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intereact!Director: Cameron Crowe
Actors: Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Jason Lee, and Patrick Fugit
Rated: Unrated
Retail Price (not our price): $34.99
Release Date: 2001-12-04
Theatrical Release Date: 2000-09-13
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Run Time: 285 minutes
Format: Array
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Discs: 3
Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
1) Amazon.com
Almost Famous is the movie Cameron Crowe has been waiting a lifetime to tell. The fictionalization of Crowe's days as a teenage reporter for Creem and Rolling Stone has all the well-written characters and wonderful "movie moments" that we expect from Crowe (Jerry Maguire), but the film has an intangible something extra--an insider's touch that will turn the film into the ode to '70s rock & roll for years to come. We are introduced to Crowe's alter ego, William Miller (Patrick Fugit), at home, where his progressive mom (Frances McDormand, just superb) has outlawed rock music and sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) has slipped him LPs that will "set his mind free." Following the wisdom of Creem's disheveled editor, Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman in an instant-classic performance), Miller gets on the inside with the up-and-coming band Stillwater (a fictionalized mixture of the Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, and others). A simple visit with the band turns into a three-week, life-altering odyssey into the heyday of American rock. Of the characters he meets on the road, the two most important are groupie extraordinaire Penny Lane (Kate Hudson in a star-making performance) and Stillwater's enigmatic lead guitarist (Billy Crudup), who keeps stringing Miller along for an interview. From the handwritten credits (done by Crowe) to the bittersweet finale, Crowe's comedic valentine is an indelible, heartbreaking romance of music, women, and the privilege of youth. --Doug Thomas
Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
1) Cameron Crowe's finest cinematic accomplishment [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I just love this movie. What a great coming-of-age tale. Patrick Fuget is superb as a naive, innocent yet brilliant young man trying to break into the crazy world of rock journalism. In fact, the entire casting of this film was serendipity. Each actor, from Billy Crudup to Frances McDormand, gave an amazing, heartfelt performance.I have always enjoyed Cameron Crowe's movies, but in my opinion nothing he has done before or since has approached the brilliance of this, his life story. This is in my top ten.2) A true Backstage Prospective [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I have never been a rock journalist but I was quite the little groupie and this movie could have been written about myself or any of my fellow "groupies." I have caught myself saying the same things and/or have been in the same situations of Penny Lane. ANd the cast...do I even have to praise every actor/actress in this film. This movie never ever gets old-ever!3) Great coming of age story. [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I have watched this film several times over the years, and each time i see something new. A great film about a genious 15 year old true fan of music that gets the break of a lifetime to write for rolling stone magazine. He gets to go on the road with Stillwater, a fictional band, in 1973. But the music is great, the story is good, and you really get to know the characters. Definite collection film, also available is a directors cut.4) another movie that should have one the academy award for best picture. [Rating: 5 out of 5]
if you haven't seen it, watch itif you've watched it, watch it againif you're sick of it, you haven't watched it enoughdon't know why but it's perfect to watch during the summer.5) Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer . . . [Rating: 4 out of 5]
I just read Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies, by Pamela Des Barres, and one of the chapters was an interview with director Carmeron Crowe. There are 2 dozen interviews, and there is only one other male interviewed, male groupie Pleather. The book chronicles the exploits of groupie's, from Mary Magdalen, through Tura Satana, Pamela herself, Cynthia Plaster Caster, Gail Zappa, Sweet, Sweet Connie of Little Rock, Lori Lightning, Bebe Buell, and Pleasant Gehman, among others. The reason for the inclusion of Cameron is for the film, Almost Famous, and the character of Penny Lane, played by Kate Hudson. She is NOT a groupie, she is a Band-Aid, and the young journalist, William Miller (Patrick Fugit), in an early scene in the film, also claims he is NOT a groupie. I recently emailed Tura Satana, and she also claimed she wasn't a groupie either. She just happened to have had a fling with Elvis, among others. Sure, Tura wasn't a groupie, and maybe you could even say that Elvis was her groupie. Penny Lane, the non-groupie character in Almost Famous, says that groupies do it for the thrill of getting close to someone famous, but "Band-Aids" do it for the love of the music. A better term for them is "Muse" as in someone who inspires an Artist or Musician. Anywhat, Almost Famous is mostly a thinly veiled autobiography of Cameron Crowe, the film director who began writing for Rolling Stone at the tender age of 16. After such an auspicious beginning, he went on to direct Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, Singles, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Widescreen Special Edition).Penny Lane, Polexia Aphrodisia (Anna Paquin), and the other women are somewhat peripheral. Elaine Miller (Frances McDormand), his mother, and his older sister Anita Miller (Zooey Deschanel), play just as pivotal a role in the young auteur's rite of passage. Mother and daughter can't get along, but before she splits to become a Stewardess, older sister leaves him a stash of Rock Albums that will transform his life. Important male figures are Rock Critic/mentor Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Rolling Stone editors Ben Fong-Torres and Jan Wenner, and the members of Stillwater, who the young journalist is desperately trying to interview for his first feature story. The band Stillwater is totally fictional, yet they are somewhat of an amalgamation of The Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin, say around the time of Eat a Peach and Led Zeppelin IV (aka ZOSO). Probably more Allman Brothers, though not nearly as Southern, with a charismatic guitarist, Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup), representing Duanne Allman, and a talented, though overshadowed, lead singer--shades of Greg Allman--Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee). Jason Lee is of course very familiar from the TV show My Name is Earl, but eerily, he also plays David Seville, manager of The Chipmonks, in the recent remake of that seminal prototype to The Monkees, The Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, Gorrilaz, and other pop music/cartoon, and/or television projects. What is eerie about it is that the opening scene of Almost Famous, the first music heard, is actually the aforementioned Chipmonks, as the young William Miller (Michael Angarano) listens on the radio. Back to Jason Lee, though, he not only sang well, he also acted his part superbly, bristling in the shadow of egomaniac Russell Hammond. Crudup's character is revealed when he attends a party with some mid-west locals, takes a psychedelic drug, and jumps off the house into a swimming pool, proclaiming "I am a Golden God." The DVD includes as a bonus some of Cameron's articles written for Rolling Stone, and they really shed a lot of light on the subject. The Allman Brothers story is written after Duanne Allman's fatal motorcycle accident. Perhaps, then, the Russell Hammond character is based on Jimmy Page, as another important interview of the young scribe was done of Led Zeppelin, who despite their huge success and tremendous album sales, were continuously slagged by critics, chief amongst them, Rolling Stone. There is a lot of mistrust and animus between musician and journalist. When they meet, they nickname him Enemy. Meanwhile, mentor Lester Bangs warns him, whatever you do, don't become their friend.The music for Stillwater was written by Cameron and his wife, Nancy Wilson, of female heavy metal group, Heart. The actors who played the band, Stillwater, were coached by Peter Frampton, who actually got them ready to perform within a few months with a little intense Rock Star Fantasy Boot Camp training. One of the Rolling Stone interviews is of Frampton, just after the huge success of Frampton Comes Alive!, and just prior to the release of the ill-advised film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the preface to that interview, he confesses that he broke the cardinal rule of Rock Journalism, as laid down by Lester Bangs: Don't befriend the musicians. Knowing what a fiasco and career wrecker the movie would be, one can only wonder why he would let his so-called friend make such a disastrous movie. But the amiable Frampton took his success in stride, and seems to have also taken his subsequent fall from grace quite well. But I digress, and just let me say here that the inclusion of the Rolling Stone articles is quite a bonus, as they not only illuminate what goes on in the movie, but also validate the protagonist's saga. Because, if he had sucked as a writer, what a silly story that would have been. But the writing is very impressive, and all the more so when you consider the author's tender age. Patrick Fugit, playing the Cameron Crowe/William Miller character does a fantastic job of acting as well. He yearns to be cool, but he is so not. He has a crush on Penny Lane, and one scene where he is deflowered by some of the other "groupies" is quite tastefully handled, well-acted, and what is most striking is that he makes eye contact with Penny Lane throughout, and you feel that there is some kind of strange love between them, however unrequited it may be. Another scene has Penny asking him if he wants to go to Morocco with her, and he says "Yes," then asks her to ask him again. It was later revealed in the "Making of" footage that he was asking for another take, but they left it in because it was spontaneous and captured an ethereal quality of yearning. Another scene that shows Crowe's skill as a director was one in which Penny Lane (whose real name is finally revealed as Lady Goodman) is smashed on qualudes. As she rolls around vomiting in her diaphanous lingerie, and the young journalist calls for emergency medical assistance, the soundtrack plays Stevie Wonder singing My Cherie Amour. He can't help loving her, in spite of it all. It is just this sort of juxtaposition that makes the mise en scène of auteur Cameron Crowe unique, and why watching any of his films is always such an enjoyable experience.