#1
Posted: 12/15/06 at 8:06am
A.O. Scott's review, an absolute rave for Jennifer Hudson and the physical design, and rather lukewarm for the film itself (he hates the music):
"The dramatic and musical peak of “Dreamgirls” — the showstopper, the main reason to see the movie — comes around midpoint, when Jennifer Hudson, playing Effie White, sings “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” That song has been this musical’s calling card since the first Broadway production 25 years ago, but to see Ms. Hudson tear into it on screen nonetheless brings the goose-bumped thrill of witnessing something new, even historic. A former Disney cruise-ship entertainer with a physique to match her robust voice, Ms. Hudson was notoriously dismissed from “American Idol.” This sad instance of pop-cultural philistinism is echoed on the cover of the January 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, which omits her in favor of her better-known, thinner “Dreamgirls” co-stars Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé Knowles."
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"“And I Am Telling You,” for all the defiance of its lyric and the triumphal swell of its orchestration, is thus an anthem of impotence, a proud woman’s protest in the face of humiliation and defeat. Like it or not, Effie is going. She has no choice in the matter. But it’s not often you go to the movies and see a big-boned, sexually assertive, self-confident black woman — not played for laughs or impersonated by a male comedian in drag — holding the middle of the screen. And when was the last time you saw a first-time film actress upstage an Oscar winner, a pop diva and a movie star of long standing? Ms. Hudson is not going anywhere. She has arrived."
The vehicle that delivers her, however, does not always run smoothly. “Dreamgirls” is a souped-up, collectors’-edition replica of a model that Detroit — I mean Hollywood — used to turn out with ease and regularity. At the moment, and maybe only for a moment, stage musicals seem to be in reasonably good health, with solid revivals and lively new shows filling Broadway theaters. At the multiplexes, however, it’s a grimmer story."
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"No one in the movie expresses this tension better than Mr. Murphy, whose character, a soul singer named James (Thunder) Early, fights addiction, obsolescence and the demands of his own ego. Resorting frequently to the shorthand of montage, Mr. Condon for the most part succeeds in sustaining a narrative and emotional flow that links one song to the next.
But the problem with “Dreamgirls” — and it is not a small one — lies in those songs, which are not just musically and lyrically pedestrian, but historically and idiomatically disastrous. This is a musical, after all, about music, about an especially vibrant and mutable strain of rhythm and blues that proclaimed itself, boastfully but not inaccurately, to be “the sound of young America.”"
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"As the cushioned blasts of overorchestrated thunder assaulted my ears, I would have given anything for a crisp horn chart, a clean drum line, a chattering rhythm guitar or even a memorably witty or catchy verse. Periodically, a character — Curtis, James or Effie’s songwriter brother C. C. (Keith Robinson) — will announce the arrival of a “new sound.” But even though the chronology and the costumes march from doo-wop to disco, everything in “Dreamgirls” sounds more or less the same, as the splashy imperatives of show-tune composing overwhelm everything in their path."
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"Except of course that the dioramas occasionally spring to life when the singers transcend the limitations of the songs. This happens, most memorably, twice: when Ms. Hudson lays claim to “And I Am Telling You,” and when Ms. Knowles, late in the movie, lets loose in a recording booth on “Listen,” one of a handful of new songs written for the film.
Until that point her character, Deena, has been something of an enigma and, for Curtis, the passive vessel of his ambitions. Ms. Knowles’s performance has been static and detached. In her limited work in movies she has never seemed comfortable with acting, shying away from any emotional display that might compromise her steely, hieratic dignity. But when she sings, she is capable of warmth, vulnerability, even ferocity, all of which she demonstrates in “Listen.” You cannot help but obey the imperative of the song’s title, even as you may wish the movie offered more that was worth listening to."
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/movies/15drea.html?8dpc
"The dramatic and musical peak of “Dreamgirls” — the showstopper, the main reason to see the movie — comes around midpoint, when Jennifer Hudson, playing Effie White, sings “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” That song has been this musical’s calling card since the first Broadway production 25 years ago, but to see Ms. Hudson tear into it on screen nonetheless brings the goose-bumped thrill of witnessing something new, even historic. A former Disney cruise-ship entertainer with a physique to match her robust voice, Ms. Hudson was notoriously dismissed from “American Idol.” This sad instance of pop-cultural philistinism is echoed on the cover of the January 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, which omits her in favor of her better-known, thinner “Dreamgirls” co-stars Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé Knowles."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"“And I Am Telling You,” for all the defiance of its lyric and the triumphal swell of its orchestration, is thus an anthem of impotence, a proud woman’s protest in the face of humiliation and defeat. Like it or not, Effie is going. She has no choice in the matter. But it’s not often you go to the movies and see a big-boned, sexually assertive, self-confident black woman — not played for laughs or impersonated by a male comedian in drag — holding the middle of the screen. And when was the last time you saw a first-time film actress upstage an Oscar winner, a pop diva and a movie star of long standing? Ms. Hudson is not going anywhere. She has arrived."
The vehicle that delivers her, however, does not always run smoothly. “Dreamgirls” is a souped-up, collectors’-edition replica of a model that Detroit — I mean Hollywood — used to turn out with ease and regularity. At the moment, and maybe only for a moment, stage musicals seem to be in reasonably good health, with solid revivals and lively new shows filling Broadway theaters. At the multiplexes, however, it’s a grimmer story."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"No one in the movie expresses this tension better than Mr. Murphy, whose character, a soul singer named James (Thunder) Early, fights addiction, obsolescence and the demands of his own ego. Resorting frequently to the shorthand of montage, Mr. Condon for the most part succeeds in sustaining a narrative and emotional flow that links one song to the next.
But the problem with “Dreamgirls” — and it is not a small one — lies in those songs, which are not just musically and lyrically pedestrian, but historically and idiomatically disastrous. This is a musical, after all, about music, about an especially vibrant and mutable strain of rhythm and blues that proclaimed itself, boastfully but not inaccurately, to be “the sound of young America.”"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"As the cushioned blasts of overorchestrated thunder assaulted my ears, I would have given anything for a crisp horn chart, a clean drum line, a chattering rhythm guitar or even a memorably witty or catchy verse. Periodically, a character — Curtis, James or Effie’s songwriter brother C. C. (Keith Robinson) — will announce the arrival of a “new sound.” But even though the chronology and the costumes march from doo-wop to disco, everything in “Dreamgirls” sounds more or less the same, as the splashy imperatives of show-tune composing overwhelm everything in their path."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Except of course that the dioramas occasionally spring to life when the singers transcend the limitations of the songs. This happens, most memorably, twice: when Ms. Hudson lays claim to “And I Am Telling You,” and when Ms. Knowles, late in the movie, lets loose in a recording booth on “Listen,” one of a handful of new songs written for the film.
Until that point her character, Deena, has been something of an enigma and, for Curtis, the passive vessel of his ambitions. Ms. Knowles’s performance has been static and detached. In her limited work in movies she has never seemed comfortable with acting, shying away from any emotional display that might compromise her steely, hieratic dignity. But when she sings, she is capable of warmth, vulnerability, even ferocity, all of which she demonstrates in “Listen.” You cannot help but obey the imperative of the song’s title, even as you may wish the movie offered more that was worth listening to."
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/movies/15drea.html?8dpc
"Sing the words, Patti!!!!" Stephen Sondheim to Patti LuPone.
Updated On: 12/15/06 at 08:06 AM
