This "Fame" Won't Last Forever

It's been almost 30 years since we first saw the lives and loves of an incoming class of freshmen at new York's performing arts high school. But watching this reboot is a bit like going to a Broadway show and finding out once you're in your seat that the entire cast has been replaced by understudies.

The film doesn't have any real characters only cliches. There's the classical pianist under the thumb of a domineering father who is dying to sing hip hop. The angry young man with a mom who disapproves of his artistic direction. The shy young girl finding her way and so on. What film in this day and age refers to Broadway as "honkeytonk"? The teaching scenes are familiar, but still effective. The cast of television veterans including Kelsey Grammer, Charles Dutton, and Debbie Allen, make more of an impression in their brief screen time than the students do.

The plot- what there is of it- is really just there as a clothesline to string the performances together. And that wouldn't really matter so much if the performances were any good. They're competent, but unimaginative. There's no pizazz anywhere to be found. And the film offers absolutely no surprises whatsoever.

Fame: C

Lifeless Surrogate

Bruce Willis bad haircut is the least of his problems in "Surrogate," a disappointing sci-fi yarn that takes an interesting premise and botches almost every element of the execution.

The setting is present day Boston. And Americans have found the ultimate way to get fun without exercise. They're all plugged in to robots that live their lives for them. The robots are basically better looking versions of yourself or whatever you want to be. Each robot is controlled by the thoughts of its operator. The robot can be smashed, hurled off buildings, or blown to bits but the operator emerges without a scratch. But things go haywire so to speak when two surrogates are found murdered, along with their operators.

This type of thing has been handled before, and there are some interesting ideas about identity that can be explored here.
But instead it's just left on the table purely as an excuse to make a generic run of the mill action picture. Big thinking ideas are discarded in favor of car chases, explosions, and some half baked conspiracy plot involving the giant corporation that makes the robots and its renegade founder.

The movie doesn't even have the good sense to know that its sci-fi trash, and it is sorely lacking any sense of humor. Bruce Willis' expression moderates between the smirk, and his 'what the fuck' face.
The movie ends rather abruptly with one of the more pat, tacked on endings in history. It's as though the screenwriter simply stopped trying and just quit without trying to figure out what it all means.
But by the end of the film's mercifully short running time, I really didn't much care.

"Surrogate:" C-

Love Happens

All originality in "Love Happens" goes right out the window immediately when the film trots out the hoary old adage about lemons and lemonade. This is a by the numbers romantic dramedy with lots of shots of characters staring off into space and the camera pulling back up up and away.

Aaron Eckhart is aself help guru poised to hit the big time and slogging his way through yet another seminar helping closed off people get over their grief. But surpise suprise he's still not quite over the death of his wife three years back.
Jennifer Aniston is a florist he meets in the hotel. She's fresh out of yet another dysfunctional relationship and they fall for each other.
You can pretty much tell where its going to go from here, and it pretty much follows the playbook with no surprises. But to my shock I found myself not quite hating it as much as I expected to.

If you can get past a couple of eyeball rolling romantic comedy sequencesAaron Eckhart is an appealing lead and he gives his underwritten part an appeal it doesn't deserve. And there's a little chemistry with Aniston too. The film calls on her to emote somewhat, but mostly she's just looking vaguely annoyed and twitching her nose in reaction shots.

I can't really recommend this film, but if your significant other wants to drag you to the theatre, you could do a lot worse.

"Love Happens:" C

Jennifer's Body

This horror vehicle from screenwriter Diablo Cody is neither as awful as early reviews had led me to believe, or as good as her previous effort Juno.

The film tries to be a pastiche of horror, comedy, and high school teen flick, and it fails on all counts.
Megan Fox is a bad girl gone really bad, who must east boys to survive and maintain her rosy glow.
Watching this film I came up with what I call the "Terminator Equation."
Any film starring Megan Fox should give her no more lines than Arnold Schwarzenegger had in the original Terminator. As a diabolical largely silent object, Fox may be able to find someway to scare and maintain her allure. But when called on to say dialogue, she poses and preens and says every line with a minimum of effort and a maximum of confusion.
At one point she tells a boy she'll text him her address, and she looks lost and confused. As though the concepts were alien to her and she couldn't fathom what an address was much less why one would text something like that.
You need a pop culture encyclopedia to keep up with Cody's slang. But unlike in Juno, where it seemed organic to the character and the situation, here it seems like an affectation that grows more annoying as the films interminable running time drags on.

"Jennifer's Body:" C-

The September Issue

Vogue editor Anna Wintour is both a fascinating and frustrating character. She inspires both terror and admoration.

But "The September Issue" fails to provide much insight into what makes her tick. And almost all of her staff is too scared shitless to offer anything more than the most general comments about her fickle directions.
So those expecting to see some real "Devil Wears Prada" worthy bitchiness will be sorely disappointed.

Documentary film crews followed her in 2007 as she and her staff created an edition of Vogue roughly the size of "war and peace."
This film treats Vogue as the high church of fashion, and Wintour is its infallible pope. She can make big name designers who actually have their names on labels shiver with her slightest comment, or an icy glare of dislike.
But we never really get a chance to get behind her armor.

Only once does she provide any hint of personal reflection and perspective. When talking about what her siblings have gone on to do, she seems slightly embarassed by the way she spends her time.
There's an intriguing cast of characters, but best of all is stylist Grace... who is the only one able to talk back to the high priestess.
But since it's from a time before the great recession, the free spending ways of those inside the high fashion bubble feel dated and alien to the real world as we know it.

The September Issue: C+

Big Chill

Kate Beckinsale experiences the big chill in "Whiteout."
Beckinsale is a remarkably fresh faced u.s. marshall who's gone to Antarctica to live the quiet life and try to forget a case gone bad. But with a big storm moving in and the science base about to close down for the winter, Beckinsale is called to investigate a murder.

Whiteout has plot holes big enough to drive a snowplow through. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Beckinsale is trudging all over the arctic landscape tracking down clues and flailing in snow storms in nothing more than a fuzzy hat. But the second she comes in a door, she looks like she'd just come from the makeup counter at Macy's.

The movie never aspires to be anything more than just dumb fun. And for the first 40 minutes or so it succeeds but its finally buried under an avalanche of implausabilities.

"Whiteout:" C

All About Steve

Sandra Bullock is irritating pretty much right off the bat in the misguided, and ineptly plotted romantic comedy "All About Steve."
She plays a crossword puzzle constructor with no social life, who lives at home, and has a best friend who's a gerbil. Oh and she's pretty much off her rocker.
In what seems quick even by movie relationship standards she's meets Bradley Cooper's tv cameraman on a blind date, and instantly becomes obsessed with him.

Avoid this one like the swine flu.

"All About Steve:" F

Extract

Writer Director Mike Judge's new comedy "Extract" won't make anyone forget about "Office Space." But it seems like a masterpiece compared to some of the other comedies that have gotten a far bigger push this summer.
Jason Bateman stars as Joel, a self-made man who's built his flavor extract business from the ground up.
He presides over a motley crew of clock watchers and screw ups on the assembly line, and suffers with serious sexual frustration at home with a disinterested wife whose sweat pants act as a nearly impenetrable chastity belt.
There's a throwaway plot about a con artist, a workplace accident, fraudulent lawsuits and sleazy lawyers. But Judge's strength has always been in his characters and the dialogue.
None of his assembly line drones have quite the same comic pizazz as his cubicle dwellers, but there are enough chuckles to make the film pleasant without being a laugh riot.
I actually Ben Afflec as Bateman's best friend, a bartender with a penchant for extraordinarily bad advice. Afflec is much better as a character actor where he doesn't have to do the heavy lifting.
This isn't his best by any means. But Judge's extraordinary feel for the workplace annoyances and spirit of milieu that infiltrates American workers on both sides of the front office remains intact.

"Extract:" B-