Friday, September 25, 2009

2600 Fame

Friday, September 25, 2009

From Alex Haley's Queen: It is the great flaw of equality ... that everyone believes that only [he] know[s] what is best for the others.

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I saw "Fame" this evening.  The original 1980 version was one of my favorite movies (but still pretty far behind "West Side Story"), so of course I had to see this one.

It was mostly just a talent showcase.  There was a feeble attempt at story, but there just wasn't time to develop anything, especially because there were too many characters to focus on.  There was the angry young man, the pushed young lady, the gingham ingenue, the earnest idealist film fiend, the not-good-enough dancer, the I'm-hot-shit dancer, the hunk, the token Asian, ... durn ... there were so many not well-developed characters I can't remember them all.  But there were at least nine.

The movie was 107 minutes.  Let's throw out 15 minutes for production numbers (and that's on the low side).  That leaves 92 minutes for story.  With nine characters to follow, that's 10 minutes each.  The movie covers four years of school, so that's 2.5 minutes per character per year.  Not enough.  Sorry.

We know I have a problem with suspension of disbelief.  It bothered me that at the beginning the kids were starting ninth grade.  That makes them 15 at most, right? Even if they're all made up, they still carry themselves like 15-year-olds.  These kids looked 18 at the very least, and didn't change at all (except for the ingenue) over the next four years.

Can't say much for the singing (I wanted to tell the kids to LET IT OUT!), but they had some great tap dancers.

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Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth were teachers.  Casting directors should avoid casting actors familiar to audiences as already having a long-term fictional relationship.  I could have accepted either of them alone as a teacher, but together I kept thinking of "Cheers" and "Frasier".
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