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Let there be Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll. Why you ask, well because that's pretty much what Almost Famous is all about. Now there are also story lines about love and finding ones self, but the film is still centered on Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll in the early 70s. Almost Famous begins with a young William Miller finding out that he is quite a bit younger than his classmates, which makes the nerd stand out even more than before. But that's OK since he is talented. Dum da dum da dum, skip ahead a few years to 1973 and William (Patrick Fugit) is still unpopular but very knowledgeable about Rock music. So at the age of 15 he starts to write articles for Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman from State and Main) who is a critic for Cream Magazine. Lester tries to warn the up-and-coming journalist about the pitfalls of being a good Rock critic, but the fame and the power can be too intoxicating for some. William's first assignment is to interview Black Sabbath at their concert in San Diego, where William lives. After arriving at the concert, William runs into some problems getting in, but eventually befriends the opening band, Stillwater. Here he also meets the Band Aids who are led by Miss Penny Lane (Kate Hudson, 200 Cigarettes). The Band Aids are different from other groupies in that they don't sleep with the band members, blow jobs only. Well moving on, William ends up friends with Stillwater, while never getting the interview with Black Sabbath. Then out of the blue Ben Fong-Torres (Terry Chen) of Rolling Stone Magazine comes calling and hires young William to do an article on the up-and-coming Stillwater. And this is where the story gets interesting. Penny has this thing for Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup, Without Limits) who is the guitarist and star of Stillwater, but William also has a thing for Penny. Stillwater is on the rise because of Russell which makes all the other band members, especially the lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee, Dogma), jealous. So as the band, William, and the Band-Aides travel cross-country on a bus tour, all of these stories play out while William's mom (Frances McDormand, Wonder Boys) keeps telling William not to do drugs. Almost Famous is written and directed by Cameron Crowe (not the Gladiator Crowe) whom the story is loosely based on (he also did Jerry Maguire with that cute little kid that had all those strange little bits of trivia). I really enjoyed this movie and all the performances. Crudup did a fabulous job as the troubled rock star trying to deal with sudden fame. Crowe did a great job showing what it was like in Rock & Roll before disco came and took it on a detour. Others in the cast include Anna Paquin, Fairuza Balk, Eion Bailey, Zooey Deschanel, Noah Taylor, and Jimmy Fallon. Besides these actors a real rocker in Peter Frampton had a cameo. This movie really showed the cliché of Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, but it was also more than that. Unlike some movies there was also a story to this film. So to end this thing, About Famous receives Nine couches out of the possible Ten from About-Movies.com. The only disappointing part of the picture is that there was no real nudity, and with a talent (tongue in cheek) such as Kate Hudson, I think they really should have showed off her great assets. In all seriousness, this really is one of the best films this year. Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:49:55 AM |
