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Movie:		8.0
Picture:		6.0
Sound:		8.0
Extras:		6.0
Score:		7.0

Director(s):	Alan Parker
Writer(s):	Christopher Gore
Starring:	Albert Hague • Anne Meara • Barry Miller • Debbie Allen • Gene Anthony Ray • Irene Cara • Jim Moody • Laura Dean • Lee Curreri • Maureen Teefy • Paul McCrane
Genre:	Drama
Release Date:	January 26, 2010
Rated:

List Price:	Blu-ray - $28.99
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"It's better than a real school. It's free and you don't get raped in the hallways."

Fame is full of no-nonsense dialogue like that, earning its stripes by making art vikings out of its adult and teenage characters alike. "This isn't your dick you're holding," seethes a classical music teacher. "It's a violin bow!" Fabulous. Now we're talking real music.

It's hard to comprehend the thought process that resulted in this movie remade into a network television show and more recently a PG-rated cash-in. It's hard to comprehend because this 1980 original is an open, uncompromising R-rated movie by Alan Parker, director of controversial films such as Midnight Express, Pink Floyd's The Wall and Angel Heart. Fame follows the same rabble-rousing spirit of those films, depicting the school years of underprivileged and misunderstood kids who want to pursue their dreams of being performers—be it dancers, musicians, actors or stand-up comedians.

There's Coco (Irene Cara), a singer who puts up a harmful front for herself; Doris (Maureen Teefy), the boring Coney Island Jewish girl who wants to become more adventurous; Leroy (Gene Anthony Ray), the brilliant but illiterate dancer; Ralph (Barry Miller), a comedian who idolizes Freddie Prinze and suffers from similar demons; Montgomery (Paul McCrane), who comes to term with his homosexuality but can't find someone to share with; and so on. Yes, writer Christopher Gore's characters can be stock, but the cast grant these kids such sadness and destructive naivete that they feel authentic, especially when they air out their problems—the ultimate performance.

Arguably the film's best scene is when Ralph delivers an agonizing monologue after his young sister is attacked by a junkie, railing against his mother for taking her to a church instead of a doctor. It's a wordy performance, but in the same scene, as Doris comforts Ralph with her love, Montgomery, feeling left out as their third wheel, discreetly withdraws from the room. Montgomery lashes out later, alone with a guitar, singing a wrenching ballad. Traditional musicals typically use songs to advance the narrative, but Fame uses its musical numbers and talent performances as punctuations, marking the kids' emotional peaks.

Alan Parker adapts the setting, the New York High School of Performing Arts (called PA for short), into a microcosm of the city itself. The diverse students being forced to elevate their game represent the undying cultural and social melting pot of New York City, all trapped and colliding under the spotlight of big city hubbub. Filmed in a Harlem high school rather than the actual PA, the classrooms themselves are shown to be a grungy and outworn environment where excitement persists and magic happens. As a reflection of this, every time we leave the school, Parker chooses New York locations like leaky subway stations and then-shady Times Square.

Being an ensemble film, Fame skips around between characters and doesn't bother wrapping up the subplots it introduces, but that's because the movie isn't about exploring the individual lives of these kids (for that, you can watch the more thorough but as a result much less interesting TV show); it's about the sum of these parts, commenting on the ruthlessness required to chase a thing like fame. These kids do not end up in a happy spot. They get duped by perverts, party into a drugged-up wreck, has an abortion just to secure a ballet position, and contemplate suicide. But they become that way only to keep up with the outlet they love. Anne Meara's English teacher hits the nail on the head, when a boiling point sparks her to scream, in a sobbing fit, "Don't you kids ever think about anyone but yourself?"

The closing musical number at the end, where all the kids perform together, is presented as the jubilant closer, but it's really bittersweet because we know what we know. This isn't that story about the talented group of kids overcoming obstacles to reach their dream. It's the story about them realizing that bigger obstacles often follow that dream, told in Parker's usual unapologetic wildness.

Blu-ray Bonus Features

The features are a mixed bag of the appreciated (a video commentary feature where Parker and the cast periodically pop up during the movie to talk about it), the passable (your standard audio commentary with Parker, which is not terribly exciting), and the flat (vintage behind-the-scenes featurette). Then there's an odd short documentary about Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, the modern day incarnation of PA, which isn't even the school depicted nor the school it was shot in.