The tape deck in my mom’s forest green Ford Aerostar minivan ate a tape and never spit it out, so I spent my childhood listening to one album and one album only in the car: The Bodyguard soundtrack. Whitney Houston was no stranger to us at home either. I think my Mom had all her CDs, and our home was almost never without music, and therefore, rarely without an impromptu dance and singalong. It was very exciting when the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack came out but much less exciting when the movie did; my mother and I rented it from the local Blockbuster, not understanding what we were getting ourselves into. Sex scenes go on forever when you’re a kid watching them with your mom. FOREVER. Some part of me is still on that sectional sofa in our basement, stiffly watching, rapt, but trying to seem uninterested, and maybe a touch confused, for my mother’s benefit. And some part of her is still there too, trying to breathe normally and appear blase while secretly inching her hand toward the fast forward button on the remote.
Anyway. Whitney Houston. A luminescent talent that captured the whole world’s attention. She was a model, a singer, an actress, and an undeniably massive talent. But despite her fresh and innocent image, her success was often eclipsed by damaging headlines. Her marriage to Bobby Brown being a big one. And her drug use an unfortunate other.
This documentary explores the highest highs and lowest lows of her life and career. Featuring archival footage of Houston herself and lots of interviews with friends and family and those who knew her best, the message is often complicated and conflicting. Did she have a hard childhood? Yes and no. Her mother was also a professional singer who groomed her for a career in the industry. She proudly sang in the choir of her church – where her mother had an affair with the pastor, ultimately causing the collapse of her marriage and Whitney’s parents divorced, leaving her devastated. Whitney director Kevin Macdonald manages to find new ground, and to probe beyond the headlines.
There’s rare concert footage and resurrected recordings and plenty of joy, but the whole thing still feels a bit macabre. In life, her increasingly erratic behaviour tainted her image and her downfall felt, if not inevitable, then at least unsurprising. It’s a painful reminder of how little it takes to extinguish even the brightest of lights.
It is a good thing that Disney did not try to stick a Frozen short in front of Episode XIII, which weighs in at a hefty 2 hour and 33 minutes not including ads and previews. It doesn’t help that much of that time is spent watching Poe Dameron try really, really hard to learn a fairly simple lesson. Poe got it on what by my count was the fourth try, during a battle that took me by surprise because I expected the movie to have ended before that fight even started!
House and was part of the Curtain Pullers children’s theatre program. He was briefly at Ohio University but war intervened (well, war, and the fact that he dented the president’s car with a beer keg). He enrolled at the Navy pilot training program at Yale but was kicked out when his colourblindness was discovered. He went on to serve in the Navy as a radioman and rear gunner. He likely would have died in the war but for the fact that on the day his unit was attacked and killed by a kamikaze pilot, his own pilot was grounded due to an ear infection. Back home, he completed his degree in drama and economics. He toured with summer stock theatre programs before putting in a year at the Yale School of Drama, which he ultimately left to go to NYC to study acting under Lee Strasberg at the famous Actors Studio.
obviously sounds like something I need to see. In 1954 he appeared in a screen test with James Dean for East of Eden, testing for the part of Aron Trask, the fraternal twin of Dean’s character, Cal. Dean won his part but Newman lost out to Richard Davalos. Even though it wasn’t successful, it would be fateful. That same year, Newman co-starred with Eva Marie Saint and Frank Sinatra in a live (and in colour!) television broadcast of Our Town – Newman was a last-minute replacement for none other than James Dean. Newman’s name would often come up for Dean’s roles. The roles of Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun and Rocky in Somebody Up There Likes Me were both ear-marked for Dean but went to Newman after James Dean died in a car crash. Although Newman’s first film for Hollywood was in 1954 for The Silver Chalice, it was a flop and he often talked about his dislike for it (he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it!). But just two years later Somebody Up There Likes Me was earning him acclaim and in 1958 he earned his first Oscar nomination, for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Also that year he starred in The Long, Hot Summer with Joanne Woodward for which he won Best Actor at Cannes but perhaps more importantly, he won the heart of the woman he would love for the rest of his life.
organizations; scholarships; theatre endeavors; a residential camp which he co-founded called Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, named for the gang in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid naturally where 13 000 kids are served free of charge every year; and another of his bright ideas, the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, which encourages CEOs of big companies to commit to charities – now responsible for $10 billion in corporate giving annually. Jeezum. So it’s not exactly surprising that Givingback.org would name him the Most Generous Celebrity of 2008; even since his death his foundations continue to generate good around the world.
Film as a medium is almost infinitely flexible, universal and personal at the same time. Film is capable of so much emotion and yet it’s also capable of conveying the complete absence of it. Beauty or lack of it. Terror or peace. And, as A Ghost Story proves beyond any doubt, film can make you feel so fucking uncomfortable and voyeuristic that you would give anything for the director to just yell “cut” already!
Terrorists are despicable. They take lives or limbs and create chaos and fear, sometimes in support of twisted ideology, sometimes just for kicks, and always demonstrate a complete lack of humanity. Sensational as their actions are, what deserves recognition are not the acts themselves, but the responses by the terrorists’ targets.
far away
unfamiliar with the Star Wars franchise for most of my life, she was a writer and a funny lady. She penned the semi-autobiographic Postcards From The Edge (and later, its screenplay) about her drug addiction and her relationship with her mother, Debbie Reynolds. She was also a notorious script doctor, doing uncredited polishes on other people’s scripts, including the Star Wars prequels, Hook, Sister Act, Outbreak, The Wedding Singer, Coyote Ugly, and Mr & Mrs Smith.
her character and her “cinnamon bun” hair style, but she clearly also has respect for the films and their fans. She recently completed work on Episode 8 and was slated to begin filming for Episode 9 this spring. No telling how they’ll treat her death in the films but safe to say it’s a blow for them as it is for us.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 