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Yes, I know it's huge. You think something so large could be that way BY ACCIDENT?

At 12:01am on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, the lights dimmed at the Clelsea Cinemas Auditorium #7, as it did in 18,000 theatres across 97 countries today, and Michael Jackson's This Is It debuted for its limited two-week run. Of course, I had to be among the first to take it in, so there I was at Chelsea. I've been asked a lot to relate what the eperience was like for me, so here is my best stab at it.

Having gone into the film "well-medicated" (shout-out to the Texas-size margarita at BBQ's across the street) and not really knowing what to expect, either from the film or from myself, I just numbly walked in and found seats in the packed (but not to the rafters) theatre. I needed to hunt down a T-shirt, so i went back out into the theatre lobby where the Thriller video was playing on a large screen and a few "dancers" were awkwardly trying to replicate the choreography. It was out here that I ran into my compatriot DJ YGB, and I expected we'd sit together (but alas were separated). In any event, the energy was both parts somber and celebratory, probably leaning a bit more toward the former than the latter. So I get my t-shirt, and I slip back into the theatre just as the lights are going down.

As a student of the documentary form, I'm used to more information coming aross from this type of film. That a story, be it an individual (Michael's) or collective (the entire company's) one, a story will be told. At the beginning, This Is It started off satisfying those expectations by talking to some of the (so damn YOUNG!) dancers who had been selected to perform with him; it felt good.

And then...there he was.

Michael was launching into his rehearsal of Wanna Be Startin' Somethin.' I expected to gasp, to tear up, to break out into screams of joy or...whatever, but I didn't. We applauded in the theatre, but it was a tentative applause. It remained that way through the night. ("I don't know whether...to laugh or cry..." "She's Out of My Life")

For the next hour and 52 minutes, we watched Michael work. And work. And work. And he was phenomenal, but wasn't he always? Any idea that he was a weak, sickly, drug-addled near-invalid are dispensed with by the 5-minute mark. And then there is MORE footage of Michael working. And he is a wonder to watch, but I'll be honest: I expected nothing less. Michael has always been the master of his own house, and during rehearsals, the Staples Center was Michael's House. Nothing groundbreaking there.

I was also a bit disappointed in the set list. See, I have seen (and retain DVD copies of) all of Michael's tours dating back from the late 70s. While they have steadily grown in size and scale, the song lists themselves never evolved too far from the Victory Tour/Bad Tour formula (which was an phenomenal one).

One thing I always wished was that he would draw deeper from his immense body of work and shake up his set lists a bit more.

After I bought my ticket to see the first show in London, us ticket buyers were sent a link by AEG to submit suggested songs for his set list, and that MJ would make selections form the (millions of) suggestions received. I chose some phenomenal ones I haven't heard him do a gazillion times (I Can't Help It, The Lady In My Life, etc.) as well as th ehits, and was hopeful tha I'd be surprised when I got to London. I don't know if that was a stunt or what, but his order of songs felt like it wouldn't be much of a deviation from his HIStory tour in 1995. I would have loved to see him preparing to strip-down all the bells, whistles and pyrotechnics, sit on a stool, and absolutely open up his heart and serenade us with One Day In Your Life or something similarly underplayed. Judging from This Is It, that wasn't the plan. Michael was going to be Michael.

And MICHAEL he was. One thing was clear: he was going to kick the effects spectacular aspect of the show up to a level we had never seen before. At Chelsea where I viewed it, the audience GASPED at points where we saw reveals of some of the special effects he had planned. It was going to be extraordinary. As far as all the repeated mantras of "Michael Jackson set out to prove he still had it," and the like; I find these to be non-statements. Of course Michael "still had it." His true believers never concluded he had lost anything. If you needed This Is It to show you that, it's a reflection of your miscalculation of his "decline," not of any extraordinary action on Michael's part during these rehearsals. He was the Michael Jackson he's always been: focused, engaged, soft-spoken yet firmly in charge, apt to the artist's habit of metaphor, and, of course, a singular talent that is ONLY Michael Jackson. The brightest light I have ever seen.

And then it was over. Before I knew what had hit me, the credits were rolling. No situating the rehearsals against the now-too-keenly-known fact of his death. No "after words" with the cast/crew. Just rolling credits. I felt like that left a feeling of something "unresolved." As soon as that word came to mind for me, I immediately believed that this had to be a deliberate choice. It should have been left unresolved. Michael's life was left unresolved.

For all the talk (especially in that endlesly rebroadcast clip of Michael's April press conference) of this being Michael's "final curtain call," it hurt me somewhat when I realized that he didn't literally get a curtain call in This Is it - the planned London live shows or, as it turns out, this documentary. He never got to take a bow.

NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF THIS IS IT