The 2009 remake of the 1980 movie turned musical, ‘Fame’, made it clear to me that is not always the case. I am not sure what exactly was going through director Kevin Tancharoen’s mind when casting his 2009 version of the film. Perhaps he was having an off day.
Sub par performances bogged down this already boring movie beginning with Asher Brook who plays Marco, and ending with the weakest of all the performances, by Kay Panabaker who ironically played the studying actress, Jenny Garrison.
All the performances were not quite as hopeless as the rest. There were a few diamonds in the rough that shouldn’t be categorized on the list of mediocrity.
Dancer Alice Ellerton played by Kherington Payne was stellar. She danced circles around the entire cast and was one of the few enjoyable parts of the film.
I also loved the aspiring movie director Neil Baczynsky played by Paul Lacono. He was a little bit goofy, but fresh and very charming.
The teaching staff played by veteran thespians Bebe Neuwirth (Ms. Kraft), Kelsey Grammer (Mr. Martin Cranston), Megan Mullally (Ms. Fran Rowan), and Charles Dutton ( Mr. James Dowd) were good as always, but not enough to save the film.
It is not that the group of young actors chosen to play these roles are not talented just that they maybe should choose a different career path. For instance, I appreciated the musical talent of Malik Washburn played by Collins Pennie, but that’s as far as it goes for him. The same goes for classical pianist turned R and B diva Denise Dupree played by Naturi Naughton. We all know that she can sing, but is a little drab in the acting department.
The rest of the cast is not worth naming; they were either obnoxiously over dramatic or painfully weak in their performances.
As for the film itself, it was a poorly executed, choppy montage of clips that could barely pass as a movie. I felt like I was watching a fictional version of a 2 hour episode of ‘America’s Got Talent.’ Here’s the star, this is their talent, where’s the story?
In order to sit through it I had to force myself to accentuate the positives, which was hard to do. What I got from it was the cinematography and a few musical performances.
The cinematography was a bit like a piece of artwork. Meaning that if you were to still shot the entire film and play it as a picture slide show it would be both artistic and visually stunning. Cinematographer Scott Kevan is to thank for that.
Some of the musical performances were enjoyable. Marco’s piano serenade to Jenny was beautiful and Denise, Malik and composer Victor Taveras played by Walter Perez, first public performance was a shinning moment in the film.
The only scene that I could muster up a laugh for was the karaoke scene when Ms. Fran Rowan performs for her students after making them all get up and perform their hearts out.
There is not much more to say about the 2009 version of ‘Fame.’ If you must see it I strongly recommend renting the original or waiting for this one to come out on video. This way if you fall asleep you won’t have to worry about missing anything; you can just rewind it, but that’s just my opinion.
Hayley Smorczeski
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