Movie Review

Music of Whitney Houston shines through the dark in I Wanna Dance with Somebody

The nature of celebrity is that certain people can be made to feel larger than life, and few people have had more fame in their lifetime than Whitney Houston. Despite being the daughter, cousin, and wife to three other well-known singers, she overshadowed them all with her nearly unmatched voice and success in both music and movies.

The new biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a valiant attempt to detail her legendary career, as well as the behind-the-scenes drama that occasionally made its way to the public. The film begins with Houston (Naomie Ackie) on the cusp of the start of her career, still singing in her home church in New Jersey. When her mom, Cissy (Tamara Tunie), arranges for Whitney to sing in front of record executive Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci), it’s off to the races.

The film, directed by Kasi Lemmons and written by Anthony McCarten, proceeds to go through all the highs and lows of both her professional and personal life. On the professional side, that includes her seven straight No. 1 songs in the 1980s, her iconic version of the Star-Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl, her starring turn in The Bodyguard, and many more.

On the personal side, it shows her dealing with her highly involved parents, her tempestuous relationship and marriage with Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), and, in a slightly surprising turn, her relationship with longtime friend Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams). The film doesn’t tiptoe around the idea that Whitney and Robyn were more than friends, showing them romantically involved early in the film and positioning Robyn as her constant companion, even when Whitney gets involved with men.

The film is clearly at its best when it’s about the professional part of Whitney’s life, giving fun and interesting details about Whitney’s bond with Davis and showing the near-faultless beginning to her career. Her hits remain as timeless as ever, and Lemmons showcases them well, whether in live performances, recording sessions, or music video re-creations. It can sometimes be difficult to track where the film is in time, but it gives enough signposts to keep that part legible.

Lemmons and her team also do an impressive job of making Ackie’s lip-synching to Houston’s songs feel authentic. They put her in a variety of different environments – at a nightclub, in a recording booth, at different concerts – and each time it truly feels like Ackie is doing the singing even if you intellectually know that the voice you’re hearing is that of Houston.

The struggles come when trying to come to grips with her personal life. Because there is so much to cover in her career, a lot of things get short shrift. Anyone who paid attention to her during that time knows her marriage to Brown was made for the tabloids (and reality TV), but the film makes a halfhearted attempt at digging into them. Also, because it’s a PG-13 movie, it only hints at her extensive drug use, a tactic that feels designed to sugarcoat something that would ultimately be her demise.

In fact, in a way the film could be interpreted as a corrective to the 2018 documentary Whitney, which was almost unrelentingly dark, rarely allowing her music to stand on its own. This film may have gone a little too far in the opposite direction, but it seems clear that the filmmakers – which include Whitney’s sister-in-law Pat Houston and Clive Davis as producers – wanted to ensure her music was acknowledged for its greatness.

Photo by Emily Aragones

Naomie Ackie in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody.

Ackie, though she doesn’t particularly look or sound like Houston, does a great job in the part. She hits all the big moments and gives the right amount of feeling to the smaller ones. Williams plays the least familiar person in the film, but she makes her into someone as important to the story as anyone else. Tucci’s performance offers a window into someone who most people only know from his signature glasses.

I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a toned-down version of the warts-and-all music biopic, but as a reminder of what a great singer Whitney Houston was, it works extremely well. There aren’t many surprises to be had in the film, but with a life as public as hers, that’s to be expected.

---

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody opens in theaters on December 23.

movies music film

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."