Almost Famous

Have you ever listened to a song or an album that changed your life in some way or another? One that took you to another place and made you feel like you could conquer the world or tell someone how you really feel about them? For my generation it tends to be albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten, Radiohead’s OK Computer. Whatever. For me, personally, it tends to be pre-1990. Peter Gabriel’s Security, U2′s Joshua Tree, The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, The Rolling Stone’s Let It Bleed, Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks. In fact, this movie takes place during my favorite period of music. Pretty much anything released between 1965 and 1975 is pure gold to me. This is when artists were just starting to really experiment (The Beach Boys, Yes, The Moody Blues) or get introspective (Simon And Garfunkel, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell) or, if we were lucky, both (The Beatles, The Who, Bob Dylan). And it was a time when metal was what it was supposed to be, a mix of hard rock and blues and psychedelia. Led Zeppelin knew what they were doing when they started the whole metal movement. Then, somewhere along the way, it got out of hand and became the music of long haired violence mongers. Now it’s totally devolved into alterna-crap like Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails. But I digress.

As you can tell, I have heard albums that have changed my life. Quite a few times. Maybe even more than is natural. (In fact I used to get made fun of because I paid a little too much attention to music-especially to music that came out before I was born. I was uncool.) But I’m sure you’ve heard an album like that at one time or another. And it seems as if Cameron Crowe has had it happen to him even more than I have. That’s probably why he became a freelance Rolling Stone journalist at 15. And that’s also probably why he chooses perfect music for all of his movies. (Can you hear “Secret Garden” by Bruce Springsteen without seeing Tom Cruise and Renee Zellwegger or “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel without seeing John Cusack and Ione Skye?)

Almost Famous is the story of William Miller’s (Patrick Fugit, whose biggest roles before this were a tv horror movie called Legion Of Fire: Killer Ants! and a small role on Touched By An Angel-GACK!) life on the road with a band in 1973. This is a time that Mr. Crowe knows inside and out not only because he lived in them, but because he lived them. This is also Crowe’s life story.

The movie starts off, though, in 1969 where William finds out that he’s really 11 (and not 13 like he thought because his mom put him in school early) and his sister, Anita (Zooey Deschanel), runs off because mom, Elaine (Frances McDormand), is too strict with them: no rock music, no fast food, no anything fun. She goes so far as to say that Simon And Garfunkel’s Bookends album is about drugs and promiscuous sex. (Anyone who has heard the album knows that it’s about stages of life, but that’s not important right now.) So, in one of the more poignant scenes in the movie, sis plays “America” (S&G’s best semi-unknown song) for her to explain why she has to leave.

This is where young William’s life is changed forever. It’s his first rock song. And what a way to start off. His sister also leaves him all of her albums. Somehow she managed to only pick up classics (The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, The Who’s Tommy, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, Joni Mitchell’s Blue-which actually didn’t come out for two more years) it would have been nice to see a couple of more obscure trash albums. Maybe she could have been really into The 13th Floor Elevators or The Archies. (Just a note: The Elevators are actually really cool, just not well known and I don’t know that they put out any classic albums. They are, however, from Austin, which makes them cooler than cool.)

Four years later, William runs into legendary rock critic Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who immediately takes a liking to the 15-year-old music lover. He gives him his first assignment at Creem and sends him to a Sabbath concert to interview the opening band, Stillwater. Somehow his mom lets him go. I guess she’s softened up a lot since she lost her first born.

This is where William meets Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), a groupie, er, Band Aid, who tries to get him backstage, but ends up in his heart instead. Unfortunately for William, the lead guitarist of Stillwater, Russell (Billy Crudup) is already in hers.

Then, by some fluke of fate, not only does William get backstage, but he gets a job on the road with the band to write about them for Rolling Stone. SCORE!!!

Along the way he becomes friends with the boys, loses his virginity (even though he doesn’t look old enough to know what to do with a girl) and becomes the “adult” of the group. And that’s the irony of the flick. It is laid on pretty thick, but Cameron tends to rise above it. The script is so well written and the roles are so well acted that you tend to forget that you’re watching a big Hollywood movie and start to think that you’re actually watching your friends on a long trip.

Even scenes that seem like they wouldn’t work (and, in fact, they shouldn’t work) work like a charm. (I really hate that cliché.) The one that everyone talks about (and I’m going to do it, too) is the scene on the bus where everyone bursts into Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” Crowe puts a “singing in a car” scene in every movie (can’t remember one in Singles-any help?) and they all work pretty well even if they’re really short. This one, however, works better than anything he’s ever done before. Because Russell is the only member in focus on the new T-shirt, Jeff (Jason Lee in one of his best performances), the lead singer, and Russell get in a huge fight and nearly break up the band in one of the best “disintegration of a band” scenes ever.

Then, after everyone is back on the bus, they’re still pissed. But something amazing happens. “Tiny Dancer” comes on the radio and the drummer starts to drum the beat on the back seat. Then the bassist starts singing. After a while the whole bus is singing along and they’re all friends again.

This sounds like a totally hackneyed scene, but it works so well because of the choice of song and the genuine acting. Just think if Crowe had chosen a song about friendship or a group of people coming together. Maybe The Beatles’ “All Together Now.” Pretty stupid, huh. Instead, he chose a song that does have a little to do with a band (the song is about Elton’s lyricist Bernie Taupin’s wife, who is the “seamstress for the band”), but it’s just a nice love song for the most part. And it has a perfect build up from soft piano ballad to a slightly harder piano rock song. It allows all of the riders to join in as it builds. And it just sets the mood of the times without being totally nostalgic. It’s the perfect choice of sing along song that doesn’t seem perfect until you actually hear it in the scene.

From then on William is dragged from one city to another to write a story on the band for Rolling Stone. Four weeks turns into months. A few cities turn into the whole tour. His infatuation with Penny turns to love and his admiration of Russell turns to jealousy and, in a way, pity.

This is the best movie that Cameron Crowe has ever done. The movie that he was born to do. He’s great at the romantic comedy (Say Anything is the best high school romance ever and Jerry Maguire and Singles are pretty damn good, too-of course Fast Times At Ridgemont High (which he only wrote) is a classic-but not very romantic), but this is his life and his first love. The movie portrays a time when Elton John and Rod Stewart were still cool. A time when groupies could actually have sex with their favorite bands without worrying about where they were the night before. (Although I’m not so sure that that was a good thing.) A time when a 15 year old could actually be taken at least sort of seriously as a writer. And it portrays it so well that we can forget about any other movie that takes place in the early 70s and just watch this one anytime we want to relive that period. The attention to detail (except for the whole Blue thing) is amazing. Did you ever see Somewhere In Time with Christopher Reeve? He has traveled back in time in his mind in order to meet a woman that he fell in love with through her picture. But he suddenly sees a penny from 1980 and gets sucked back into present time. There’s no penny in this movie. Nothing to distract you from the times.

You can tell that Cameron holds the early 70s in high regard, but he doesn’t want us to get the idea that it was all fun and games. After all, there were dangerous drugs, hard life on the road and weird things going on with sex that, although they aren’t really touched on in the movie, they are hinted at in the very end. There were hearts broken, families torn apart, distrust and political upheavals. But they’re the times that shaped him, so he sees them in a light that I may not.

The performances are all uniformly amazing. The three main characters are portrayed more believably than anyone in Cameron’s last flick. (It’s just hard for me to see Tom Cruise as a nice guy.) Kate, the very embodiment of a Tiny Dancer is great as the woman child who wants so much to be grown up, but deep down she’s just a little girl who has lost that all-important childhood because of her use of sex as a power trip. Her innocence is gone, but she still plays it up enough to know that, somewhere it still lingers. She loves someone that she knows she can’t have, but she’ll keep trying anyway. (There’s a great scene where it all comes to her and she’s smiling and crying at the same time. Beautifully acted and shot like one of those old 70s photography commercials. Just made you want to wipe her tears away and take her back to her castle.)

Billy, as the hard-working, soon to be rock star, is given a role that may just make him a star. He’s an egotistical user who doesn’t realize that he’s hurting a girl that he doesn’t really love, but he’s still vulnerable and totally a nice guy. Everyone loves him and he always has time for his fans. He may not always have time for William who desperately wants an interview with him, but he’s gotten too close to the kid. He’s afraid that he may say something that he and the band don’t want printed.

And Patrick was surprisingly good as the boy who becomes a man on a trip full of grown up children. He goes from a sheltered little boy to a world-weary young man in the course of the two hour movie. He kind of reminds me of Tobey Maguire’s Homer Wells from The Cider House Rules. He starts off totally passive and just takes in everything that he’s given but ends up a changed man who won’t be walked on anymore. And yet he retains his innocence throughout. (One great scene where it all falls on him at once is where he tries, one more time, to get that interview, but Russell yells at him to leave and he hears Penny in there with him. He gets pissed off, flips off the door (making sure no one sees him do it), goes across the hall, sits down hard and quietly cries as he hears the two of them giggling behind the closed door. It was painful to watch, but more true than anyone is willing to admit.)

The rest of the performances are equally impressive. Jason Lee is great as the over the top, jealous lead singer with his heart buried somewhere under a thin shield. Frances McDormand has finally found a role that suits her again as the well meaning, but over-protective mother. She takes a role that we would typically hate (think Carrie’s mom) and turns it into a totally loving mother who just has a lot of idiosyncrasies. She’s not the kind of mom that we would want, but she does love her kids and would do anything for them. She just wants to keep them safe…and off drugs. And, of course, Hoffman is great as the legendary, bombastic critic who reaches out his hand to a kid with a dream. He’s uncool in a cool way. And he knows that he’s uncool, but he’s so ok with it that he plays it up. According to him, critics were meant to be uncool. I can see that.

Complex characters for a movie that’s much more complex than you would ever think.

And then there’s the music. Cameron has always had a way with music, but I think he’s surpassed even himself this time. From the first strains of Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells A Story” when Penny is dragging William to Stillwater’s hotel to Elton John’s unjustly overlooked “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” being played while William is running towards Penny’s hotel room looking for her, there’s not a false note (is that a pun? No, I would never do that) in the whole film. Even the score fits with the times. But I guess that goes to figure. Cameron’s wife, Nancy Wilson, wrote it. And she should know a little something about the 70s since her band, Heart, were million sellers back then.

So this is my long-winded way of saying GO SEE THIS MOVIE. It’s the best movie I’ve seen all year with some of the best music ever written and the best script since last year’s American Beauty. And after you see Almost Famous go rent High Fidelity, a movie that would make a great companion piece to this one. They’re both about people who make music one of the biggest parts of their lives. And, of course, I love both movies. Then again, I guess I can identify with the main characters in both.

As a side note, what the hell happened to Rolling Stone? This movie really made me realize how far downhill that magazine has gone. Back in 1967, when it was first published, it helped to usher in the era of rock criticism. It was right on the edge with stories about politics, music and culture. William may have been called “The Enemy” by Stillwater back then because he wrote for RS, but now he would be called “The Sellout.” Jeff once says something about how they don’t just give anybody the cover to some band with the week’s hit. If that that were true today. Now we’ve got Titney Spears and N’Stync on every issue. And the best writers are their political writers. Only PJ O’Rourke seems to remember what Rolling Stone (and rock and roll for that matter) is all about.