Dreamgirls is a Nightmare

As you can guess by the title, I didn't enjoy Dreamgirls as much as I'd hoped. I thought it would be a film with some catchy songs and amazing performances interspersed throughout. However, it was a musical with pretty rubbish songs from the original 80's stage show. That last comment may have come as a bit of a shock to you; either that the songs are rubbish or that it is based on an 80's musical. Unfortunately, this ruined the film for me. I liked the story, and the actors were believable enough, especially Eddie Murphy's washed up, drug abused character which seems a bit too close to the truth nowadays! Beyonce is reasonably good, and believable as a singer as part of a girl group - oh yeah, that's right, she is!

I wish they would have concentrated on the story and had some better songs to sing which would have fitted within their rise to stardom, rather than songs about their emotions every 10 minutes (which in my opinion suits a theatrical environment, not a projection screen)! However, this would have left out the best song of the film which is undoubtedly I'm Telling You sung by ex-American Idol runner-up Jennifer Hudson (see - reality TV is good for something!). I have embedded her singing it below for your listening pleasure!

However, in researching for this blog, I managed to find a clip of the original song in it's stage surroundings sung by Jennifer Holliday.

As you can see, this woman can sing, and even though Hudson gives it a good go, Holliday wins my vote, as does the stage show over the film. Just because Chicago had success, doesn't mean every other stage show can. Phantom of the Opera's songs were also too dated for a movie-going audience, so unless a new musical, such as Spamalot, can be made into a film (!!!) then I wouldn't advise it!