Pajiba

I think the problem with dance movies (which, don't get me wrong, I love and will see every single one of) is that many of the people are cast for their dancing ability and not so much for their acting ability, or vice versa. It's very hard to find a triple threat in the truest sense, because even with natural ability, a person needs to put a lot of work into every area, and there's just not enough time in the day.

I will totally see this, and I will love it, whether or not it is a good movie. Excellent dancers and choreographers are worth the price of admission. Shit, *very good* dancers and choreographers are worth the price of admission. Oh, and my sister will totally go see it with me. Yesss!

Fame was about kids at a performing arts school, so it wasn't just dancing. There were singers and musicians and blah blah.

The problem is that we being bombarded with American Idol, So You Think You can Dance, High School Musical, and all of those shitty performance shows, so Fame is boring and familiar territory by now. I can't even muster up the energy to pretend to give a shit about it. It'll do ok in the box office for a month or so, and hopefully creep away and land in the Redbox kiosk some months later.

" The problem is that, at least from the looks of the new trailer, it focuses too much on the terrible, hackneyed, poorly written characters and their story lines, and not enough on what really matters here: The dancing."

The problem is that the original movie was more about the characters than "the dancing", because as Brie pointed out, the original was set in a performing arts school with lots of different types of artists. The difference, I suspect, is that the writing and acting in the original was leaps and bounds better than this one.

I have to date left dinging the reviews to other, more practiced folks. But this one, um ... just no.

I refer to the first video clip in this review, a clip from a shambling, elder horror so foul I will not speak its name for fear of rousing the congealed effluvia back to motion. The interwebs have been permanently corroded by carrying such dreck.

Inspiring Speech - Well, at least it wasn't a good review. But really, kind of a sucker punch. I mean the words were too mild being coherent and all. It's the anti - St. Crispin's day - speech. It's the manufactured platitudes of Big Brother's Newspeak for the streets - speech It's a 15-year-old pseudo-urban Sara Palin - speech.

You will be measurably more stupid and permanently taste-challenged from exposure to this speech. This speech was crafted by a committee of 3rd-rate Cthulhu-worshipers who snuck into the unspeakable realms entirely ignored by the elder gods, but driven to blue-sno-cone madness never the less. This speech won't drive you mad, but will leave a small worm of wriggling-ick in your brain forever after.

Where's the flashing, screaming warning? I mean, seriously, send me to the attic - I just don't want to remember ever again.

However, and this is the really, really evil part of this review, that "Dance" Number - so-called - is entirely deserving of that speech. Fist-pumping dance candy? No, no and no. This is from a guy who has repeatedly voluntarily watched Mecha Godzilla and enjoyed it. So, clearly, I have no standards. But this?

Clearly you've been mainlining Uncle Duke's freak-potion 49. Until you come down, do not go outside, or sign anything, and for Godtopus' sake stay away from your kids. And don't review anything.

I am now off to scrub my brain.

And jesus: Those kids are way too goddamn wholesome.

I know, right? Where are the abortions, the gay love triangles, the creepy nude photographers and all the other things that made the original Fame more than just a bunch of pretty kids being talented? "My mom doesn't believe in me"? That's the best they could come up with? Then why the hell is she paying tuition for a fancy performing arts school? Gah!

Plus, Fame stars Kherrington Payne (of So You Think You Can Dance mediocrity). She wasn't even remotely one of the best dancers on a reality competition. How is she getting the lead in studio films?

How is she getting the lead in studio films?

She's easy?

Thanks boogs. It's been way too long since I saw what real dancing looked like.

Someday that herky-jerky so-called "street dancing" hip-hop slash b-boy/girl who gives a shit what it's called anymore ... that will all look as trite and dated as a blackface soft shoe tap number from the 1930s.

But Fosse will shine forever.

Am I the only one who is going to defend So You Think You Can Dance? I think it's fantastic. For me, it blows American Idol out of the water - with a few exceptions, I can routinely expect the Idol competitors to be warbling divas. In So You Think You Can Dance, the competitors have to prove themselves in myriad dance styles, and the choreographers are respected artists in the profession. It's got a lot of the same dramatic posturing and a drawn-out results show, to be sure, but my god watching those people dance is incredible!