did not agree with Jafar playing his uncle, and Jafar actually had to work to get the part of Michael Jackson. He said he worked on becoming Michael for about two years. He lived in the Neverland How Neverland House as he was preparing to be Michael. He went into a lot of dance training, vocal training from what I saw on the interviews I watched. So it was, I would say Michael is the hardest person to be of any famous celebrity to portray, is what I'm learning when watching all these celebrity interviews leading up to the Michael film, is what I have been gaining when watching Jafar's to hearing from some of the other family members who were very supportive of the film and were at the film's premiere. One of the main people who was really proud was Jafar's father, which was Jermaine Jackson. He was very proud of his son. And even his cousin, who was Michael's oldest child, Prince was very proud of his cousin for nailing the role. I don't know if he had a big say-so in his cousin getting the part, but Jafar worked hard to get that part from my understanding. What are my thoughts on the movie? This is a very interesting thought because it was a lot to take in. I just want to prepare people for that. It's a lot you are kind of seeing from the Jacks Michael Jackson's perspective, which people don't really realize is that you're learning a lot about what happened to Michael during that time of his life, and that it was not easy being Michael, is what I am seeing seeing from watching this film, and that it was not easy being a part of the Jackson 5 clan, and that his father was not the greatest human in the world. Everybody just sees Joe Jackson as his amazing human from a non-family perspective of when he was in front of cameras and all this. He talked all this talk of, yeah, I treat my my sons really good when in reality behind closed doors, it was not that case. And you would see that throughout the whole entire film. And there were points when Michael hit the age of, okay, I'm ready to split from the Jackson 5, which is how he got his career. The first record label that signed him as a solo artist, yeah, a solo artist, Michael told him he said, Y'all are gonna have to approach my dad with this idea. He said, I'll sign a contract, but you're gonna have to sell it to my dad because he said, I'm afraid to talk to my father. And that's when you really realize in the film of how toxic Joe Jackson is, is when Michael is telling a record label, y'all are gonna have to sell it. And then the guy, one of the guys who had to go to Joe was like, Well, first I need a little something before I go talk to your father. And I was like, Oh Lord, Joe is that bad of a human, which is kind of sad. And then it took Michael a long time to break away from his father until he got with CBS, if I am understanding correctly, because Michael was afraid to fire his father, and he actually made the second person who helped with his music. He's like, You're gonna have to be the one to fire my father. That is what he told him. He was like, Look, you're gonna have to be the one to fire my father because he said I can't do it, but I'm tired of my father. And so he helps Michael fire his father, and Joe did not take it well. And something that was running through my head in some conversations I had after watching the film was Joe kind of broke up the Jackson family for a while. I think Michael's Michael could have had a bigger career than he already did and done more solo work before he passed away at the age he did. But like he could what I'm trying to say is Michael could have done more. He could have done he could have done more work with his family without the help of Joe. Because Joe kept saying, I'm the reason you got to where you are, I'm the reason. You hear it over and over again in the film when really it was the boys, it was mainly Michael's voice that propelled them forward and got them where they were. Because when Michael was a child, he had a powerhouse voice and which and just had a lovable face. You could just tell when he was a young child, he had a lovable face, and he could have just done a lot of duety work with some of his brothers and sisters. I will say, one of the sisters was not featured in the film because I'm pretty sure everybody's gonna go watch this film who have not seen it and say, Where's Janet? Janet was a big part of Michael's life. Yes, I think she was one of them that was not supportive of the film and asked to not be a part of the film, and I think that is why only LaToya was shown, and I think the oldest Jackson daughter as well was shown, but you don't see Janet at all, so yeah, that will probably be a question you're wondering when you're watching halfway through the film going, where's Janet? Well, I don't think Janet was a fan of the film being being made, and that is why she does not appear in the film at all. Because Michael and Janet were pretty close. The siblings Michael was closest with was probably Janet and LaToya. And you also learn how close Michael was with his mother, and that is why Catherine got the parental rights to the kids when he passed away. Yeah, I just have a cajillion thoughts on this film. I think it will be in a part of award season because the story was told so well. They portrayed Michael's life in a beautiful manner in my eyes, and Jafar did a good job playing his uncle. Did I agree with the casting of the characters? Well, mainly the big characters. If I'm gonna talk the people who played Michael, Catherine, and Joe. That casting was really well. They nailed those characters really, really well. No wonder it took such a long time to make this film, is they wanted to find the perfect people that could play the roles of these people. And I will say it was just a great job. Jafar is the one that nailed being Michael. You couldn't even tell he was Michael because Jafar really does look like Michael when he's in character. Did it portray Michael's life well? I will say yes, because especially in the time span they made this film, because if they had gone into even more detail, it would have been too long. And I think the two it was two hours and seven minutes, if I'm understanding correctly, because it's hard to remember these things. It was two hours and seven-minute film, it did a good job talking about Michael's life and how each song led up to certain parts of his life, and some of the songs I didn't know much detail on, and most of these were the most well known well-known songs when you think of Michael Jackson as a person in his career. One of them being Thriller, of how he came up with Thriller, that was I think the most interesting of them was because he liked watching horror and he kind of wanted a Halloween-y vibey song, and that's how Thriller came to be. And the next one that was also very, very interesting as well, and you wouldn't even think about it until you you watched this film and go, holy cow, I wouldn't have even thought that way when it comes to this song until watching this film, and that is the song Beat It, which is also one of his most popular songs. Is he trying he was just sitting and creating songs in the middle of the night or as dawn was breaking one day and he had the news on watching all the things that were happening in the streets to his like group or his race of people, I don't know how to word this, like with the black population, and he's like, How can I end this dispute between these gangs? And that is how he came up with this song beat it. And I was like, This is interesting because he brought two gangs together as a whole and said, Let's work out our problems by dance. He said, Dance and music bring people together, he said, and this is how he solved this problem. He said, I'm gonna ask both these gangs to be a part of my music video, and I would have never thought of it that way, but that is what he did in my eyes, from what I was learning about all these songs. Something else I also learned from the film I want to mention really fast, that you won't realize until you're watching the film was how much Joe Jackson made fun of Michael's nose. Because we're we're we're all like, how did Michael Jackson become obsessed with plastic surgery? Well, it started at a young age, I think once he hit 18, if I'm correct. Yeah, 18 years old. That's when he really became obsessed with doing plastic surgery, was due to the fact of he was always being made fun of his nose by his own father. Because Joe had no problem pointing out how ugly Michael's nose was, to the point it would hurt Michael's feelings as a child. He didn't like when his father would talk about his nose in the way he did. I was like, what kind of parent would do that? That's just so, so sad. I couldn't imagine all the pain he went through as a child with how rude Joe Jackson was behind closed doors. And that's what led to his nose going through plastic surgery. He didn't really tell anyone he was getting his first plastic surgery. Like he was very secretive about it when he went to get it. And when he comes home from the plastic surgery, he was like, his dad was like, Oh, so you went he was like he very much approved of Michael getting plastic surgery, which made me as a person think of was Joe always wishing Michael would go get plastic surgery once he hit a certain age? And was that a conversation that did happen that we don't realize, or was it something Michael was gonna do and then tell his father? That is something I will always wonder after watching that scene in the film when Michael was coming back after that surgery. Is did Joe know that Michael was gonna get it? Did Joe recommend it? What we will never know. Something else that Michael was very well known for that people really don't realize is there were things that Michael wanted to accomplish when he released the thriller album because he wanted certain things after leaving the Jackson 5 band. And you don't realize this until watching the film, but one of the things he wanted was to make longer music videos, and he became known for having longer music videos during his career because most people didn't have as long of a music video as he did. But his f like his during his first album, none of his music videos got shown on MTV, by the way. And I think that bothered Michael that his first music video was not shown on MTV because MTV kind of had some weird roles that they would only show certain artists on their channel. Uh is the best way I describe what to describe it. And people growing up during that time could probably correct me and go, Yeah, you're right. So you really didn't see any of Michael's music videos until his thriller album came out, and he went to the head of CBS and said, Hey, I want my music videos to be played on MTV. Like he said, I will not back down until I get my music videos played on MTV. He even threatened to leave CBS, which was a very big deal because he was kind of like a big star for CBS, CBS's music department, if I'm understanding correctly. And that he yeah, he threatened to pull his contract if he didn't get on MTV. And then CBS threatened MTV with, hey, I'll pull all my artists if you don't play Michael's music videos. And Michael was the first person to break some boundaries and be the first of his kind to be on MTV, and the first music video of his to play was Billy Jean, which is one of his top songs outside of being a part of the Jackson 5. Actually, most of the songs off the thriller album are some of his top pieces of work. If you really do think about it. I really don't have a have a favorite scene from the film because there was way too many good scenes to pick from in the film because they all have different meanings. If I had to pick just one scene from the film, so I can't decide what was my favorite song from from the movie or film. Oh, that has to be hard. I would have to say it's not from the Jackson 5 era. I would say when he performed Billy Jean during that one Motown anniversary thing that was being aired, and he was doing that live because he was still healing from I don't know if he was still healing or had just gotten out of the healing process of what happened at the pep from the Pepsi commercial um incident. So yeah, I would say that because you finally get to see some of Michael's dance moves come to life to life a little bit more. Because he was kind of pushed not to dance as much when he was a part of the Jackson 5 because uh they were afraid of Michael taking away from the brothers and all this, that, and the other. Yeah. So he so he kind of was slowly becoming himself during when the thriller album came out. And there was a lot that went on during that film, I will say, a lot of stuff. You learn how lonely of a person he was, and how he found his friendship through animals, which I know people be like, wait, wait, what? Yeah, you learn about how he just loved animals and only found friendship through animals, and that's really not talked about much. I think his biggest friendship with an animal was bubbles, the chimpanzee. Yeah, bubbles, and he thought it was a big deal when he got bubbles. Some of his family thought he was crazy, but bubbles was a big part of his life. Until I had think he had to give bubbles away, if I'm understanding correctly, I don't know what the deal was with bubbles, but yeah. And what was something else that also caught my interest during the film before I completely wrap up this episode without completely ruining this Michael Jackson film for you guys? Because I think y'all should go see it, y'all won't be disappointed at all. It was even a top box office hit. It's opening weekend, by the way. I forgot to mention that as well, and I feel like it'll be like that for a couple weekends, even though when I went to see it, the theater wasn't completely full, and that might have been due to some upcoming storms that were headed our way that night, and that's why people really didn't get out that much that night. So that might have played a role. I don't know, and it was also still a school night, so that's also a reason maybe the theater really wasn't that full. That's always the case, is either weather will slow down a crowd and school nights. But well, what was I about to say about the other thing that caught my interest about the Michael film that I wanted to talk about? Yeah, the Pepsi commercial, big ordeal, because Joe kind of went behind Michael's back and playing the last tour ever that the Jackson 5 would ever do as a whole, which was not good of him. Joe just loved going behind his children, adult children's back and playing stuff without their permission. Like the last tour they did. He wanted to go big with this tour. Until Michael just put his foot down after they did the U.S., he said, I'm not going around the world to do this one last tour. He said, This is all I'm doing is just America. I'm not going overseas to do a tour. He said, absolutely not. He said, I'm working on myself in my career. The Jackson 5 is done. But prior to that, before that tour even started, him and his brothers shot probably their last commercial as a whole together for Pepsi. And I had stepped out of the theater to run to the bathroom right before this scene kind of came to be. And I came back in the middle of the big incident, and it's very well known in pop culture if you were alive during that time. From my understanding, if I talk to anybody who was alive in the 80s and knew who Michael Jackson was, from what I have learned through the years, is that Michael Jackson got severely injured at that Pepsi shoot. Did they go a little overboard with that Pepsi commercial? Absolutely. I think Michael would have been a little more fine if they hadn't gone that crazy in the Pepsi commercial, which they did. Did they need those fireworks? No, they did not need the fireworks, and they did the fireworks, and that is how Michael almost died back in the 80s. Nobody realizes that until you like watch his film is Michael almost lost his life because of where he got burned. And and how long his hair was, and he was a curly head. He could have killed himself. And a lot of doctors told his father he needs to have proper healing, he doesn't need to be going on tour, he needs proper healing. And they told him, Your son almost died, and Joe did not take it seriously. The only people that took it seriously was the rest of his family, which makes Joe as the bad guy, which I don't know if that was the picture they were trying to paint in the film. We will never really know the true story of who was the true bad guy, who was the good guys. What it we will never know. But they went into detail detail about his healing process, of what were his thoughts as he was healing from his burn injury and surviving his burn injury, and how he just went on and did this tour when he should have been healing is very mind-boggling. He should have been probably healing for probably six months, and he went on and did a tour. I hope I have not spoiled the Michael movie for you. I hope you guys go see it. It'll probably still be in theaters by the time I get this episode out because I'm gonna try to get it out as soon as possible. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode. See you next time. Bye.