Girl Week 2020: The Quick and Dirties

Fame (2009)

Directed by Kevin Tancharoen.
2009. Rated PG, 107 minutes.
Cast:
Kay Panabaker
Naturi Naughton
Kherington Payne
Asher Book
Anna Maria Perez de Tagle
Walter Perez
Megan Mullally
Charles S. Dutton
Debbie Allen

We follow a class of students through their four years at New York's School of the Performing Arts. Any movie that happens to be a remake automatically sends up red flags. Before you even start watching this one, even more than normal go up. It's a PG-rated remake of an R-rated movie and is nearly a half-hour shorter. To me, this screams that it's a stripped down, scrubbed up but ultimately too thin version of the original. Well, that's precisely what it is. It maintains the original's hyper-kinetic energy through it's song and dance routines and may even be better at that aspect. It also manages to have intriguing classroom scenes. In fact, the scenes of teachers teaching are the best in the movie. This is particularly true of the acting classes taught by Mr. Dowd (Dutton). What it lacks is the ability to create any connection between the students and us, the viewers. It both needs and wants us to. However, instead of nurturing that relationship it just bounces along from one melodramatic scene to the next, showing us what happens but never making us feel it. It doesn't help that the students are largely the same on graduation day as they were when they were first auditioning to get into the school. Denise (Naughton) is a notable exception. This is where those extra 30 minutes could've come in handy. They could've been used to fully immerse us in their world rather than leaving us on the outside as it does. In that respect, it's much like 2008's Cadillac Records. It's a movie about people who pour their heart and soul into their craft, but it has no soul of it's own.


MY SCORE: 5/10

Fame (1980)

Directed by Alan Parker.
1980. Rated R, 134 minutes.
Cast:
Irene Cara
Eddie Barth
Lee Curreri
Laura Dean
Gene Anthony Ray
Antonia Franceschi
Debbie Allen
Barry Miller
Albert Hague

We follow a class of students through their four years at New York's School of the Performing Arts. This is a bit of an oddity for a musical. At it's core, it's pure Broadway. We get big production numbers that break out anywhere, complete with infectious choruses and highly choreographed dance routines. What makes it different is it's wrapped in a truly gritty, urban package that movies like West Side Story and Grease can only feign. This is channelled most effectively through the remarkable performance of Gene Anthony Ray as the talented but troubled Leroy. Then pop-star Irene Cara received top billing, even singing two Oscar nominated songs from the soundtrack. However, it's Ray who is the real star. In fact, of the students, he was one of the few allowed to reprise their role for the long-running Fame TV series which followed (a number of the instructors did the same). Adding to this is the very real possibility most of the kids we're watching will utterly fail when it comes to achieving their dream of becoming rich, famous entertainers as there are reminders of this everywhere around them. Still, it steers clear of becoming the total agent of despair and desolation it's urban musical successor Rent turned out to be. It strikes a nice balance betwee hope and reality. I'm not much for musicals, but this is one of my faves.