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<blockquote data-quote="Angela Channing" data-source="post: 292622" data-attributes="member: 33">Apparently, Aretha personally picked Jennifer Hudson to play her in the film. She made a good choice.I probably exaggerated a bit when I said the film made her come out looking saintly but the focus was heavily on how she was the victim of abuse and how she overcame that to build her career. There was a lot about how she was successful at a time when women and black people weren&#039;t treated with much respect (pun intended) and her role in the civil rights movement. The film only briefly covered her alcoholism and her underage pregnancies (1 wasn&#039;t even mentioned) and it felt like they could have explored these and other issues further to give a more rounded picture of who she was. I&#039;m sure I read somewhere that Aretha was heavily involved in the pre-production of the film so I imagine she had some say on what she wanted the film to focus on. It didn&#039;t make it a bad film, I still think it&#039;s a good film, but it didn&#039;t feel like they told her whole story.I wasn&#039;t that familiar with the music of Aretha Franklin beyond a few songs until the first lockdown when I downloaded a lot of &quot;new&quot; music to listen to during my daily walks. I was blown away by some of her albums, not just by the quality of her voice but how she reworked songs to make them sound completely original. So I was very much looking forward to this film and by and large, I wasn&#039;t disappointed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Angela Channing, post: 292622, member: 33"] Apparently, Aretha personally picked Jennifer Hudson to play her in the film. She made a good choice. I probably exaggerated a bit when I said the film made her come out looking saintly but the focus was heavily on how she was the victim of abuse and how she overcame that to build her career. There was a lot about how she was successful at a time when women and black people weren't treated with much respect (pun intended) and her role in the civil rights movement. The film only briefly covered her alcoholism and her underage pregnancies (1 wasn't even mentioned) and it felt like they could have explored these and other issues further to give a more rounded picture of who she was. I'm sure I read somewhere that Aretha was heavily involved in the pre-production of the film so I imagine she had some say on what she wanted the film to focus on. It didn't make it a bad film, I still think it's a good film, but it didn't feel like they told her whole story. I wasn't that familiar with the music of Aretha Franklin beyond a few songs until the first lockdown when I downloaded a lot of "new" music to listen to during my daily walks. I was blown away by some of her albums, not just by the quality of her voice but how she reworked songs to make them sound completely original. So I was very much looking forward to this film and by and large, I wasn't disappointed. [/QUOTE]

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Who played JR Ewing?