Yes, I
know, it has been an extremely long time. As I 
love musicals, and teenage
movies such as the John Hughes movies, I decided to watch Fame, released in
1980 and directed by Alan Parker, wich stars Irene Cara (unforgettable
interpreter of the movie song Fame) and Paul McCrane
as Montgomery McNeil (and incidentally, Dr Romano in ER !), among others.
Basically,
the movie follow the stories of various students in New York, trying to make it
to the art scene: dancing, acting, singing, the whole range’s here. The
students we follow are ambitious Coco Hernandez, shy Doris Finsecker, sensitive
Montgomery MacNeil, “mad at the world” Leroy Johnson, and abrasive Raul Garcia.
Overall, I
would say the movie has not aged well, compared to others, and is a reflexion
on how much you have to fight to make it into show business. There are some
good moments with cool dance scenes, nice performances, however overall the
plot is predictable, so are the characters (see description above!), which I
found globally extremely disappointing. And I was expecting so much!
Some of the
good scenes, which also create expectations for the rest of the film, happen at
the audition at the beginning of the movie. I like that Raul goes around to
every art department saying that his father was great at every one. I like the dance scene with Leroy Johnson
completely outshining his partner, and oh my God the outfits were just
ridiculous. Granted, at the time it may have been “in”, but that is also why I
think this movie did not age well.
One good
thing about the movie is off course the music. Irene Cara has a great voice.
No quote
for this one, I really tried but could not find anything memorable. Overall,
maybe not a waste of time because I think this s one of those movies you need
to see, but don’t expect too much.
