I Wanna Dance with Somebody: Celebratory

I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for drug use, profanity and emotional abuse

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Film biographies live or die on the basis of the starring performance, and Naomi Ackie is by far this project’s strongest asset (although, in fairness, she’s surrounded by an equally strong supporting cast).

 

As her career explodes, and she finds herself surrounded by an increasing number of
"takers," Whitney Houston (Naomi Ackie) knows that she always can trust
Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) to look out for her best interests.

Ackie persuasively runs the complex emotional arc of Whitney Houston’s tempestuous — and tragically brief — career: modest ingénue; giddy breakthrough artist; savvy judge of what works best; regal diva; betrayed daughter; out-of-control mega-celebrity, blind to the way in which she’s torching her own brand; and, ultimately, wan and emaciated substance abuser.

During the best and brightest moments, Ackie’s mimicry is almost eerie: the warmly radiant smile; the shrewd, theatrical hand gestures and body language; and — most crucially — the sheer magnetic presence this woman displayed, both on stage and during quieter moments. She lights up an otherwise quiet room, sucks all the air out of a massive, sold-out theater.

 

What Ackie does not do, however, is sing; she lip-synchs everything to Houston’s actual vocals. (It is, credit where due, extremely convincing lip-synching.)

 

This, perhaps, is the most visible example of the compromises, omissions and tread-very-carefully decisions that director Kasi Lemmons and scripter Anthony McCarten were forced to make, every step of the way: both in order to please the many surviving associates and family members, and to avoid potential defamation lawsuits.

 

This is most obvious during McCarten’s “softening” of Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), and the ludicrously restrained manner in which the film deals with his abusive behavior during their 14-year train wreck of a marriage.

 

On the other hand — and no doubt a reflection of our more enlightened times — McCarten’s depiction of Houston’s bisexuality is refreshingly frank, along with her long, complex relationship with best friend (and eventually executive assistant) Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams). 

 

Their flirty, meet-cute connection, as young women, is one of this film’s many pleasures. Williams is similarly excellent as the effervescent lover turned steadfast, truth-telling watchdog, as Whitney’s career ascends and then heads into troubled waters. Robyn’s feisty, take-no-prisoners loyalty cracks only briefly, when the necessity of a heterosexual “image” derails any chance of a longstanding romantic relationship.

 

Robyn’s crestfallen expression — and rage — are heartbreaking, when this moment of truth arrives.

Da 5 Bloods: A powerful statement

Da 5 Bloods (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong violence, grisly images and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.26.20

Movie serendipity can be spooky at times.

Back in the spring of 1979, The China Syndrome hit theaters just 12 days prior to Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island almost-a-catastrophe.

Sheer chance has brought them to the right spot: As David (Jonathan Majors, far right)
watches quietly, his companions — from left, Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), Eddie
(Norm Lewis), Paul (Delroy Lindo) and Otis (Clarke Peters) — find evidence of their
long-ago fallen comrade.

And now, director Spike Lee’s savagely compelling new drama, Da 5 Bloods, debuted on Netflix June 12, not quite three weeks after the callous murder of George Floyd ignited a justifiably enraged movement that shows no sign of slowing. Lee’s message couldn’t be more timely.

His film warrants such enhanced attention. And then some.

Da 5 Bloods — co-scripted by Lee, Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo and Kevin Willmott — finds the reliably passionate filmmaker once again in the infuriated mode that characterized his early career. This isn’t a slyly sarcastic (and fact-based) jab at racist buffoons akin to 2018’s BlacKkKlansman; Da 5 Bloods is a bleak, intensely angry rage-against-the-man diatribe, with a slice of magic realism.

And, yes, a few winks and nods to classic Hollywood. Let’s call it a Vietnam parable by way of 1948’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The setting and character dynamics may be different, but the message is identical: Greed destroys.

African-American Vietnam veterans Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis) and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) haven’t been too successful, since returning to the world. They’re broken men, beaten down by grief, illness, addiction, financial ruin and divorce. And by regret and shame, knowing that — decades earlier — they were forced to abandon their fallen squad leader, known as Stormin’ Norman.

Haunted ever since by this failure (“Leave no man behind!”), they’ve returned to Vietnam, determined to find, and bring home, their former comrade’s remains.

As it happens, though, their motives aren’t entirely pure. Back in the day — shortly before Norman’s death — the squad was tasked by the CIA to deliver a chest of gold bars to the indigenous Vietnamese who were helping the American war effort. But Norman — passionate about his own people, back home — proposed they bury the gold until they could later reclaim it for the benefit of their own communities.