| Dreamgirls
DREAMGIRLS (2006)
This is by far the best American movie musical I've seen in many years...in near striking distance of BANDWAGON Freed-type films of the last golden age and Scorsese Minnelli-derivatives thereafter (better make that singular, NEW YORK, NEW YORK, though COTTON CLUB by Coppola deserves an honorable mention; ONE FROM THE HEART, maybe not), which merge theatrical and cinematic conventions of escapist spectacle while making sure to keep one foot planted in the reality escaped from. A pure musical, a pop-opera (Effie's character is truly a diva worthy of Puccini with the diva worthy of her) of sung dialog that actually transcends the stage show it's derived from, largely by virtue of fully incorporating flesh and blood contemporary female stars-still-being-born, with their own stories as subtext, and performing way beyond reasonable expectations, and somewhat stale star-guys on the side given a second chance, Eddie Murphy made over as an MGM-type repertory second player as of old, and becoming a real star worth taking seriously again in the process (though I won't go so far for Jamie Foxx, who does not transcend his role in my opinion, only dwindles further and further within it, a flaw of characterization and performance both.)
Major gaffe here is the biopic VH1 aspect, the Supremes-and Motown-comparison that gave the original show its hook, same root problem now as then: the music. Good or bad, it's never what that particular group or studio sounded like, particularly. Rather, it's an amalgam of black pop musics recorded for different labels with a disconcerting amount of 1981 era Lionel Richie when it comes to the ballads. Even so, it's generally idiomatic as to the larger field and is actually considerably more so in the reworked music, especially the new Deena/Beyonce number at the end.
The problem's needlessly compounded by the occasional 'opening up' of the story, whether by pointless and badly done Detroit Riots inserts outside the recording studio (that only signify 'soul being lost' inside, rock biopic cliche), or a witty but irrational montage of the band's progress through the years, which charts fashion trends that end several years ahead of where the story resumes. Dawn of Disco and 1969 unreasonably, impossibly, coexist, and the Flo Ballard character played by Jennifer Hudson is somehow becoming 'Aretha Franklin' in the slipstream without benefit of an Atlantic Records.
Big mistake to entertain a parallel-sixties "fabulistic" reality (in which nobody represents anyone "real" specifically) in the first half, and then historicize and make it correspond very precisely -yet wonkily- to seventies reality all of a sudden, a very bumpy transition.
I feel conscience-bound to admit all that, but the passion and intelligence of movie makers and performers alike, the conviction with which even errant nonsense is played, allowed me to roll right over without being overly concerned, truth be told. | 
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