@wishingstar: yesss ! good idea about The Raven! ;) and I also think that he mixed up history, literature, movies, etc... with real life and his own life/career experience!! Very original! true work of a genius!
ELVIS & "Get Low" (2009) & "This Is It" (2009) - FELIX vs Michael
PART 3
~~~ As the organization of the event proceeds, it soon becomes evident that Felix is less interested in what people have to say about him than in what he has to say for himself.
(familiar? loll) He's harboring
a decades-old secret that he finally wants
to expose. Thousands will come to hear him speak.
- This is an interesting film. It is intelligently made, and the seriousness of the filmmakers is never in doubt. Approaching
80, Robert Duvall, in particular, turns in a fine performance.
- The mystery contained in the film, about Felix's real character and what drove him to live in isolation
(MJ on the PAlm Island? loll), is engaging, and the viewer is allowed the time to find his or her own way through it.
- A number of subtle, but
amusing moments (heeHeee!! loll) can be found in the
work (read: hoax! :p loll). Among the more memorable are those in which Felix speaks to people in town who admit they've heard "wild things" about him. When Felix asks what they've heard, they can only gulp and change the subject, too afraid to repeat the rumors to his face. One also recalls Quinn's reaction to Felix's initial proposal for a living funeral. When Buddy says they can't possibly hold a funeral while Felix is still alive, Quinn, his mind on Felix's large wad of cash, corrects him quickly, saying, "It's a detail we can look at."
(similar to the "sharks" surrounding MJ and hunting his money and music-catalogue!!)
~~~ While Felix is the film's central figure, the film's handling of undertaker Quinn is worth nothing. The latter is anxious about money, perhaps willing to sacrifice more than he might of himself in order to stay afloat.
- When Felix has doubts about going through with the ceremony, (like MJ's concern for the 50 concerts!!), Quinn tries to convince him to carry on and one can see his only concern is for himself. Unlike Buddy (friend Buddy makes me think of Teddy, Teddy Riley! lol), the funeral arrangements have become nothing more than a way for Quinn to make a fast buck. (very familiar!!)
- Aaron Schneider (the film-director) and Bill Murray (the actor) could easily have made Quinn into a caricatured villain, but, to their credit, they avoid this.
- In fact, they don't make him into a villain at all (just like Conrad Murray never received clear accusations or insults from the Jackson family! LaToya clearly insisting on the fact that Murray is "just the fall guy").
- The viewer is able to see how certain pressures are working on Quinn, changing him and shifting in the sand the line that he might not otherwise have crossed. We are never asked to condemn Quinn (MJ's doctor -Murray) in the way many of the townspeople denounced Felix (meaning that Michael was torn to pieces by the media and those who believed those lies during his 2005 Trial, while Conrad Murray gets a softer "treatment" during the "MJ's murder" case).
~~~ The film's "moral," if it has one, is summed up in the brief remarks of Reverend Charlie Jackson (like Rev. Jessie Jackson from MJ's funeral/memorial?? lol), an old friend of Felix's, during the funeral. "We like to imagine good and bad, right and wrong are miles apart," he says. "The truth is, very often they are all tangled up with each other."
~~~ The film comes down on the side of taking a more complex and compassionate view of one's fellow human beings. There are genuinely healthy impulses at work here.
- In this light, the town—and the viewer—are asked throughout the story to reconsider Felix, the "monster" who is said to have done so much wrong. He has made his mistakes and some of them have been costly, but he is also capable of much more.
- For Reverend Jackson, Felix once constructed the most beautiful sanctuary he had ever seen (just like MJ had constructed so many hospitals and donated so much money to charities).
- An old flame, Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), describes Felix (MJ) as having once been the most beautiful man she'd ever seen, a person of great depth and talent. (hahahaha can you recognize Brooke Shields' speech here? lol :p)
