Rating: 
Summary: ...I Sing the Body Electric
Review: Fame is a terrific "school movie" and musical. It has great intensity and passion. Wonderfully infectious music and the dancing! No one can strut his stuff like the very talented Gene Anthony Ray in the opening sequences as Leroy. Paul McCrane who played Montgomery, the solumn gay boy with guitar, still remains one of my favorite actors. A very enjoyable film.
Rating:
Summary: FAME is great!
Review: FAME is a wonderful movie...but you can hardly tell when it is really a musical or not. Sure they might sing...but a musical has people usually singing at an odd time...not in a singing class...
Rating: 
Summary: Film at it's best.
Review: Fame is by far my favourite movie. It has made me cry and laugh all at once. I can definetly identify with the characters. If I were you I would get my copy fast.
Rating:
Summary: Good Solid Entertainment
Review: Fame is one of those movies that makes you want to be a performer (no matter how bad of a singer or dancer you are)...It is motivational and the songs definately add to the theme of the movie...and yes there are parts of the movie that slow it down (the unexpected pregnancy is one that comes to mind)...Overall this is the kind of movie that makes you feel good after watching it...And that is part of entertainment...to feel good when you leave the theatre.
Rating:
Summary: Singing, Dancing, Comedy Wrapped In To It All
Review: Fame is the best movie ever. It has singing, dancing, and comedy all combined. Great way to see a cool school to dream of going. Music all day then music all night. Thats my idea of school.
Rating:
Summary: Underrated Movie Gets a Shining Treatment
Review: Forget the new reality show that is scuzzing up the good name of this movie. Forget the lackluster live stage show that uses the plot as an outline for a show that is less effective. Forget Fame L.A. which never tried to be anything but soap opera. Even forget that original TV show that, while entertaining, didn't have that edge that this film has.Those expecting a big glitzy musical will be disappointed in this, the ultimate in late 70's and very early 80's young filmmaking. The honest story about performers that the film of A Chorus Line failed to be, possessing the urban edge that cheap films like Breakin' and Fast Forward, Fame has really stood the test of time in its message and mission. Seeing the film again on DVD was another eye-opening experience. Too often these films get dumped by the studios that made them in cheap packaging with no extras. Warner Brothers went the extra mile with this release. Some have said that they did it to capitalize on the new show's expected popularity -- that's bunk. This is one of those classic films that many people tend to overlook. It deserves to have this treatment and the honor is long overdue. (I do have to say I HATE Warner Brothers still sticking with those terrible DVD cases...the covers can get scratched and dented so easily!) Following the lives of several students at the NY High School of Performing Arts from Auditions through Graduation, Fame is inspirational to any performer/person even 23 years later. What I liked about this film is the 'slice of life' aspect of it. The film starts at auditions and ends at the final note of the graduation ceremony. That's it. The singing comes from a natural performance place...this is what these people do. The Hot Lunch Jam in the cafeteria, the lonely songwriter performing at a bare window, and, of course, the title song forever immortalized in the streets of NYC. The performances are first rate with many unknowns and soon to be knowns flying across the screen. What a far cry from Dr. Romano is Paul McCrane's Monty! I LOVED the cast commentary. Getting the chance to see these people all these years later and hearing their memories of their time working on this film and since is genius. I wish more studios got these kind of video/audio commentaries together. (Warner Brothers also did this with The Goonies...another treasure DVD). Alan Parker's commentary is interesting but a little repetitive. He'll say something and then repeat it several times...as if he's trying to keep talking until he can think of something else to say. Thank you Warner Brothers for doing this film justice. 23 years later it has been restored to pristine condition, you packed on the necessary features without going overboard, and you've unleashed the film at a time when we need to remember that there was a time performers didn't all look like Greek Gods/Goddesses but we still loved, listened to, and aspired to be like them for true reasons. That's why you remember their names - Leroy, Doris, Coco, Bruno, Hilary, Monty, Ralph, Lisa, even Shirley Mulhullen...
Rating: 
Summary: A brilliant but unsatisfying film!!!
Review: From the opening credits, Fame seemed extremely promising. Here is a musical about the trials and tribulations of the talented kids at a New York City High School for Performing Arts. I mean, you can't go wrong. This just screams masterpiece. And even after the credits began to roll, that promise was still there.
So why didn't Fame hold up to that promise? Maybe because it tried to tell too many stories in too short a time and never fully developed them. Maybe there were to many primary characters. Or maybe because none of the individual stories resolved themselves and the film seemed unfinished, ending too soon and too fast, despite it's lengthy running time. We follow eight of the accepted students through three years of their education. They grapple with discipline, praise, disappointment, growth, friendship, love, sex, competition, and initiation into the world of entertainment where there are more failures than successes. As in his two previous movies, director Parker demonstrates his gift for working with youth and drawing out their best performances, which greatly benefits the film. Barry Miller is Ralph, a fast-talking Puerto Rican whose hero is Freddie Prinze and whose hip comic sense hides a painful personal life. Irene Cara plays Coco, an ambitious singer whose longing for fame leads her to the seamy side of showbiz. Gene Anthony Ray is a tough black ghetto youth who dances like a leopard and resists the disciplinary strictures of one of his teachers (Anne Meara). Maureen Teefy is very convincing as a Brooklyn girl who must free herself from a domineering mother in order to express her artistic sensibilities. Lee Curreri plays a synthesizer enthusiast whose single-minded genius is the source of pride for his taxicab-driving father. Also featured are Paul McCrane as a homosexual acting student, Antonia Fransceschi as a rich ballerina, and Laura Dean as a lackadaisical dance student. Fame is an emotionally involving and exuberant movie. It contains many moments of cinematic poetry. For every clichéd portrait of teenage anxiety there is a matching character revelation of depth. But in the end, it all seems unsatisfying and that's a shame. With all these great qualities going for it, I try not to think about what could have been. It's definitely a motion picture experience worth taking, but it should have been a lot more satisfying!!!!
Rating:
Summary: It needed Debbie Allen for more than two lines.
Review: Full of energy and spirit, but in the end a bit corny and very melodramatic. I attended a school of the arts in Washington, DC, and at that time we were all thrilled to see a film which paid tribute to the special institution we had to endure for 8+ hours a day- though there was not one moment, in the four years I attended, that anyone danced in the streets and on top of the cars!! I actually preferred the television show, which did not take itself as seriously, and created much broader, fuller, characters than the 'types' presented in the film (the ambitious over-achiever, the militant hood, the ingenue, the comic, etc.) All in all, it was passable, but could've been better. And recheck the movie; Debbie Allen is only in a small opening scene judging the dance auditions. She has been quoted as saying that her role was originally much larger, but producers felt it too closely resembled the Coco role, so it was finally reduced to two lines in the film's first fifteen minutes. She did, however, star in the TV show, and got to dance and choreograph on-screen.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: I absolutly loved this movie! Maybe I'm biased, being an aspiring actress and truly relating to these people. Fame is a masterpiece in my opinion, an emotionally charged work of art that touches something deep within. Montgomery's (Paul McCrane of ER) window ledge song is great, as are all of the songs. I highly recommend this to anyone!
Rating:
Summary: FINALLY!
Review: I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE THAT FAME HAS FINALLY MADE IT TO DVD. I HAVE BEEN WAITING A LONG TIME FOR THIS. I WOULDN'T MISS THIS SHOW AT ALL WHEN IT WAS COMING ON. I AM GLAD THAT THIS HAS COME OUT. THIS IS GREAT.
| 
