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.