Giles

here's the review here at DVDTalk:

Fame (2009)

I have to say I was very very disappointed by this film. Being a fan of the original film and the tv series, this was trying to hard to replicate some of the aspects of the original film and utterly failing.

for starters, the music is vapid and largely unmemorable - the inclusion of the Oscar nominated song: 'Out Here On My Own' seems like a desperate attempt to be too faithful to it's source material. The characters are so one dimensional, and the movie screams through all the four years so quickly it's not enough time to really care or relate to them.

Hokeyboy

You know... well, I have zero interest in seeing this movie for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being it seems like a vapid excuse to cash in on the whole "Radio Disney / Hannah Montana / High School Musical" phenomenon, and there's nothing necessarily WRONG with that as long as you're a 12 year old girl or a creepy 36 year old guy.

My issue is that... there's really no POINT for this remake. The original wasn't a great movie, but it was a good one simply because of Alan Parker's commitment to making the movie *feel* real. It was a series of vignettes that reflected, I dunno, the grittyness of trying to succeed in a society (not just the "entertainment" business, but society as a whole) that will attempt to POUND YOU MERCILESSLY INTO SUBMISSION when you try your damnedest to make it on whatever modicum of talents you possess. The original is a DARK movie, albeit one that's nonetheless very much predicated on hope. Kind of like most Alan Parker movies. Except Angel Heart.

This movie just looks like some CW pilot with a larger budget. As sad as it sounds, I'm just too damn old for this shit.

clckworang

This was my biggest impression as well: that it looked like a pilot for a show on the CW. I'm not planning on seeing this one. Maybe when it shows up on cable I'll end up taking a look at it, but even that's doubtful.

Patman

This update was the idea of "Fame" meets "High School Musical" with the unfortunate side-effect of a scatter-shot amount of cliched subplots and uninvolving aftermaths of naive teenage life choices (I thought teens were smarter these days, anyway).

That being said, I did like some of the actual talent on display (music, singing, dancing, acting, etc.), but it just stops and sputters and plods through 4 years of the High School for Performance Arts for such a class of students with promising talent and ambition. An underwritten script without strong connective tissue and uninspired direction and vision sinks the film into a pool of mediocrity.

I give it 2 stars, or a grade of C on the strength of some of the musical, and song and dance numbers.

Matthew Chmiel

I think this conversation I had with a friend of mine best sums up my thoughts on this remake:

Friend: Who gets to reenact the awkward Irene Cara nude scene from the original?
Me: Nobody. It's PG.

I'm not going to see it, but I had friends who saw it last night and they didn't seem to enjoy it. Come on, does it even have I Sing The Body Electric?

Ash Ketchum

I went to the so-called "Fame" school, NYC's High School of Performing Arts, a few years before the original FAME came out. (Some future famous performers were there when I was there.) When the original FAME was first released, the kids then attending the school ridiculed and dismissed the film. (My classmates and I probably would have done the same thing.)

There's a piece in today's New York Times that has six current attendees of the school (which, since the original FAME, was merged with the High School of Music and Art and moved to a brand-new building and renamed the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of the Arts) and their reactions to the movie. They all gush over it. Young people are so conformist today. As a veteran of the contentious '60s, this irks me.

The O

Did students ever randomly break out into song? Is this something, featured in both films, rooted in any sort of reality?

mdc3000

Probably one of the worst movies of 2009. Just horrid. You never get invested in ANY of the characters - any time anything remotely interesting happens, we jump forward to the next year and things just fall by the wayside... not to mention 99% of the problems and home issues are so cliched and poorly presented that unless it's a song or dance, the audience sits there bored. This movie won't have anyone wanting to live forever. 1.5/5

Hokeyboy

pics?

Roybq

I just came back from it and aside from some musical/dance numbers, It was bored by it. As its been said, the years go by too quick, we don't get too much out of the characters and what we do is nonsurprising, and it is pretty much cleaned up in a "Disney" way. The near rape, the near suicide, it was all silly.

I thought there was a lot of talent up there on screen. Too bad that they didn't use it better.

Giles

I favoured more of the dance numbers than the 'songs' per se, but when considering how many stars I'd rate this (zero to five, five being excellent) I thought I give it a one for the dancing and the one scene with Megan Mullally - it's too bad she wasn't given a better larger role - but all the teachers and Debbie Allen's role as the principle were obviousily short changed given the film's brisk 100 minute running time.

Ash Ketchum

100 minutes is more than enough for a film like this.

Ash Ketchum

Well, I remember once we staged an impromptu rendition of "Gee, Officer Krupke" from WEST SIDE STORY during lunchtime in the main room on the first floor where everyone hung out during lunch. We played the WSS soundtrack on a phonograph (we usually played records during lunch hour) and sung along with it and acted out all the parts. I instigated it, so I take the credit/blame for it. The crowd seemed to dig it.

mdc3000

Yeah, and it sure didn't feel BRISK... it felt like the longest 100 minutes of my life.

Giles

even under two hours I was bored and fell asleep for less than five minutes - I woke up and was like' what it's still going on'??

Solid Snake

Either you have ez access to record players and records or you're showing your age.

Anyway...I guess stuff from the movies does happen in real life?

Ash Ketchum

I already indicated in my first post in this thread that I went to the school a few years before the original FAME movie, which came out in 1980. As the kids like to say, "Do the math."