Customer Reviews
Dissapointing at best - By: Mr. Philip A. Martin, 11 Nov 2007 
I rented this film with expectations that if nothing else it might be quite good fun. It wasn't. It's not the worst film I've seen but it's the kind of thing that should have gone straight to video rather than into the cinemas.
What is so wrong with the film I hear you ask? OK here goes:
1. Some of the worst acting I have ever seen - truly woeful
2. An attempt to have a 'serious' storyline that in the end is completely unbelievable.
3. Too many characters that we concentrate on for 5-10 minutes of the film & therefore learn nothing about. This means we don't care about them. In any case the stories are so messed up that it's pretty hard to follow what exactly is going on.
So in summary a pretty weak film. If it's on the box on a wet Sunday in November it might be worth watching. Otherwise stay well clear.
One of the worst movies I've ever seen - By: A Rookahs, 03 Aug 2007 
Well, I bought this movie thinking that it would be great as it's meant to be one of the classics & has great reviews on Amazon. However, while watching the movie I just couldn't wait it for it to end!
It was based on some people who go to some singing, acting & dancing school, but the problem was that there was no real storyline. At times it would seem as though it was starting to develop one but it never did. I thought the movie was a complete waste of time - I could probably make something more entertaining with my own camcorder at home!
Overalll, I thought this movie was boring, pointless, quite disgusting at times and, again, just a waste of time. I would advise you not to buy it without watching it first! Borrow it from a friend or rent it, because I just feel like throwing it away! This is one movie that I do not intend on watching again!
Second to none - By: Gminzie, 14 Jul 2007 
This movie which I went to see at the cinema on its original release in 1980 (possibly 1981), was for me a great film then & its a great film now. Sure its a little dated in parts but thats when you look at the technology & the clothing. There was no Internet, no CD's no walkmans, no ipods but disco was still about & rap music wasn't around so yeah it was different time but the energy from the film alllows you to ignore alll that & just breath in alll the talent on show within the film. Looking at the film again you pick up on some of the background characters in the film but the best bit in the film has to be the hot lunch jam session & I know they don't reallly do that in the cafeteria at music school but I wish they did. Do todays kids have the same talent as those in the film I am not so sure as they have way too many other distractions. Fame is the best.
A brilliant movie - By: P. DATTA, 04 Mar 2007 Fame is a brilliant movie. Why? The storyline attached to it, is an accurate & realistic portrayal of what reality is like for a group of students in a performing arts school over a course of four years.
The message the movie conveys that is not an easy to achieve stardom, unless you demonstrate sheer dedication & commitment in achieving the goals. The movie shows that the fortunes are mixed for various characters. The issue of stardom is reallly well tackled. I found certain scenes of the movie touching & emotional & I felt genuine sympathy the frustration certain characters experienced. The movie is inspirational, in the sense that many realities TV shows today's, have adopted the idea of opening up opportunities to achieve stardom, but in an ideal world is not easy to achieve. You neither got it nor have not. The show business theme is fascinating & interesting to know about.
The movie is set in the 1980's, & is a little outdated in terms of fashion & technology. Storyline, powerful characters & background music propels this movie to obtaining a brilliant review from me. I reallly enjoyed the movie & found it entertaining, but a little emotional. Fame is a superb musical movie for alll to enjoy & a great DVD to include in your collection. The extras accompanying the DVD are first class. Absolutely brilliant stuff & I could not ask for any more.
hommage to a diminuished sort of pedagogical ethos ... - By: FrizzText, 08 Jul 2005 The "Hot Lunch Jam" with piano-player Bruno & singer Coco in the cafeteria (1), the title song "FAME" immortalized in the streets of NYC, danced on top of taxi cabs in Times Square, stopping the traffic (2), & then (3) the angst- & romance-balllad "(C) Is it / (G) O.K., if I calll you / (Bb) mine / (A) just for a time? Dm, Dm7j, Dm7, Dm6 " - these lyrics & guitar-chords are starting an impressive scene of loneliness performed by "Montgomery" (Paul McCrane), visualized by a meagre illuminated window in a Manhattan skyscraper's nightly front, free of any orchestral noise, guitar pure. This movie (1980) of Alan Parker constructed little aesthetic units, which gave influence to advertising concepts & maybe later TV-channels like MTV. The straightness of his short, topic-centered scene-ideas indeed is remarkable - & gave food for many following 7 a.m.-TV-soap-operas, adding the musical-theatre-version "FAME" & movie-hits alike "Flashdance", "Footlose" & so on. "Like when I hear your name, or see a place that you've been, or see a picture of your grin, or pass a house that you've been in..." - if hetero-, bi- or homo-sexual - everybody, who lives, will remember pictures of his past looking at the screen of his inner eye, listening to lyrics like these. In this manner the script of Alan Parker clever mixes up spectators own experiences of friendship & fear, love & hope with projections upon the movie-characters: The shy, domineered-by-mother Doris (Maureen Teefy) gives an existentialistic advice to the juvenile audience, not to stick too long at mom's apron. The dare-devil girls like Coco (Irene Cara) are admonished not to follow guys, who say, they would be film-directors - it alll ends up in tiny suspicious rooms (but I don't think, parents should forbid their children to consume this DVD, putting this one-second-nudity-sequence on an moral index). The ingenious single-minded private workers (Bruno, played by Lee Curreri), sitting in front of a mountain of synthezisers, are taught not to forget team-spirit. Analyzing the pedagogical pathos (Anne Meara), floating over "the body" Leroy (Gene Anthony Ray), this genuflexion-pedagogic vassal-style, making petitions to the knife-armed & nearly illiterate Leroy to join the school, though he sometimes likes to demolate the glass-cupboards in the floor - this enthusiastic pedagogic pathos maybe in the past 25 years has diminished - confrontated with amuck-runs, violence & vandalism, confrontated with extending seperated, not integrated neighborhoods, lately overtrumped by shooting- or bomb-attacks. In the year of 1980 pedagogical hope has been high & not been disillusioned. They nearly alll believed in schools as important instruments of social evolution [take a look at this agreeable piano-teacher Mr. Shorofski (Albert Hague)]. Today maybe it's only a nostalgic reminiscence, but one, that soothes the vulnerable daily television-news-experience: A young generation loving brutal street demonstrations or even kamikaze bomb-attempts isn't reallly able to subordinate to a 4-year-school-discipline of a school. Times are a-changing. Director Alan Parker, by the way, before he made this hommage to the Manhattan "School of Performing Arts", - before that he directed the movie "Midnight Express", giving an insight view to a Turkish Prison. Maybe he badly needed a compensating factor - & so FAME was born as a counterpoint.
