DREAMGIRLS gets a rave in the L.A. Times/ NY TIMES: not so hot

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 4:54pm

It's not going to be worth linking all the major reviews for the film (go to Metacritic or rottentomatoes.com for that) but its notable that the LA TIMES gives it a rave. This is the paper most influential in the Oscar race...

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-dreamgirls15dec15,0,3540326.story?coll=cl-home-top-blurb-right

Edited to reflect the views of the NY TIMES: the "other" paper that matters.
Updated On: 12/14/06 at 04:54 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 5:11pm

Wow!

That's a terrific review, and actually gives credit where credit is due. He understands that Hudson's break-through dynamite screen debut is "under Condon's direction." So many critics have failed to acknowledge it in their reviews. He's taking someone who's never acted on screen before, and has her arrive fully formed as a Diva. A lesser director couldn't have done it... and a lesser director wouldn't have seen the raw acting talent that just needed to be brought forth in Hudson. She very likely wouldn't have been Effie in this film, without him.

I guess it particularly smarts today, because of Condon being doubly overlooked for the Golden Globes.

Oh, well...

I love Turan's last sentence in the review the best...

"Dreamgirls" is the entire musical package, a triumph of old school on-screen glamour, and we wouldn't want it any other way."

Amen.

[Mischief]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 5:18pm

Great review. Thanks for posting the link, Mr. Bennett.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 5:21pm

It also got a french kiss from the Golden Globes.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 5:55pm

Let's hear it for DIVAS!

[B3TA07]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:03pm

...who lunch.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:08pm

A.O. Scott in the NY TIMES doesn't like the film so much.

He starts with a rave for Jennifer Hudson but goes on to say that the movie lacks soul. His major complaint though seems to be the actual material: the songs which he deems unworthy and too disimilar to the Motown sound. Kind of odd, but thats also sort of what the critic in MSNBC said: even suggesting they should have added some tunes recorded by the actual Supremes (!)

http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/movies/15drea.html?pagewanted=2&ref=movies
Updated On: 12/14/06 at 06:08 PM

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:26pm

Oh, sure, piss off Diana Ross even more.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:30pm

"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."


I guess he doesn't understand how a musical's score works. It needs its own identity and sound. How else could we buy the '80s pop sounds in "Les Mis" for example.

I understand what he's saying though, and Dreamgirls is celebrating pop music from a turbulent decade. I actually think the arrangers in the film went much farther with emulating the "sound" than they did on Broadway.

Still... if he doesn't like the tunes, he doesn't like the tunes. He wants the real thing, instead. I don't. I'll just go buy a Supremes album and be done with it, if that's all I want. This is a MUSICAL. People just aren't used to what that means anymore. Can you imagine taking his comments and applying them to "Show Boat" (which covers 40 years of time, not ten)? "All the music sounds the same," etc. "That music in The Light In the Piazza doesn't sound like the early 1960s!"

I also should remind most of the readers here that didn't see the stage show... it was not perfect AT ALL on Broadway. The story lost quite a lot of steam in Act II, until it just kinda... ended. It was never "Show Boat," "Carousel," "Sweeney Todd" or "Gypsy." And it was criticized plenty for it, back in the day, despite the raves for its slick style and particularly for Bennett's staging and Holliday's performance.

I believe this film is at LEAST as good as what I saw on Broadway 25 years ago... and I actually think that in most cases it's better.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:33pm

Well, I think thats just it Best12 - he's not looking at DREAMGIRLS so much as an adaptation of a Broadway musical but as an unfulfilling bio pic of the Supremes. Since Bill Condon seems to have made the musical a more thinly guised retelling of the Supremes story - I suppose its not unexpected that some critics are going to be disappointed with the movie about the "Dreams" who's story isn't honestly as fascinating or dramatic as the "Surpemes."
Updated On: 12/14/06 at 06:33 PM

[morosco]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:46pm

"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." -A.O. Scott NY TIMES review of DREAMGIRLS


Really??!?!!

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:47pm

I'd say thats true Morosco. What is your disagreement with that statement? Broadway is doing all time great business and there are any number of shows waiting in the wings ("for an available theatre") to come in...

[morosco]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:50pm

I was thinking in terms of quality.

[jv92]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 6:58pm

Well, Dreamgirls score never particulary impressed me. Quite infectious, yes. However, I'm a lyric freak and in musical theatre (especially) I feel lyrics must rhyme perfectly or not rhyme at all. (The Light in the Piazza has great lyrics because Guettel doesn't TRY to rhyme cat and bad for example as so many awful lyricists do. He chooses not to rhyme.) Dreamgirls has some awfully clever rhymes, but more often than not, they don't rhyme perfectly. That might be okay for a pop song, but not for a piece of musical theatre. I can agree with Mr. Scott's opinion on that. I don't know if those were exact qualms with the songs.
I do think it's pretty sad that people are thinking of it as a sort of All That Jazz type of version of The Supremes. It's not. That shows was little knowledge the critics who have written that have.

[mike L G]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 8:15pm

This really seems to be a switch that happens lately a lot of
what some of us have experinced in the theatre in New York in the
past that would be in the spotlight everywhere with critical
acclaim and everything to happen in the town, but no longer
I personally seem to like what's happening in LA with show's
like Curtain's and this reveiw of Dreamgirls