STAR WARS - CRITIC BREAKS EMBARGO, REVIEWS DREAMGIRLS

Jack Mathews, the New York Daily News critic who has sometimes steamed studio executives by breaking the usual day-of-release embargo on movies -- he did so in 1999 with Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace and again in 2003 with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King -- has become the first major newspaper critic to review Dreamgirls (presumably because the film premiered in New York on Monday). In his review, he writes that former American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson "inscribes her name on an Oscar" for her performance. "How strange and wonderful," he adds, "that a singer four years removed from gigs on Disney cruise ships could win a role as important as Effie and own it as completely as Hudson. If the movie were as powerful as she is, it would blow out the speakers" at the theaters where it opens on Dec. 15. Meanwhile, news reports on Tuesday told of a standing ovation for the film after it was screened at the Monday premiere.

06/12/2006