Movie City Indie

The music in Dreamgirls, to be blunt, is a mediocre synthesis of Broadway and faux '60s pastiche pop, but resembles nothing from which it supposedly honors. So what's left are some earnest, and at times transcendent performers rising above the songs. It reminds me sorely of Streisand in the 70s, circa A Star is Born, and her "idea" of what rock music was supposed to sound like. Condon, who I like as a writer, and as a director, is blinded by his task -- his big chance -- and subverts any chance of dramatic potency or urgency. The movie is like a parade of iconography for those "in the know" or for the uninitiated who stare at fashion photo spreads and think it's so innovative and original, And even for the most base pandering gay taste, did he have to celebrate visions of "Mahogany" and "Valley of the Dolls" with such reverence? The joy of those films is their sincere idiocy of vision… Remember, everyone, “Deena Jones,” dressed and posed exactly like Diana Ross, with Beyonce losing 20 pounds to look like Diana Ross, and toning down her own "big" voice, to mimic what modern audiences think sounds like Diana Ross: it's not Diana Ross. The character is nothing without our reference to Diana Ross, yet it completely misses out on what Diana Ross was about, which was a genius pop singer who broke the race barrier, and with a singular sound, and she was also a terrific instinctive actress. Just watch Lady Sings the Blues. There's more depth in that fantasy biography, from her (and Richard Pryor's) performance, then this roman a clef Motown fiction. Also, I have to humbly disagree with your, and many other's opinion on Jennifer Hudson. Her singing was terrific, no doubt, but her performance is generic. Prior to seeing the film, I read with great optimism of comparisons to Streisand's debut in Funny Girl, or Bette Midler in The Rose, or Garland in Cukor's Star is Born (interesting no one ever mentioned Ross in Lady Sings the Blues) -- these are iconic defining performances, rare triumphs of personality and empathy not only through character, but song, audiences hungered for (and got) more from them, but I can't imagine Hudson doing anything else, or wanting to see her in anything else. On CD, or in concert yes, perhaps, but on film, no. Back to Condon, he obviously loves musicals, but at the same time feels the need to make an "excuse" musical -- in other words, force the characters and situations into what seems like a logical reason to sing. He doesn't have the analytical or political weight, or dark humor, of Dennis Potter, to make this conceit something more than a "reason" Yes, he did that infuriatingly, yet superficially successfully, in Chicago, but here was an opportunity to create, at least, a genuine pop opera about a very complex era (which was what the stage show was in ambition -- it was mostly sung-through.) Eddie Murphy was great, and they at least he got some character arc. But Condon, and the material, never give him the chance to be Diana Ross and Richard Pryor. And that's a shame. Like the very thing they criticize early in the film, black music, if not the experience, is sanitized for the masses. And you know I wanted to love this film. And I am glad it is successful, because it will mean more musicals. Someone will get it right.”

FOOTNOTE: from a couple days distance, a fistful of titles overlooked in an already long list.

The Descent, Neil Marshall. Deliverance with alpha-female spelunkers instead of macho men, set in caverns rather than on an endangered river, Neil Marshall’s intense, bloody, emotionally viscid film was a neatly elegant bite of malicious terror. The claustrophobia’s almost unbearable at points, with women crawling through tight, unforgiving runnels, returning to the womb of Mother Earth. (The thought is more amusing than useful.) Even with a malign appreciation of the abrupt nastiness, Marshall does not neglect character bits and banter, to the point of an early part of the movie being given oven to EXPP—Extreme Pajama Partying.

Changing Times, André Téchiné. A 2004 production only released in the U.S. this year shows the 63-year-old French writer-director still to be a fluid, fluent filmmaker, seems most adept at finding the heartbeat, not only of the drama being enacted in any particular scene of his films, but of his characters’ deepest confusions and convictions.

This Film is Not Yet Rated, Kirby Dick. Maybe I overlooked this fine provocation about free speech disguised as a lampoon of the MPAA rating system because my recording of a swell interview with Mr. Dick turned out garbled, to my great disappointment.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Jeff Feuerzeig. A 2005 production only released this year.

The Pusher Triology, Nicolas Winding Refn. Again, older movies only just released widely in the US, which I saw on the Magnolia box set, forgetting that this mass of Danish gangster grit had been released, at least to Landmark Theatres.

Idlewild, Bryan Barber. Universal didn't preview this before my deadlines, and I wound up seeing it a few weeks later; I didn't write about it at length, but there are generous splashes of style and heart in Barber's work that genuinely elevates it above, not only the rock video genre it got compared to, but a lot of contemporary American moviemaking.