Fame (1980)

 “A real artist must never be afraid of what other people are gonna say about him. ” – Montgomery

Number of Times Seen – Between 3-5 times (Cable in the 80’s, 16 Jul 2001 and 2 Jun 2016)

Brief Synopsis – Follows the four years of students in a prominent New York City performing arts school as they learn to be better dancers, musicians and actors.

My Take on it – The idea of following numerous talented students in a performing arts school during their entire high school years was a great one.

Unfortunately, the chose the wrong medium to do it in.

There are way too many characters and much too much material to properly give us a real idea of what goes on in this setting in just two hours.

Thankfully, two years later, they made the right decision and brought the story to TV where it really flourished.

They got so many ideas right here but just didn’t have the time to explore them properly and things feel a bit lacking because of it.

The cast of young actors do a great job here and my favorite was a young Paul McCrane (Romano on ER).

The atmosphere of the movie works well and there are lots of good ideas here that are fun to watch unfold despite feeling a bit cramped time-wise.

The music is superb and I’m a big fan of at least three of them; Fame, Out here on My Own and The Body Electric.

Check them out here:

Bottom Line – Excellent idea that gets slightly lost in the current format because there is too much material and too many characters. Making a TV show of the idea was a stroke of genius because of that and proved to be even more successful than this movie was. Excellent music. Great cast. Loved seeing a very young Paul McCrane (Romano on ER) in it. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – This was the first film in the history of the Academy Awards to have two songs nominated in the Best Song category. The nominated songs were the title song, written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford and “Out Here On My Own” written by Michael and Lesley Gore. The title song won. It has since happened several times.  (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy

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