These famous lyrics made its way back into our lives last week when the re-make of the 1980 movie, Fame, was released in theaters.

Of course I went to see the movie, because I am a dancer. I received my BFA in dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts. I love to see dance on stage and it gives me chills to experience it on the big screen.

Besides the five middle school boys a few rows behind me, snickering and kicking the already flimsy seats around them with full force, I had the best experience.

Performing artist or not, you should see this movie. It isn’t just another dance flick where there is no real plot or character development.

In the past five years, dance has been all over the big screen and I have no complaints there, but in most of these movies, honestly, there has been no through line. The movies have been completely unrealistic but we haven’t paid attention to it, simply because the dancing was just so amazing.

In Fame (2009) on the other hand, every character develops throughout the story and each scene has a purpose.

The movie depicts the lives of performing artists perfectly– the hard work, physical and mental.

Debbie Allen reappears in the movie and repeats one of her famous quotes from decades ago, “You’ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying in sweat.”

This next part may be a spoiler but it goes to show how deep the film goes into a dancer’s psyche.

One of the male characters is passionate about joining a ballet company. However, his teacher warns him that he will never get into a ballet company nor will he be able to support himself as a dancer, but suggests the possibility of him becoming a great teacher. I heard the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ in the theater as we all felt his heart break. And in the next scene he attempts to commit suicide.

The film is just that realistic. So all of the drama on top of great dancing makes this a kick ass movie.

And it is not at all a replica of the original film. I know many people think that the re-make doesn’t do justice to the original. They say that the first was much grittier, but this one goes to the edge just as much.

Also, because this film wasn’t a musical, it was neither cheesy nor predictable; although there was the typical lunchroom scene where everyone breaks into a song and dance that everyone seems to know. (I always found this scene unbearable.)

There are also different characters and story lines as well as up-to-date references to popular culture such as YouTube and text messaging.

The big dance company named in the film is Complexions Contemporary Ballet which, although founded in 1994, didn’t become the number one company to audition for until recently.

My favorite part of the movie was Naturi Naughton, who plays Denise. I’ve always been a fan of her but we’ve all wondered where she’s been since she left the group 3LW…I hope those aren’t crickets out there. 3LW was a popular R&B group during the early 2000s. Two of the members became Cheetah Girls while Naturi seemingly fell under the radar.

Well, she’s clearly spent that time perfecting her craft because her performance in this movie is phenomenal, as an actress and as a vocalist.

So if you are still a skeptic, I suggest you head down to your local theater to formulate your own opinion on the movie.

Here’s a trailer of the first five minutes.

Selena Watkins is a 365gay intern.

Cute, right? A wry little acknowledgement in the vein of Bert and Ernie jokes that, yes, Holmes and Watson are two dudes who spend an awful lot of time together, made by a guy who is comfortable enough with himself and the world in general to make such a joke.

The New York Post took that quote and ran with it yesterday. Putting clues together just like the great detective himself, they took Jude Law’s statement about the movie, “Guy wanted to make this about the relationship between Watson and Holmes,” and followed the trail all the way to the headline ‘GAY’ SHERLOCK HOLMES COULD BACKFIRE FOR GUY RITCHIE.

It’s so dumb it’s almost sweet and sort of exhausting at the same time, right?

Well, maybe more exhausting.

Former Post movie critic and current conservative radio host/talking head Michael Medved was at least bright enough to figure out that Downey might be kidding. But his reasoning was based on the “fact” that actual movies about gay men are simply too icktastic for straight people, especially noted straight guys like himself:

“There’s not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals,” Medved told us. “I think they’re just trying to generate controversy . . . They know that making Holmes and Watson homosexual will take away two-thirds of their box office. Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Law make out? I don’t think it would be appealing to women. Straight men don’t want to see it.”

At least he’s consistent. Here’s Medved on Brokeback Mountain, as quoted by ABC News:

“This is going to be a very tough movie to sell because the main audience for cowboy movies is supposed to be guys but for most American guys who are not gay, there’s a yewwwww factor to the idea of Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger getting too up close and personal on screen.”

Everybody got it? Medved is so straight that he does not want to have to see guys getting close to each other or think about the possibility of them making out, because ew. Or rather, yewwwww.

The fact that most gay people seem to be able to sit through movies that feature straight people making out without making loud retching noises is apparently irrelevant.

As is the fact that many straight people are, in fact, able to sit retch-free through movies that feature gay guys kissing. Is it that they’re not straight enough, or are they not moral enough?

Michael Medved has been a film critic for more than twenty years. Why does he still have a twelve-year-old’s need to let everyone know how straight he is and how well he conforms to what he thinks straight guys shouldn’t like?

He’s still doing the occasional movie review to let people know what’s “family friendly”. When gay parts come on, do you think he squinches up his eyes, sticks his fingers in his ears, and goes “Lalalalalala,” or do you think he just stands up and explains to the rest of the audience that he does not like this part, on account of no straight American would?

At any rate, I sincerely hope Mr. Medved gets comfortable enough with his straightness to be able to attend the movies in comfort. (I hope to God someone warned him about the swinging blue wang in Watchmen.)

In the meantime, I suppose he’d better just avoid any movie in which male characters might do something that straight guys shouldn’t enjoy.

That lets out Westerns (Brokeback ruined all of them, forever.), war movies (Sometimes a guy will hug another guy while he’s dying.), anything anywhere near a prison or a pirate ship, police dramas, buddy movies, comedies (Sometimes guys kiss by accident!), superhero movies, mafia movies (Kiss of death!) any movie set in a location hot enough that a guy might be compelled to take off his shirt, Bugs Bunny cartoons, and especially sports movies because you never know who might get sweaty, remove his shirt, or swat a teammate on the butt – maybe all at the same time.

OK, that doesn’t leave a lot. But I do have one movie left that Mr. Medved can watch in complete safety: George Cukor’s 1939 classic The Women. Not a man in the cast as far as the eye can see.

Gay men don’t enjoy it at all, Mr. Medved. I promise.

Bruno is an over-the-top gay Austrian fashionista with a Nazi streak whose goal is to become the biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler. To do so he travels to America, where he is told he must take on a charitable cause to achieve worldwide fame. So he decides to bring peace to a troubled place he calls “Middle Earth.”

There, he nearly sparks a riot in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem when he struts down the street in a sexed-up Hassidic outfit that includes skintight shorts. On the Palestinian side, he tries to convince a West Bank militant to kidnap him, while giving the man condescending fashion tips. Bruno confuses the popular chickpea spread “hummus” with the Islamic militant group “Hamas” when he tries to bring together Israeli and Palestinian personalities to make peace.

Baron Cohen, an observant, Hebrew-speaking Jew with close ties to Israel, has ribbed the region before. In his 2006 movie Borat, his fake Kazakh language was actually Hebrew and his shtick was peppered with Israeli slang. In Bruno he goes a step further, taking aim at the Middle East’s most sacred cows.

The movie opened worldwide a week ago and became the top grossing film in the U.S. over the weekend. It’s making waves in Israel, too.

The locally shot scenes got big rounds of applause and hearty laughs at a recent Jerusalem screening. But the subjects of his pranks don’t seem to be in on the joke.

“This man, I think he is not a man,” said Ayman Abu Aita, a former member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a militant group that has been largely disbanded. “He is not saying the truth about me. He lied.”

In their scene together, Bruno identifies Abu Aita as a “terrorist” and asks to be abducted.

“I want to be famous, and I want the best guys in the business to kidnap me,” Bruno says. “Al-Qaida are so 2001.”

Before Abu Aita has a chance to reply, Bruno suggests that the mustachioed man lose his facial hair. “Because your King Osama looks like a kind of dirty wizard or a homeless Santa,” he says before being kicked out.

In an interview with David Letterman, Baron Cohen, 37, said he set up the meeting in the West Bank with the help of a CIA agent.

Abu Aita’s Israeli-Arab lawyer, Hatem Abu Ahmad, denied his client has been involved in any acts of violence. He said he is preparing a lawsuit against Baron Cohen and Universal Studios alleging that the terrorist reference could get Abu Aita in trouble with the Israelis and the homosexual association could get him killed by Palestinians. “This joke is very dangerous. We are not in the United States, we are not in Europe. We are in the Middle East and the world operates differently here,” Abu Ahmad said.

The jokes apparently had their share of dangers for Baron Cohen as well. His production team said he narrowly escaped an angry mob during his prance in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Jonathan Rosenblum, an ultra-Orthodox columnist, said he hasn’t viewed the scene but said the reaction was to be expected.

“It was offensive. It was meant to be offensive and it succeeded,” he said. “I don’t have any interest in going to the movie but I am sure it will have its fans.”

Yossi Alpher, a former Israeli Mossad officer, and Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Cabinet minister, are apparently not among them.

In a panel Bruno holds with them in the movie, he tries to find common ground.

“Why are you so anti-Hamas? I mean isn’t pita bread the real enemy here?” Bruno asks with a straight face.

The dumbfounded interviewees look awkwardly at each other before taking the bait.

“You think there is a relation between Hamas and Hummus?” Khatib asks.

“Hummus has nothing to do with Hamas,” Alpher insists. “It’s a food. We eat it, they eat it.”

To which Khatib responds: “It’s vegetarian, it’s healthy, it’s beans.”

Both men declined comment for this article. But following the prank, Alpher published his account of the meeting in the Jewish publication The Forward in which he said he became suspicious when he saw Baron Cohen dressed in leather and studs, his face heavily powdered, and his arms and chest shaven.

In the movie, Bruno encourages the Palestinians to return the pyramids and asks Jews why they can’t get along with Hindus.

Among the nuggets not appearing in the movie but said nonetheless, according to Alpher, were: “Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse” and “Vy don’t you Jews and Arabs settle the conflict with a time share on the land?”

Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Bruno” started big on opening day Friday but had a huge drop the rest of the weekend, with the Universal Pictures mock documentary finishing with $30.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The movie took in nearly half of its weekend total – $14.4 million – on Friday, then tumbled with just $8.8 million Saturday and an estimated $7.2 million Sunday.

Revenues for hit movies typically go up on Saturday, so the nosedive for “Bruno” could be a sign that it lacks the shelf life that made Baron Cohen’s “Borat” a $100 million smash.

“It is unusual for a film to drop on Saturday. Normally, you expect the film at least to be even on Saturday or above compared to Friday, because Saturday is the biggest moviegoing day of the weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “It’s going to be interesting to see how it does over the long run.”

“Bruno,” which features Baron Cohen as a wannabe going to extremes to achieve celebrity, finished ahead of 20th Century Fox’s “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” which took second with $28.5 million. The “Ice Age” sequel raised its domestic total to $120.6 million.

Finishing third after two weekends in the No. 1 spot was Paramount’s sci-fi blockbuster “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” with $24.2 million, raising its domestic haul to $339.2 million. The sequel passed the $319 million total of 2007’s “Transformers.”

The weekend’s other new wide release, 20th Century Fox’s romantic comedy “I Love You, Beth Cooper” opened weakly with $5 million, finishing at No. 7. The movie centers on a high school valedictorian who uses his graduation speech to declare his love for a bombshell classmate (Hayden Panettiere).

“Bruno” outpaced the $26.5 million opening weekend for Baron Cohen’s surprise 2006 hit “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” “Borat” started with $9.2 million on opening day Friday then climbed to $10.1 million Saturday, a sign that fans were talking it up to friends.

That good word-of-mouth propelled “Borat” to a long run at theaters, the movie climbing to a $128.5 million domestic total.

“Borat” also scored its big opening weekend in far fewer theaters. “Bruno debuted in 2,756 cinemas, more than three times the number for “Borat.”

Nikki Rocco, head of distribution at Universal, said comedies such as “Bruno” typically drop off over opening weekend this time of year, while “Borat” opened in November, when audiences are less fickle than summer crowds.

The studio will have to wait until next weekend for a sense of how well “Bruno” can hold up for the long haul.

“I don’t know. That crystal ball just isn’t on my desk this morning,” said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal. “Zany comedies tend to be like that, so I’m hoping that in the scheme of things, it just plays out the way zany comedies will play out.”

Reviews on “Bruno” were not as strong as those for “Borat,” which critics generally liked. There also had been questions about whether Baron Cohen’s flamboyantly gay persona might prove off-putting to audiences.

“Bruno” did most of its business in cities on the East and West coasts, while revenues were “softer, much softer in middle America,” Rocco said.

Even if revenues continue to plunge, “Bruno” is well on its way to turning a profit for Universal, which paid $42.5 million for rights to distribute it domestically and in eight other territories. “Bruno” took in $25 million in overseas markets so far, including $20 million in those Universal acquired, among them Great Britain, Australia and Germany.

Modi Wiczyk – co-chief executive officer of Media Rights Capital, which financed “Bruno” – said the movie exceeded the company’s expectations. Wiczyk said he had anticipated “Bruno” would finish in the range of $25 million domestically for the weekend.

“We don’t have talking robots or karate in our film,” Wiczyk said. “For that increasingly small subset of films that don’t have robots, we did terrific.”

The Gay Pride channel offers viewers clips of Sundance Channel films and documentaries that explore gay issues, such as Gay Muslims and Tropical Malady.

The site also offers web-only clips like their “I’m Coming Out” series, short clips  in which various people relate their own personal coming out tales. Be sure to check it out!

Below is a cute clip about how coming out isn’t always as terrifying as you think it is.

Then, a few weeks after Dick starting shooting the film in 2007, Idaho senator Larry Craig got caught tap dancing in a bathroom stall.  Dick had to hustle to keep up with it all.

“The story was put into fast-forward,” says Dick, whose previous films include This Film is Not Yet Rated and the Oscar-nominated Twist of Faith.  “With these scandals, the discussion of the closet sort of was swirling around us as we were making this film.”

The resulting documentary, Outrage, opened in five major cities last weekend and will go wide over the next few months.  So far, Dick’s been very heartened by the public reaction.  “No one has stood up and said, ‘I’m upset that you’re outing people’ which has surprised me,” remarks Dick.  “It seems like people really understand the argument of the film, the importance of reporting on this hypocrisy.”

365gay.com: What inspired you to make Outrage?

KIRBY DICK:  I was in Washington, DC promoting my last film, This Film Is Not Rated and I thought, ‘There must be a lot of great stories here.’  I started asking around and very quickly came upon this subject.  It’s fascinating, the psychology of these people who, in exchange for having a long political career, would live a double life.

A few days after I saw the film, I saw you interviewed on CNN.  The anchor Don Lemon seemed a bit offended that you were naming names, like it was rude or bad form.  I thought, ‘Did he see the same movie I saw?’

That’s what people have said when they watched it.  I actually want to give him more credit.  What I’ve found is it’s not the reporters themselves that don’t want to cover this story.  It’s the people up the ladder that have prevented mainstream reporters from covering this. I’m speculating but I think that’s what you were seeing reflected was the pressure he was receiving or he felt he would receive from higher up, rather than his own personal approach.

In your last documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, you exposed the double standard in the way the MPAA rating system deals with gay sex scenes versus straight.  Now, you’ve made Outrage.  Have you always had an awareness and interest in gay issues?

My best friend in high school was gay and we had all these discussions and then he had a group of friends who were also gay.  It really kind of normalized the whole thing for me when I was young and I’m very grateful for that.

In making Outrage, were you ever threatened or afraid for your safety?

We took precautions and we operated very much under the radar.  I have not received any threats.  However, in the process of looking into various politicians around the country, I spoke to a number of sources who seemed quite afraid to talk and in many cases, did not talk at all.  I don’t know if that fear was justifiable but I know the fear was real.

A number of people in your film comment on how gay Washington DC is, in terms of the people who work there and the whole vibe of the place.  Did you pick up on that?

Not initially but as soon as somebody pointed it out, yes.  I think my gaydar was always decent but it has been very refined by working in Washington, DC.

It must be a special kind of nightmare to be gay and work for a boss who legislates against you.

That’s what’s so horrible.  Take George W. Bush as an example.  He’s a person who’s not homophobic.  We’ve talked to gay people who are friends of his and some of his staffers are gay.  He’s totally comfortable but the fact that he would promote an amendment to restrict the rights of portion of the citizenry just to further his own reelection is appalling.

NEXT PAGE: What’s up with Charlie Crist?

The pop superstar arrived in this northern Michigan resort town Saturday to introduce her documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” a highlight of the Traverse City Film Festival. The event was co-founded by filmmaker, author and fellow Michigan native Michael Moore.

Hundreds of fans cheered from behind barricades as Madonna, wearing a black dress, high heels and sunglasses, stepped out of a black sport utility vehicle that pulled up in front of the State Theatre. She hugged a waiting Moore, who sported an orange baseball cap, and posed for photos with him.

Madonna and Moore shared the stage at the theater before a screening of the movie, which deals with the orphans of Malawi, the African nation where she and husband Guy Ritchie adopted a son.

“It’s great bringing my movie to a place that I feel familiar,” Madonna told the audience. “Not like the Cannes Film Festival, where nobody’s speaking English, or the Tribeca Film Festival, where no one sits down.

“There’s something poetic about coming back to the place where I used to come for holidays – camping trips with my dad and stepmother and my very large family,” said the 49-year-old singer, born to the southeast in Bay City and raised in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills.

Madonna was accompanied by her 11-year-old daughter, Lourdes, and the film’s director, Nathan Rissman. Ritchie was not present.

Moore, who won an Oscar for his 2002 documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” said he was humbled to be able to call Madonna a friend.

“She has such an incredible heart and such a generous spirit,” he said. “She does so much out of the glare of the lights to make the world a better place.”

Madonna had praise of her own for Moore, 54, a Flint-area native who has a home near Traverse City.

“There aren’t a lot of role models for us in the world, or people we can look up to,” she said. “People who are not afraid to stick their neck out, people who are not afraid to stand up for things and be unpopular, to go against the grain, think outside the box.

“And we need, and I need, Michael Moore in my life.”

Madonna appeared amid the release of a tell-all book by her brother and speculation about her relationship with New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez. Madonna and Rodriguez both deny an affair. She did not address the dust-ups in her appearance Saturday.