In-Flight Entertainment
Fame
By Jason Lee
February 8, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
In-Flight Entertainment brings you the movies now playing at a cruising altitude of 45,000 miles in the air. So put your tray table up, buckle your safety belt, and let's go.
Now Playing on Westbound American Airline flights in February: Fame
You would have thought that the 2009 remake of the 1980s classic, Fame, would have been exactly what struggling MGM needed. With network television and their adolescent viewers fawning over shows like Glee and So You Think You Can Dance, having been weaned on American Idol and High School Musical, a cinematic extravaganza celebrating a group of teenagers devoting their lives to the performing arts (music, dance, acting, film, etc.) would seemingly be a box-office slam dunk. A worry-free investment for any producer or film studio. Or so you would think.
Released at the end of September last year, Fame struggled to find an audience. It opened in third place with a mediocre $10 million weekend gross, and ended up with a final total that only barely doubled that number. Clearly, fame does not require legs.
But, of course, with this column, the question is: is this movie worth two hours of my time while I'm stuck on a crowded, loud airplane? The answer is sadly, no. I know that my past two reviews for In-Flight Entertainment have been extremely negative, but Fame gives me no reason to change my mood.
Granted, the film opens with a pretty spectacular sequence. Thousands of aspiring young artists dutifully line up, complete with safety pins attaching their printed audition numbers to their chest, in hopes of landing a spot in the NYC Performing Artist High School incoming class. Over 10,000 auditioned, or so says their strict-but-caring principal, but only 200 got in. Sheesh, with odds like that, they should just apply to law school.
The audition sequence is dazzling. We are treated to an array of talented singers, dancers, actors, and musicians. It's like A Chorus Line as produced by The Disney Channel. The singers sound strong, the dancing and choreography is eye-catching, and the classical musicians are wonderful to listen to. There are a couple of oddballs – strangely non-talented hopefuls of the sort that would be gleefully featured on American Idol's audition week episodes – but for the most part, the competition seems pretty cutthroat. The sequence is overly long (approximately 20 minutes), but it's by far the best thing in the movie.
Then the actual plot kicks in, and the movie grinds to a halt. For one thing, we quickly find that the non-talented oddballs have actually been granted admission to the school. Excuse me? Next, we see the freshman class begin their rigorous class schedule and are treated to scenes of inept dancers struggling to learn partnering skills, singers that have no clue what they're singing, and pianists that can't stick to the sheet music. Excuse me? How the hell did these kids get in? The audition process was grueling and you only admit 2% of applicants – why are you wasting your time on these dunderheads?
This is about the part when the movie turned sour. It had already lost most of its credibility with me, but with each subsequent scene I was now forced to endure every movie cliché you'd expect if I told you, "This is a movie about singers, dancers, and actors in high school." Students "spontaneously" breaking out into song and dance during lunch? Check. Student wanting to pursue the arts but finds that their parents aren't supportive? Check and check. Karaoke? Check.
It's not a good sign when you think to yourself, "Sister Act 2 was WAY better than this movie."
The second half of the movie improved somewhat. It actually dealt with some of the harsher realities of life as a performing artist. One of the girls, a struggling singer/actress, meets up with a former student who had previously dropped out to take a part on a soap opera. He asks her to come by his trailer so that he can introduce her to the show's casting director, a dream come true for any aspiring actress, only to find out that he's just trying to get in her pants. Another girl struggles to maintain her grades, even though her time is being monopolized by her work on Sesame Street (nerdy, yes, but an actual paying gig!) and has to drop out. A dancer is heart-breakingly told that even though he loves dance more than anything, he's simply not good enough to make it as a professional.
Fame would have been well served to have explored issues like this further; it could have been a refreshing dose of reality for the Glee crowd. But instead, we get more cardboard teenage romances and pop music sequences. Too bad.
I did not like Fame. Beyond its error in giving us a glossy, stereotyped representation of the arts, it never took the time to develop any of its characters, and cast extremely weak actors to play the parts - and when your plot involves a group of characters studying to master the art of acting in a supposedly great performing arts school, it's tough to ignore that your actual actors are bad. The script, as I've mentioned, was not balanced at all, jumping between harsh reality, clichéd movie scenes and uninteresting storylines.
Worst of all, the movie does not provide us with any insight into the exhilaration that the performing arts bring to the performers. The scenes in which performers appear to enjoy what they're doing come few and far between. Why would anyone put up with the rigor supposedly offered by this school? Why would anyone waste their two hours on a plane watching this film? It's beyond me.
Rating: 1 1/2 stars.