Okay, I just saw Dreamgirls. And. I. Did. Not. Like. It.

I adore the Broadway show — maybe too much — so please take my opinion with a grain of salt. Besides, all my friends seem to have loved it, so…

First, about a third of the way through, I turned to my pal Lambert and said, “This is DreamGIRLS, not DreamBOYS!” I guess when you pay the big bucks to an Oscar-winner like Jamie Foxx, you automatically beef up his role. Add a useless Danny Glover and a scenery-chewing Eddie Murphy and there was waaaaay to much testosterone in this musical for my taste.

I knew we were in big trouble when one of my favorite songs from the original show, “Cadillac Car,” came along and was totally trashed. They should have just cut it. You know, like they did with “Ain’t No Party” for some odd reason. They can add crappy original songs for the pompadoured Miss Murphy and Beyoncé “Gimme-an-Oscar-nomination-cuz-I-lost-20-pounds!” Knowles, but they can’t keep one of the best numbers from the original Broadway show? This ain’t no party, indeed. This ain’t no Broadway either!

Okay, let’s talk about Beyoncé. Yes, she’s beautiful. Yes, she can sing. No, she cannot act. She can, however, indicate very well. Her performance is very Community College Theater 101. Her face at the Cleopatra press conference was all, “I done told y’all I didn’t wanna make this goddamn movie!” Honey, Diana Ross would have been beaming from ear to ear, blinding people with those world-famous pearly whites having somehow convinced herself that she was actually happy. Smiling when you’re miserable, kidding yourself that you’re happy when you’re nothing but a glorified Muppet with Barry Gordy’s hand up your purple faux-fur ass—now THAT’S tragic!

And why—why!?—was Jamie Foxx standing around for three-fourths of Effie’s big number “And I Am Telling You (I’m Not Going)”? Cuz we’re payin’ him the big bucks, that’s why! He seemed uneasy and uncomfortable and awkward. I think even he was thinking, “Uh, should I really be here for most of this song?”

More WHYs:

WHY was the boring, soulless white singer who went on to hijack and sing the “hit” version of “Cadillac Car” playing an electric guitar? There was no electric guitar in the version and he was portraying a Pat Boone type not The Beach Boys!

WHY was Eddie Murphy in the movie so much? He was very good, but he should have left us wanting more like Beverly D’Angelo as Patsy Cline in Coal Miner’s Daughter. Again, it’s DreamGIRLS, not DreamTRANNY-CHASERS, er, uh, I mean BOYS!

WHY can’t they ever get the ’70s right!? I am sure there are still costumers and hairdressers alive who actually experienced the decade for themselves. Why did everyone look like they were at a Halloween Pimp & Ho Ball? And the male dancers at what was supposed to be Studio 54? Puh-lease! Men back in the disco era had body hair and were not pumped-up gym bunnies. These dudes were plucked, shaved and waxed into oblivion, then oiled-up and made to resemble new-born horses or the underside of a tongue! They were all veins and attitude when they should have been Tom Selleck dressed as The Marlboro Man onstage filling in for a member of The Village People. These idiots looked like the leadsinger of Right Said Fred at The White Party. Even the fabrics were wrong, wrong, wrong! You can’t just go down to Santee Alley in downtown L.A. and buy shiny, hologram lycra for 99 cents a yard. THAT DIDN’T EXIST BACK IN THE FUCKING SEVENTIES! Find some vintage discowear made of Lurex, you lazy bitches!

And finally, WHY did they feel the need to clumsily, haphazardly and half-heartedly include the race riots? Because a white guy directed it, ’nuff said.

So, if anyone asks you to go see Dreamgirls (or “Valley of the Black Dolls” or “The Emperor’s New Sequins” as I affectionately call it) just drop to your fat knees—while spittin’ and sweatin’ and makin’ an ugly-ass face like the original Effie—that other Jennifer, Tony-winner Jennifer Holliday, thank you very much—and scream … “I’m Not Goin’!”

illustration by www.glenhanson.com