ALMOST FAMOUS review

I don’t know how much good this review will be for you... Ya see ALMOST FAMOUS was an extremely personal experience for me in the theater last night.

Now I’m not gonna say this is the greatest movie to look behind the veil of Rock-n-Roll music... Personally I believe that probably belongs to the world of documentaries... I really believe that something like GIMME SHELTER works on levels so much more profound than an acted out film... Simply because you know you are witnessing the reality of it all.

I bring up GIMME SHELTER because I just watched it last night... in its Dolby Digital sounding best... watching the early camera work of George Lucas... Watching the ROLLING STONES in their relaxed down time moments... I realized that ALMOST FAMOUS isn’t a great look on the backside of Rock-N-Roll...

What Cameron Crowe has made however, is a striking look at what it is like to not be the famous person... going everywhere the famous people go. That’s what this film is.

Sure we look at the rock gods, but we see them at their most glamorous memorable moments of life. The decadent peaks and valleys.

Crowe takes us on drug overdoses and drug highs... through the dancing young nubile giggly flesh of the backstage tarts...

This young wide eyed kid goes from the purity of albums and radio waves.... to the decadence of backstages and orgiastic hotel scenes... at the age of 15/16...

He takes us to the scene of 1974 Rock-n-Roll through the eyes of a fan... a fan that sees that the Rock Gods have all the treats of Bacchus, but are in reality quite self-involved human beings... that become gods when the lights come up and the amps cook and the mike ceases to feedback.

Now having just watched GIMME SHELTER, I saw a noted lack of DOWN TIME in ALMOST FAMOUS... but then, when you get the backstage pass... When you are the enemy.... You nearly always see your subject while they are still... ON. It is only after an intensive amount of time spent with the individual or group of people that you really begin to see the real person. It is only then that you get to know the real way a person reacts to a given situation.

In ALMOST FAMOUS you see the star struck untrained journalist cross all the traditional journalist lines. You see him completely cross the line from journalist to friend... and you see him reach the otherside with an uncompromised piece of writing that was a completely honest portrayal of his experiences with the subjects.

You know... How can I not associate with the character of William Miller (played fantastically by Patrick Fugit). Here is a kid with no formal training, working in a fairly new medium... that being Underground Newspapers and magazines and then finally ROLLING STONE as a rock critic. He’s just a kid. How can he judge rock-n-roll or any other form of music? He’s accepted because he’s not afraid to speak up, to voice and state his opinions... because he can communicate what his eyes beheld and put them in words for the world to also see.

Now this movie is filled with great moments and great scenes... but for me, my favorite moment of the entire film... the most real and honest moment is a very small... to most people... completely forgettable scene....

When William is up on stage for the first time... off in the wing, watching Stillwater perform for the first time... and Penny Lane is standing next to him... she sees that he’s busily writing notes... scratching away at his little notepad like you’d imagine Ben Hecht in the days of old. Penny reaches over and takes his pencil away.

The moment is one of sheer beauty for me. You see, that’s a philosophy. When the music is playing... you see pushing the pencil... you watch and soak it all in. You have to watch... watch the way the rock stars hair captures the colored lighting... the way the crowd sways and churns... the people clawing at the stage... the beading of sweat on the forehead of the drummer as he pounds home the beat... the intense vibration in your own sternum as the sound pours forth... And you have to communicate that... put it in print, and if you are busy with notes... standing there... head down, fingers wrestling the number 2 for a scant few words on the page... when you are missing the 40 other sentences you’d pick up just by watching.

Ok... so that’s one level of the film... That’s the side where I most strongly relate... but there is so much that everyone can latch on to.

Remember when you first discovered your first Rock-n-Roll? Remember how it felt like a revelation... as though someone whispered a dirty secret to you? I remember, I was just a kid... about 3 or 4... I fell in love with the song RAMBLING MAN... I used to jump up and down and sing the song way wrong and drove my parents nuts... it was that and DIG DIG from my Snow White album. A couple of years after that... it was PINBALL WIZARD. In between, I was being raised in the amplified reality of the Armadillo World Headquarters... I was that hippie child... my parents ran the Light Shows... I danced off to the side... but there was something so real and honest about the music coming. In ALMOST FAMOUS you get that. You feel that.

The only real moments for these guys are the onstage moments. That brings us to STILLWATER... the band. The stand outs are Jason Lee and Billy Crudup... Both really really shine here. In fact, I’d say these two really become stars for the first time for me. I loved Jason Lee in CHASING AMY, but here... he’s just perfect. And Billy Crudup... he is just a ROCK STAR in this... pure unadulterated charisma. A STAR. I last really liked Billy in WITHOUT LIMITS, but here... WoW. Crudup is the entire package here.

This is what is wonderful about this film. Billy Crudup becomes a star. This Patrick Fugit exhibits AMAZING TALENT... and Kate Hudson becomes a super star here. If, as we reported, Kate becomes Mary Jane... she’s going to be huge. Hudson is just absolute magic in the film. She’s a Gala... a muse... that which inspires art and poetry and music. That’s the part she plays... a magical creature, the last unicorn. Speak her real name and she disappears, she is for all purposes... Penny Lane.

Between those three fantastic performances... Cameron Crowe’s wonderfully honest and real screenplay... Oh... and a performance worthy of supporting actress looking at by Frances McDormand as.... ummmmm... one of the scariest mothers in film history... hehehe...

Overall... I love this movie. It shows the initial hostility and distrust between reporters and artists... it shows how hard it is to earn respect and trust to gather information and a familiarity out of your subject so that you don’t get the same pat answers to the same pat questions.

Here it shows a pretty damn fine look at how that process needs to breakdown in order for it to work. It has to hit the dumps so there can be a moment of awakening. And ya know... Cameron doesn’t miss a beat.

Now, I’ve heard that later on when the DVDs hit there will be two versions... one release for ALMOST FAMOUS and one for UNTITLED which was significantly longer... I can’t wait. Talking to John Robie about this film and the other version he saw... has me lusting for the longer version as well.

I can’t wait to see Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugat on screen again. And I’m very happy to see Cameron Crowe already at work casting his next film. Goody.

Ahhhh.... I can't believe I initially forgot to include the hands down film stealing role/performance of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Here... he's playing the cynical been up and down both sides of this street... worldly wise, aging rock-n-roller critic. He is all at once... beatnik, hipster, Yoda and the coolest spouter of the truth you ever did see. Phillip is currently like the Film House Keeping Seal of Approval... you see him in the film... you know it's good. Again, another fantastic turn by this great actor.