Customer Reviews

Fame (Extended Dance Edition) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was excited to go see this movie, and really did not know what to expect.
This would have made a much better new TV series than a movie. I would love to see it fleshed out as a TV series and get some real developement in characters and plot.
Unfortuntely it fell into that unsasifactory category where you saw most of the best dancing\singing parts on the theatrical teasers so you are left with virtually no WOW factors sitting and watching it in the theatre.

I was expecting more dancing and singing in the movie as a whole, but found that aspect to be disappointingly skimpy, with few actual "full" musical numbers.

I do not think they fleshed out any defining plot and came across aimless. I do not think they developed any one set of characters enough to hook you into any of the many moments they crammed into one film. They also Cliched too much in this movie. The Characters, the "hardships" the hook-ups most of which felt forced to fit a formula for the movie, the struggles. No one character carried any full personality, they all seemed cliched and safe. Part of that I feel, is because they made it an ensemble cast but made that core ensemble too large to get any real screen time to feel attached to anyone.
I feel like there was soooooo much potential here that was just left undeveloped and instead I was shown an "outline" of what could be a great TV series.
At time I felt confused as to if they were trying to make it feel like the same time as the origional Fame instead of completely updating it to be a modern twist, but caught todays conviences and clothing style..
I LOVED who they picked to be teachers and wanted more from them.. I liked most of the young actors but don't feel like I got to really know any of their characters or felt that many of them actually grew from freshamn year to senior year.

When I think of the movie "Fame", I think of the song that still lingers in my mind from the original 1980 film. All I remember about it though was that it was about teenagers coming of age at the High School of Performing arts in New York City.

Yesterday I saw the 2009 version in a theater. The story was familiar but it seemed rather sanitized. And the only modern touches it had were some slight references to YouTube and texting. The stories of the individual students seemed stereotyped and have been done a million times before. There were a few poignant moments and some of the actors, although excellent, seemed a little old for their roles.

I spent the entire film waiting to hear the song "Fame" which still lingers in my mind after all these years. I had to wait until the very end, during the credits, to hear it though. And even though there were good production numbers throughout, there was nothing else memorable that I would feel like humming. I thought the dancing was wonderful and so was some of the acting, especially that of the actors playing the roles of the teachers.

Basically this was a pleasant and entertaining film. As far as my personal taste goes though, I can only give it a lukewarm recommendation

The remake was good but I didn't enjoy it as much as the original movie. I cared about Coco, Leroy, Doris, Bruno and the other characters in the first movie. I also bought the soundtrack. But I didn't get so caught up in the new characters lives while trying to become famous. I didn't even buy the new soundtrack.

However, it was worth seeing just to see/hear Megan Mullally sing. She is very talented, not only as an actor but a singer. It was good to see Debbie Allen again. She was in the original movie and TV series.

There were some great actors to watch, Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth, who outshone the young cast. I found myself wanting to know more about them than the students.

The dancing was fun to watch and the music was good but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I did the original. Sometimes, a remake just isn't as good.

Let's hope that "Fame" is not rolled out of the hangar again and retooled into another version. I already saw the old "Fame" as a movie (a very good one), and as a musical in London and in the Broadway roadshow in the States. This is a modern version with the old School of Performing Arts building on Manhattan's West Forty-sixth Street making a repeat appearance. Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth have thankless roles as teachers. It has some rap music and some very spirited high-energy musical numbers. For a large part of the movie it's hard to keep track of which student is which. The movie is divided into the audition sessions to gain admission and each of the four years of school life.
The original film version was much better; it touched you and was involving. This one lacks any real spark. The concept has always been a good one, but now it's been done to death. There are a lot of clichés and no real creativity in this one, and the rap sequences are grating to an older generation.

This is a sad excuse for a movie. It was pretty edgy for a PG and I didn't really get caught up in the characters' lives. It didn't connect with me at all. If you are looking for any music from the original film here, just skip it. There are only TWO songs from the original FAME movie. Don't even think about watching this!

2009's "Fame" is a decent enough spectacle, but as a story, it seriously disappoints. Unlike the original 1980 film directed by Alan Parker, there's no sense of maturity, no sense of development, and worst of all, no sense of reality--this is essentially an alternate version of "High School Musical," with a plot so whitewashed and characters so cliché they seem to have been transplanted from an after-school special. One wonders: How closely did director Kevin Tancharoen and writer Allison Burnett study the original film? Did they intend to leave out any degree of substance when recycling specific scenes and ideas? If there's one thing they should have picked up on, it's the fact that Parker's film was not sending a prefabricated message about following your dreams no matter what.

They also should have noticed that it didn't try to gloss over unfortunate situations. Consider the scene in which Coco, played by Irene Cara, tearfully strips naked for a sleazy director; shame and [...] weigh heavy, but so does the fact that she's willing to experience both in the hopes of becoming famous. Now compare this to a scene in the new film: Seventeen-year-old Jenny Garrison (Kay Panabaker) is in the trailer of a former boyfriend who's now a working actor, and she haughtily leaves before he has the chance to seduce her on his couch. One of these scenes has genuine emotional power. The other plays like a visual how-to manual for warding off lustful teenage boys. I half expected someone to step into frame, freeze the action, and ask the audience, "What do you think Jenny should do right now? Should she a) call for help, b) run away, or c) try to talk it out?"

The premise is a documentation of four years in the lives of students at the New York City High School of Performing Arts (many look old enough to have graduated college, but never mind). I've already mentioned Jenny, who overloads herself with acting and singing lessons yet lacks the heart and soul both require. This is in direct opposition to her crush, the highly moral Marco (Asher Book), an easy-going young man who doesn't have to try very hard to be a gifted singer. We also meet Denise (Naturi Naughton), who wants to be more than a classical pianist in spite of her controlling father (Julius Tennon) and passive mother (April Grace). Denise secretly provides the vocals for a hip hop group led by Malik (Collins Pennie), a hardened young man who attends P.A. against the wishes of his hard-working, tough-talking mother (Michael Hyatt). And then there's the outgoing Neil (Paul Iacono), an aspiring filmmaker who needs his father to finance his student project.

The faculty is headed by Principal Angela Simms (Debbie Allen, paying homage to her role in the 1980 film). There's the stern ballet instructor, Ms. Kraft (Bebe Neuwirth), the scholarly piano teacher, Mr. Cranston (Kelsey Grammer), the fun loving voice teacher, Ms. Rowan (Megan Mullally), and Mr. Dowd (Charles S. Dutton), the acting teacher who believes in his craft so strongly, he doesn't shy away from overly personal exercises like making his student share a painful memory. Each character appears fleetingly and only as a personification of life's lessons. Ms. Kraft, for example, exists primarily as a reminder that passion doesn't always go hand in hand with talent. Ms. Rowan reminds us that, even with talent, dreams sometimes don't come true. Mr. Dowd reminds us that we can only get through life by breaking down walls and allowing ourselves to feel.

Part of the problem with this film is that 107 minutes is hardly enough time to cover four years of high school, especially with this many characters. By the end, there isn't the sense that we've gotten to know anyone, certainly not at a level deeper than them wanting to be famous. Then again, most of them are broadly drawn and hardly relatable. Even the way they resolve personal issues lack credibility, and this definitely includes the inevitable confrontation scene between Denise and her parents; the outcome is so grossly implausible, it took a great deal of effort to stop myself from throwing something at the screen.

I will give this movie credit for making each production number look and sound really good. The updated cafeteria scene, in which the students spontaneously break into song and dance, is a successful blend of imagery, music, and editing. It works so well that I wish it had gone on longer. Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing for the final production, seen at the graduation ceremony; what we see is a performance so elaborately designed, so heavily choreographed, and so professionally lit that it's impossible to believe a high school could afford staging it. It doesn't help that the song they sing reiterates the sterile and hopelessly overused message of believing in yourself. Herein lies the great failure of "Fame": It's flashy and shallow. If there's any film that doesn't deserve the lyrics, "I'm gonna live forever, / I'm gonna learn how to fly," it's this one.

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What a disappointment. The youger cast was untalented while the older cast was under utilized. The music was forgettable and the dancing was only so-so. There were no standout performances and no credible plot. Skip this film and get the original Fame instead...now that was a fun film!

I rented this film not expecting to live up to the original. But this is the problem with remakes, they will always be compared to the previous film. There weren't many stand outs in this version of Fame. Naturi Naughton shines because you briefly get to connect with her story, but it gets lost within the other two or three main plots. There's two romance arc you really don't understand because they ended before you got to really feel their love for each other.

The only redeeming and poignant aspects of the film are the synthetic performances. There were wonderfully crafted dance numbers and some of the singers sang well however they aren't as organic, spontaneous as the original film.

I almost didn't get this to play on my bluray player. I may need a firmware upgrade. Anyway the movie was good however I was thinking there would be more dancing in the movie....from what I remember from the older one. also the girl that was on 'so you think you can dance' really wasn't in the movie very much and that was a big advertising point for the movie.