June is African-American Music Appreciation Month — Black Music Month, as President Barack Obama officially shortened it in 2009 — and digital television channel Bounce TV, as well as its streaming-platform arm Brown Sugar, is celebrating the month with a bevy of films and documentaries.
Houston's own Beyoncé Knowles Carter will be featured in two such productions.
Over at Bounce, you can see her in Cadillac Records, the 2008 biopic on legendary Chicago blues label Chess Records. She plays Etta James, while Mos Def takes on Chuck Berry and Jeffrey Wright assumes the role of Muddy Waters. (The movie will air on these days and times.)
Meanwhile, on Brown Sugar, you can also see Beyoncé: On Top, the hour-long, 2018 doc that chronicles her rise from Houston girl to Destiny's Child frontwoman to the all-powerful Queen Bey.
Bounce TV will also show the 1978 musical The Wiz, starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross; the 2005 Dirty South rap drama Hustle & Flow, starring Terrence Howard; Idlewild, that 2006 musical starring Big Boi and Andre 3000 from OutKast; and the 1992 inner-city drama Juice, starring the late, great Tupac Shakur.
And, on Brown Sugar (which will be free to anyone accessing the service through Xfinity X1 from June 15-21), look for documentaries and concert films featuring such icons as Michael Jackson, Prince, Al Green, Rihanna, and gospel legend Mahalia Jackson.
For more information, visit the Bounce TV site here.
A variety of actors have had the good fortune of having career resurgences thanks to someone giving them a chance after they passed their prime, including John Travolta after Pulp Fiction, Keanu Reeves after John Wick, and Brendan Fraser after The Whale. Pamela Anderson is the latest actor hoping to be reclaimed thanks to her starring role in The Last Showgirl.
In the meta-story, the 57-year-old Anderson plays Shelly, an aging showgirl at a third tier Las Vegas casino. The show itself, called Le Razzle Dazzle, is on its last legs, and Shelly finds herself at a crossroads, with no other skills or financial means on which to fall back.
While younger showgirls like Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) are willing to move on to more sexually-suggestive shows, Shelly is only comfortable with the tried-and-true showgirl way. Three other people in her life — estranged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), best friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), and stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista) — seem to help and hurt her in equal measure.
The effectiveness of the film, directed by Gia Coppola and written by Kate Gersten, depends heavily on whether the viewer is willing to accept Anderson, who’s still best known for her role on Baywatch, as a serious actor. If Coppola and Gersten are trying to show a different side of Anderson, they fail; having her play a character with little-to-no makeup and a dramatic arc does not make up for her poor acting skills and a high voice that borders on shrill.
And because the story is so dependent on Anderson — she appears in literally every scene — it never has a chance of becoming interesting or involving. Her character has personal issues that are objectively sad, but any weight that might have resulted from those storylines are lost along the way. She’s not helped by an over-the-top performance by Curtis, who seems to be milking her Oscar from Everything Everywhere All at Oncefor all it’s worth.
Coppola seems to be going for an old-school feel for the film to match the storyline. The film has a weird, unfocused look to it at times, giving the audience visuals that are definitely not high-definition. Whether she’s actually using an old film stock or manipulating the image to make it look like an old film, the effect is the same, with imperfections appearing on the screen often.
Anderson — who earned a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Female Actor for her role — and Curtis seem to take up most of the oxygen of the film, leaving little to remember from anyone else. Shipka had a breakout movie year thanks to appearances in Twisters and Longlegs, but her role here gives her little to do. The same goes for Bautista, although at least he gets to put on a grey wig and act in a way that doesn’t emphasize his bulky physique.
While actors should never be shunted aside simply because they’ve aged out of an accepted age range, you also have to have the ability to prove you still belong. Anderson can’t get out of her own way in The Last Showgirl, and consequently the film itself never has any dramatic depth, either.
---
The Last Showgirl opens in theaters on January 10.
