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'Fame' remake brings disappointment to movie fans
The original “Fame” became an iconic phenomenon back in the 1980s and won two Oscars. After watching the re-make, all I wanted to do was demand a refund and then run out to buy the original flick.
Let’s begin with why the original was so good. The director, Alan Parker, created a masterpiece of dramatic stories involving a group of students at a performing arts high school. The film captured the essence of what teens in that day were struggling with. The kids faced a variety of issues concerning sexuality, religion, race, drugs and alcohol, even abortion.
The choreography flowed beautifully with the music and the plots intertwined flawlessly. As of 2006, it was one of the top 50 high school movies according to Entertainment Weekly.
The directorial debut of Kevin Tancharoen in the re-make proved that his talent lies in dancing, choreography and directing television shows with one storyline. He told movieline.com that he loved “Fame” but that “you can’t recast those characters.” His intentions were to “take the idea and the message and the integrity and the grittiness and translate it to a 2009 tale.” I think I missed the “grittiness.” The most disappointing avenue the re-make took was cutting it down to the bare minimum necessary to call it a PG movie. All of the glory of the original was gutted, leaving the newer version a dry, boring, and tumultuous picture that seemed to be made for Nickelodeon. Do the world a favor, Kevin: Stick to TV. Better yet, stick to choreography because that’s the only thing done well in this movie.
Tancharoen attempted to stay true to the original by engaging in some of the plots from the original, but underplayed them drastically. He kept the part where Coco (Irene Cara) was asked to undress in a screen test. But in the re-make, the most you get is Jenny (Kay Panebaker) being kissed by a slimy actor (ex-student). The dramatic climax? Her boyfriend didn’t like it. Hmm, didn’t expect that. The one plot revival he get’s right is Lisa’s (Laura Dean) attempted suicide in the subway. In the re-make, Kevin (Paul McGill) is a dancer who has been unsuccessful in his attempt to wow his instructor, played by Bebe Neuwirth. She painfully tells him he will “never be able to support himself as a paid dancer.” He responds by almost jumping in front of a train in the subway. Approximately two scenes later he decides to go back to Iowa and become the “best damn dance instructor there ever was.” See? Underplayed.
From the crummy acting by the not-so-shining stars to the 15 or more poorly written plots, the re-make didn’t even come close to measuring up to other films from its intended genre like “High School Musical.” Panebaker as Jenny is a self-conscious kid whose goal is to become an actress and her acting abilities are supposed to get better by the end of the movie. What happened, Jenny? In the last scenes of the graduation performances, she’s just as mousy as she started! At the very least I expected character development amounting to more than getting propositioned by an alumnus and a hint or two of passion from the “artists.”
The choreography was amazing, though so amazing that I think Tancharoen knew he wasn’t going to get an emotional response from the audience from some of his “climactic” scenes, so he cut out to a dance performance. Hot as they were, they just weren’t enough to keep me interested, leaving me with the desire to get up and walk out half way through.
Another mistake was keeping only two of the original songs, “Out Here on My Own” and “Remember my Name (Fame).” We might have had a good soundtrack at least to look forward to but there was only one good singing performance. Nauturi Naughton (Denise) put a new spin on the title song, reviving “Remember My Name (Fame)” for newer generations. If only the director could have followed her lead.
Though the movie was a downer, there was a surprise performance in the latest rendition: the portrayal of singing instructor Fran Rowan by Megan Mullally, otherwise known as quirky and sexually promiscuous Karen from “Will and Grace.” Although I was hoping for some comedic relief from her, at one point in the movie she belted out Rogers & Hart’s “You Took Advantage of Me” in her not-so-amazing nasal voice, making it hard for the mediocre kids to recover the audience’s attention.
Laden with upbeat and fun performances, while still evoking emotion from the viewer with climaxing dramatic scenes of things that affected kids in their teen years, in the 1980s you got more bang for your buck when you went to see the original “Fame.” The film released on Friday doesn’t deserve to use the title from its namesake.
Seriously, don’t go see this movie. If you value your time and money, you would be better off seeing “Toy Story” in 3D.
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