O. V.

First, in order to fully capture the essence of an artist, it takes color, feeling, fluidity, movement, emotion. Secondly, A biopic is a moment, a photo, an intimacy, a closer look at a life otherwise unknown to the audience. Third, it must be carried out with devotion, beauty, and a commitment to the person being portrayed. Now, GENIUS: Cynthia Erivo did NOT portray ANY of the aforementioned traits of a fine artist embodying one if the greatest legends of all time. As other reviewers have stated, she is STOIC throughout the series; her verbal expressions are MONOTONOUS, even when something exciting happens, both her facial and verbal tones are the same, limited in feeling and tone. As others, I waited for this to change. It didn’t. I think she was a poor choice for such an iconic portrayal. Acting, on this level, is NOT her forte. The flashbacks in the film are more noticeable as the series moves past episode 3; they are more distracting, I should say, and lead to confusion. It’s hard to follow a storyline when it’s imbalanced (which can carry its own beauty with the right script and actor). I think there were a lot of unknown stories fighting fo be revealed in this series. The writer tried to tie in Arethas current scenes with her past life. In some scenes, it worked. In others, it failed. Overall, Erivo hurt this movie more than helped. She could have saved the script. But failed. Cortney B. Vance played his role well. Tonya Banks was AMAZING, natural. You’ll want to follow her everywhere she goes, for the limited times you see her. RESPECT: the movie. The complete opposite of Erivo, Jennifer Hudson gives us emotion and FEELING throughout the film. We see and feel her painful moments, joyous occasions, and development as a woman. She nailed it there. The second half of the movie focuses more on her relationship with Ted White, perhaps because of its volatile nature. Yet, it’s tough knowing if this relationship is one Aretha, herself, would have highlighted as much in the story of her life. Unlike Genius, RESPECT didn’t try to pack all the knowledge/hearsay of Aretha’s life by overloading it. It eased into her life, although there’s bound to be missing pieces in it. The writer chose what was important or what s/he felt would be important to the viewer and stayed there versus muddling the movie with excessive flashbacks. In BOTH, neither really echoed the voice of the Queen of Soul. In that sense, it felt like they wanted to toot their own horn. I get it. At the same time, that’s what we are here for, to have some resemblance of Aretha in their voices. On that note, they missed the mark. Cynthia Erivo more so than Hudson, and miserably. All in all, black and brown people need to be seen on screen more. So my hat is off to both these women for playing the part.

“Silent Twins” is beautiful. Its like floating on a pallet throughout the inner, mysterious, breath-taking world of June and Jennifer Gibbons. When you start watching, you can’t turn away, because of the mysterious kaleidoscope of events and the incredible soundtrack. I can’t describe it. “We Two We’re One” is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. I was very surprised to see that this movie received 69% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you don’t like this movie, you probably read (predictable) commercial fiction, want everything in life to be clear, and don’t understand (nor try to) worlds that are unique, diverse, and bear extraordinary, yet real, lives. I’m going to buy this. I was surprised to discover that it was based on a true story. The actors, the cinematography, the soundtrack, all beautiful.