Hollywood loves a good downward spiral tragedy, especially when it involves a celebrity, real or imagined. The beautiful and talented disintegrate in full public view, from drugs, alcohol, or self-destructive behavior. We can’t look away. These stories are also Oscar-bait (look at all the nominations for A Star Is Born incarnations, or Renee Zellweger walking …
This film chronicles a flamboyant, iconic singer from his meteoric rise to superstardom in the 1970s, to hitting rock bottom from sex and drugs and rock and roll, to his triumphant comeback in the mid-1980s. Wait, is this Bohemian Rhapsody? No, this time instead Queen’s Freddie Mercury, it’s a musical biopic of pop star Elton John, …
Rami Malek, sporting one helluva set of prosthetic dentures and an array of questionable wigs, stars as Mercury, who went from Heathrow baggage handler to rock god over the course of about two decades. Directed (mostly) by Bryan Singer, who was fired from the production late in the game and replaced with Dexter Fletcher, the …
Whitney Houston was undeniably one of the biggest superstars in pop music, and inarguably one of the most talented. With a still-unmatched seven number one hits in a row, she was dazzling at her peak: gorgeous, talented, and embraced by MTV. As if she couldn’t soar any higher, she dipped her toe into Hollywood, acting …
So, if you are a college a cappella group, you can win Nationals, Worlds, then… get a job? That is the reality for the Bellas, who accomplished those feats in the original Pitch Perfect, then No. 2. Now these young ladies, suffer through their 20s with crappy jobs and/or no respect (welcome to the real …
The funny and wonderful thing about Meryl Streep is that anyone who has seen Mamma Mia knows very well that the woman has singing chops. So, when she gargles and trills and screeches through sprawling operatic notes as the titular character, we can’t help but giggle. Streep also has some killer comic timing, so she …
I was one of those that grew up associating The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond’s 1980 “Love on the Rocks” hit-spawning (but otherwise stinky) version. I knew nothing of the original 1927 film other than it was supposedly the first talkie, and (said in hushed tones) there was… blackface. Now that Neil Diamond’s film has …
I remember exactly when I heard that Amy Winehouse died, and I was pissed. No, it was not because Amy had met with what can really only be deemed an unsurprising early death (joining the “27 Club” of dead singers). It was because the death of this young woman who, by all media accounts, was …
As you may know from Dolly Parton’s famous song and children’s book, Coat of Many Colors is the story of Dolly as a young girl and the multicolored coat her mom made for her out of assorted fabric scraps. The family saw it in the same light as Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, but the kids …
At its most basic level, the deliciously entertaining family soap Empire is King Lear with a modern hip-hop/R&B soundtrack. This King is Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) a modern hip-hop mogul diagnosed with a fatal disease, suddenly forced to choose which of his three sons will inherit his business Empire Entertainment. If that weren’t hard enough …