Aretha Franklin

  • Respect (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) By the time of her death in 2018, Aretha Franklin had an enviable, even monumental reputation—the “Queen of Soul” had sold dozens of millions of records, spawned a few instantly recognizable pop hits, had a number in The Blues Brothers and sung at Obama’s presidential inauguration, among many more achievements. But her path to stardom started miserably, and Respect takes a sometimes-overlong look at those early years (albeit skipping over moments such as the birth of her first two sons when she was 12 and 15). Jennifer Hudson plays the role, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone doing a better job at it, combining some dramatic skill with the necessary singing prowess. Hudson makes the film feel better than it is: While Respect does most things right, it also sticks close to the standard biopic template, avoiding (perhaps out of hagiographic deference) any deep examination of its subject, and losing itself in subplots and tangents that make its running time balloon without bringing much more to the result. As in many recent biopics, the film spends a lot of time on the making of its title track—and that’s one stop along the 145-minute running time that I don’t mind at all. At other times, however, the film feels like a TV series cut short or a biopic running long: an unenviable middle ground that does its subject scant justice. It’s more accurate to say that I tolerated Respect more than I enjoyed or disliked it: Hudson makes it hard to be overly critical of the result, but there’s no doubt it could have been better, maybe if the film didn’t overly respect its subject so much.

  • The Blues Brothers (1980)

    The Blues Brothers (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Third or fourth viewing, On Blu Ray, September 2018) There are good movies, great movies and special movies. The Blues Brothers is one of those special movies, capturing something that deserves to be passed on to new audiences a few decades later. It’s a comedy and a really good one at times (especially when it fully embraces its absurdity and unapologetically give more weight to laughs than believability), but its greatest strength remains the music and the musicians it captures. As a musical comedy, there isn’t a single dud in the entire soundtrack, and seeing some of the best R&B stars croon their tunes is like mainlining pure cinematic bliss … even for those viewers who don’t know much about blues. James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin … this is a time capsule of them at their finest, singing and dancing memorable pieces. As many of the film’s stars are no longer with us (in the past two years alone, we’ve lost Franklin, Carrie Fisher and Toys’r’Us), the film doesn’t feel sadder but stronger for preserving them in such great shape. I must have seen the film two or three times as a teenager and young adult, so much of the dialogue and sequences are hard-wired in my head, and it was sheer pleasure to run from one highlight to another—whereas other movies struggle to get one or two memorable scene, The Blue Brothers has roughly a dozen of them. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi hit career-high roles here, and the integration of non-actor famed musicians goes better than anyone would expect. If you haven’t seen The Blues Brothers, any day is the right time to do it. If you’ve already seen it, you already know that any time is the right time to see it again. What a classic.