The life of a wedding DJ is not easy, as I learned in my short and inglorious stab at that profession some years ago. It is not easy to please at the same time the boomer wanting The Eagles, the grandma wanting Glen Miller, and the sullen teen demanding Ozzie, especially when they're all drunk. But there is a trick to the trade -- it's called Motown, and everybody likes it.
Everybody, that is, except the producers of "Dreamgirls," the movie based on the 1980s Broadway musical which was itself based loosely on Tamla-Motown label superstars The Supremes. It seems pretty counterintuitive to make a movie about a Motown group and not include heaping servings of that much-loved sound, but that is exactly what director Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters") has done here. After a few stabs at establishing a "period feel" with songs that sound pretty much like that sunny Detroit sound of the mid-'60s, Condon heads full tilt into the realm of Broadway show tunes -- slick, operatic R&B bombast that owes little to the simpler, poppier stylings of Motown.
The wedding DJ in me knows, as sure as the sun rises in the morning, that you can play "Baby Love" and watch all sorts of people who probably haven't shaken their booties since Gerald Ford was president get up and move. The wedding DJ in me also knows that playing the "Dreamgirls" soundtrack would be a one-way ticket to an evening without tips. Yes, I know the Academy has nominated three, count 'em, three songs from "Dreamgirls" for an Oscar. But don't forget, these are the same people who routinely nominate people like composer Hans Zimmer, who writes orchestration that makes you want to run to a pachinko parlor for a bit of peace and quiet.