Almost Famous (2000)

Here's Crowe's film about his own struggle between whether to write a puff piece (to entertain) and the incisive truth (to stimulate, inform, extend). The focus is also the method as the film itself is not at all true or insightful.

Instead, what we have is a very well-written, mostly competently executed feel-good story. Along the way, we have lovable characters, and situations pulled from the stock catalog. I liked an equivalent raw competence in "Autumn in New York," but there they weren't dishonest.

The dishonesty here is in the glossy romanticizing of the end of the rock era. GenXers who weren't there want to feel that it was all rather harmless so they couldn't have missed much important with their inconsequential music fads. Boomers, the real rock generation, don't want to be reminded that they balked upon being led to the cusp of a revolution. So the movie has a constituently for romanticizing rock, while castrating its power. America has a tradition of doing this to the past, beginning with Native Americans, who we disarm by nobilizing.

Crowe knows this -- he is after all here to push buttons and make money. But he is also an intelligent man, so has referenced his dilemma with his two alter egos: the kid and the Hoffman character. This latter, small role makes this film worth seeing, because it is explicitly self-referential. The reflection is the infilm characterization of the film as superficial.

Hoffman is a wonderful actor, and the role is exquisite, touching both on the issue of real journalism (merciless) contrasting with celebrity (here codified as "cool"). Starting around then, journalism was turned to the manufacturing of coolness outside the film industry, and Rolling Stone was the main pimp, sort of the Microsoft of cultural vapidity. Hoffman's character remains true, and though Crowe himself has sold out (taking the Rolling Stone route), he's honest enough to know and be explicit about it. For that, I tip my hat.

Some few things in the film rang true: we really did think that this music could "set you free," even Simon and Garfunkle (but not Elton John!). The stewardess costumes really were that doll-like. I appreciated the Eastern Airlines dressage (but it should have been on a 727, not a modern DC-10). Creem was indeed studied (but why not mention the more merciless and honest "Crawdaddy"?).

Some few things rankled. The airplane scene was just amaturish. McDormand's character was too one-dimensionally daft for this sometimes excellent actress. Drugs and misogyny were almost absent in this rosey story. It would have helped to describe why the world thought southern rock groups could revive genuine rock, and how that hope grew out of latent racism. A character reveals he is gay, but that word, nor any not derogatory, would not have been used then. We miss the often cruel harem politics that stressed the camp followers' alliances.

You can have Kate Hudson, and overlong fawning on her grin. I'll eagerly await Hoffman's next film, though.

Fmovies: This film may have just one flaw- it aims too high. But that doesn't matter in this world. Here, we see the autobiographical tale of Cameron Crowe (writer/director and co-producer of this film) in his days as a young writer for Rolling Stone (one story I think) as seen by William Miller. He follows a rock band called Stillwater (much to mom's dismay played well by Frances McDormand) on a Almost Famous tour with rockers, groupies and bandaids. Real sweetness comes when the worlds of Miller and the band combine and dramedy kicks in. Quite the Crowe picture, one of his best ones, that takes a look at the days of rock when it was still cool to do drugs, have sex and be cool singing Elton John in a bus (that scene was the highlight). Band members include Billy Crudup, Jason Lee and others including Fairuza Balk, Anna Paquin, and in a exceptional performance, the free spirited Penny Lane played by Kate Hudson. This film is definately in my top 25 list of the year. A-

A cinematographic dithyramb of rock, epicureanism and the 70s that reminds me nonetheless a well-known fiction The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera, 1984): although it's nice to listen to and enjoy a rock album, I'm not sure that the lives of band members are of any interest (some will probably deduce that I'm not 'cool' enough).

In the 70s, William Miller is a young and bright music aficionado. He is only 15 years old, but what he wants most in the world is writing articles about this music he loves so much. Thus, he takes advantage of a proposition from the bi-monthly Rolling Stone to follow the rock band Stillwater, on tour throughout the United States. He will gradually and ineluctably abandon the passivity and objectivity of his role of observer to participate in the life of the group. Until ... ... ...

These secondary characters gravitate around William Miller: 1) Russell Hammond is one of the key members of Stillwater and perfectly symbolizes epicureanism and lightness. 2) Penny Lane is a carefree teenager who fills the void of her live with rock 'n roll, and she would probably have swallowed the blue pill within The Matrix (The Wachowski sisters, 1999). 3) Lester Bangs is a mentor and / or surrogate father for William. 4) Elaine Miller is a protective and moving mother. The actors play in a magisterial way, especially Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand and Philip Seymour Hoffman. In general, the whole cast is awesome!

My favorite quotes, in bulk: You have a message from your mother that freaked me out: do not use drugs. It's not too late for you to become a person of substance. Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid. Be honest and unmerciful. There is hope for you, yet. What kind of beer?

Almost Famous fmovies. As I exited the movie theater after viewing Cameron Crows latest adventure, I was struggling with what to say to my date. As I didnt want to just sit there and say nothing, I was forced to due to so many feelings and thoughts about Almost Famous. Luckily, she felt the same way and so for a few moments we just sat there, staring off into the screen, wishing, wanting, and feeling for that movie. It was so nicely done. From the acting, brilliantly handled, to the directing, never camrons problem, down to the sets, costumes, audio, and other wonderfully placed visuals. Not only was the movie well thought out, but it became one of those rare films in which everyone, boy girl, man woman, could feel for at least one person, part, event. I would reccomend anyone I know to see this movie. It was a chance to take yourself away from your own problems and let you watch someone elses moving you all the way through. ****/****

William has an overprotective mother, and his sister has already been driven away by her refusal to accept her children's ambitions and interests. William finds solace in his sister's music collection and begins to dream of a life as a rock journalist. At 15 William manages to land a assignment with Rolling Stone Magazine to interview an up and coming band called Stillwater, and he quickly finds himself immersed in the life his mother so desperately wanted to protect him from.

And so the story begins, as William tours with the band, we are taken on a journey of mistrust, discovery, deceit and disappointment; interlaced with the hard truths about the bands lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, sex and music.

Almost Famous pulls no punches, and is a deep insight into the dream that became an ambition, that became a harsh reality.

Packed with top class performances all round and great music score Almost Famous delivers, and delivers with attitude and realism that is rarely captured on film.

A must see for Fans of the genre, but there's certainly enough here for everyone.

9/10

"Almost famous" is so great that I don't know where to begin. It means so much to me; personally, cinematographically, visuallyÂ…It means so much when it comes to acting and wonderful performances, when it comes to fantastic original screenplays that come from a person's mind without being taken from anything we already know.

This was probably one of the first movies to ever blow me away. When I was getting and idea of what cinema meant and which where the good films; this one left me impressed for more than a week. The same occurred later with "Traffic", "The Truman Show", "Big Fish" and others. It was with this film that I understood that to like a movie it has to mean something to you; besides meaning something for the ones who did it or the ones involved in it.

It meant something for me mainly because of the music. It was during the main credits written by hand in a paper that I felt something, but then, when William's (Patrick Fugit) sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) leaves the house to become a stewardess, and tells him: "Look under your bed; it will set you free"; I was introduced to a new world.

William's mother Elaine (an excellent Frances McDormand) raised him and her sister forbidding them to use bad words, making them go to school, making them religious, but most importantly not letting them listen to rock music. This all changes when William plays The Who's "Tommy" a the light of a candle. Some years later he is writing rock articles and he knows enough to talk with the best music critic in the United States: Lester Bangs (a brilliant and Oscar-caliber supporting performance by the great Phillip Seymour Hoffman).

They talk for a while and the critic says: "Well, I've got to go; I can't spend my whole day talking to my fans". But then, with a lot of intelligence, a camera shoots a restaurant, and they are both still talking. Bangs gives the kid an assignment: to write about Deep Purple. The kid goes to the concert in his home town and tries to enter backstage saying he's a reporter of "Creem".

His multiple attempts fail and he is called by some girls who are laughing constantly. These are the Band Aids, and that is the moment in the film during which I fell in love with Kate Hudson. She plays Penny Lane (although that's not her real name), the girl who said women should be with musicians just for the love of the music, not sex or free rides.

She plays her as an enigmatic and mysterious person who actually is lost and doesn't know or have another place to be in. And I'm talking, personally, about one of the best performances I've witnessed in my whole life. This personal list of best performances is short, and Hudson's Penny Lane is in it, and she deserved an Oscar for it; and many will agree.

Because of how life goes, William stays alone outsideÂ…Until Stillwater arrives, the kid uses his musical knowledge and he is inside backstage before he knows it. Then, before we know, he forgets about Deep Purple, he is touring with Stillwater and writing an article for Rolling Stone magazine that could be considered for the cover; and William is only 15 years old.

During the tour I felt what they called the "buzz". It was very inspiring to watch the band, each of its members, all the time with a guitar in their hands. Sometimes they were playing together; sometimes each of them was doing his own things. There were pianos and