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Karaoke
[Ha-ha] is the Co-Star in 'Duets'
By
Ben Fong-Torres
AsianConnections
is proud to present the adventures of Ben Fong-Torres, our Renaissance
man: author, broadcaster, and former senior editor and writer at
Rolling Stone Magazine. This guy's our hero!
Ben
was a featured character in "Almost Famous," the Oscar and Golden
Globe-winning film by Cameron Crowe.
- AC Team
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"Duets" stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis as daughter-and-father
karaoke singers.
Go ahead and
laugh. Why not? Everyone else does. There's something about karaoke
that draws titters. Sure, it's increasingly popular, this singing
along to backing tracks, with shows like "Say What! Karaoke" on
MTV sending young rap and rock fans into karaoke bars everywhere.
But karaoke (Japanese for "empty orchestra"?�I guess the singer
is supposed to fill the void) is still perceived as something silly
that people do when they've had a few too many.
So here's the
surprise: "Duets" likes karaoke. In the movie, it's a metaphor for
lost souls finding themselves, and, in their conquering a song,
an audience, or a competition, filling some kind of spiritual void.
Paltrow, the Oscar-winning actress for "Shakespeare in Love," is
the daughter of director Bruce Paltrow, and she comes off as exactly
that: a good little girl, more giddy than we've seen her in a while;
seeking a reconnection with her father (Lewis), a rock singer reduced
to hustling bets at karaoke bars.
Everybody knows that Lewis can sing. But so can Gwyneth, with a
shimmering, glistening voice, which she shows off on "Bette Davis
Eyes" and in a duet with Lewis, on Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'."
And so can Paul Giamatti, best known for his role as "Pig Vomit,"
the hated radio executive in Howard Stern's film, "Private Parts."
A supposed karaoke virgin when he hits a bar, by chance, as he reels
out of a boring routine as a traveling salesman, he nails Todd Rundgren's
"Hello It's Me" and is suddenly hooked on singing. (Ah, Hollywood.
Competing for a $5,000 prize, Lewis surprises Paltrow by calling
her onto the stage, where they do an unreheased "Cruisin'" ?�in
perfect harmony, natch. And Giamatti, along with an ex-con
hitchhiker played by Andre Braugher, ex- of "Homicide," whip up
a stunning version of "Try a Little Tenderness," even though Braugher
is a gun-toting paranoid who's not exactly pleased to have been
dragged onto a spotlit stage.)
Braugher actually doesn't sing; his voice is dubbed in. Neither does
Scott Speedman, who plays a cab driver. But his pickup, Suzi (Maria
Bello, from "Coyote Ugly") does. Actually, Bello says she's never
sung before, in real life. But in "Duets," she acquits herself well
on "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Make You Love Me."
Bruce Paltrow does toss in a couple of clinkers, but only briefly,
and in the background. Curiously, he doesn't employ any Asian singers
in any of the half-dozen or so bars in the movie. Karaoke was invented
in Japan, became wildly popular in various Asian cities, and has
turned the stereotype of Asians as shy non-performers on its head.
But you won't find any evidence of this evolution in "Duets."
Nor will you find much original. "Duets" may be studded with some
pleasant dollops of music, but the words?�that is, the script?�dooms
it. You've got yer hesitant parent and kid reunion; yer (black)
con on the run hooking up with yer burned-out (white) guy making
his own kind of escape. Then there's the cabbie who's just lost
his girlfriend, and he just happens into the sexy Suzi, a small-town
singer with stars in her eyes; she's itching to go to California.
So call it three road movies squished into one, with the three pairs,
such as they are, converging at a karaoke contest in Omaha.
See? You laughed again. But that's OK. "Duets" may be a bad movie,
but it's the kind of bad that you can enjoy. As the New York
Times' A.O. Scott wrote, "We could use more bad movies like
this."
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AC contributor Ben Fong-Torres sings regularly at a karaoke bar
in San Francisco. A 1992 article about his fascination with karaoke,
"There's
Always Somebody Worse Than You," appears on his home page, http://www.benfongtorres.com.
Related:
Ben Fong-Torres
Articles Index
Visit Ben's Official Site: www.BenFongTorres.com
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