What's Love Got To Do With It?

Halle Berry is very attractive and I am sure that the roll she played in "Monster's Ball" was difficult but Angela Bassett deserved the monumental distinction of being the first African American Actress to win a leading role Oscar.

Angela Bassett played her role in this movie and not only did an excellent job but also a very realistic one of just what Tina Turner and countless other women have went through at the hands of an abusive man.

I highly recommend this movie and thank goodness Tina Turner survived and made it. I only wish Ms. Bassett would have been given the credit she was due by awarding her the Oscar.

This is an incredible, highly energized film about the life of rock and roll diva, Tina Turner, and her stormy relationship with her controlling and physically abusive husband, Ike Turner. Award calibre performances are turned in by Angela Bassett, as Tina, and Laurence Fishburne, as Ike. They are both absolutely riveting.

Ms. Bassett plays Tina with all the earthy charm and sexual magnetism of the real life Tina Turner. Laurence Fishburne gives an amazingly effective performance as Ike, at once both repellent and charismatic. The movie focuses on their relationship, one which sowed the seeds for the Tina Turner we know today.

What started out as a match made in heaven, quickly soured as Tina naturally took the lead musically in their Ike and Tina Turner Revue. When it became clear that Tina was the one for which the fans were clamoring, Ike did not take lightly to being second banana, and their relationship became one of domestic discord and abuse, with Ike easing into the role of abusive husband with relative ease.

When Tina finally had had enough, she divorced Ike, taking nothing from the marriage except her children and her show business name, the name she earned. From there, she went on to rebuild her life and career, becoming the world reknowned rock and roll diva she is today. Ike, a substance abuser, ended up in prison for narcotics possession and fell into relative obscurity, little more than a footnote in rock and roll history.

This is a film well worth watching, with great performances and great music. Look for the live stage performance by the real life Tina Turner at the end of the film. That alone is worth the price of this video.

Wow! When they cast Angela Basset to play Tina Turner, they made an amazing choice. She has Tina's facial expressions down pat and an amazing figure too! I never knew that Ike Turner was such a monster. Laurence Fishburne was amazing in his role, he was very scary, and it just made you hate Ike for being so evil. This movie shows what kind of person Tina is: strong. As a little Anna Mae Bullock, she was abandoned by her parents. She stood by her husband Ike, despite the fact that he did drugs, slept with other women and beat her. But enough is enough. Tina couldn't stand it any longer. She left Ike and finally got a divorce. Tina started to rebuild her career as a solo artist but it wasn't an easy job. After years of working and touring, finally in 1983 Tina hit the charts with the cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together". Tina made the greatest comeback ever. This is a perfect movie. Great story, great music, great performances.

Very good bio of Tina Turner, lots of music, energy, and stage sets. I like Laurence Fishburne a lot.

It was gratifying to see rock legend Tina Turner earn the coveted Kennedy Center honor last month, certainly reason enough to revisit this wonderful biopic based on her 1987 self-affirming autobiography, "I, Tina" co-written with Rolling Stone editor Kurt Loder. Directed by the late Brian Gibson in an appropriately feverish manner, the 1993 movie still burns brightly thanks to the electrifying performances of Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. There have been several fine performances in biopics of late - Jamie Foxx in "Ray", Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon in "Walk the Line" - but I still feel Bassett and Fishburne maintain the high watermark as they seem to inhabit the roles of Ike and Tina completely in this film.

Adapting probably the most melodramatic parts of Tina's book, Gibson and screenwriter Kate Lanier built a dramatic framework about the former Anna Mae Bullock that is somewhat standard-issue and probably biased, but it works on a visceral level as a story of personal triumph punctuated by some of the most gut-wrenching scenes of domestic violence captured on film. Playing one of the most recognizable and enduring celebrities in the rock world, Bassett manages to capture the physical mannerisms, vocal patterns, and onstage energy of the real Tina, even though her voice obviously had to be dubbed. With her almost distracting musculature, she convincingly rips into all her musical performances with unabated fire, but it's really in her dramatic scenes, especially when she becomes an increasingly degraded victim of her husband's demons, that she soars. Fishburne has an extremely tough role, as he has to transcend the inherent villainy of Ike by displaying the bravado and talent that brought the pair the spotlight in the early years. He brilliantly manages to imbue a spirit that is at once frightening and pitiable.

With a relatively sparse filmography, Gibson provides surprisingly sturdy direction here, often using an effective faux-combination of grainy home movies and TV programs to make the movie feel like a "Behind the Scenes" rock documentary. I particularly liked how he edited the inevitable "Proud Mary" - complete with gyrating Ikettes and Tina in her classic cavewoman mini - to show the passage of time between the late sixties to the mid-seventies. Unsurprisingly, no one else makes nearly the impression of the two stars, though Jenifer Lewis has a few funny moments as Tina's mother Zelma, and Vanessa Bell Calloway does what she can in her switch from hard-bitten back-up singer to becalming Buddhist. Regardless, see it for two actors - sadly underutilized since this movie was released, the wondrous Bassett in particular - giving all they have into this memorable movie. The DVD has no significant extras other than the original trailer.