Los Angeles–In a news released sent out from The Associated Press this afternoon, it was reported that Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff has granted Jackson’s 79-year old mother permanent custody of her three grandchildren.

Beckloff listened to objections from Michael Jackson’s dermatologist and Dr. Arnold Klein. After doing so, awarded custody to the grandmother along with a monthly stipend.

Things also look favorable for Jackson’s mother in her attempt to seek executive control of the Jackson estate.

Beckloff is considering whether she can take on this task and supersede the two men who are administering her son’s estate.
“Court filings show that attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain have already received millions of dollars of the singer’s money, property and a life insurance payout,” Fox news reported.

“According to Jackson’s 2002 will, 40 percent of his estate goes to Katherine Jackson, 40 percent goes to the children, and 20 percent goes to various charities.”

A Tulsa Today Special Review

There were many highpoints and some low points to this night of music industry heavyweights that blew into town on Thursday night.

“Blew” may be the right choice of words as the sets were not very long at all, both ZZ and Aerosmith only played for just over an hour.  Considering the bill, this show could have easily lasted around 4 hours, with two hours for each performer.

Although highly entertaining, it did seem a little short.

Especially after reports from “Live Daily” stated that Aerosmith would be doing a set that included the entire “Toys in the Attic” album.
The show, which was sponsored by Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, was kicked off by two local teens that came to the stage to play the game in front of a massive crowd.
In what had to be a huge thrill for them to play in front of such an audience, they ripped through “Rag Doll” as if playing the song for real, complete with over the head guitar work and Joe Perry-esique theatrics.

After a short intermission, the stage gave way to a stripped down look as the lights went out to thunderous ovation as ZZ Top took the stage.

The “Lil’ Ol’ Band from Texas” kicked into “Under Pressure” complete with synchronized movement from Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill.

Nothing against the Top’s stint, which included staples such as "Gimme All Your Lovin’," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Cheap Sunglasses" and "Legs."

But it’s clear these veteran rockers belong making groove-heavy blues-rock for the fans, not MTV where they gained fans in the ’80s and ’90s.

The group which worked with Jimi Hendrix in the early part of their career did a great cover of “Foxy Lady.”

Gibbons shined on guitar as usual, still one of the best and most underrated guitarist working today.

A good set, but they did leave the audience wanting for more as they left the stage without an encore.

This may have been due to the band having just been here to open up the new Spirit Bank Event Center less than a year ago.

In contrast, it has been over 20 years since Aerosmith has played Tulsa.  In a set up that lasted about an hour and featured a large curtain with the bands logo on it, the crowd began to cheer from behind the stage area, as the band started onto the stage.

With the house lights still up, you could hear guitar chords and drums being struck. Still, there was no darkness in the venue.

It wasn’t until the first drum kick and lick of “Eat the Rich” started that the lights went out.  The curtain actually fell before, it seemed to me, the BOK was ready for them to start.  Which only looks to have added to the haste in which the Boys from Boston wanted to play and go.

One person made comment that the show “seemed like a drive by.”

Meaning that this was not a particularly large venue and they were ready to move on to a more elaborate place to play.

There wasn’t a great deal of audience interaction from Steven Tyler as you would have expected there to be.  Noticeably absent was bassist Tom Hamilton, who is still recovering from surgery.

Guitarist Joe Perry did make mention that he was “doing very well and that they spoke with him everyday.”

David Hull did fill in very well and had a scorching bass solo of sorts that was a stand out of the evening.  Song highlights included, “Dream On” in which Tyler stood on the stage’s catwalk as a fan blew his hair and a wall of steam rose up from the floor.

“Love in an Elevator” was given an added theatric boost as light rigs and a LED screen rose and fell throughout that song as though they were, well elevators.  A very cool effect.

The evening was, as I said entertaining, but like Jerry Seinfeld, left us wanting more.  Only one encore song and they were gone as quickly as they came.

Hopefully, it will not be another 20 plus years to make it back to share another 90 minutes with Tulsa.

About the writer:
Ernie Osborn is a California transplant that has been around the music business much of his life. He has been in bands and currently plays guitar and sings when called upon to do so. 

Moon
United Kingdom, 2009
Directed By: Duncan Jones
Written By: Duncan Jones, Nathan Parker
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Robin Chalk, Kevin Spacey
Running Time: 97 min.
Rated R for language
4.5 out of 5 stars

It’s not difficult to imagine that if Moon had been a Hollywood production, it would have been a very, very different film.  It’s “science fiction” in the traditional sense — i.e., it’s fiction about science.
You won’t see any giant robots, any cities getting leveled, or even any CGI to speak of.  What you will see is a haunting meditation on identity, technology, overpopulation, mankind, and the economic engine that drives all of us — and its devastating consequences to the individual.

In Moon, the surface of the titular satellite — a harsh, barren wasteland — swallows the screen and consumes the thoughts of director Duncan Jones.

What was once a triumphant symbol of the boundless achievement potential of mankind has here become a haunting metaphor for loneliness, disassociation and Marxist alienation.

The premise Jones presents us with is simple: the earth has run out of energy, and the moon has been found to possess an isotope that can supply as much as 70% of its power.

Lunar Industries, LLC, a for-profit organization, has established a base on its dark side in order to extract it. The base has a crew of one — and each crew member signs on to three full years of solitude.

Moon is a small, claustrophobic film with relatively modest ambitions (especially given its genre), and the story unfolds so perfectly and delicately that I’m terribly scared of giving anything away by summarizing it (much of the story’s power relies on an element of mystery).

The outside world is never seen (not counting an television ad for Lunar Industries that opens the film), and we are with crewman Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) throughout the hour-and-a-half running time (giving the film, depending on how you count, a cast of one).

We catch up with him just as he’s weeks away from completing his tour of duty, and we stay with him as he’s forced to come to terms with truths that are not entirely comfortable.

Like most independent films, Moon has an extremely tiny budget — about $5 million U.S. — but like the best independent films, it allows this to work for it.

The moon base Sam inhabits is a squalid, disorganized shack that puts the lie to whatever utopian visions others might have for the future.

The lunar vehicles roving the moon’s surface outside are represented by models, not the whiz-bang computer graphics that almost any other director would have chosen to use.

These are ugly, drab things without any flash — machines of industry, harsh realities and nothing more. Moon, in a sense, is a beautifully shot film — but you won’t find any eye candy here.

This is appropriate, because Moon is a film that, like the best science fiction, isn’t really about “the future.”

It’s about humanity — past, future, present — and the economic reality that one human being is always stepping on another in order to make a buck — no “advancement” comes without a price.

It’s quite telling that the film’s one non-human character, a robot named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) turns out to be its most “human” character.

Jones has taken the now-archetypical character of HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and stood it on its head — a clever stylistic decision, certainly, but also a thought-provoking one.

The evolutionary process and human spirit that are so worshipped in Kubrick’s film are here shown to lead in circles and to dead ends — not because of evil or error, but simply because that is their nature.

As we as a species strive to “advance” — economically, technologically, etc. — it seems we always end up paying a price with part of our humanity — in every sense of the word.

There is much to ponder in Moon — much that I wish I could probe into here — but to go into it here would do the film a disservice. See it for yourself, and then decide exactly what “humanity” is.

Moon is currently showing at AMC Southroads. Click here for showtimes To view the movie trailer, click here.

Luke Harrington is a film critic, editor for MovieZeal.com, freelance writer and English major extraordinaire who currently resides in Tulsa. Contact him at luke.t.harrington@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .