Fame (2009) Reviews

• As to be expected

  Film-Slave2009-09-24

  Tons of homogeneous talent -- the tooth bleach is blinding. No story, no rhythm (oddly enough), over-processed young actors with expensive haircuts and wardrobe. This film isn't about a school with young hopefuls, it's about a fictitious institution packed full of painfully beautiful pimple-free young people. In the original film, a handful of personalities burst onto screen and their characters were revealed as layers peeled away. In this version, tons of hotties are thrown in and popped like corn. Nothing memorable occurs, no great songs or outstanding characters. This should have been called "Fame: Another High School Musical" Looked up the director on IMDb.com and he produced Briney Spears' tours -- talk about unoriginal, packed with fluff, and emotionally depthless. He brings all those qualities to this film.

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• Fame - An Unfortunate Snoozer

  OgyJoe2009-09-24

  I remember when I was younger I enjoyed the original Fame movie. Although I currently can't remember anything about the movie at all, save for the theme song. Tonight I got the chance to see the sneak peek of the 2009 version. Overall, I wasn't impressed. What was wrong with the movie? 1.) The plot…or lack thereof. There were so many "main" characters, that the scenes just jumped from one to another without any real cohesion. Sometimes there were even two scenes going on at the same time with the camera flashing back and forth between the two. 2.) The timeline. Before each "section" of the movie, you got a title like "Freshman Year", "Sophomore Year", "Junior Year", and "Senior Year". This would have been fine if they spent any time in these years. Instead, they went by so fast that the title just threw off the pace. For example, you get introduced to the characters and see "Freshman Year". Then you get to see their insecurities and character flaws all over the course of one day. The next day is "Sophomore Year" and the characters have made no forward progress since day one of freshman year. The movie could have been vastly improved by simply stripping out these time stamps. 3.) Character development. Tied to the first two problems with this movie is the character development. There is so much going on and time passes so fast that you don't really get to see much development of many of the characters. I understand there is only so much time in the movie, but that could have been resolved by reducing the number of "lead" characters. If you reduced the number of people we had to keep track of, we'd be able to see more how those characters evolve, and care more about them in the end. 4.) Lack of resolution. None of these characters really show any sign of improvement until the last scene in the movie, and then we still get no resolution on how things turned out. The last scene is graduation and we have no idea if any of these people amounted to anything after that. Very few even make mention to what they MIGHT be doing after the movie ends. Heck, I would have even settled for the lame freeze frame with written text explaining what people went on to do (which is a pretty cheesy cheat out of writing a resolution to your story as is). 5.) Predictability and memorable characters/scenes. I am going to lump these two issues together, because they go pretty much hand-in-hand. the movie from beginning to end was pretty predictable. There were absolutely zero surprises within. As a result, there was very little memorable about the movie. In fact, without looking at IMDb, I couldn't name a single character in the movie. So was there anything good about the movie? I guess for what it was, it was an okay movie. No real surprises, and nothing you are going to remember any length of time from now (which is maybe why I don't remember the first movie). But I did enjoy the gratuitous completely unrealistic cafeteria jam session on day one of Freshman Year. And some of the cast music (which I assume was mostly original…at least nothing I've heard elsewhere) was good. Actually, I would have been okay if it was just one jam session after another, because I kinda dug that cheesy scene. Otherwise I say that if you are really interested in this movie, or perhaps a fan of the previous one, wait for the DVD. There are much better movies you could spend your money watching, especially since tickets are so high these days.

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• They should officially change the name to LAME.

  cre8ed2009-09-23

  okay.... so first things first.... I was invited to the N.Z. premiere tonight in Auckland of the new "Fame" reboot or remake or whatever you want to call it. I thought free food, a few celebrities to stalk and some free beers and then the movie to end it all, sounds like a good night. I grew up with the 80's fame on t.v. I saw Leroy rocking it weekly on screen... so yeah I was interested to see how they re-branded this film for the new millennium. To be frank, I was not expecting "Fame" to be an academy award masterpiece but I was still very intrigued after watching the trailer, the music sounded cool, the atmosphere seemed a little charged the trailer was cut nicely... but sadly... thats where all the excitement ended in the trailer..... This movie is b- to- the -oring.!! BORING! So I will be mentioning some spoilers so stop reading here if that's an issue for you.... got an issue grab a tissue. Basically they take a bunch of very talented up and coming singers, dancers, actors etc and they cram 4 freaking years of this elusive, over the top, hardest school in the world to get accepted to into a roughly 90 minute film. Every 25 minutes was one year.. starting with a "freshman year" title on the screen... then about 25 minutes later fade to black and "sophomore year" then about 25 minutes later "junior" etc etc... this spread the movie extremely thin... although the leads hair grew longer or haircuts changed so you knew they were older and more mature. They have the cliché young black guy who is full of torment and angst that his father left him, who sits all melancholy in the stairwell while everyone else is in the cafeteria dancing on tables and plugging in guitars and hitting bongos. There is the young black woman who is being forced to play classical piano by her parents when all she really wants to do is be free and sing her heart out... because no one cares about her needs. There is the typical geeky video guy who always seems to have a camera in his hands when you see him, the gay male ballet dancer who no matter how hard he tries cannot cut it and impress his teacher.... blah blah blah and the young girl actress wannabe singer who starts singing in a little tiny voice all shy and quiet, so you would expect that bam she will find herself and come out of her shell like her teachers have been telling her the ENTIRE 4 YEARS!!!!! BUT NO.... nothing changes... she doesn't get a big voice, stays wooden and timid and shy... I mean seriously I thought this school was supposed to be only accepting the best of the best! They just spent the first 20 minutes showing us auditions and having the school principal tell everyone that thousands audition but only a few hundred are accepted!! There are so many cheesy moments, from the black guy saying "aiightt" to the "I just want my parents to be proud of me" to the boyfriend "I'm just going to sing to you and give you a big hug and then cartoon rabbits will come out and doves will lower a silk scarf around your neck and there will be world peace and God bless you tiny tim"... what?!?! Okay so maybe I'm going a little over board but there was more cheese in this then a stuffed crust pizza from domino's. I think the biggest problem with this film is you walk away with a "who cares" mindset. The fact that they have approx. 10 main roles and follow them for their four years of tuition which is crammed into 90 minutes of movie is so thin... you just don't care about the characters at all because you don't get to know them. Each person maybe gets about 15-20 minutes screen time max. Then you are left wondering so what about him or what about her or did she make the album or did he get kicked out or did they stay together or how did the father handle the news????!? The story is not interesting, it extremely average, there is ZERO edge to this reboot.... no pizazz no hype no excitement. It's plain dull. I'm sure that young girls aged between 5-13 will like this, is this who 'fame' is catered towards??? I mean if tweens is the fame target demographic then it may do okay for a week or two. Sadly the biggest audience reaction from tonight's "Fame" premiere was when the "New Moon" trailer screened before the start. Some good things..... The singing is amazing... the dancing is as you would expect incredible but over all that's it. The acting a big thumbs down, I came away from this feeling like it was a very expensive made for TV movie. The story is all over the place, spread top thin and unlike the trailer again I say there is no edge, It's like a pilot for a new TV series... actually.... is that what it is suppose to be?!? FAME is LAME!

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• OK, but not spectacular.

  Masterofschemes242009-09-28

  I really enjoyed seeing how talented they were, and it gets you feeling rhythmic. At first, I thought it was going to be a good movie, seeing how the auditions went. But, after that part and they went onto freshman year, I got a little disappointed. They showed the students' problems, and what they're going through to make it to be famous, but it almost seems like the director got bored of the movie itself, and just skipped through a lot in the movie. You don't see how the students' problems were faced and how they were solved, you first see them upset, and then at the end, they're happy and ready to graduate? That's not a very good plot, actually, there isn't a plot at all. I am upset with the movie, but the dancing was great. Overall, it really was enjoyable.

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• to quote --- http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/movie-review-fame-2009#comments

  starrybucks82009-09-28

  The movie had such a good vibe in the early stages before we actually started to shoot it. In fact, it had such good energy going on, that it was a pity it ended up being cut-up/chop-chopped and 'sanitized'. There were a lot of scenes that unfortunately did not make the final cut. These scenes showed stories about true friendship, love, passion, relationships, sexuality, disappointments and successes in detail thru character development. Though the locked version was 'tamed down' because of the PG rating, a DVD directors cut would probably show the actual stories of the 10 different characters. It seemed that Mr. Tancharoen forgot (maybe intentionally?) that he had 10 characters to develop. It appeared that there was concentration on one, Ms. Panabaker (and how could her character pass such a rigid audition?), Mr. Book, Mr. Pennie, Ms. Naughton (who sang very well) and Ms. Payne. Whatever happened to Mr. Iacono, Mr. McGill, Ms. Perez de Tagle, Ms. Flores (Did you notice her? what character did she portray?) and Mr. Perez? What are their life stories or experiences? Being part of the crew, I witnessed a number of scenes where Joy (Anna Maria), Kevin (Paul McG, who plays a gay dancer…did you notice?) and Neil (Paul I, obsessed film maker) developed and established their friendship. There was a dramatic/touching scene where Joy and Kevin made the whole crew shed tears and I thought that would have been a clincher in the film. But sad to say, it ended up in the editors bin. Ms. Perez de Tagle should have been given more substantial scenes. She really is a "Joy" to watch. If I may add, Mr. McGill as handsome as he is, should have been given the same opportunity. In my opinion, these three characters would have been able to show the true color of FAME. Needless to say, Mr. Tancharoen should have captured the true essence of the "New York PA youth" by utilizing and developing all of his characters evenly. In my opinion, he could have done that, if he had chosen to do so. However, it seems that Mr. Tancharoen concentrated on just one character's development……….Jenny (Ms. Panabaker)….whom he had 'captured' and "captivated" way before the filming was over. Sad, utterly sad, but true. Give it a chance, view it in it's entirety. Maybe a PG-13 rating would have made the FAME re-invention……….'live forever' Thank you. KW, Beverly Hills, CA

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