Dreamgirls, on paper, ought to be a home run movie. It’s a landmark musical with an almost entirely black cast, led prominently by three female characters. It was a runaway hit on Broadway and won 6 Tony Awards in 1982. Yet many who went to see this movie in 2006 were completely unaware of its past history. Enter Bill Condon, a fan of the original run of the musical who had been pushing for years to make this film? He got a dream cast with a mix of incredible singers and great actors. And then Bill Condon just completely botched the movie. This is one of those cases where the captain of the ship has literally no idea what the course is, and runs the whole thing aground. Which is doubly frustrating, because this film had such potential to be its own landmark production. Instead, it’s a hackneyed mess that sucks all of the life out of this fantastic story. Macintosh & Maud have started a Patreon! Any little bit you can contribute helps, and we have special contributor-only content if you donate at the $2 level, including the final chapters of our Rocky-thon, Rocky Balboa and Creed! You can email us with feedback at macintoshandmaud@gmail.com, or you can connect with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. If you like the podcast, make sure to subscribe and review on iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends. Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.