In honor of Juneteenth, today’s DailyView is an Academy Award winning musical from 2006, featuring a who’s who of black actors and performers, Dreamgirls.

Originally a Broadway musical in 1981, Dreamgirls was written and directed by Bill Condon. The film is a fictional story heavily based on the girl groups of the 1960s, in particular The Supremes.

In 1962, Deena (Beyoncé Knowles),Effie (Jennifer Hudson) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose) were three friends from Detroit who formed a group called the Dreamettes and they perform in a local talent show. While they did not win, they caught the attention of ambitious car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr (Jamie Foxx), who placed them as the background singers to R & B star Jimmy ‘Thunder’ Early (Eddie Murphy). Their talents broke through as they became headliners. However, Curtis made Deena the lead singer of the group over Effie, the prior lead singer, driving a wedge in the group and sending the proud and stubborn Effie out of the group.

The music of the film is stunning. There are so many great singers involved in the project that every song has such depth and beauty. Powerhouse musical performances from all involved throughout the whole of the film. Jennifer Hudson standing out from a brilliant musical cast with a once-in-a-generation voice.

There are performances all over this movie that are just amazing. Eddie Murphy steps out of his usual work to become the R&B star. Murphy’s performance is so wonderful that you don’t see him as Eddie Murphy, but as Jimmy Early, speaking in first person. Jamie Foxx is excellent as the manipulative manager who rode to success on the backs of his performers.

The glitz of the film was spectacular. The bright, shiny imagery helped to illuminate the performers on their elevation in the music business. The stage sets and the choreography was perfectly done.

The story, at times, felt a little disjointed as I was not sure who was meant to be our main protagonist. The main point of view of the film seemed to shift between Effie, Deena, and Jimmy through much of the movie. It seemed as if the first half of the movie was focused on Effie, but then she disappeared for a good chunk of the film. Everything came together well in the third act, but that did not take away the fact that the story became muddled in the middle.

Despite the issues with the story in the middle, Dreamgirls is a triumph of music and performances and I enjoyed this movie quite a bit.

I can only assume this is a satire.

Otherwise, it is one of the stupider movies I have seen in awhile.

That, however, does not make it a terrible movie. In fact, there are some funny bits in Idiocracy, the next movie in the DailyView. It is not great though. In fact, it leans heavily on stupidity and that tends to be a joke that runs its course early in the movie.

Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) was in the army, and sneaking by without accomplishing anything. Then, he got reassigned to be in a special project, to test a way to freeze him and have him thaw back out in a year. They picked up another test subject, a prostitute Rita (Maya Rudolph). They put both of them into the status chamber and put them to sleep.

Major problem… the military man in charge of the program got taken over and the world went to crap. Joe and Rita spent not one year, but 500 in the chamber. When they awoke, it was 2505 and the world was all dumb people. They tried to make it to a time machine to find their way home, but troubles popped up everywhere.

There were some funny bits, but the movie carried on like an overlong SNL skit.

Luke Wilson is pretty average in the film. That is what the character is supposed to be. There is little personality to Joe and he does not show a lot of emotion. You would think a few of the situations he finds himself in might lead to a touch of emoting.

Maya Rudolph is funny too, but her character has a one trait that they try to milk as a joke throughout the entire movie too. She is a likeable actress so you want to root for her, which is the key for the movie.

Every other character in the movie are completely annoying. Dax Shepard as Frito is desperately unfunny. Terry Crews as President Camacho is too over the top. The rest of the cast is all the same, just playing stupid humanoids.

The movie does not hold up very well either. Some of the words they use are words that most people do not use anymore. They are insulting and not funny.

In the end, the movie did not have enough of a plot to carry itself through the whole time and there is not much in the way of characters. There are some funny moments, but not enough to justify the film.

Today’s DailyView film will wrap up the Bourne trilogy of films that I had not originally seen. There are two more Bourne films and I have seen both of those, and, quite frankly, are a serious step down in quality over the first three.

Bourne Ultimatum sees Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) back in conflict with the secret organization, Operation Blackbriar, within the CIA, now led by Noah Vosen (David Strathairn). Bourne comes out of hiding to meet a reporter (Paddy Considine) who has been running a story on Blackbriar and Bourne’s background. During the meeting, the reporter gets killed an triggered one of the old memories of Bourne’s recruitment into the program to start with and Jason decided that he needed to follow the lead to the end of the road.

The Jason Bourne franchise has been exciting and filled with dramatic action. Matt Damon has been the key to all of it as he plays Jason Bourne with a generousness about him. He is real and honest despite the fact that he is an assassin and has done terrible things over the years. He is intelligent and is a thinking man’s action hero.

Speaking of action, I do wish that there would be less of the “shaky cam” shots during the action scenes. I makes it difficult to see (and yes, I know that is the purpose of the shaky cam). With as much hand-to-hand combat and chase scenes that fill this movie, that shaky cam becomes an annoyance more than anything.

I have to say, the appearance of Nicky (Julia Styles) in this film felt forced and too coincidental. Her use during The Bourne Supremacy (after a much large role in the Bourne Identity) made sense, but this one just felt as if they wanted to toss her in as a hook between the three films. I’m not sure she was needed here. Having said that, Julia Styles is always solid and Nicky has been a good character in the franchise.

Bourne Ultimatum is the loudest, brashest of the trilogy, with nonstop action. This brings the trilogy to a satisfactory conclusion (including an exceptional ending shot) and it does that without sacrificing the thinking man motif that the previous films had adopted.

This was an experience.

A few years ago, there was a special online showing of the Beatles classic Yellow submarine animated movie, and I missed it. I came in near the end and I hoped that I could start it over. Unfortunately, I could not and any time I tried to find it, I was unable to find it.

Since I have been doing the DailyView, Yellow Submarine was one I was hoping to watch, but, again, it was not easy to find. Finally, I discovered it on Apple + and I got the chance to watch the surreal fantasy.

I love the Beatles. I am a big fan of their music and the way the movie seamlessly interweaved the music of the Beatles, not only as songs in the movie, but also as part of the dialogue and the story was remarkable. The word play involved in Yellow Submarine was brilliantly manipulated. Sure, some of the jokes were groaners, but that went right along with the Beatles.

The animation was filled with color and flowed through this movie like nothing I had ever seen. The animation was influenced by everything from Picasso to Monty Python. The character designs was so trippy and creative that it is difficult to describe. It is an experimental explosion of color and totally unique.

The people of Pepperland are attacked by the music hating Blue Meanies and Captain Fred (Lance Percival), in his Yellow Submarine, was sent to Liverpool to recruit the Beatles (John, Paul, George and Ringo) to come back and help save Pepperland and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Along the way, the Beatles and the Yellow Submarine encounter all kinds of bizarre creatures and song-induced lands such as Sea of Time, Sea of Nothing, and Sea of Holes among others. They meet Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D. (Dick Emery), the Nowhere man who helps them fix the engine of the Yellow Submarine after it breaks down.

I’ll say this again, I have never seen anything quite like Yellow Submarine.

Now, the Beatles themselves did not voice the characters of the Beatles in the movie. They were voiced by he following: Paul Angelis (George and Ringo…as well as the lead Blue Meanie), John Clive (John) and Geoffrey Hughes (Paul). The real life Beatles made an appearance at the very end in a live action shot.

Songs appearing in the movie included the title track, Eleanor Rigby, All Together Now, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Nowhere Man, among others.

If you love the Beatles, you’ll love this too. It is a beautiful mess of chaos and colorful fantasy. It is wild and crazy. Loved it. It is a visual smorgasbord to our eyes.

The DC Animated movies have always been great stories with average animation. One of the biggest beneficial characters of these animations has been John Constantine. Not only has he had his own animated web series (which was compiled into this film), but he also was one of the prime characters in the most recent series of Justice League Dark animated films. It is a character that has come a long way since the Keanu Reeves movie.

Matt Ryan voiced Constantine (and played him in a live-action series as well) and rapidly became a huge fan-favorite among the fandom. Ryan provides a perfect voice for the occult detective and you can tell how well he does during this film.

Constantine is brought into a hospital by his childhood friend Chas (Damian O’Hare), whose daughter has slipped into a coma. The doctors were at a loss and Chas thought his old friend Constantine might have insight that the doctors did not have. He discovered that the little girl’s soul was no longer in her body, and he set off into the darkness to try and save her from the demons.

The animation on the DC films are always the biggest weakness of them. The animation is typically just average, basic as you may see on any television cartoon. However, I will say that there are several moments in Constantine: City of Demons- The Movie where we have what looks like still shots and they are beautiful. So while the animation itself is average, at best, there are some great shots in the film. Those do make the overall movie better to look at.

The story is solid and has a real powerful and emotional twist at the end. The battle between Constantine and the demon Beroul (Jim Meskimen) is extremely well done and works on several different levels. This would lead into the Justice League Dark films that starred Constantine as a major player.

Constantine: City of Demons-The Movie is violent, bloody, gory and a load of fun. Probably not for the youngest viewers, fans of the Constantine movie and live action show should enjoy this take on the demon hunter.

Trying to get the taste of Dr. Giggles out of my mouth from this morning’s DailyView, I went back to an old standby, one of my favorite directors of all-time, Alfred Hitchcock. There have not been many Hitchcock films that I have not enjoyed and this is another one that fits right into that category. The Wrong Man was from 1956 starring Henry Fonda.

Christopher Emanuel “Manny” Balestrero (Henry Fonda) is a kind, honest, selfless man, a great husband and father. He plays in a local band and struggles to get by in the world. Despite this, he is happy with his wife Rose (Vera Miles) and two sons.

Rose was having dental problems and they needed $300 for the trip to the dentist. Manny went to the insurance company to borrow money against his wife’s policy. While there, the staff of the insurance company believed that he was the same man who had robbed their business twice before. Manny was arrested and put on trial for the crmes.

The film started off with a monologue from Alfred Hitchcock himself stating that this movie was unlike any one he had done before because the movie told the case that was real and that every single word was true. He said that there were twists that created the same amount of suspense as anything that he could have made up.

Henry Fonda is very compelling as the innocent man accused of the crime. Watching him as he trustfully allowed the police to do whatever they wanted, walking him through the shops he was meant to have robbed was just amazing. If these are true, the evidence collection of the police is totally tainted. This was one of the best parts of the film, watching the police doing their job, honestly, but incompetently, collecting evidence. The lineup seemed to easily argued against with the way they ran it. I kept waiting for the defense attorney to go after the lineup, but it did not happen.

The nervous breakdown by Rose was a hugely tragic moment of the film and with it being a true story, this really showed how painful this false arrest caused. Manny was such a respectful and honest guy, but his milquetoast personality allowed things to go too far. Someone a little more confident would have stopped things earlier. The costs to prove his innocence was more than just monetary.

The tension of the story came from the reality of the situation. Knowing off the bat that this was a true story and that every word was true, as Hitchcock said, limited the film in my opinion. However, the details did still feel as if it were made up, proving that the cliché about truth being stranger than fiction is completely true.

Ooh boy.

I was scouring through Starz this morning looking for the first movie for the day of the DailyView when I came across a movie that I had never heard of. I read the Amazon Prime synopsis and I I was intrigued. It said, “When the psychopathic son of a mass-murdering doctor escapes from a mental institution, he seeks revenge on the citizens of the town where his father was finally captured.” It sounded like a tense and anxiety filled thriller. However, that could not be farther from the truth. This was a ridiculous movie that surely set the genre back.

That psychopathic son was played by Larry Drake, spouting one liners after every murder that he committed, horrid puns that were almost never funny. He went about a reign of terrors of murders that have little connection to him. He seemed to have that slasher movie villain power of being right where he needed to be in seconds. His performance was meant to be comically eerie, but it was much more cartoony than it was eerie.

There was the daughter from Picket Fences (I loved that show) and Mark Healy from Roseanne. They were a couple of teenagers, and she had a bad heart. We see no evidence of that besides the weird monitor she had to wear. She does a lot of active stuff in the film for the bad heart.

Larry Drake had to giggle through the whole film too, thus the name Dr. Giggles.

For a little bit, I thought that I might be able to classify this one as “So bad, it’s good.” The more it went on though, I realized that category was too good for this movie.

I’m not spending one more minute on this one. It’s terrible.

Creepy children.

The DailyView today heads back into 1960 to one of the classic horror/sci-fi films of the time featuring the horror trope of creepy children. The Village of the Damned was directed by Wolf Rilla and starred George Sanders and Barbara Shelley.

one normal day, the entire village of Midwich all at once passed out and stayed unconscious for several hours. It was unclear what had caused the phenomenon, but everything was kept silent. A few months later, several women discovered that they were pregnant, including a few of them who could not possibly be pregnant.

When women gave birth, it was all on the same night and the children seemed more advanced than they should have been. As they grew, it became clear that the children were special. Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders), the father of one of the children, David (Martin Stephens), and a scientist, believes bringing the children together is the way to determine exactly what was going on with them. It does not take long to see that this may not have been the best choice ever made.

Village of the Damned is a classic horror movie that has a remarkable eerie feel and a tone that can’t help but create a ton of anxiety and tension.

Creepy children always work well in horror to build suspense and an uneasiness among the viewers and these children with their blonde hair and strange glowing eyes absolute fill that mark.

It is intriguing as well that the film really only touches upon what is going on with these children and does not go into great detail. I think that is effective and helps continue to build an uncertainty in the movie.

Great film with some gore-less scares.

I wanted to get an older movie watched again in the ongoing DailyView. I have been doing several movies of the last three decades or so, but it was time to head back in time once again… this time to a movie that holds a surprising amount of relevance in today’s world, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

The Frank Capra classic starring James Stewart as Mr. Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, was appointed by a crooked governor to replace a senator who had died. Smith, honest and true, if not quite a bit naïve, admired his state’s other senator, Senator Paine (Claude Raines), who knew his father, a former senator too. Smith arrived in Washington with his eyes filled with patriotism, fawning over the monuments and statues, unable to see the nefarious actions of those around him.

Senator Paine was involved with Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), a businessman from his state, to push through a bill to build a dam that would provide Taylor with more money. In fact, Taylor is shown as a political influencer, manipulation the press and controlling what many senators would do.

When Smith discovered the truth, he was preparing to reveal it to the Senate when Paine, backed by Taylor, framed him for a crime.

Jean Arthur played the role of Clarissa Saunders, Smith’s secretary. She does a great job in the film as a disillusioned cog in the wheel of Democracy who slowly becomes inspired by the actions and words of Jeff Smith.

Smith engaged in a filibuster to get his message out, showing a whole different world than today’s Senate. At this time, the filibuster meant that the senator performing the filibuster had to stand and continue to speak on the Senate floor. If he would have yielded his time, the filibuster would have ended. That is perhaps the way the filibuster should return to in today’s divisive political landscape.

It is a powerful film showing how easily it is for senators to slip under the control of other forces and how that can limit the work of the lawmakers. Even at this point, the Congress had a feel of corruption, a group of men (all men at this point) who had their own concerns and were only worried about being reelected. Sadly, it feels as if this is still a major problem in the Senate today.

It was funny. At one point, Saunders mentioned that there were 96 senators, and I thought to myself, what about the other four? I had not realized till a few minutes later that this movie came out prior to the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as states, and the 96 senators would have been the proper number.

James Stewart is great in his role, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Lead Actor. He was a perfect star to portray the honesty and naivety of Senator Jeff Smith. His wide eyes told the audience how important this was to Smith and gave the people the hope that this institution could give it its best.

If only there was a Jefferson Smith in the Senate today.

The DailyView continued today with the quintessential 90s high school movie, Clueless. This was, again, one of those movies that I had not considered to be interesting to me. I was wrong. I really enjoyed this one.

Cher (Alicia Silverstone), a Beverly Hills student, at first glance, seems to be the stereotypical Valley girl type of character, but nearly immediately, you can see how much more there is to her than just a vapid, blonde teenager. She goes through several different issues such as grades, boyfriends, fashion and social status in the school.

Cher is concerned with her friends and their lives and she wants to be the friend who helps the others out. It is selfish of her, but she does it in such a sweet manner that you can’t help but like her for it. Alicia Silverstone is wonderful in the role and creates a character that plays both into and out of the expectations.

A young Paul Rudd is here too, playing a step-brother, of sorts, named Josh. Josh’s mother was married to Cher’s father (Dan Hedaya) for a minute. They were now divorced, but Josh would still come over to help with the work on Cher’s father’s lawyer cases.

We get several other characters in Cher’s orbit including her best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash) and her boyfriend (Donald Faison), a new girl Tai (Brittany Murphy) who becomes Cher’s ‘project’, Christian (Justin Walker) the boy who dresses better than Cher, and teachers Mr. Hall (Wallace Shawn) and Miss Geist (Twink Caplan) who Cher hooks up so they would ease off and give students better grades.

I loved every scene with Mr. Hall. Of course, I love Wallace Shawn (Vizzini from The Princess Bride) and, as a teacher myself, I loved his banter with his class. He was so funny and witty with this group of odd ball high schoolers that I would have liked even more from him.

We also got stoner/skateboarder Travis (Breckin Meyer) who had a thing for Tai but was not considered datable material by Cher and the popular girls. Travis’s arc of the movie was one of the better ones and he gets quite a bit done for the limited screen time he got.

There were many legitimately funny moments that I laughed out loud at, as well as several smart and subtle moments of humor. The script was very clever, showing these potentially generic characters in a much more three-dimensional light. Clueless was written and directed by Amy Heckerling, who also directed Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Heckerling clearly has some comedy chops when it comes to high school movies.

Nicely paced, the film took its time and used each of the 90+ minutes extremely well. Each character received a well-written and charming scene to develop who they were as characters. There was a great scene with Cher and her father that told us everything we needed to know about them.

I was truly clueless thinking that I wasn’t going to like Clueless. This was funny and clever, filled with great characters and a ton of fun. A top notch cast handles the surprisingly deep script with a deft precision.

The second of the Jason Bourne movies that I avoided for no good reason is the next movie in the DailyView binge. It is The Bourne Supremacy with Matt Damon returning to the roll of the amnesiac assassin.

As I said in the review for The Bourne Identity, I avoided the Bourne movies when they came out and I am not sure why. Once again, this movie was fantastic.

We catch up with Jason Bourne and Marie (Franka Potente) in hiding in India, happy together. Unfortunately, they are discovered and, in an attempt to escape, Marie is shot and killed. Bourne heads back to the real world to find out why this happened.

In The Bourne Identity, I claimed that I wanted some more stakes for Jason Bourne. He always felt as if he was several steps ahead of those pursuing him that I did never thought he was in jeopardy. With Marie’s death, that was immediately turned around. Then, Jason Bourne struggled through much of the film, being injured and shot. He still is ahead of the people chasing him but Bourne took the damage of his efforts and I liked that.

The action is top notch and I really love the fact that there is not an excess of gun play in the film. There is some, but it still feels as if the gun action is kept to a minimum and that the film is more about intelligence. The only problem in the action is that there was too much bouncy camera for my taste. I do not remember if there was bouncy cam in the first film and I just did not notice it, but this time, particularly in the hand to hand, it was obvious.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought it was a step up from the original, building on all of the positives from Identity. It was about the perfect length of time for the feature and Matt Damon is excellent.