Bohemian Rhapsody, Ray, What’s Love Got to Do With It, or Walk The Line, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is not. Kasi Lemmons’s (Harriet, Talk to Me) is not even on the same level as this year’s disappointing Elvis. Naomi Ackie (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Lady Macbeth) did not encompass the legendary Whitney Houston nearly as well as Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Jamie Foxx (Ray), Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line), Angela Bassett (Angela Bassett) or Angela Bassett (Elvis). Under the right direction and with the right lead, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody should have at least been a lock for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
Continue reading Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)
More often than not, movies that attempt to capitalize on the tragedy of real-life events have mountains to climb over that other movies don’t even have to navigate. The greater the tragedy (at least when it comes to the loss of human life), the closer the attempt to reap any profit from the tragedy through music, literature, art, film, or other types of storytelling expression to the actual event itself presents an even steeper cliff to escalate.
There are several ways to begin the review for Spotlight. Let’s talk about the cast (quite the ensemble cast of the year). I could talk about the hypocrisy that is organized religion. I will mention both of these in this post. However, I will begin with the old-fashioned newspaper reporting that was once our primary source of reliable news. In many ways, it is unfortunate that newspapers are no longer what they used to be, nor will they ever be again. With the invention of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before most newspapers folded, while others had to majorly trim their staff, editions, and the number of pages produced with each issue. Where will The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The New York Times be in 20 years? Well, if the changes in the previous 20 years are any indication, these newspapers will not even be around in 20 years. If they are, they might be entirely electronically based. There will still be a place for prominent metropolitan newspapers, but it will not be in the print variety. There are still things that interest me in the Washington, D.C. area that can only be fully addressed in a publication like The Washington Post. Still, I haven’t purchased a physical newspaper in over a decade and only read one if I happen to see it sitting at a bar while eating dinner, in the school library, or elsewhere.
I suspended my beliefs at the door when I stepped into the theater to see Francis Lawrence’s (I Am Legend, Water For Elephants) sequel to The Hunger Games. I couldn’t do this for the first movie and was dissatisfied. I wanted the film to be more of a survival movie and less a fantasy/science fiction movie. When I wasn’t able to do that, I just started to question everything that was happening. I liked The Hunger Games but did not love it. I liked it enough to continue with the franchise, though. Every successful fantasy book franchise is being made into a movie these days. I have never read a word of a book or seen a second of the film in either the Harry Potter or Twilight series. I get the cult-like following to both of these movies, though. I do understand how you can be engrossed in a franchise like this. I have not read, nor will I read, any of The Hunger Game books, but I will continue to see the movies, even though I am upset about the franchise’s finale Mockingjay, split up into two movies. I am also lukewarm about the Insurgent franchise coming to the theaters. They showed a trailer for the first Insurgent movies before Catching Fire, and I was disappointed to see Kate Winslet on the screen. In these movies, you don’t need superstars outside the main character or two.