“Joyful Noise,” the new movie starring Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton about a struggling church choir, has been pummeled by critics. Reuters news service was especially harsh (“Jesus wept”), but others were equally unkind. Rolling Stone called it a “bucket of ‘Glee’-goes-gospel cornpone.” The New York Times said it seems to unfold in “a lower echelon of musical comedy hell.”
Could it really be that bad? I asked members of the gospel choir from Faith Community Baptist Church on Madison’s South Side to see it with me.