Sandra Harris Writes

  SPARKING JOY (WITH MARIE KONDO): 2019. A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.  © I’m coming late to the Marie Kondo party, and I was shocked to find out that her bestselling book, THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING-UP, has actually been out since 2011. I only heard of the diminutive Japanese organising consultant about two or three years ago, when my daughter suddenly started packing her favourite childhood toys and books into bin bags.   What are you doing, I asked her, not unreasonably, I think. I’m Marie Kondo-ing my room, she said, still continuing to frantically bundle her stuff into bags. She’s an expert on getting rid of clutter. She says I can only keep thirty books in total, she added, at which point my eyebrows shot up and disappeared into my hairline. Thirty books? The cheek of the woman! I keep thirty books on my nightstand in my to-be-read pile. I keep thirty books in the bathroom to read while in the bath. I take thirty books with me...

  LEAVING NEVERLAND. (2019) A DOCUMENTARY DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY DAN REED. STARRING WADE ROBSON, JAMES SAFECHUCK AND ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF MICHAEL JACKSON. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. © This is a documentary co-production between Channel 4 and HBO. It comprises two ninety-minute episodes, and it makes for shocking and powerful viewing. It’s made up of interviews with two men, Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck, who each claim that they were sexually molested as children by music superstar Michael Jackson, with whom they’d each had a long-standing friendship/relationship. The funny thing for me- not that there’s anything funny in this whole situation, mind you- is that, the week before I’d watched this film, I’d seen Martin Bashir’s interview with Jackson in the ITV 2003 film LIVING WITH MICHAEL JACKSON . Concerns raised in this film led to Jackson’s being criminally charged with several counts of child molestation in 2005, although he was found not guilty on all counts. I’d cried...