'Dreamgirls': Worth the long wait from stage to screen
It took a quarter-century, but the 1981 Broadway hit musical has made a successful transition to the screen.

The fast-moving, generally entertaining screen version of "Dreamgirls" (Paramount) charts the rise of a Motown-like 1960s girl group consisting of Deena (Beyonce Knowles), Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose), and powerhouse lead singer Effie (Jennifer Hudson).

Ruthless manager Curtis (Jamie Foxx) takes them under his wing at a Detroit talent competition where they stop the show, and persuades them to do high-profile backup to R&B singer Jimmy "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy).

Before long, the Dreamettes trio breaks out on their own, and despite a romantic involvement with Effie, Curtis pushes Effie out of the group when her mercurial temperament becomes problematic, and he determines she doesn't match the group's new svelte image.

Thereafter, the film chronicles the separate fortunes of the Dreams, as they're now known, with Deena now the glamorous lead, singer Michelle (Sharon Leal) filling the empty slot, while Effie --- after a troubled reclusive period --- achieves success as a solo act, and Jimmy (who, though married, is having a long-term affair with Lorrell) works to break out of the crooner style Curtis has imposed.

Writer/director Bill Condon --- who wrote the screenplay for "Chicago" --- has, as with that property, skillfully refashioned the show for the screen, turning most of the sung recitatives into spoken dialogue. And taking a page from the way "Chicago" was done, he has used a lot of quick cuts here to make sure attention never lags.

The parallels to the real-life Supremes (whom the Dreams are meant to resemble) are emphasized with clips of TV host Ed Sullivan, who often featured that group, and album-cover art that hearkens back to Diana Ross' heyday.

The cast is uniformly excellent, but there are especially good performances from Murphy and newcomer Hudson, who delivers the show's best-known number, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," a blazing outcry of defiance when she's given the heave-ho. Danny Glover as Marty, Jimmy's first manager, and Keith Robinson as C.C., Effie's brother and a songwriter also under Curtis' thumb, are fine, too.

The show's tunes by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist Tom Eyen have been augmented by four new ones by Krieger.

Despite some of the flagged material below, the overarching themes of loyalty, doing the "right thing," dedication to family and friends, and overcoming adversity are key.

The film contains romantic complications including adultery, a child born out of wedlock, crude language, some innuendo, mild profanity, drug use and some onstage vulgarity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III --- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 --- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

---Harry Forbes

Letters From Iwo Jima
Holding to the adage that every story has two sides, Clint Eastwood takes a second look at one of World War II's most decisive battles, this time from the Japanese perspective, in "Letters From Iwo Jima" (Warner Bros.), the director's emotionally compelling companion to "Flags of Our Fathers," which dealt with the campaign through the eyes of American GIs.

Bookended by present-day sequences of excavators unearthing correspondence buried decades earlier, the drama charts the combat experiences of the Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, including Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a young baker who wants to make it home to see his new baby; Shimizu (Ryo Kase), a newcomer who's looked upon with suspicion by the other men; and the chivalrous Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), a former Olympic equestrian medalist who's treated like a celebrity among the troops.

Leading them is Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), a man of honor and firm patriotism struggling to reconcile his own convictions with those of his country.

Essentially a multiple character study, the plot follows the men as they prepare for the massive U.S. invasion and the ensuing capture by American forces of the strategically key Mount Suribachi, atop which the iconic flag-raising photograph was taken.

The resourceful Kuribayashi orders the digging of a network of tunnels connecting the island's many caves from which the Japanese could mount an unconventional defense.

The two films are a set visually as well as thematically with both sharing the same gritty, visceral realism and desaturated palette dominated by gray.

Using letters as a humanizing device works well, as when Kuribayashi, on the eve of battle, writes home to his wife expressing a husband's regret over not completing some work on the kitchen.

Eastwood's depiction of the Japanese shows both the good, most nobly exemplified by Nishi, and the bad as in Lt. Ito (Shidou Nakamura), who represents the fanatical nationalism that fueled the wartime mentality of many in the ranks. This militant fervor reaches its grisly apex in a scene where a squad, to preserve its honor, elects to commit suicide. Several other characters take their own lives, acts which though morally untenable by Christian standards must be taken in the context of traditional Japanese culture.

If "Flags" was about the nature of heroism, the message here is clearly about our shared humanity and ignorance as a root of international conflict.

In one of the more poignant moments, Nishi, who counts Hollywood stars among his friends, provides medical assistance to a wounded American Marine. Later he does something even more remarkable: He talks to him, just one of this strongly anti-war film's attempts to argue for communication and understanding as the mortar for peace. Taken together, both movies provide powerful equilibrium to the subject, but each is also well able to stand on its own.

Almost completely in Japanese with subtitles.

The film contains intense and graphic battlefield violence, several gruesome suicides and some crude expressions. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

---David DiCerto

Harry Forbes is director and David DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. For more reviews visit www.usccb.org/movies.