Fame: Pretty Good, ActuaTHEY DID WHAT???

Despite my reservations, I saw Fame tonight. It was pretty good! Except for one aspect that was completely infuriating and disgusting and more retrograde and vile than anything shown in the 1980 version. WHOOPS. What follows is a quick, non-spoilery breakdown of the performances, followed by a SPOILER WARNING, followed by the infuriating part. (Although I should point out that Fame, like both the original film and the play, has no plot, so there's not much to be spoiled.)

The Kids We'd Heard of Before: Little Panabaker was quite good! So was Anna Maria Perez de Tagle, who really, really needs a better stage name, but who can apparently do justice to a script that's neither Hannah Montana nor Camp Rock. Kherington of So You Think You Can Dance turns out to be a mediocre actress, but she was also, oddly, a mediocre dancer - technically fine, but nowhere close to the entrancing uber-goddess she was supposed to be. Asher Book of V Factory was definitely the weakest link acting-wise, and though his singing was not bad, he sounded...well, like a member of a boy band, which didn't really fit in with songs like "Someone To Watch Over Me."

The Kids We Hadn't: All quite good! Naturi Naughton is rightfully going to get a lot of praise for her voice. None of the others were real standouts to me, but they all did very well.

The Grownups: Should have had more to do - at least, Bebe Neuwirth, Kelsey Grammer, and Megan Mullally should. They didn't have much to do besides expose the soft fleshy underbellies of their students, and Megan's one song was a disappointment, but they captivated the viewers' attention (particularly Bebe) in a way these wet-behind-the-ears young actors haven't yet learned to do. (And one scene made me want epic fanfiction about how Kelsey Grammer's character is in love with Megan Mullally's. I DON'T KNOW.)


And now, for the part that pissed me off...


SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER


Little Panabaker and Asher Book play aspiring actors who start dating. At a party, Andy, a former student of the school who is now a regular on a TV show, approaches Little, compliments her on a recent performance, and suggests she come by the set to meet the casting director and audition as a day player. He's also clearly into her, although it's not clear if she knows that. She's thrilled at the professional opportunity, and gives him her number. Asher comes in just in time to see her apparently give some guy her number and accept a kiss on the cheek from him, and storms out. She explains what happened, apologizes (even though she didn't do anything wrong), offers to never talk to Andy again if that's what Asher wants, and then placates him by inviting him up to her empty apartment. So...placating the angry boyfriend by telling him he can veto who she talks to and then offering sexual favors (it's not clear how far they go, but they're not going to her apartment to play Parcheesi)? Uh...sounds great.

Then she goes to Andy's set and is invited into his trailer. He tells her the casting director isn't there, but wants them to make a video, and oh, here's a kissing scene in the script - all a very transparent attempt to get into her pants. She doggedly attempts to act the scene a couple of times, but finally realizes (or accepts) that this isn't legit, tells him off, and leaves. Good for her! In the original film, something similar happens but the girl doesn't get the courage to leave, and I was pleased that Little was able to do so.

Next scene: she's telling Asher what happened. She's clearly very upset, and with good reason - she was just betrayed and molested.

He gets mad at her.

His girlfriend was just SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, and he yells at her while she cries that she knew all along what was going to happen, that she was using sexuality to get ahead, and that if being famous means that much to her, fine, he's done. Then he storms off.

Some time later, at a party with mutual friends, she apologizes again for hurting him and asks if they can ever get past it. He doesn't answer, but later in the scene takes her hand, which apparently means that he's forgiven her.

For being MOLESTED.

This movie blames the victim of sexual assault for bringing it on herself. Her boyfriend essentially calls her a slut and a tease and breaks up with her because she was tricked and violated. This didn't happen in the 1980 film, or the 1988 play, when female characters found themselves in similar situations - situations which turned out a lot worse for the girls in question. All they received was sympathy.

No, it's not until 2009 that we're told that a 17 year old girl who trusts a former schoolmate not to take advantage of her is BAD and WRONG for DARING to be alone with a man without her boyfriend's permission. It's not until the 21st century that Fame wants us to join this supposedly likeable, upstanding boyfriend in shunning a girl who has just been through a traumatic experience. It's not until now that we're expected to applaud a steaming pile of misogyny in what is otherwise a pretty decent movie.

Way to take us backwards, Fame. Fuck you.

Spoke too soon!

So you know how this morning I made passing reference to Corbin's new show, The Beautiful Life-Colon-TBL?

Did I mention it wasn't very good? Because it really, really wasn't. Aaaaaaaaaaand, it's already canceled.

Sorry, Corbin. But you're still super-cute, if that helps. Especially when carrying a puppy.

Round Up

Some brief happenings, mostly but not exclusively featuring the HSM alum crowd, because even as HSM's stranglehold on tween culture fades, they remain my favorites:

* Lucas Grabeel (and Drew "Singing Voice of Zac Efron" Seeley) are making a musical vampire love story webseries.

* Tizz is blond again! For the most part, she's been looking awesome lately, but at the Fame premier, not so much.

* Corbin's motocross movie finally premiered. Meanwhile, The Beautiful Life-Colon-TBL also premiered. Thing I love about it: Corbin wandering around with no pants on. Things I am bored to tears by: virtually everything else. Alas.

* And finally, Sterling Knight gets a DCOM scheduled for next year. Hooray! (And yes, I read Popstar Online for this blog.)

And because what the heck, it's Friday, have a flashback:

O-Town: Liquid Dreams

Not gonna lie. I watched every episode of their two seasons of Making the Band.

Well, I do use Hudge's facial wash...

The Wizards Movie: Who Knew?

So. Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie. Here are four short words I never thought I'd find myself typing, unqualified and unironically, in a review of a DCOM -- let alone a DCOM based on one of Disney's kidcoms:

It was pretty good.

Not "it was an infuriating waste of my time, or "cute cast, terrible movie," or even "it was enjoyably bad."

It was pretty good! Like, actually good in the way that you want a movie to be!


The two-second summary: Alex and her mother are fighting non-stop during their family vacation, and Alex makes a thoughtless, angry wish that her parents had never met. Of course it comes true, and now she, Justin, and Max only have two days to get find the Stone of Dreams, a magical artifact that can grant (or in this case, reverse) any wish.

Basically, this movie is what would happen if you threw Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Back to the Future, and It's a Wonderful Life into a blender: treasure maps, mysterious booby traps, characters who disappear because history has been altered, and a revelation of just how good life really is. But, while the action adventure sequences are fine (unlike the regular series, the effects aren't laughably bad; but they're nothing to write home about, either), what ultimately sets it apart as probably the best DCOM I can think of is the fact that it's a well constructed story. There's only one movie in the movie (something DCOMs aren't alone in screwing up; a lot of recent tween and teen movies have tried to shoehorn two, three, or in some cases seven plots into one movie, *cough*CampRock*cough*). There are some bits that don't really make sense (they make the rule that the kids will forget things, but for most of the movie, only Max does, and then he disappears; Justin forgets things all at once, two seconds before he disappears) or were never followed through with (what exactly had Giselle the parrot done to earn her punishment, and why did the street magician guy go off with her at the end, after she'd been so horrible to him?).

But the plot was smooth enough that it didn't take away from the actual important part: the interpersonal relationships.

Whoa, I never thought I would type that about a DCOM, either. But it's true!

The movie does several things well at the character level: for one thing, you can see how the kids get their personalities from their parents, in an "I learned by watching you!" sort of way. The most obvious example is Max, when he's hanging out with his now-single, still-magic-possessing father. Generally, Max is an immature joker -- and now we see, so's his dad! And without hammering the point too hard, Max learns what a pain that can be to deal with by spending time with his dad.

Better still, the kids (especially Alex) relate to their parents the way actual teenagers do. Every fight Alex had with her mom impressed me, because they didn't seem at all contrived; yeah, magic, whatever, but other than that, they were fights that a lot of teenage girls do have with their mothers.

But, because I am a sucker for such things (and because, let's face it, Selena and D-Hen are the best things about the show), it was the surprisingly depth to the relationship between Alex and Justin that got me and knocked the movie up from "fine" to "pretty good" territory. In the regular series, we see that Alex is a slacker who's perfectly good at magic, but doesn't care enough to try. And we see Justin is a neurotic nerd. And we know that they don't generally get along. It turns out, all of these things have motivations! Justin is desperate for his parents' approval, and thinks that being super-smart is the only way he can earn it. Alex sees that his parents do approve of that, but thinks that she can never live up to his example, so she refuses to even try. Justin is sick of getting in trouble because of Alex. Alex is sick of Justin being a know-it-all. They fight because of all of these things, and through the course of the movie, they gain empathy for one another, they make it clear that beneath it all, they really care about each other, and it's kind of. Um. Touching. And not in a bad-touch way.

You guys, a DCOM had character depth in a way that made sense and drove the plot along and made me care about things! What madness is this? And if Disney can actually find competent people to write and direct things, why don't they do it more often????

Look: the movie wasn't perfect. When I said it seemed like someone had stuck those four movies in a blender, I wasn't joking; there's leaning heavily on movie tradition, and then there's borderline plagiarism, and this movie is much closer to the latter. Nothing about it was especially original, or strikingly brilliant. But (given the source material, and the quality of basically all other DCOMs), it was better than it had any right to be, and even removing the context of the Wizards series and the tradition of DCOMs making no sense, you're left, well… A movie that was pretty good.

She's not like other girls.

I like iCarly a lot, but one of the major weaknesses of the show is the character of Carly – or, more precisely, the lack thereof. She’s smart, but not a nerd! She’s cool, but not too cool! She’s not particularly temperamental or particularly laidback or particularly interested in things or particularly anything. She’s not zany like Spencer or aggressive like Sam or nerdy like Freddie. All she ever gets to do on the show is react. This is not a good or strong or entertaining centerpiece for a television show!

On the other hand, there's Sam, who is the very best part of the show, and the complete opposite of Carly in that she's absolutely bursting with personality. Sam is played by my tween BFF Jennette McCurdy, and Jennette McCurdy’s amazing hair. Seriously, I know I’ve said it before, but this hair is magical. Check it out:


Anyway. Sam is loud. Sam is uncouth. Sam is ill-behaved.

Sam is a fantastic role model.

Obviously kids should not model their behavior on Sam’s. Sam doesn’t do her homework, she sasses the teachers, she attacks kids in the hallway on little-to-no provocation. She’s violent and rude and a bit of a bully, and her moral compass is a little borked. This is not a good way to behave!

And yet.

Sam is a girl on TV, and yet she still gets to be loud and uncouth and ill-behaved. She gets to eat enormous quantities of meat and push people around and buff her feet on Carly’s couch, and…that’s just Sam. The show doesn’t make her worry about her weight or tell her to nibble daintily at a salad. It doesn’t restrain Sam in any way. She just gets to be Sam, and her friends and her audience love her for it.

Which is why I was so very disappointed when iCarly pulled the same stupid bullshit Hannah Montana did, way back in Season 1. In “You Are So Sue-able To Me,” otherwise known as the Most Infuriating Hannah Montana Episode Ever, Lilly has a crush on some random Boy of the Week, who is obviously equally smitten with her, but Miley tells Lilly that she (Lilly) is “not a girl” and thus cannot attract him. Miley gives Lilly a makeover, but the boy stands her up, so Lilly takes him to some kind of teen court TV show, where she discovers that the boy liked her just the way she was, and happily goes back to the old Lilly. Because it’s not okay to be yourself unless a boy likes you that way!

The iCarly version of this, “iMake Sam Girly,” sidestepped some of the problems with the HM episode. Sam really is uncouth and undainty, as opposed to Lilly, who had those attributes slapped onto her for an episode and forgotten the next week. Carly totally accepts Sam the way she is and only agrees to make her over when Sam asks for help, instead of Miley’s fairly nasty and totally unwarranted attack on Lilly. And Sam goes back to being herself in order to protect herself and her friends by fighting a bully. But she’s still subjected to half an episode of “you are wrong for being yourself,” and she is still validated by the Boy of the Week continuing to like her. Both episodes even have their tomboys eat spaghetti messily to prove how unladylike they are. And both episodes turned my stomach.

“I want to be more like you!” Sam tells Carly at one point. “You know, all soft and girly and weak.”

It’s a funny line, but when I heard it I thought of a comment I’d once seen on the official iCarly website, left by some little girl out there in viewerland: “I think Sam is the coolest, strongest girl I have ever seen.”

And I wondered what that little girl would think of Sam – the strongest girl she’d ever seen – begging Carly to teach her how to be weak, because that’s how girls are supposed to be. Unless, of course, a boy tells them they can be otherwise.

Come on, iCarly. You can do better. Let Sam be Sam.

Bandslam

This weekend, your bloggers took a journey to the heart of darkness -- or, more specifically, to the small New Jersey town where Jess went to high school. We were only trying to beat the heat of New York City, but it turned out to be thematically appropriate, because while in the Garden State Parkway State, we saw Bandslam, which is not only set in a New Jersey high school, but which turned out to be much like Jess's high school experience: angsty, hormonal, poorly paced, and full of ska. Oh, and kind of suckish.

A few of our commenters had let us know that a) the movie was much better than it looked; and b) it was completely mismarketed. Y'all were right on both points. The marketing failure is basically understandable, when you consider that it's starring both Vanessa Hudgens and Aly of Aly & AJ (sorry, I mean 78violet) fame; making it look sparkly and tweenie was inevitable. But that wasn't the movie's real market -- it was a teen comedy, more along the lines of 10 Things I Hate About You (albeit with a more indie feel); it's a movie meant for actual teens who are actually in high school. You can tell, because it was heavy on the How Much High School Sucks commentary.

Jess: It also had the kind of protagonist who appeals more to teens than tweens: the awkward, sensitive loner Will, played to perfection by Gaelan Connell, who probably spent the entire movie baffled by the fact that he was playing opposite Aly and La Hudge. He had the earnestness of a teenager who is totally into classic rock and convinced that he's the only one who's ever heard of, say, Led Zeppelin down pat, and he may soon start stealing roles from Michael Cera, but God, I'm so sick of whiny nice guy misfit protagonists, and the fact that the plot went seriously awry towards the end doesn't really help me to like Will. But more on that later.

Becky: Squeaky Hudgens played outsider Sa5m (the 5 is silent), and made a serious effort to be less piercing than usual. She doesn't quite pull off flat monotone, which makes her first few scenes awkward, but when the writing settled down and focused less on "look what a misanthropic outsider weirdo she is!" she did a pretty good job. But the script never quite decided what kind of outsider she actually was -- the visual cues (heavy eyeliner, black nailpolish) said goth, but the personality cues leaned much more heavily towards shy nerd. And somehow they missed the archetype that would have actually made sense, the music-obsessed indie chick, which is a shame, because if Sa5m (that causes me physical pain to type) had been more into music, it would have made the relationship between her and Will read a lot more genuine.

Jess: Aly Michalka was much more convincing as Charlotte, the oh-so-fascinating-and-unattainable rock goddess who recruits Will as her band's manager. (The plot around her character was kind of rocky, but that wasn't her fault.) Lisa Kudrow and Scott Porter were fine but unremarkable as Will's mom and Charlotte's ex-boyfriend, respectively, although Scott Porter can barely pass for a college student anymore, let alone a high school one. The rest of the cast of kooky misfits was appropriately kooky and misfitty.

Becky: Basically, this movie had all the elements it needed for a decent teen flick. The pacing was a little off and some elements never quite gelled into place -- Hudge's jealousy of Aly springs to mind -- but the first 3/4 or so were fun and watchable. Some of it was actually really sweet, some of it was really funny. But unfortunately, it went all to hell at the climax. The climax was supposed to be a double-whammy of awfulness: it's revealed that Will's been lying to everyone about his father, and also, Charlotte has betrayed everyone. And while the first part more or less works, the second... Not. At. All.

Jess: Yeah. Not to spoil you guys too much, but the "betrayal" scene basically consists of Will, our ostensible hero, screaming at Charlotte for being distant and cranky on the way to her father's funeral. At which point Becky and I realized we both hated him, and none of his mopey "poor me" posturing for the rest of the movie could get him back into our good graces.

Becky: Not to mention the fact that her "betrayal" didn't actually involve betraying anyone. The only thing she did that was in any way bad was make Will feel bad about himself, and since he was being a total asshole AND her father had just died, yeah, our sympathy was with her, not him, which wasn't what the movie wanted us to take out of that scene. And it didn't help that the entire rest of the movie was about what a super-special, awesome, all around fantastic, fabulous guy Will was. ZOMG WE GET IT. SHUT UP, MOVIE.

Jess: And then the movie wanted us to believe that Will's band went on to take the world by storm. There are several reasons to doubt this:

1. The band's name is "I Can't Go On...I'll Go On." What? No. Shut up.
2. It is fronted by Vanessa Hudgens in a macrame dress. Rawk.
3. They cover "Everything I Own," which...I'm sorry, but you cannot rock out (or shred, which Vanessa commanded them to do in the trailer but sadly not in the movie) to a Bread song. A Bread song that has been covered by *NSYNC, Boy George, and Olivia Newton-John.
4. It's a ska band! Ska! I'm sorry, I didn't realize this movie was set in 1994.
5. Spoiler but oh my God you guys this shit is ridiculous: DAVID BOWIE SEES THE BAND ON YOUTUBE AND OFFERS THEM A RECORD DEAL. THE REAL DAVID BOWIE. IN THIS MOVIE. FOR SOME REASON.

Becky: And finally, let's not forget some casual racism. Early on in the movie, Will completely dismisses a group of black students as listening to hip-hop or rap; they aren't worth his time to talk about (in fact, the only black students I can recall seeing are listening to or performing rap and hiphop). He goes on to make fun of white kids who are listening to reggae. But repeatedly in the movie, he and other characters profess their deep love of ska artists by saying, "They took reggae...and made it their own!" So: black kids enjoying music primarily performed by black people? Dismissed out of hand. White kids listening to music primarily performed by black people? Laughably stupid. But white kids listening to music primarily performed by white people while actively applauding the artists for appropriating it from black people? AWESOME. Not that it's a surprise. After all, Will is obsessed with rock generally, so I guess it's a proud tradition.

Jess: Basically, Bandslam had elements of a good movie floating around in there, but failed to tie them together, and threw a few major stumbling blocks in there for good measure. We basically wanted to go back in time, get our hands on the script, and mark it up like crazy with our red pens. Alas, that technology is not yet available. If you're a big Hudgens or Michalka fan or enjoy neurotic white guys being sad about their lives (and someone must, or Woody Allen wouldn't have a career), you could do worse than giving Bandslam a shot. But you could do a whole lot better, too.