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| | | I Wanna Dance With Somebody review – doggedly formulaic Whitney Houston biopic | | by Wendy Ide Dec 31, 2022 | | The singer’s voice is mostly lip-synced, by British actor Naomi Ackie, but this by-numbers film falls well short of capturing Houston’s mega-watt appeal Given the movie-friendly trajectory of Whitney Houston’s life and career (stellar rise; glittering success; tragic fall: check!), the main surprise is that it took as long as it did for her to end up as fodder for the always-hungry music biopic industry. What’s no surprise at all, unfortunately, is that this doggedly formulaic picture struggles to capture even a fraction of the electrifying sparkle of Houston at the peak of her powers. As music mogul Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) says, having just had his comb-over blasted several feet off his balding pate by the young Whitney’s vocal range, hers was a once-in-a-generation voice. Not surprisingly, it’s predominantly Houston’s voice we hear in the film, with British actor Naomi Ackie lip-syncing pretty convincingly in the central role. But Houston was more than just that incredible voice. Her stage presence, her style, her winning charisma: it all combined into something unique. Something that Ackie only sporadically captures. Continue reading... | | | | | On my radar: Katy Hessel's cultural highlights | | by Killian Fox Dec 31, 2022 | | The art historian and broadcaster on the joys of Emma Corrin’s Orlando, and the exhibition that she has seen three times already Katy Hessel studied art history at UCL. In 2015, she launched the Instagram account @thegreatwomenartists to increase the profile of female and gender-nonconforming artists worldwide; it now has more than 300,000 followers, and she hosts a podcast of the same name. Hessel has written and presented arts documentaries for the BBC and her debut book, The Story of Art Without Men, published by Hutchinson Heinemann, celebrates female artists from the past 500 years. It has just been named Waterstones book of the year. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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