Friday's release of the R&B musical remake Sparkle marks a bittersweet triumph for the late Whitney Houston, whose death in February preempted what many, including producing partner and friend Debra Martin Chase, insist would have been Houston’s comeback. Co-stars Jordin Sparks, Mike Epps, Tika Sumpter, and Carmen Ejogo remembered the iconic Grammy-winning singer, actress, and executive producer as a "vibrant" and "open" force on set who was gearing up to bounce back from her recent personal troubles.
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How much has Whitney Houston's tragic death propelled the musical remake of Sparkle into the spotlight? Consider: I'm 99% sure Matt Lauer has never seen "the 1976 movie called Sparkle," but even the Today Show did a segment on the first trailer for the August release, which prompted robo-Kathie Lee Gifford to exclaim "I was flooded with emotions as I watched it." See if you feel the same after watching Houston's churchgoing mother attempt to help her daughters navigate the pitfalls of fame, Dreamgirls-style.
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Heads up, romantic drama die-hards: Movie theaters will be awash with tears in the next couple of weeks. Three epic — well, two epics and one epic-lite — love stories are being re-released for various questionable reasons, and in these challenging economic times it might not make sense to rush out and see all three. Here, then, are some points to consider before buying a ticket and travel-size tissues for Casablanca, The Bodyguard or Titanic.
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"I’ll keep this short and sweet because it's been a rough 12 days for me, with what would have been my mother’s 67th birthday one day and the awful news about Whitney the next. I can’t even think about it... we’ll talk about that some other time, but for now I just want to be sure you’re planning on going to the movie theaters to see Good Deeds this weekend." [TylerPerry.com]
It's been known to galvanize everybody from the upper echelons of Academy leadership to the vexed likes of Corey Feldman. But regardless of the politics and passions, it's ultimately the all-too-rare equalizer for folks looking to play the odds at any Oscar party: The In Memoriam montage.
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Despite having acted in only a handful of movies before her death on Saturday at the age of 48, Whitney Houston left a lasting legacy with the few film projects she did release during her reign as arguably the best-known female pop singer of her generation. 1995's Waiting to Exhale earned her a NAACP Image Award nomination, and 1996's The Preacher's Wife won her the award (and made her the highest-earning African American actress in Hollywood at the time); this year's Sparkle was set to be Houston's comeback after a well-documented and public period of substance abuse and personal decline. But no film is as indelibly linked to Houston's legacy as her debut in 1992's The Bodyguard, and the record-breaking soundtrack it spawned.
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Before there was Dreamgirls the musical (let alone Dreamgirls the movie) there was Sparkle, the deliciously melodramatic 1976 R&B musical about the ups and downs of a trio of singing sisters from Harlem who make it big in 1950s New York. The tale was loosely, infamously based on the real-life experiences of The Supremes and lead singer Diana Ross's ascent to solo stardom, but Sparkle had a dark edge, with threats like drugs, criminals, and jealousy around every corner.
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