FAME: I'm going to live forever...

So, here we go with another remake of a piece of my generation's coming-of-age collection. I remember the summer that Fame hit the theaters. I was working for a custom silk-screen business, occasionally doing design, occasionally printing shirts, but mostly pulling printed shirts off the dryer and folding them in dozens for shipment to the stores. I'd just graduated from Zionsville Community High School with 156 classmates (give or take) and was headed to Bethel College (now University) in late August. 

Steve called me (my memory has him calling me at work, but I could be wrong) to say that he'd just won two tickets to see this new movie and to ask if I wanted to go with him to see it. We were both a bit unsure of it -- neither of us were in the habit of going to R rated films. I suspect that we were just getting to a place where our parents were increasingly letting us make decisions like that for ourselves. Seems about right.  We decided to go.

The movie was powerful -- not too surprising for a film about teen angst and longing for significance and the drive of passion. That becomes especially potent when it is mixed with the arts (at least it does for me) and this movie had powerful music and dance at every turn.  It's the first movie I remember seeing Debbie Allen who I knew more as Phylicia Rashad's sister. Allen played one of the dance instructors and her role was relatively small but it grew into a major role when this movie was spun off into a television series.

I bought the cassette of the sound track and wore it out.

When I read about that original movie now, I'm almost shocked by some of the content of the movie. Content I'm sure I saw, but it wasn't the part that made the impression. I think I was most moved by the overwhelming and universal desire for recognition and acceptance and significance. At the age of 18, I was really just starting to understand that I wasn't so unique after all. 

So, when I saw this trailer for the NEW Fame movie this morning it did exactly what the produces hoped -- it tossed me down memory lane and stirred some good feelings and made me wonder if I could get more of that back for an hour or so if I plunk down my $10 and another $5 for popcorn and see this thing for myself in theaters some September.