Long before she met Galen Gentry, daddy to her baby due in September, Erica Rose was tapped by Love At First Kiss producers to give the hapless Josh a lesson in lip-locking. The second episode of the TLC reality show, which aired last week, found the 27-year-old dude in better form than in his first kiss adventure in episode one.
Apparently, Rose, who was brought in as kissing expert based on her creds with The Bachelor and Bachelor Pad, provided valuable intel. According to Yahoo!TV, "After an incredibly awkward lesson, Josh seemed to have gotten the basics down saying, 'If you’re gonna use tongue, don’t use too much, but put it in and then take it out in kind of a cat-and-mouse game, that’s kind of what I deciphered…'”
So we asked the very pregnant Rose for her exact advice.
"Just like I told Josh," she emailed from her base in Los Angeles, "Moisturize your lips. Have fresh breath and a hint of perfume/cologne. Try some head/chin grabbing. No tongue right away, but after that it's okay as long as you don't do it the whole time. Always leave them wanting more!"
Rose explained, "As often is that case in television, we filmed it during the summer of 2015, long before I was pregnant and while I was single . . . Josh, 'my student' was very sweet and genuine and appreciative and he really took my advice to heart. More than learning how to kiss, I think I also taught him how to be confident. It made me feel really proud. I didn't feel weird about it because on Bachelor Pad we had to do a kissing contest so it was good preparation."
Michael Jackson remains among the most complicated figures in pop culture history. On one hand, he’s responsible for some of the most enduring music of all time, thrilling generations with his voice and dance moves. But his later years were marred by accusations of child sexual abuse and erratic behavior, including his premature death at the age of 50.
So the new biopic Michael is a tough one to judge from a critical standpoint, not least because director Antoine Fuqua and writer John Logan have elided — perhaps temporarily — the thornier parts of Michael’s history. Instead, this film focuses on the 20-year period in which Michael (played as an adult by Michael’s nephew Jaafar Jackson) goes from the prepubescent lead singer of the Jackson 5 to one of the biggest music superstars of all time.
That choice puts an overly sympathetic tint to Michael’s story, as he spends most of that time under the thumb of his domineering father, Joseph (Colman Domingo). Joseph has a vision for Michael and his brothers, and he pushes them hard in a quest to become rich and famous. Even when they achieve that goal, though, Joseph refuses to let up, holding onto Michael even when it’s clear he should go out on his own.
As a reminder of the enormous impact Michael Jackson had on the music industry and world at large, the film is successful. Fuqua and Logan include plenty of music, naturally, but they seem to be most interested in depicting Michael as a human being. They lay it on thick, whether it’s showing him spending time among his family members away from the stage, hanging out with bodyguard Bill Bray (KeiLyn Durrel Jones), or visiting sick kids in hospitals. The message that Michael is a harmless, good person couldn’t be clearer.
The film hints at but doesn’t really explore Michael’s oddities. His obsession with kids literature and movies, especially Peter Pan, are seen as inoffensive quirks, as is his menagerie of animals, including a creepy CGI version of Bubbles the chimp. His arrested development seems to be partially blamed on his parents treating him like a child well into his adulthood, and the resulting fallout is not (yet) addressed.
Many viewers will be most interested in the music sequences, and — save for some repetitive shots of fans fainting at the mere presence of Michael — they are handled well. Whether it’s at home, in the studio, on the set of the “Thriller” video, or at live performances, the film manages to fully get across just what a phenomenon Michael was at his peak. The staging and editing of each scene is dynamic, complementing Michael’s other-worldly abilities well.
If there is one reason to see the film, it is the performance of Jaafar Jackson. Whether he’s capable of doing any other kind of role is undetermined, but his portrayal of his uncle is compelling, as he demonstrates singing, dancing, and acting skills in equal measure. He’s aided by an equally great performance by Domingo, who — with the help of facial prosthetics — overcomes the trope of the bad father. Nia Long and Larenz Tate are also good in smaller roles, but Miles Teller is an odd presence as Michael’s manager.
There are reports that legal complications prevented the filmmakers from using previously-shot scenes delving into accusations against Michael, and there are rumors that a second film will be made about the last 20 years of his life. But that speculation can’t absolve Michael of showing all the positive aspects of Michael Jackson’s life and not even touching any of the negative ones.
