There is a chance that during the 152-venue Taylor Swift tour, which ran from March 2023 to December 2024 in 51 cities and grossed over 2 billion dollars, that Swift might have surpassed the fame Michael Jackson had at his peak in 1984, but this is impossible to know for sure.
The difference between Taylor and Michael is that she was not burdened with an abusive father, and Swift was not ten years old, the lead singer of a huge music act, and the sole financial support of his whole family. There is no way that someone like Michael Jackson could have lived such an extremely unusual life, with so much red-hot worldwide fame, and still turned out to be a normal, well-adjusted person. Jackson's huge talent was both a great blessing and a curse. The good news is that Taylor Swift is a normal, well-adjusted person and will not be following the path of Whitney Houston, Elvis, and Michael Jackson and so many others who could not adjust to the negative aspects of being so famous.
The new biopic "Michael" is about Michael Jackson's career, which started with the Jackson Five, and the start of his solo career in 1978 with the album "Off the Wall," and eventually led to "Thriller" in November 1982, the most popular album of all time, and unprecedented superstar fame. In January 1984, Jackson was filming a Pepsi commercial and promo for the Jackson family Victory tour, and he suffered a massive burn injury to the top of his head, which burned his scalp so severely he became addicted to painkillers for the rest of his life. Of all the bad breaks Jackson endured in his career, this one injury ranks as the worst because of the doctors who prescribed many years of opioids to help him with his burn injury and made him a drug addict.
Michael is directed by Antoine Fuqua and stars Jaafar Jackson as Michael, Colman Domingo as Joseph Jackson, Nia Long as Katherine Jackson, Juliano Valdi as young Michael Jackson, Larenz Tate as Berry Gordy, and Miles Teller as Jackson's manager after he became a solo artist. The acting is very good throughout, with too many scenes of a belt and child abuse with Joseph Jackson and his ten-year-old son Michael, which were extremely difficult to see and hear.
Joseph's lifelong attempt to dominate Michael's entire career is a central part of this story, which, in the end, with the Jackson family Victory tour in mid-1984, Michael was finally able to escape. This movie abruptly ends in 1984, twenty-five years before Michael Jackson's death in June 2009, almost as if the producers and screenwriters were afraid to go further into Jackson's many allegations of child molestation, which were never addressed in this film. The best parts of the movie are the singing and dancing of Jaafar Jackson, who does an outstanding job with all of the most famous performances of Jackson's career, and the movie ends with about 15 minutes of Jackson performing in the Victory tour.
This movie does a good job as a biography of one of the most well-known music careers of all time, but with no new revelations or addressing the many controversies that Jackson lived through. This is one of the main reasons for the surprisingly low critical Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 38%, with an almost perfect 97% audience rating. My rating is 85%, and a strong recommendation to see this movie for the great musical performances and acting.
Movie Reviews From a Screenwriter's Perspective
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Hulu Series Review: Love Story John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette
It's hard to believe that this July marks the 27th anniversary of one of the worst tragedies in the history of celebrity in this country. This horrific plane crash that caused the death of John, Caroline, and her sister Lauren in July 1999, like the death of Princess Diana in September 1997 and Kobe Bryant in January 2000, was far worse because the mistakes that caused them were all easily preventable.
The nine-episode series on Hulu, "Love Story John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette", tells the entire story of the relationship between JFK Jr, played by Paul Anthony Kelly, and his wife, Caroline Bessette, revealing so many facts about that most would never have known, including how unlikely it was that they ever got married in the first place.
The frequent arguments that Caroline and John were mostly about John's extreme fame and the unrelenting rudeness and aggression of the Paparazzi, which, for this series, has to be seen to be believed. Many of the arguments are hard to watch, especially the long one in the 8th episode, where it seems that Caroline was creating problems that did not exist or had no solution, as John tried to fix their problems and then finally gave up and left their apartment. Caroline is then left amazed that he left, even though she was the catalyst for this long argument from the start.
The other major part of this story was John's attempt to create his own magazine, "George," and the volatile relationship he had with Michael Berman, played by Michael Nathanson, with Berman amazingly rude to John, in almost every meeting, eventually causing a huge argument that led to a physical fight in John's office.
The constant chain smoking in this series, with John and mostly Caroline, was hard to watch, considering their extreme wealth and privilege, taking risks like this. JFK Jr. would frequently ride his bike around New York City without a helmet, darting around roads and parked cars without regard to the risks he was taking with his life. John would rarely lock his bike, resulting in many thefts over the years. Clearly someone like John F. Kennedy Jr. had a different way of looking at life.
Actor Naomi Watts, is very good in her role as Jackie Kennedy Onassis who died in May 1994 at the age of 64 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Early in the series, there were several scenes where it was clear that Jackie did not approve of John's dating actor Daryl Hannah played by Dree Hemingway.
The scenes leading up to the plane crash in July 1999, were well done, as they just showed all three sitting in this small single-engine plane and John's disorientation due to the fact that he was never trained and certified for night flying. Why would Caroline and Lauren get into this small plane at night, when they knew that John did have not enough training to fly at night, is a question that will never be answered.
This Hulu series is very well acted and produced, and, surprisingly, it took this many years to develop a story about one of the worst tragedies in American history. The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 81% is too low, with my rating 90% and a strong recommendation.
The nine-episode series on Hulu, "Love Story John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette", tells the entire story of the relationship between JFK Jr, played by Paul Anthony Kelly, and his wife, Caroline Bessette, revealing so many facts about that most would never have known, including how unlikely it was that they ever got married in the first place.
The frequent arguments that Caroline and John were mostly about John's extreme fame and the unrelenting rudeness and aggression of the Paparazzi, which, for this series, has to be seen to be believed. Many of the arguments are hard to watch, especially the long one in the 8th episode, where it seems that Caroline was creating problems that did not exist or had no solution, as John tried to fix their problems and then finally gave up and left their apartment. Caroline is then left amazed that he left, even though she was the catalyst for this long argument from the start.
The other major part of this story was John's attempt to create his own magazine, "George," and the volatile relationship he had with Michael Berman, played by Michael Nathanson, with Berman amazingly rude to John, in almost every meeting, eventually causing a huge argument that led to a physical fight in John's office.
The constant chain smoking in this series, with John and mostly Caroline, was hard to watch, considering their extreme wealth and privilege, taking risks like this. JFK Jr. would frequently ride his bike around New York City without a helmet, darting around roads and parked cars without regard to the risks he was taking with his life. John would rarely lock his bike, resulting in many thefts over the years. Clearly someone like John F. Kennedy Jr. had a different way of looking at life.
Actor Naomi Watts, is very good in her role as Jackie Kennedy Onassis who died in May 1994 at the age of 64 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Early in the series, there were several scenes where it was clear that Jackie did not approve of John's dating actor Daryl Hannah played by Dree Hemingway.
The scenes leading up to the plane crash in July 1999, were well done, as they just showed all three sitting in this small single-engine plane and John's disorientation due to the fact that he was never trained and certified for night flying. Why would Caroline and Lauren get into this small plane at night, when they knew that John did have not enough training to fly at night, is a question that will never be answered.
This Hulu series is very well acted and produced, and, surprisingly, it took this many years to develop a story about one of the worst tragedies in American history. The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 81% is too low, with my rating 90% and a strong recommendation.
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Movie Review: Normal
With Bob Odenkirk's recent action movies "Nobody" (2021), "Nobody 2" (2025), and now "Normal" about a temporary police Sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota, it seems that Odenkirk is starting a franchise of one word crazy action movies that start with the letter "N".
Normal starts out as a run-of-the-mill, boring police story in a small town, and then later explodes into an insane idea involving a criminal mob from Japan, a small bank with a vault loaded with many gold bars and millions of dollars, with a plot twist impossible to see coming.
This film stars Bob Odenkirk as the temporary sheriff Ulysses Richardson, who has been through a tragic incident and is looking to escape by becoming a temporary Sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota. Ulysses runs into many off-the-wall people in the abnormal town of Normal, including the Mayor of the town Mayor Kibner, played by Henry Winkler.
For this third insane Odenkirk action movie, the action scenes do not happen until around the middle of the story, and then a huge explosion of death, gunfire, and destruction as the final climax with the criminal gang from Japan.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 77% are mostly correct, but the previous two Odenkirk action movies were better. I agree with this rating and do recommend Normal.
Normal starts out as a run-of-the-mill, boring police story in a small town, and then later explodes into an insane idea involving a criminal mob from Japan, a small bank with a vault loaded with many gold bars and millions of dollars, with a plot twist impossible to see coming.
This film stars Bob Odenkirk as the temporary sheriff Ulysses Richardson, who has been through a tragic incident and is looking to escape by becoming a temporary Sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota. Ulysses runs into many off-the-wall people in the abnormal town of Normal, including the Mayor of the town Mayor Kibner, played by Henry Winkler.
For this third insane Odenkirk action movie, the action scenes do not happen until around the middle of the story, and then a huge explosion of death, gunfire, and destruction as the final climax with the criminal gang from Japan.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 77% are mostly correct, but the previous two Odenkirk action movies were better. I agree with this rating and do recommend Normal.
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