Almost Famous (2000)
Directed by Cameron Crowe
In 1973, a precocious 15-year-old aspiring rock journalist lands a dream assignment from Rolling Stone to tour with a rising rock band, embarking on a coming-of-age journey as he discovers the exhilarating and heartbreaking realities behind rock stardom.
17 connections found
View:
17 films that influenced Almost Famous
What critics say influenced Almost Famous
And the film's warm palette of colours, which reminded me intensely of Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), highlights further the innocence and naivety of this past era.
Hudson, in the pivotal role of Penny Lane, a groupie who insists on being referred to as a "band aid," has the same nonchalant, unaffected air Madonna displayed in "Desperately Seeking Susan" before life with Sean Penn and the tabloid press made her brittle and inaccessible.
And since his skill at individual scenes doesn't translate into coherent structures, even his best work - Say Anything and the script for Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High - is burdened with perfunctory exposition and distracting subplots.
You see the heart of "Say Anything" or "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", the film he wrote for Amy Heckerling in the early '80s, but this new film is a much more ambitious venture.
Since then he has written the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the book on which it was based.
He has yet to make a flawless movie; Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) is his greatest success, but that's partially thanks to director Amy Heckerling who smoothed out the story's many contrasting moods.
It has been nearly two decades since Amy Heckerling made his book, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” into a movie that became a cult-classic and, thus, more than two decades since he returned to high school to do his undercover research on the behavior of teenagers.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, directed by Clueless's Amy Heckerling from a script by Almost Famous's Cameron Crowe, has always struck me as overrated, and a recent revisit did little to change my mind.
Advertisement
Frances McDormand (1996's "Fargo") adds a great deal of depth and tenderness as William's mother, who is constantly scared for her son while he is on the road ("Don't take drugs" is her motto), but knows that it is something very important to, and for, him.
Frances McDormand, the star of movies as diverse as Madeline and Fargo , continues to prove she's one of today's finest actors.
William's single mother Elaine, (Oscar winner Frances McDormand, "Fargo") an educator with unusual ideas, has watched her eldest, Anita (Zooey Deschanel, "Mumford"), fly the coop in a fit of rebelliousness.
Supporting players wringing every humorous drop out of their parts include Frances McDormand ( Fargo ) as William's demanding mom and Philip Seymour Hoffman ( Magnolia ) as his cynical rock-journalist mentor.
Zooey Deschanel (1999's "Mumford"), as William's older sister, leaves a striking impression and radiates both heart and intelligence, while Fairuza Balk (1996's "The Craft"), as Band Aid member Sapphire, handles her mostly comedic role with aplomb, even becoming quietly poignant in a late scene as she mourns the fans' decreasing appreciation of just what makes music such a miraculous and powerful form of art and expression.
Almost Famous isn’t that: it’s a far steadier and more thoughtful piece of filmmaking (I would suggest that it is, in fact, the clear high water mark of Crowe’s CV), if only for the nuance of the way it uses its wall-to-wall classic rock soundtrack as a signpost for character development, rather than the crude nostalgia-baiting of most films that rely on music to do the heavy lifting of authenticating a time period and insisting on the audience’s feelings ( Forrest Gump , you shameless hussy).
He explores all this with the vividness, poignancy and detail that was evident in his sublime and uplifting debut Say Anything... (1989), though here cloaked in a distinct feeling of nostalgia for an era, a series of moments and memories, that have passed away, forever.
They're chock-full of men and women afraid to trod on one another's toes; voices, meanwhile, are never raised except in pursuit of audience laughter, and an "Alvin and the Chipmunks" song was used in Almost Famous to evoke the '60s!
You can call it a "teen flick," but writer/director Cameron Crowe ( Almost Famous ) tells a story about people who just happen to be teens.
Advertisement
We first meet her long before William heads off on tour; she takes him to a screening of To Kill a Mockingbird, where he is impressed by Atticus Finch’s honesty and sense of justice.
If I hadn't seen him in Magnolia, Happiness, or The Talented Mr. Ripley, I would have believed that Crowe hired a real-life rock critic for the role.