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A+ |
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A+ |
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A+ |
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A+ |
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The Great Movies: Almost Famous
by Eric (movies profile)
Sep 7, 2007
3
of
3 people found this review helpful
Have you ever listened to a song on the radio, and it remind you of a moment in your life? Maybe it was the song that played when you first kissed your wife. Or maybe it told the tale you lived long ago or maybe just yesterday. A good song makes you remember, but a great song takes you back. I can almost imagine this for Cameron Crowe as he worked on his so-called "Ode to Rock & Roll", pulling out old .45s stuck in his attic, listening with the windows open and his eyes closed, capturing the feeling, the time, the place. And most of all, he captures the people that changed his life, changed their names, and called it Untitled.
It was only at the demand of the studio that he changed the title to Almost Famous, which was just as good a title considering the themes of the movie. But I can understand his title to. If he can't put the real names to his fictious characters, why should this movie have a name, too? The film isn't about names, it's about feelings, about moments put together by chords and vocals. About an age between the boy he was and man he would be, and the road that divided the two.
Crowe has always shot films to the sounds in his head, which is why his films all seem very unique in their way. Soundtracks are usually cut around their films. His are vice-versa. But with Almost Famous, the film was directly about the music. The music guided the film to greatness.
The story starts off with a young boy named William Miller in the early seventies. When we first meet him, he thinks he's twelve until his sister (Zooey Deschanel) forces his mother to tell him the truth: He's actually still eleven-years-old. This will actually be the story of his young life, being lead to believe one thing when something else is really happening. Where he thinks he's just one year ahead of his class, he's actually two. By the time he graduates high school at 15, William (Patrick Fugit) has already begun to devote himself to Rock music, but not as a musician, but a critic and afficianado. He meets the legendary rock critic Lester Bangs (Phillip Seymour Hoffman in an inspired performance) who gives him a handful of great advise. He's also afraid of the future of the music due to the money involved. But soon William gets a job from Rolling Stone to follow a band named Stillwater on their tour.
We meet the band's two leaders, Jeff (Jason Lee) and Russell (Billy Crudup). We can tell that on their rise to stardom that the band isn't handling it too well. Egos are getting in the way. And then there's Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), leader of a band of groupies known as Band-Aids. She's leading a full-on affair with Russell though he's married. She takes a liking to William, who is amazed by her charm and her confidence. She belongs not because she's invited, but because you can't imagine her not being there.
He watches the shows from behind the curtains. One of my favorite scenes is when William follows the band to the stage, the place is dark, you can hear the crowds cheering, and the attitude is festive. When Stillwater plays, it isn't made-up movie music (what I like to call art within the bounds of most movies), but real rock-and-roll. The kind you can groove with and enjoy on it's own merit. All the while, his mother is checking in on him at every stop. One of the funniest scenes is when Russell tries to sweet-talk William's mother and gets it sent back to him. She's worried that he isn't grown-up enough to handle these matters. But William is more grown-up than probably all four members of the band put together.
The rest of the film is really just snapshots. Some will make laugh (The Stillwater T-Shirt Fiasco. Does anyone else think Stonehinge?), some will make you cry (William chasing Penny's plane through the terminal), and some will make you smile (Everyone on the bus singing Tiny Dancer together). And through all of them, I see the history of a rock and roll band.
Performances in Almost Famous are flawless, each and every one of them. I love Fugit's wide-eyed amazement, yet old-soul sensibility. He is only 15 but can destroy this band with his pen. If the band will only let him do his job. The scene in the hotel hallway makes this point perfectly.
Crudup's Russell Hammond is a walking disaster that doesn't know is going to happen. He is in a destructive relationship with the only woman who loves him and refuses to live up to his potential out of fear not being cool. But the real great performances come from Kate Hudson as Penny Lane. In one scene, she gets her heart smashed, and you can tell it sunk in, but she's still trying to keep the carefree fascade. And let's not forget Frances MacDormand in my favorite performance as William's mother. She's not a nag, just concerned that he's going to get involved in drugs and sex (she knows all about it, she's a college professor).
But this is Cameron Crowe's finest hour. A ballad not only about the music of his youth, but about youth in general. The film is honest about romance and friendship. It understands the two worlds of the "cool" and the "not cool" and makes the arguement that being "not cool" isn't so bad. Crowe makes mental snapshots just as well as Stanley Kubrick, except that Crowe's fit a beat. He stays true to the time, to the place, and again, to the people that made that time and place so memorable.
As William's journey ends, the band heads off without him. They are off to the middle as that boy they left behind begins his climb to something bigger. William didn't need to walk down an isle to come to manhood. He just needed to jump off a bus. |
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