Our film fanatic tells us why we need to see Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody at the cinema.
New film releases have been a bit thin on the ground, given the dominance of 'Avatar : The Way Of Water' over the festive period. I will get round to watching it in the next couple of weeks, but the hefty duration time of 192 minutes has put me off so far, I must admit.
In the past, I've written about good films that you can watch in 90 minutes, so this is something of a contrast! It is on course to become one of the biggest grossing films ever though, so is obviously doing something right.
In fact, the original Avatar from 2009 is the biggest film of all time already! There's surely a case for bringing back intermissions if the running time exceeds an hour and a half.
My recommendation this week is the Whitney Houston film 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody', starring Naomi Ackie as 'The Voice'.
It's not exactly set the Christmas puddings alight in America, which has partly been blamed on the release date, when most Whitney fans might have been either doing their festive shopping or sheltering from the storms that have battered many US states. I hope it finds its audience in the UK, as it richly deserves one.
My wife Sofia and I attended a fairly busy screening whilst on a visit to Harrogate, at the rather lovely Everyman cinema. Plush sofas, a mojito to accompany the movie, and three course meals being delivered to some of the three piece suites (not ours, I hasten to add...we had a carvery en route...I'm a thrifty Yorkshireman, after all!).
Legendary record producer Clive Davis (played well here by Stanley Tucci) and Houston's sister-in-law Pat Houston produced the film, which chronicles Whitney's meteoric rise to fame, her tough upbringing, and her struggles with addiction. It's interesting to note on Rotten Tomatoes that the audience score tops 90%, whilst the critics' score is a mere 43%. I'm with the ordinary moviegoers, as I really loved this film, and would happily watch it again.
Naomi Ackie is just superb, and whilst some have said a bigger name should have been used, I disagree. She gets the mannerisms and vocals just right, on some seriously big songs that are not easy to pull off. You may know most of the story, but that didn't detract from the enjoyment for me at all.
Much like watching Amy, you can't help leaving the cinema feeling really sad that someone so talented was taken from the world so young. Whitney was only 48, and I'm sure had so much left to give. If you don't fancy spending three hours underwater watching Avatar, give this a go. Even if you're not a Whitney fan, it's a well told story, a decent cast, and in spite of being almost two and a half hours long, whizzed by.
Next up for me, Tom Hanks in A Man Named Otto, after I've first rewatched the original Finnish film A Man Called Ove. Happy film watching!
