Reviews

Review: Fame

A PG-rated, post- High School Musical remake: why, exactly?

By BRETT MICHEL | September 30, 2009

1.5 Stars

Oh, MGM: I realize you're staving off bankruptcy, but is remaking past hits the answer? Are a PG-rated, post-High School Musical version of Fame (Alan Parker's 1980 original was rated R) and the upcoming Red Dawn update what it will take for your studio to stay in business and follow through on the promise that "James Bond will return?"

Let's hope that Kevin Tancharoen's dull, morally sound TV-ready film (hey, isn't that Frasier and Lilith playing music and dance instructors?) doesn't end up offering stockholders a license to kill our favorite spy. As in Parker's superior film, we follow students through a compressed four years at New York's High School for the Performing Arts, where the average age appears to be 25.

One "gifted" pianist (Naturi Naughton, who plays Lil' Kim in Notorious) conceals her love of hip-hop from her disapproving parents. Imagine their horror if they saw their baby getting it on with Biggie Smalls. Not in this movie, though.

Related: The Earth moves, Autumn garden, Review: Michael Jackson's This Is It, More

The Earth moves
There is an element of bare-bones pageantry in Brecht's play — which, the dramatist being a Marxist, has as much to say about knowledge and the marketplace as it does about the father of modern science's impassioned head butt to the opiate of the people.
Autumn garden
It's freshman and sophomore year on the Boston rialto, with American Repertory Theater artistic director Diane Paulus introducing her first season and Huntington Theatre Company honcho Peter DuBois endeavoring to survive his second.
Review: Michael Jackson's This Is It
The Star Wars –style titles that begin Kenny Ortega’s hastily assembled Michael Jackson tribute documentary explain that the film has been whittled down from 100 hours of behind-the-scenes video shot between last April and June during rehearsals for the King of Pop’s planned 50-date “This Is It” London concert series.
Fresh fruit and vegetables
The bleakest months of New England winter are ahead of us, so the prospect of leaving your toasty house to see art may not be at the top of your to-do list.
Happy returns
George Balanchine didn’t go in for productions of the old classic ballets.
A powerhouse play
For a play titled Small Tragedy , playwright Craig Lucas certainly has packed in a bundle of large feelings.
A Raisin in the Sun at Trinity, Bad Jazz at Zeitgeist
The centerpiece of George C. Wolfe's 1986 satire The Colored Museum is a scathing sketch called The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play . A Raisin in the Sun is the über-mama-on-the-couch play.
Review: Theater of War
John Walter had been immersed in Brecht for two decades, and he wanted to make a film about the great German poet/playwright.
Review: The Seagull, The Corn Is Green
The Seagull begins with a theatrical experiment — a brief symbolist drama dreamed by young Konstantin Treplev, who's struggling toward artistic expression while endeavoring to showcase his girlfriend and impress his actress mother.
Looking back, going forward
Economic recession and post-racial themes abound in Boston’s early 2010 theater repertoire.
Variety shows
There's plenty more than we can fit in, but here's a sampling of the broad range covered on Boston stages this spring, from new works to Shakespeare and Mel Brooks.
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Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Hip-Hop and Rap, Music, More

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[ 02/14 ] Peter Frampton @ Zeiterion Theatre

[ 02/14 ] "Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings @ Bert Gallery

[ 02/14 ] Mary Poppins @ Providence Performing Arts Center

ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL

REVIEW: THE VIRAL FACTOR | January 17, 2012
Made for a modest budget of $17 million — and feeling like it (who needs convincing explosions in an action movie?), Dante Lam's latest still gets the job done from a run-and-gun standpoint.

REVIEW: EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE | January 17, 2012
Too soon? For Stephen Daldry's 9/11 drama, the right time is "never."

REVIEW: THE DIVIDE | January 10, 2012
Many a teleplay for The Twilight Zone threatened atomic Armageddon, and though Frontier(s) director Xavier Gens nukes New York in the opening shots of his latest thriller, he finds more inspiration in the horrors of human nature as seen in the old TV show's episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."

REVIEW: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL | December 20, 2011
Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns to the screen in dramatic fashion as new teammate Jane (Paula Patton) and the returning Benji (Simon Pegg) break him out of a Russian prison.

REVIEW: WE BOUGHT A ZOO | December 20, 2011
Matt Damon plays Mee, a journalist who decides that he and his daughter (a precocious Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and sullen teenage son (Colin Ford) need a new start after the death of his wife, so he spends his life savings on a house in the country.