Visitors Review

forchristsake9 (2012-05-23 16:31)

Fame seems pretty awful

Don't be fooled by the trailers, Fame is not as dazzling and inspiringas it may seem. Strip away the fancy lighting, music and camera workand you're left with nothing less than a cast of one dimensional,mundane, and unlikeable characters. The movie doesn't give enough timefor any of the characters to develop and therefore, I ended up feelinglike I barely knew the characters at all, even at the end of the film.I don't even think I could name all of them. The actual script anddialogue is not any better and the plot feels forced and irrelevant towhat the movie claims to be about. From the looks of it, no one in themovie is cut out for actual "fame" with the exception of Payne'scharacter who is portrayed as an arrogant and selfish dancer. The casthad a lot of potential to become very likable characters but because ofthe poor script, their performances fall flat and feel fake. I enteredthe movie with hopes of being entertained even if it was on a strictly"crowd pleaser" level. I left feeling like I had just wasted an hourand a half of my life learning that "success is love." There are noreal resolutions to any of the character's trials and tribulations.Life must suck at this performing arts school because no one learnsanything particularly profound or life changing. Don't waste your timewith this movie, and if you still want to, at least wait for it to comeout on DVD. The large screen, dark theater, and popcorn won't make thismovie any better than the dud that it is.

Lisa Schwarzbaum (2012-05-23 07:37)

NYC high school students sing, dance, emote in acting classes, and otherwise insist that America's got talent, but this unnecessarily tepid, conservative remake of 1980's far more famous and affecting original Fame suggests otherwise.

wwefreakjon (2012-05-22 16:26)

Fame; It Wont Last Forever

"What was the point of making this movie?" I continually asked myselfthis question during the 107 minutes after the previews were over.There were 10 main characters, none of which have enough screen time(not that their acting talent merited more) to make you care aboutthem. It is so filled with old teen and musical movie clichés that theplot can be predicted by the time the "freshman" sequence is over. Fame is about the New York City High School of Performing Arts and 200students who spend four years of their lives going there. That is theplot and then there are all the different characters whose stories areso stereotypical that they have all been told in another movie at somepoint. There is the under-privileged, talented, black boy from theghetto who falls for the girl who's a piano virtuoso but really justwants to sing, but her father won't let her, the uptight white girl whofinds a guy who helps her loosen up, the director who gets scammed outof $5000, the guy who isn't talented enough to make it and tries tokill himself, and so many more. The characters are all completely one dimensional except for theteachers, who have some substance but not enough screen time to makeyou care about them more than you care about the students. The writingis very limited and the direction is no better than most of the otherdance movies to have some out in the past five years. The choreographywasn't bad but you can find much better in other films (i.e Take theLead). The high points of this film are the cinematography and the filmediting which were very good, but you forget about the look of theshots after all the mindless droning of the characters. The only suggestion I could give to the producer's would be to take thecast of the faculty (which included Kelsey Grammar, Bebe Neuwirth andMegan Mullay of 90's sitcom fame) and some of Sinclair's dancers,actors, and singers to launch a TV show. That would at least have sometalent and would be worth spending the hour a week to watch.

Jim Chudnow (2012-05-22 11:21)

"FAME" – REMEMBER their Names (& Don't be afraid to SUCCEED)!

(Based on an advance screening).This is a remake of the 1980 film by the same name, about attending thespecialized New York Academy of Performing Arts. It uses a large castto follow the trials & tribulations of students, their interactionswith each other, their parents, the staff & the (very) "outside" worldaround them.Jenny (KAY PANABAKER) is an initially "mousy" type of actress-singer,with little confidence or understanding in what she does and themotivations of some people around her. She's encouraged (& laterromanced) by self-assured & generous-spirited MARCO (ASHER BOOK) who'dsung for years in his father's restaurant (& has a good &pleasant-sounding voice, such as in performing "Someone To Watch OverMe" & "I Just Got To Be Happy"). Denise (NATURI NAUGHTON) is a talentedclassical pianist, altho she dislikes doing just that & being forced todo so by her pushy father.Kevin (PAUL McGILL), who has a dance-teacher mother back in Iowa, wantsto be a dancer-- tho the instructor isn't very encouraging about histalent. Malik (COLLINS PENNIE) wants to be an actor, but, his teacher(CHARLES S. DUTTON) points out he comes across as overly angry.Outgoing comedic Neil (PAUL IOCONO) loves doing video work all over theplace, & carelessly urges his dad to put up money to produce a movie.Walter (VICTOR TAVERAS) likes to produce & arrange music. Alice(KHERINGTON PAYNE) is an accomplished dancer who eagerly wants a careerin that field (rather than concentrating on romance in her life). Joy(ANNA MARIA PEREZ DE TAGLE) is a dedicated student.Various segments feature some of the older, well-known stars: MEGANMULALLY (as singing teacher Fran who's urged to perform by some of thekids at one point); KELSEY Grammar (in an understated performance asacting instructor Joel); BEBE NEUWIRTH as teacher Lynn; and, asPrincipal Simms, you have DEBBIE ALLEN (who played 'Lydia Grant' in theORIGINAL 1980 version of the film, plus the same role in 131 episodesof the TV show rendition from 1982-1987).The film has a wonderful ENERGY in many of its musical and dancenumbers (such as 'Out Here On My Own' and 'CarnEvil', and the largeclosing one with drums). Some performances are so impressive in thefilm (such as ones by Naturi), they got APPLAUSE from people in themovie theater audience. I liked the way they individually 'PRESENTED -INTRODUCED' the main actors separately during the credit section at theend (as movies "used" to do).But, by sort of hurrying through what they say is a "4-year" period atthe school, certain elements of the DRAMA are periodically "RUSHED" anda bit weak compared to the musical & dance elements. As a friendcommented, he felt the film showed little real "growth" by theperformers thru the period featured, & thus came across as somewhat"cliched". While I feel there's some accuracy in that position (in thatthe drama sections are a trifle "feeble" by comparison), I felt thatthe MUSICAL & DANCE elements & overall acting are so strong (& the main"point" of the film), they MAKE UP for that in providing a veryEFFECTIVE entertainment vehicle (& a bunch of the young actor /performers are people to "WATCH" & REMEMBER for the future!).

Fionnuala Halligan (2012-05-22 02:04)

Tancharoen's background shows and steps in to save the film: highlights include an infectious rap in the canteen, a Hallowe'en "Carnevil," and a show-stopper in a club, courtesy of Naughton.

(2012-05-21 14:42)

"Lame Fame"!

This review is from: Fame (Extended Dance Edition) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) This film left me longing for the original 1980 film starring Irene Cara. High expectations with such a great cast...too bad the film didnt deliver!

Roger Clary (2012-05-20 10:58)

Fame Fails to Fly High

This reworking of the 1980 hit movie is not the worst movie of 2009, but gets my vote for the most disappointing. Director Tancharoen tries to tell too many stories and fails to provide a satisfactory working of any. With the notable exception of an outstanding performance of "Out Here On My Own", the only song to be reprised in its entirety from the 1980 show, the musical pieces seem a mish mash of disconnected parts which conclude before achieving any kind of satisfactory resolution. Even the dance numbers, notably a scene in the school cafeteria and a "Fosse-esque" piece later in the show, are clouded with voice overs and distractions before concluding too soon to feel resolved.Stock characters, from the stubborn father to the sympathetic mother followed by the abusive, self-centered star, are the movies only offerings. Veteran players Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth are grossly underused while Debbie Allen's turn as the Principal amounts to not much more than a cameo.If the music is disappointing, the drama borders on awful. One characters attempted suicide seems more comic than tragic due to a total lack of dramatic buildup to the scene.If you feel like a story about the NY Performing Arts HS, rent the 1980 version, but save your money on this effort.

paudie (2012-05-19 21:39)

Too many characters- Not very good

This remake of Fame really isn't very good. The main problem is thatthere are too many characters whose progress through the School for thePerforming Arts we are expected to follow. There must be at least ten"major" characters. This means the film rushes from one to another tooquickly for us to get involved in their stories or have much empathywith them.The script is pretty poor as well. Some of the dialogue and situationsare very clichéd. It seems more like a film version of the 80's TVseries rather than the Alan Parker film. The young cast do their bestin the circumstances but the material isn't great. You'd wonder why theproducers bothered hiring reasonably big names like Kelsey Grammar whenhis role is very incidental. Maybe a lot of his scenes ended up on thecutting room floor. The musical numbers aren't really memorable either.The graduation show at the end isn't far removed from High SchoolMusical.Unfortunately I don't think I could recommend this even as a DVDrental.

Steve Persall (2012-05-19 10:53)

The new, unimproved Fame won't live forever except in DVD cutout bins, and remembering anyone's name will be a chore.

(2012-05-19 04:21)

The opposite of boring...

When I saw the trailer for `Fame' I was instantly hooked. I really wanted to see it. It was around the time I was indulging in `So You Think You Can Dance' and anticipating everything `gLee' and so I was really caught up in the whole glitzy glam idea of `Fame'.No, I have not seen the original film.The film centers around a bunch of aspiring students attending the New York Arts Academy. They all want some form of fame, and are reaching out to become the best at what they can be. The film is told in a series of minor stories that all interconnect mainly because they all take place in the same school. Sometimes this structure can be awkward since it doesn't give us long enough to connect with each story before shifting focus. The film is littered with clichés and predictable plot lines, all of which we've seen many times before, and the structure of the film is not really all that, well, structured (it really feels like you're watching a music video in parts), but like I mention in my title, this film is far from boring.Is it just me, or would this film have worked better as a television series, like a darker, more serious companion piece to `gLee'?As far as the singing and dancing and all that is concerned, it works pretty well. Some students (err, actors) have more noticeable talent than others, and some have yet a better understanding of their characters. The adult actors are a mixed bag for me. Bebe Neuwirth is best in show, end of discussion. Her cutting remarks and that last "you just won't make it" speech were expertly delivered and emotionally gutting. Debbie Allen (thankfully) doesn't do much here. Niether does Kelsey Grammer. Charles S. Dutton is pretty great in his scenes, especially when he is baiting Collins Pennie (who plays Malik). Megan Mullally confuses me. I LOVED her on `Will and Grace'. I felt she was hilarious. Here, she goes for dramatic and doesn't really deliver. I got this strange feeling while watching her that I was watching a `Yaz' commercial, especially at the karaoke bar and she is telling all her students why she teaches. It felt so forcefully staged. The kids range from awkward (Asher Book) to engaging (Collins Pennie) and then somewhere in between (Kherington Payne, of `So You Think You Can Dance' fame, who really should have had more scenes).For me, one letdown was the script. There is no originality here. Every storyline is borrowed from something else. Every parent is discouraging, whether they are pushing their child to do one thing and one thing only, stripping them of a social life of any brand of `fun', or they are trying to browbeat their child into understanding that `life is hard and fame is nonsense'. The situations are all too familiar. You have the girl with the big voice and the father who won't let her use it; the kid from the wrong side of the tracks who wants a different life (as a rapper); the girl who takes things so serious she can't relax; the kid who tries to take advantage of the naïve girls trust; the girl who's bored with dance so she rebels against her parents strict rules and dates the `bad boy'; the kid who is taken for all his fathers money by a sleazy production studio. It's all here, and we've seen it all before. I really wish that a little more effort had been given to breathing fresh air into this genre.That said; the film is still pretty enjoyable. In fact, I'd watch it again. I think that validates a C+, right?

brownah18 (2012-05-18 17:17)

In the light of Art school films, just more development!

If you're thinking this is just another Step-Up, Save the Last Dance,or Raise Your Voice, you're wrong, but there are definite similarities.This features a school for the arts, much like the other film, but thisone goes through a bit more character development.Everyone has to audition to see if they have what it takes to get intothe school. Starring Megan Mullally, Kelsey Grammar, Bebe Neuwirth,Charles Dutton, and other stars that aren't really well known to me.The bigger names are all teachers who help the students with theirmusical and acting talent. This movie gets into what families strugglethrough to get their kids into a really good school. Including makinghard decisions and in the end letting them make their own choices.Relationships are tested and if you really care about someone, you willnot let anything get in the way. This movie may seem dull at first, butit was a good one to watch and might just be more exciting than theothers I have mentioned.

Colin George (2012-05-18 05:56)

"Fame"

While I concede that I am not among the target demographic for "Fame,"I still feel qualified to inform you that the film is a piece of crap.Its failures reach far beyond the fact that I couldn't possibly careless about students of the performing arts singing and dancing theirway to the top. It's a rickety, poorly conceived and bewilderinglyconstructed fiasco with clichéd, interchangeable characters overcomingwhat are surely life's most trivial challenges ultimately to performsome bizarre, evidently uplifting Cirque du Soleil knock-off atgraduation."Fame" attempts to create compelling fiction by way of reality TV. "SoYou Think You Can Dance?" or "American Idol," or any other prime-timetalent-off currently on air bares more in common with director KevinTancharoen's film than whatever's playing in the adjacent theater.Appropriately then, Tancharoen comes from a music televisionbackground, having directed episodes of winners like "The PussycatDolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll," "Dancelife," andsomething called "The JammX Kids," which IMDb informs me is also knownby the title, "Can't Dance, Don't Want To."So in all fairness, Tanchaeoen may have looked on paper like theperfect candidate to direct a remake of the 1980 film of the sametitle. Unfortunately, he seems to have no artistic comprehension of howthe mediums of film and television (let alone reality television)fundamentally differ in their approach to storytelling. He employs afast-paced music video editing style that makes it difficult to followwhat withered conventional story "Fame" has, or even to keep track ofwho's who or what plot or character archetype is most currently beingexploited.And the film is mostly devoid of likable characters, as each of thefeatured students has next to no screen time to themselves, eachrecalling the developed protagonist of some other, better movie.There's the uptight, book-smart girl who needs to learn to embrace herspontaneity, the headstrong street-smart kid who's too macho to beartsy, the girl whose parents want her to become a classical pianisteven though her proclivity is for singing, and my personal favorite, anout-of-place pretentious filmmaker with his ubiquitous camcorderrecording all the break-out dance numbers that just, you know, happenin those types of schools. To top it off, the characters all fall underthe sway of their universally tough love 'tell it like it is'professors.It's not fair though to hawk all of the film's problems off onTancharoen, as Allison Burnett's screenplay is every bit asscattershot, grating, and uninvolving as the final product, and thecast, who fulfill their contractual obligations to sing, dance andoccasionally speak, never go very far above or beyond that. "Fame" isjust a limp noodle of a film that I couldn't possibly recommend toanyone who doesn't have a preexisting interest in the performing arts,and I have a feeling even that subset will probably be let down by itsblandly talented cast and major dramatic shortcomings.When you get right down to it, there are a thousand reasons not towaste your money, or even very much more time on "Fame." From thestaccato pacing to the cookie-cutter characters and complete lack ofdramatic tension, the film plays not only like a remake, but a retreadof ideas that have been executed better a hundred times over, makingthis superfluous, half-baked, intellect deficient cash-grab a one-notedisaster.

alienworlds (2012-05-17 07:23)

A surprise

I saw this film by myself in the cinema which gave me the chance toreally focus on it-since I went to an early show. I thought the filmwould be a flop-I was kind of just killing time-in a nutshell.Surprisingly, I found the film very well done, hard and soft in all theright places-and bang on in its portrayals of the disciplinarians thatexists in many American families. I was completely blown away by someof the music in the film. All in all I had a really good time andwasn't expecting to at all.I saw the film Rent when that came out and Iwas expecting to have a better time than I did at it-I found Rentdepressing whereas this one was really very life affirming in manyways.I guess you either get it or you don't, just like you eitherappreciate the better dance and trance tunes or ya don't.

Lori (2012-05-16 15:26)

Wait for cable!

I didn't like the first Fame very much, I found it too dark. Aside from the "R" rated stuff in that movie, however, the talent displayed was great. I thoroughly enjoyed the toned-down television version and was hoping that this lower-rated "Fame" would at least measure up to that...but it didn't even come close. The audience knew very little about these kids, and frankly, after awhile, didn't care to. The movie chronicled four years of artistic development...but you'd never know it. The acting, singing and dancing from these "students" changed very little from freshman to senior year. By the time the senior production rolled around...well...there was nothing to cheer. Don't waste your money.

Dan Lybarger (2012-05-13 20:22)

The new remake of the 1980 hit 'Fame' is not going to live forever and has clearly not learned how to fly.

Frank Swietek (2012-05-13 11:28)

Riddled with cliches from beginning to end...[a] misguided exhumation of what was once a pretty lively piece.

Dan Fienberg (2012-05-12 09:44)

The devotion to the PG rating is damning, because 8 p.m. shows airing on ABC Family can be edgier and more topical than the new "Fame."

(2012-05-11 15:41)

This Is About NOW!!!

My review of FAME 2009, FAME 2009, Absolutely FANTASTIC, Ignore theCritics, This is about NOW not like the 80's Movie, But connects withTODAYS generation. WELL DONE. Fantastic Soundtrack too.OK with Remakes we always look to the Original and Compare, Do not dothis with this movie, It is far far different from the Original, It'sFresh and It's about NOW the noughties (2000's) this movie informs theviewer what is happening now, How to break into the Business, how hardit is, and more importantly to be aware of scam artists, and the driveyou need to have to make it. I connected with the Characters in allaspects, I thought that Debbie Allen's Performance as the Head wasamazing and Megan Mullally's Performance was out of this worldespecially her singing, Oh and yes she is (Karen Walker from Will andGrace). All the Other Actors and Actresses were cast absolutelybrilliantly and have great ability in both acting and singing wherecredit is due. Well done Director Kevin Tancharoen and Writers AllisonBurnett and Christopher Gore. You will remember the name. and love thismovie for years to come.

wmsanders2001 (2012-05-08 22:20)

horrific

you can't imagine how insipid and ridiculous this movie is. the firstis not perfect but is "the godfather" compared to this drivel. bebe"noworth" is appalling - heels in a ballet class-oy!, also step andfetch it gay stereotype - a really sissified boy with a scarf singingall that jazz poorly but with every mincing step in American film tomake all the straight biased moviegoers laugh at the little queermusical theatre boy, sad and sick! stereotyped evil teachers in thefirst few moments and poor debbie allen in a sad cameo as principal -did any of the actors read the script?? the worst direction i've seenin a long time - and if you thought that the original seemed contrived,rent it, it's far better than this wretched piece of bad movie making.RUN AWAY!!! if i could give it a 0 i would!!! shame on all of you!

(2012-05-08 10:12)

IT'S JUST OK!

THIS MOVIE WAS KIND OF ALL OVER THE PLACE! IT HAD A OK SCRIPT BUT ALL THE BOUNCING AROUND THIS FILM DID MADE IT HARD TO KEEP UP WITH. MY DAUGHTER WANTED TO WATCH THIS FILM AT THE MOVIE BUT I'M GLAD WE CHECKED IT OUT AT HOME. I REALLY WISH IT WAS BETTER!