Review: Dreamgirls
My expectations for this film weren't high as my sister had termed it "rubbish", but it turns out her taste is even worse than I feared, because this film is excellent! It's quite long, but needed to be if they were to include all the main songs from the original musical and still have a decent plot. Being a big fan of Motown music, I loved the songs and also enjoyed spotting all of the references to Motown stars such as Diana Ross and the Jackson 5. The characters and plot were good too, unlike many musicals where these aspects aren't important, and I can understand now why the musical did so well.
I hated Jennifer Hudson on American Idol, finding her truly unlikeable as a person, but she somehow makes a very engaging character of Effie White and her vocals certainly outshine Beyoncé, although that may just be because we're used to Beyoncé already - I've seen her sing live and you could not say her voice was anything but brilliant. The first half of the film is very much from Effie's perspective but Deena (Beyoncé's character) takes the lead both in the group and the film in the second half, which was the second act in the stage musical.
This has got me in the musical mood now and I'm off to add all the ones I haven't seen to my online rental list. Any recommendations would be great. There haven't been many musical films out in the 2000s that I haven't loved (The Phantom of the Opera is the only one I can think of that I saw and disliked), so I've compiled a top 10 of my favourites:
I hated Jennifer Hudson on American Idol, finding her truly unlikeable as a person, but she somehow makes a very engaging character of Effie White and her vocals certainly outshine Beyoncé, although that may just be because we're used to Beyoncé already - I've seen her sing live and you could not say her voice was anything but brilliant. The first half of the film is very much from Effie's perspective but Deena (Beyoncé's character) takes the lead both in the group and the film in the second half, which was the second act in the stage musical.
This has got me in the musical mood now and I'm off to add all the ones I haven't seen to my online rental list. Any recommendations would be great. There haven't been many musical films out in the 2000s that I haven't loved (The Phantom of the Opera is the only one I can think of that I saw and disliked), so I've compiled a top 10 of my favourites:
- Moulin Rouge
- High School Musical
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch
- Dreamgirls
- Get Over It
- Camp
- Happiness of the Katakuris
- Save The Last Dance
- Chicago
- Bride & Prejudice
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