Sasha Barbagat

It's nice, easy listening and it's good for the soul.

Chief Entertainment Reporter for The Briefing.

The latest Hollywood biopic has hit the big screen this week and it's got a lot of people talking.

The highly anticipated film Michael, all about Michael Jackson, had a blockbuster opening weekend here in Australia.

In fact, it was the highest opening for a musical biopic in Aussie box office history, making just shy of $8 million.

But despite the early success, it's also being widely penned by critics for a lot of reasons, including that it glosses over key controversies in the singer's complicated and closely followed life.

So let's get into the good, the bad and the ugly of Michael with the streaming services, Justin Hill.

I'm renaming you to Chief... Sorry, no, the Briefing's Chief Entertainment Reporter.

Oh, great, love that.

Of course, and host of the streaming service.

It comes with a raise, right?

My people will talk to your people.

Welcome back.

The fact this movie has been made at all feels a little bit controversial.

Maybe it's just to me, but when I first kind of saw a trailer for it, which was very recently, might I add, only a couple of weeks ago, I went...

Huh.

Okay.

What's the reaction been broadly to its release?

Yeah, okay, and we'll get into kind of whether it was sanitised or not a little bit later, but I want to talk about the plot more generally.

What part of Michael's life is it actually covering?