My latest MSN DVD column is up, in which I find the experience of watching “Michael Jackson: This Is It” to be rather different from what I expected.

I mean, whatever your feelings about the performer — I tend towards “nutbar”, myself — the rehearsal footage that makes up most of Kenny Ortega’s memorial document may surprise you.

This is the first time we’ve been able to glimpse Jackson without his media mask in more than a decade; even in those court appearances, he was surrounded by his entourage, and the stuff he blurted to the cameras just seemed weird. Here, he’s a man trying to put together a stage show, putting aside most of his illusions to concentrate on the work.

It’s fascinating. And what’s more fascinating is the certainty that if Jackson had lived to see this movie, he’d probably be trying to suppress it, or bathe it in glitter, or something. The man was complicated.