Fuzzy Favorite Almost Famous
I had a friend over last night to hang out and watch a movie. I came across Almost Famous on Demand and she said she had never seen it. “You’ve never seen Almost Famous?! It’s one of the best movies ever!” I exclaimed. So immediately dictated that that’s what we going to watch. This is probably one of my top five all time favorite movies…
Almost Famous stars Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand and a host of other amazing actors. This movie is soooo well cast. It’s definitely a large ensemble and each actor nailed their part. The movie was directed by Cameron Crowe who did Jerry Maguire and Say Anything. Almost Famous is a semi autobiographical story of Crowe’s own life as a teenage writer for Rolling Stone in the early 70s.
Starring Patrick Fugit as William (based on Crowe), a young, innocent writer who goes on tour with the fictional band Stillwater (based on a tour Cameron went on with The Allman Brothers) to write a piece about the band for Rolling Stone. Along the way, he meets Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) who is the leader of some groupies called the Band Aids. The Band Aids also join the tour, which turns out to be an eye opener for little William about the fantasy world of drugs, sex and rock & roll. While all this is happening, his poor mother (played perfectly by Frances McDormand) is at home worried to death about her son who’s been kidnapped by rock stars, calling him everyday to tell him not to do drugs.
What I love about this movie is pretty much everything. The writing is phenomenal, the actors truly bring these characters to life and it’s all set against some of the best music ever written. I grew up with my parents listening to Classic Rock my whole life, so I just love the soundtrack.
I really thought that pretty much everyone had seen this movie, but I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I guess it didn’t fare too well at the box office when it came out in 2000, but it was highly rated by critics, with Roger Ebert hailing it as the best movie of the year. So, if you haven’t seen it, take my advice, rent it. You’ll be happy you did.
4 Responses to “Fuzzy Favorite Almost Famous”
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Kate
I love this movie too. No one I know has seen it and I don’t really know why. Weird.
Completely agree. I actually didn’t see this movie until recently as well and was blown away! I think Cameron Crowe’s greatest strength is in matching music with a scene and here is where the magic happens. Combine that with a topic he was more then well versed in and a little Philip Seymour Hoffman and you’ve got a winner.
This is one of my favorites too and I love Jerry Maguire also. I can watch both of these movies over and over and enjoy them each time.
Dude, this movie and Dazed and Confused makes me think that I grew up in the wrong decade. And Seymour Hoffman, awesome.