Dreamgirls (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Musical	Main Menu Audio & Animation Main Menu Introduction Deleted Scenes-12 scenes - complete & extra musical performances Music Video-Beyonce - 'Listen'
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	124:52
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Bill Condon
Studio Distributor	Dreamworks Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Jamie Foxx Beyoncé Knowles Eddie Murphy Danny Glover Jennifer Hudson Anika Noni Rose Keith Robinson Sharon Leal Hinton Battle Mariah I. Wilson Yvette Cason Ken Page Ralph Louis Harris
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Henry Krieger

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Danish Dutch Norwegian Swedish Finnish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    There have not been that many movie musicals of recent years, however a couple of them have done extremely well and garnered much critical praise. I refer to Chicago which scooped the pool at the 2003 Oscars including winning the coveted Best Picture award. This film, Dreamgirls, was nominated 8 times in 2007, winning 2. An interesting link between the two is that the screenwriter of Chicago, Bill Condon, directed this film. Both were based on successful Broadway musicals, but in a lot of ways that is where the similarities end.

    This film's plot follows the rise of a girl group from Detroit in 1960s and 1970s. They start out as three young girls who grew up together and start singing together. They are Effie White (Jennifer Hudson), Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose). They appear at a local talent night as the Dreamettes and are noticed by car salesman and aspiring agent, Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx), who gets them a gig singing backup to a well known star James 'Thunder' Early (Eddie Murphy channelling James Brown). As their career develops they leave Early behind and become major stars in their own right. Of course, their success does not come without interpersonal dramas and line up changes.

    The story bears a lot of similarities to the rise of Motown records, specifically The Supremes. The Curtis Taylor character is reminiscent of Berry Gordy who ran Motown especially in regards to being very controlling and refusing to put out songs with messages.

    The style of the film is very much that of a stage musical and I found that the straight soul and R&B tunes (which were excellent) clashed somewhat in style with the more Broadway style songs with added histrionics provided by the more modern style singers. Eddie Murphy is excellent in this film, both in terms of musical performance and his very strong acting. His Golden Globe win for this role was definitely deserved and he was probably unlucky to miss out on the Oscar. Jennifer Hudson who did win an Oscar for her performance here is also excellent. She shows in this film that she can do more than just sing (although she sure as hell can do that too!). She sometimes veered into the previously mentioned histrionics but more regularly she reminded me of Aretha Franklin and that is not an easy thing to do considering that Aretha is one of the greatest singers of popular music. Beyonce Knowles, who is obviously also a talented singer, struggles by comparison both in terms of acting and singing ability. Jamie Foxx also does a good job in playing a character who is hard to like. Danny Glover also appears as James 'Thunder' Early's manager, Marty.

    In production terms, the stage performance style musical numbers are very well staged, the costumes are excellent and most of the songs from the stage musical are very well written. The only other criticism I would make of the film is that after the engaging and fast moving opening the pace becomes a little bogged down as the focus shifts from their early career to their relationship battles.

    A quality film, with some excellent musical performances and a great cast.

Video

    The video quality is very good, bordering on excellent.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced, which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was quite sharp and clear without ever being completely stunning. There was no evidence of low level noise. There was no noticeable grain and shadow detail was excellent.

    The colour was excellent with the brightly coloured costumes looking great.

    The only artefact I noticed was some rare minor aliasing.

    There are subtitles in English & English for the Hearing impaired, along with other European languages. They were clear, easy to read and exact to the spoken word.

    The layer change was not noticeable during playback.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good with only one real issue.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was unfortunately mixed a little low in the mix which meant that it was sometimes drowned out by music or other sounds. I found that the subtitles assisted greatly in following the dialogue.

    The music is by Henry Krieger and the lyrics are written by a number of composers. The songs written for this production are universally excellent and work extremely well at seeming like they are songs from the era especially the staged numbers. The more musical or Broadway style songs did not work as well for me. From a sonic quality perspective the music and singing sounded wonderful on this disc.

    The surround speakers were very well used adding audience noise to concerts, various car horns and radio voices along with much atmosphere. Great stuff, considering the nature of the film.

     The subwoofer was also very well used, adding bass to the great music and other minor effects.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    This movie is available either as a single disc edition (which I am reviewing here) or a two-disc edition which contains significantly more extras. I cannot confirm details of the contents of the two-disc version.

Menu

    The menu includes an intro, motion, music and does its job well.

Extended and Alternate Scenes (34:50)

    Impressively presented, 16x9 enhanced and in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, these scenes number 12 in total and are all basically either extended musical numbers (such as full performances of staged numbers from the film) or additional musical numbers which don't appear in the film. Fans of the music will really enjoy these.

Music Video - Beyonce - Listen (3:51)

    A music video of Beyonce's big solo number from the film. Presented in non-16x9 enhanced widescreen and Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192 Kb/s.

    This one disc version is the same globally except for language and subtitle differences. Draw.

    The video quality is very good bordering on excellent.

    The audio quality is very good but has a dialogue mixing issue.

    A small selection of extras are available on this one disc version. A two disc version is also available.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall