Steve Pond over at The Wrap decides to figure out if there is any Oscar love available for the new Michael Jackson money grab documentary, This is It:
Makeup: Let’s see – the AMPAS definition is “any change in the appearance of a performer’s face, hair or body created by the application of cosmetics, three-dimensional materials, prosthetic appliances, or wigs and hairpieces, applied directly to the performer’s face or body.” I think we have a winner! Except that stuff was all done in the service of real life, not the movie …
Song: The fact that the “new” song, “This Is It,” turns out to have been co-written in 1983 by Jackson and Paul Anka is a pretty reliable indication that no songs were written for the movie. In fact, they couldn’t have been, because there wasn’t a movie when the footage was shot.
Score: Even if there’s original music composed to fill the spaces between Jackson’s songs, there’s probably not enough of it.
Sound editing, sound mixing: Yes.
Visual effects: David Copperfield-style stage effects don’t count.
Documentary feature: Maybe next year. To allow time for the multi-level judging process, the documentary eligibility period began September 1, 2008 and ran through August 31, 2009, with an extension to September 31 granted to some films. Without a seven-day run in L.A. and New York during that time, a film isn’t eligible.