A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

LOSER LIKE WHO? Isaac has previously warned us of the peril of trying to apply earth rules of logic to Glee, and Glee: The 3-D Concert Film may stretch the rules even further. The movie's made up of three intercut parts:

1. Footage of the cast (just the younger portion thereof, save for a cameo appearance by ALOTT5MA Designated Whipping Girl Gwyneth Paltrow doing "Forget You") performing songs, mostly from Season 2, with some minimal dialogue between the cast members to set it up, entirely in character. Apparently, the film is supposed to be of New Directions, not of the "Cast of Glee." Some folks acquit themselves quite well--Lea Michele demonstrates her pipes, Kevin McHale is clearly the strongest male singer, and the camera has a hard time looking away from Heather Morris during "Slave 4 U" in particular (as Fienberg observed). Others work out less well--Dianna Agron gets screwed because she has only one song (largely, I anticipate, because they wanted to minimize Chord Overstreet's presence), and Cory Monteith again reminds us that he can neither sing nor dance.
2. Footage of the characters backstage--again, entirely in character (at least sort of). There's no writing credit on the film, so the stuff may be improvised. Some works well--Brittany gets off some suitably bizarre remarks (most memorably, correctly noting that her boobs will look awesome in 3-D), Rachel gets to react to being told that Barbra is in the house. Most other folks get only a few moments, perhaps because they're uncomfortable. I'm not quite sure how this fits into continuity. Are we to believe that New Directions (following their loss at regionals) somehow signed a worldwide tour which sold out and an accompanying film, and then, returning to Lima, Ohio, find themselves still losers? Admittedly, the film's flop status makes it possible to play some meta games here, but still.
3. Documentary segments (shot by another crew entirely) of folks proclaiming their love for Glee and how it's helped them accept others/accept themselves. Three are central players--a cheerleader who's also a little person talks about how the show helped her gain confidence, a girl with Asperger's talks about how Brittany helps her connect with people, and a guy with a painful coming out story talks about how he wished he had someone like Kurt as a role model. The problem is that these segments, while genuinely affecting, don't mesh with the continuity of the rest of the film. They talk about the show as a show, while the rest of the film maintains the pretense that the characters are "real" and the ones performing.

On the whole, the film's not bad--as Fienberg noted in his review, it takes away the increasingly bizarre plot gymnastics and lets the performers focus on the music, but it also shows where the show and its ensemble are weak on that front.