Review "Almost Famous"

“Almost Famous” (Directed by Cameron Crowe, 2000)

Who knew the so called “enemy” to a rock band would end-up befriending them. In “Almost Famous” a young teenage journalist/critic Patrick Fugit as William Miller, go’s on a life experience trip with a rock band that would either make or break the band and his writing career. By perusing his goal in life, William opens the door and walks into the life he only read about and listened to. He experiences the up’s and downs of a young and still at times childish rock band at a time when rock was coming to an end. With guidance from “America’s greatest rock critic” Lester Bangs played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, William goes to a concert to review Black Sabbath and stumbles into getting a writing project from Rolling Stone and that’s only the beginning. His job now is to go on tour with Stillwater and write a review about the band and tour, but runs into plenty of bumps along the way and at times you think he won’t complete the one thing he has his heart set on.
The bands front man Jeff Bebe played by Jason Lee, plays the typical whinny lead singer that can’t come to reality that the band is made up of not just him, and has trouble with guitarist Russell Hammond, Billy Crudup, who seems to take the spotlight away from him without even trying. The bickery between the band members takes a toll on the entire group which creates resentment among the band members.
Russell’s own lack of leadership and his disappointment with the way things are going with the band aren’t the only things that delay the ultimate one-on-one interview William seems to try and get from him throughout the movie. The love affair he gets into with Penny Lane, Kate Hudson, adds to his obstacles. Penny Lane leads a group of girls called the “band-aids”, who are in other words groupies, but yet seem to have more than just sex on their mind, which is love for the music and the band.
William struggles with the harsh reality of how all these people have so many dreams and feelings for each other, but yet are too scared to express them, and end up making decisions that ultimately hurt one another. During the whole turmoil William ends-up falling for Penny and has a hard time keeping the relationship with Russell at bay.
Cameron Crowe brings the feel and music of the 70’s back in a very humorous and at times serious way throughout the movie which keeps you entertained from beginning to end. He pokes at how spiritual and full of “it” musicians could be during this time. Russell, at one point feels he wants something “real”, but it makes you wonder what the hell he is talking about when he’s all of a sudden in a teenager’s house tripped on acid. Reality must be an illusion to some of these musicians. Crowe’s autobiography about his first assignment that made him who he is, captures a sense of nostalgia you could only feel in the 70’s without a care in the world.
The short scenes of Lester Bangs, Hoffman, give you a sense of how critics were typically in the 70’s, sometimes strung out and having their house a mess. His guidance helps out William during and after the tour. He opens his eyes and warns him to how it is to be hanging out with rock bands and how they could deceive him. Hoffman hits the nail on the head with his impersonation and doesn’t go overboard.
Though the movie is 2hrs long, it doesn’t bore you at all, but keeps you wondering what crazy goofy things are to come.

Album Review

David Vazquez

Coldplay “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends” (Capitol/EMI Records, 2008)

Coldplay’s 4th album “Viva La Vida” tests the bands own limits with politics and religion and losses their so-called sadness from previous albums. The album is quite balanced with rhythm and sound from slow and mellow, to some intertwined up beat echoes. This album shows the minds of the band members branching out from their usually love lost lyrics, with representations of soldiers and death around the world. They have lost a few goodies like Chris Martins piano in some songs and incredible guitar sound and replaced them with orchestra riffs that are enormously soothing and buoyant. Clearly 2 songs stand out among the rest of being top chart singles, “Viva La Vida” and Violet Hill.” They seem to have still held on to the sound and technique that made them a big Brit-pop-rock band and just tweaked it up a bit. Some bands get a bit too predictable after so many albums, but Coldplay has allowed them-selves to experiment early on in their career as a group, and it pays off in “Viva La Vida”. Their previous albums contain much heartache to loneliness to new life and finding friends and living life to now. “Viva La Vida” feels like a true piece of art that took time and effort and doesn’t feel rushed. The tempo keeps you coming back for more in each song. Chris Martin still makes you hold on with his poetic and comforting voice and doesn’t over shadow the wonderful sound and beat of the songs. You can truly sit down and feel the band playing right in front of you in your living room, a symphony of sounds ricochet from wall to wall at times. Though the album only has 10 songs, it does have about 2 hidden tracks mixed in to 2 songs, which makes you a bit happy paying as much as you did think this might have been a rip-off for only 10 measly songs. With Coldplay experimenting early on, it makes you wonder what other limits they might try to reach with their future albums.