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How to make a heartwarming movie without vats of sap: Almost Famous
by Christian De Matteo

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            I’d been seeing posters for this movie for some time, and all I knew was that Cameron Crowe directed it and some girl I didn’t recognize had been given all the posters. I was curious but not particularly intrigued. I’ve never seen Jerry Maguire or Singles, and though I did very much enjoy Say Anything, I could not call myself a Crowe fan.
            I now can.
            Centering around Patrick Fugit as a 15 year old boy hired by Rolling Stone to cover up-and-coming rockers Stillwater, the film embarks on a coming of age odyssey unlike any I’ve seen before. We’ve all seen the Coming-of-Age flick, we’ve all seen the Rocker-Story flick and we’ve even seen a few Rocker-Coming-of-Age flicks, but none approach what Cameron Crowe has accomplished with this film.
            Crowe’s writing is sharp, realistic and perfectly captures the mood, voices, silliness and seriousness of the early seventies. Crowe never falls into the stereotyped “drug culture” and yet doesn’t at all ignore the drug culture. Though the characters ideas and opinions often seem ridiculous, Crowe makes it clear that they are considering them with the utmost weight as questions that effect all of existence. (What is real, man? can actually take on a poignancy in this world.) Without this level of clarity in writing (and in the directing and acting of the lines) the film would fall apart as a ridiculous tale of brainless druggies attempting to be philosophers and worshipping loud guitar. Watching the film, however, this label never occurs to the viewer.
            As good as his directing and writing is, Crowe’s movie is about charisma and love, and this could never work if the actors he picked couldn’t translate his script to the screen. But a fine job he does of casting the right players. Billy Crudup (The Hi-Lo Country) is perfectly cast as the lead guitarist and leader of Stillwater, a band filled with clashing egos and the healthy tendency of every monumental rock band (if you believe VH1) toward self-destruction. While it’s normally difficult to like a married character who is a serial-fornicator with sixteen year old groupies (excuse me, Band-Aids in the film), Crudup plays it so perfectly that you have no choice but to accept his actions as part and parcel for a rock star, and start to love his confused, man vs. boy battling rock star. A large portion of this film is about taking responsibility in a world where that seems an unnecessary concept, and Crudup fights for each revelation, misses a bunch of them and makes us care for him more with each step.
            Of course, it’s also hard to like an overprotective mom in a medium that tends to exaggerate everything. Think back to every overprotective mom you’ve ever seen in a comedy… they are always the enemy, right? Not here. Not liking Frances McDormand (Fargo, Blood Simple) should be really easy after you watch her take away her daughter’s (Anna Paquin, X-Men) Simon and Garfunkel album, but her love for her children is so clear that you have to love her and feel for her and laugh at her amazing candidness and “mom-ness.” There is a scene where she tells off rocker Crudup on the phone and has him calling her “ma’am” which almost worth the ticket cost all on it’s own.
            As it turns out, the girl on the poster who I didn’t know is Kate Hudson, daughter of Goldie Hawn. And she is fantastic as “Penny Lane”. Her role is a rather complex one of a very mature-seeming, immature groupie who is doing her damnedest to raise being a groupie to something higher, grander and more respectable. Penny, however, can’t get out of the way of her own fanaticism and hero-worship. She does dumb things, destroys herself, sacrifices herself to the debauchery around her for the approval of others, and yet still comes off as someone you can’t be mad at and want to hug. You have to root for her, even though she can be so frustratingly stupid.
            Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, Magnolia), who is one of the main reasons I wanted to see the movie, is, as always, completely and totally different from anything he’s done before and is a perfect mentor to Patrick Fugit. He plays the rock critic who Fugit most looks up to, and is a no-nonsense, realist and the voice of truth. The beauty of the relationship between him and Fugit is that he is aware that Fugit needs to make his own mistakes to truly learn, and that he is there for him after he’s made them.
            Patrick Fugit needs, of course, be mentioned. But there is little more to say about him besides the major compliment that he had a great deal of responsibility put on his hands to carry a movie as a young man and did so wonderfully. Oftentimes looking starry-eyed and determined at the same time, Fugit never for a moment lets you forget that he is a stranger in a strange world. And yet we also watch him adapt, learn and judge for himself the right and wrong ways to behave in this world, and come to respect his decisions and actions. Famous is Fugit’s first big studio movie and will hopefully be the first of many. All Patrick has to do is, in the immortal words of the immortal knight, “choose wisely.”
            Almost Famous is an excellent, interesting movie that never slips into sappy love talk and yet is about nothing but every kind of love, never becomes a movie about a kid and yet is a movie about a kid, and has some completely unexpected comedic moments that shouldn’t fit but do, Almost Famous is a major entry into the Crowe catalog and should be an large boost for several under-appreciated and little known actors.

Side note: This movie’s also got an incredible soundtrack including four Zeppelin songs, though only one makes it onto the CD release.

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Almost (And Finally) Famous
by Michael Flanagan

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Cameron Crowe's autobiographical tribute to sex, drugs, and rock and Rolling Stone is his first film that actually has a chance of propelling his career as far as it should go. The promise of Crowe's ability is evident to anyone who now watches syndicated weekend daytime television and clicks across broadcasts of the classic and wonderful "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (which Crowe wrote, based on his novel) or the John Cusack star vehicle "Say Anything." Crowe continued to produce witty, intelligent films in the nineties, like the all-too-accurate "Singles" and the redefinition of the romantic comedy, "Jerry Maguire." Yet throughout his career, Crowe has managed to just miss being part of that collection of filmmakers who cause movie buffs to take off their hats if mentioned in conversation, or who get dramatically overzealous profiles in The Arts section of big-city newspapers. With "Almost Famous," however, the world may soon realize what the rest of us already know about Cameron Crowe.

The best way to get an understanding of the synopsis of "Almost Famous" is to spend a little over two hours watching the movie. The second best way is to read the following: A young boy named William Miller (played by Patrick Fugit) embarks on a quasi-epic road trip with the up and coming rock band Stillwater. On the way, he meets Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) and falls in love. Of course, he also discovers the wonderful elements of road travel life, like music, drugs, sex, highs, lows, and what it is to write about it.

William is the fictional personification of Crowe, who, like William, spent the early part of his career writing for Rolling Stone magazine. The movie is about that part of Crowe's life, and he tells it beautifully, with all the perfectly balanced fondness, pain, laughter, and sentimentality he must feel looking back expressed in poetic fashion throughout the film. Crowe bears this story nakedly, basically putting the memories on the screen for us, the audience, and telling the story with a tear in his eye and getting slightly choked up, but showing all the bitter truth.

And showing the truth is also what the movie is all about. William writes of his journey with all the honesty and truth of a child, but from the point of view of a man. As it turns out, that honesty is what makes him a writer, and it is what launches his career. Crowe's honesty in telling this story should be noted as well, and it should give him all the notoriety that he deserves.

Of course, if that doesn't happen, he's already shown us with "Almost Famous" that fame and fortune aren't the only qualities of success. A little rock and roll helps, too.

DVD Update

The most impressive aspect of the Almost Famous Bootleg Cut DVD is that it is actually no longer Almost Famous. The 2-disc set includes the theatrical release, but the most notable film is entitled Untitled. This is Almost Famous with an additional 40 minutes of footage added back into the movie. Now before there are any Apocalypse Now groans, the additions that make Untitled simply make the film more personal, to director Cameron Crowe's counterpart, William Miller (Patrick Fugit), as well as to the lives of several other characters not fully explored in the original film. This would not be a movie any sensible director would release into the theatre. This would not be a movie people would flock to. But this is a movie that gives a greater in-depth look to the characters of Almost Famous, and for we fans of the original movie, it's a great treat. As Crowe says in the commentary, you should watch this one, stop it, get a beer, something to eat, and go back to it when you're ready.

I watched it without the beer break (I made sure to raid the fridge before I started), and I can attest that it's now a very long film. But it's also wonderful. The personal view that we now have is both painful and reminiscent, sentimental and real, and it works as a completely different device as the original. It really is like watching two different movies, both great for their own reasons. This one is great as an insider's look into the experience, rather than a look into an amazing story.

The commentary is fun and insightful, and how could it not be with Crowe's mother there and the hard bitter truth coming out about everything from Mrs. Crowe's feet to Cameron Crowe's pubes. Any question you might have over whether what was real is answered, and yes, that part really happened.

Other elements of the DVD include more deleted scenes, music videos, trailers, the original "Rolling Stone" articles that were on the original release, and Cameron Crowe's favorite albums of 1973, all with audio intros by Crowe himself.

With Almost Famous: Bootleg Edition, and the included Untitled, the bar of quality DVD has been raised yet again. HUGE

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Almost Famous
by Camilla Sweden

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This is a great film!! It is about a 15 years old boy in 1973, who is going to write an article for the magazine Rolling Stone. He's going to interview and write about the rock-group Stillwater. He talk a little with them and they allow him to follow them at their tour and they become very good friends..

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Awards: IMdb

Full Cast & Crew: IMdb

Trivia: IMdb

Cameo, cameo, cameo! Jann Wenner, the real life publisher of Rolling Stone Magazine, is seated in the back of a New York taxi in the movie.

One of the rock albums Anita leaves William is "Blue" by Joni Mitchell. She did this in 1969, but "Blue" was not released until 1971. Whoops!

Stuff you probably already knew:
1.) This film was based on director Cameron Crowe's real life experiences.
2.) Kate Hudson is the daughter of Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson.

Almost Famous

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Trivia: IMdb