Fame (2009)

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a huge dance movie fan. I've seen a ton of them that came out relatively recently while knowing full well that they would be over-the-top and silly. I saw Step Up (though I wasn't desperate enough to see the sequel), Take the Lead, Center Stage, Mad Hot Ballroom. Some of them, I loved. Some were decent to pass the time. None were as dull as Fame.

Fame (for those of you unfamiliar with the 80s version) is about a bunch of kids at a performing arts high school in New York City - these kids study, audition and dream of a shot at the limelight. The movie follows them from audition day all the way to graduation, but it really didn't seem like it.

The entire movie was a host of vignettes (largely uninteresting) interspersed with all too infrequent large-scale dance production numbers or songs. Many of the scenes weren't really related, there was little in the way of over-arching story arc. And to me, there didn't seem to be any feeling of time passing - particularly not 4 years...

To be honest, the only story I liked was the pianist/R&B singer, and even that was quite ludicrously unrealistic, because (SPOILERS) if I was offered an honest to goodness record deal? Those guys who mixed me? They can stay in freakin' high school, because I'd be on my way to FAME!!! But that entire possibility is just shrugged off. Bizarre for a school that's meant to propel its graduates to stardom...

I also quite liked the cute boy who sang in his father's restaurant - but again, it just didn't seem to go anywhere at all. It was like he was only at the school to be the lackluster romantic interest of the woodenly untalented girl who just wants it too much to realize she's never going anywhere. And, honestly? For all her 'wanting it', I just didn't care. Weren't there some sort of guidance counselors urging these kids to consider other careers if they just couldn't cut it?

So - yeah, the numbers, when they happened were pretty cool. I loved the scene in the cafeteria where everybody starts a huge musical/dance mashup. But they were too infrequent and just not connected enough to the storyline to elevate Fame above ho-hum.