DREAMGIRLS the Movie! Our next camp classic! **SPOILERS**

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:08am

Just got back from the screening here in Miami, which was attended by a solid 30 people. Sad turn-out (no one was turned away). Plus...they were asking people in the lobby if they wanted to see DREAMGIRLS. Still...at least our audience DID want to be there.

As for the film...this is DREAMGIRLS Deluxe! Bill Condon's film-adaption is all the great things of the stage-version PLUS more. It was visually stunning, campy, dramatic and did I say campy?

The film pays homage to Michael Bennett's original frequently, which was sensational. From the opening image of the Stepp Sisters with their backs to us, the hydraulics platforms and shadow silhouettes in "Steppin' to the Bad Side" to Deena and Lorrell bursting thru the silvery glimmery curtains (when they're rehearsing "Love Love You, Baby" -- a reference to that moment in the stage-version of "Heavy").

I knew we were in for a great ride as soon as Jennifer Hudson came on the screen (what screen presence!) and delivered her lines. Campy AND hilarious. Beyonce' emulating Diana Ross to perfection in the "Heavy" TV performance. Hilarious! I'm sure Bill intended several sequences to come across uber campy, so he got them right -- Deena viewing the newsreels of the DREAMS career and don't even get me going with that "Mahogany" photo shoot montage. I was elbowing my friend next to me, who was trying to hold himself from laughing out loud also. We were LOVING this film! Deena's "One Night Only"...with the Dreams drag queens in the crowd. Those enormous Andy Warhol-esque bold prints of Curtis in his office. Curtis' pained faces during Effie's "Dreamgirls" (reprise). Bill didn't miss one moment. This film is camp at it's sheer finest.

One question, though...what was up with that "Charlie's Angels"/"Love Boat"-esque curtain call music/score? I know it's supposed to end in the mid-70's, but it was somewhat distracting, though hilariously campy. Again...Bill Condon didn't miss another great opportunity!

Anika is a sheer delight everytime she's on screen and her crying scene towards the end of the film totally ripped my heart, as did seeing Beyonce's Deena packing to leave Curtis. Those sequences definitely punched you in the gut.

I know this all sounds somewhat negative, but by all means...I LOVED it and will see it again (and again) when it comes out in December. I've been a huge fan of the show since I saw it several times starting back in late December 1981, so I know this show inside out and back again. I actually found the film-version a huge improvement over the stage-version. Actually better in many respects.

I could go on and on, but I'll just leave now with a huge smile on my face. I didn't expect the film to be as campy as it was, so this is such a nice unexpected surprise.

One thing about the "And I Am Telling You..." sequence. That dragging finale' of that number was like getting a tooth pulled. That moment works on stage, but on screen, having Jennifer with the camera locked on her as she goes thru her riffs was just way too long and tedious. On stage those are moments -- on film it just dragged. "I Am Changing" was a powerhouse -- Jennifer made that song magical just by her delivery...her voice was just an added plus, but her staging of it was sheer cinematic genius.

Wow! I saw DREAMGIRLS the movie.

Time for some pie now.

Woof!

[Rentaholic2]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:12am

campy? Hmm....I could think of a lot of words to describe this movie, but campy? Maybe we just have different definitions of the word. When I hear "campy," I think "Rocky Horror," "Little Shop," etc....maybe I'm wrong...

either way, I loved the film too!

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 7:16am

Wait. Was it campy?

[IssaMe]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 7:49am

At $25/ticket for a movie, it better be more than camp.

[steveshack]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 9:06am

Bill Condon is a genius who's totally gay and it was his SCRIPT that made the movie of "Chicago" so fantastic. He knows his musical theatre. That's why "Dreamgirls" knows its theatrical roots. I can't wait to see it.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 10:00am

Dude...you have no idea how many deliciously hilarious campy moments this gem has. Again..it's not at all a negative comment on the film -- it's those little morsels that flavor the film.

Intentional or not -- they WORK! I'm still laughing at alot of the 'sight' gags splattered throughout the film.

And come on...Beyonce' was fully aware of how campy she was being emulating Diana Ross in that "Heavy" TV appearance. It's a riot! Or her with her big ratted hair, smoking a cigarette while watching the newsreel/documentary footage of the DREAMS' career. I was kicking the seat in front of me. Screen bliss, I tell ya!

I mean...practically ALL of Effie's one-liners are pure scrumtious CAMP. Jennifer Hudson was one second off from looking into the camera and winking to the audience as if telling us "how great was that, huh?". She steals the film and you LOVE just watching her. She's gorgeous, she's hilarious, she's 'real'. What a motion picture debut.

Now...let's now discuss that uber-campy "Charlie's Angels"/"Love Boat"-flavored curtain call music. Oy!

Can NOT wait to get this on DVD to watch it endlessly.

Woof!

[Kringas]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 10:42am

What's your definition of camp?

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:17am

Camp is an aesthetic in which something has appeal because of its bad taste or ironic value.
from WIKI:

“Camp” is derived from the French slang term camper, which means “to pose in an exaggerated fashion.” It may ultimately derive from the Latin root "campus" meaning "field/farm/country", thereby suggesting some connection to a stereotyped behaviour attributed to rural folks, akin to "provincial". The OED gives 1909 as the first citation of "camp" in print, with the sense of "ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to or characteristic of homosexuals. So as n., ‘camp’ behaviour, mannerisms, etc. (see quot. 1909); a man exhibiting such behaviour." According to the OED, this sense of the word is "etymologically obscure."

Though the rise of Postmodernism has made camp a common take on aesthetics, not identified with any specific group, the attitude was originally a distinctive factor in pre-Stonewall gay male communities, where it was the dominant cultural pattern (Altman 1982, 154-155). Altman (ibid) argues that it originated from the acceptance of gayness as effeminacy. Two key components of camp were originally feminine performances: swish and drag (Newton 1972, 34-37; West 1977; Cory 1951). With swish featuring extensive use of superlatives, and drag being (often outrageous) female impersonation, camp became extended to all things "over the top", including female female impersonators, as in the exaggerated Hollywood version of Carmen Miranda (Levine, 199. It was this version of the concept that was adopted by literary and art critics and became a part of the conceptual array of 'sixties culture. Moe Meyer (1994, p. 1) still defines camp as "queer parody."

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:21am

Ahhh...so my love for the absurd/tasteless is actually a love of campiness. I really am a gay man trapped in a woman's body.

[Kringas]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:21am

Yes, that's the textbook definition of camp (which doesn't apply to the movie I saw last night).

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:26am

camp has a textbook? sontag not withstanding.
i would have majored in it.

Updated On: 11/16/06 at 11:26 AM

[Kringas]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:17pm

You've never heard the expression textbook definition?

[blueflame]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:35pm

Have you never heard of a joke or a pun?

[Kringas]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:37pm

They're usually funny, right?

[blueflame]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:42pm

First you attack her intelligence and then you tell her she isn't funny.

What a dick.
EDIT: I mean, what a tediously self-righteous dick. Don't like to play in the sand-box? Leave.

Updated On: 11/16/06 at 12:42 PM

[Kringas]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:47pm

First you attack her intelligence and then you tell her she isn't funny.

What a dick.

Where did I attack her intelligence?

[blueflame]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:48pm

"You've never heard the expression textbook definition?"

Condescend much?

[Kringas]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:52pm

Condescend much?

This coming from someone who just called me a tedious, self-righteous dick.

I'm just fine in the sandbox, dear. It would seem that it's you with the problem.

Updated On: 11/16/06 at 12:52 PM

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 1:33pm

Careful there, Kringas. Garland Grrrl and Blueflame may not post much, but when they do, they are both generally quite insightful and more intelligent than most around here.

I don't think you want to play in their sandbox.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 1:39pm

oh come now girls, you're both pretty.
ps. there's nothing condescending in a full-frontal attack. it's the implied stuff that's just so smarmy.

Updated On: 11/16/06 at 01:39 PM

[Wildcard]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 2:08pm

In many ways, the film was campy because the 70s were campy. It just so happens to be a product of the times. The "Deena Jones Story" clip was rightfully cheesy because it used effects which were "hi-tech" at the time. Though we laugh at it now, through the film, I saw how these effects were wonderful if you were seeing it for the first time back then. I also love how "mod" the sound for "Heavy" was. It matched their costumes perfectly. However, the scene is no longer at ABC but at CBS... obviously a Viacom connection.