Thursday, October 28, 2010

Almost Famous

Cameron Crowe, 2000 (8.8*)
When he was a 15-year old teen, Crowe convinced Rolling Stone magazine through some letters that he was an adult rock music critic. Surprisingly, he was selected to follow an up-and-coming rock band on the road and report on the tour. This film humorously documents that period in Crowe's life, and Crowe himself won an Oscar® for the screenplay.

Patrick Fugit plays the teen, William. Frances McDormand is terrific, as usual, as his mom, Mrs. Miller. Kate Hudson, daughter of Goldie Hawn, was a breakthrough as groupie "Penny Lane" (obviously named after the Beatles song); she steals the movie, and garnered an Oscar® nomination for supporting actress as a result. [photo rt, w Fugit]

Jason Lee and Billy Crudup are the singer and guitarist in the band. This is a funny and at times touching take on the lifestyle of rockers, from the band to the fans to the critics. This is one of the more fully realized rock music films, which should make it of interest to all film fans, not just rockers. If you like this, check out his earlier (and even funnier) grunge rock comedy Singles, from 1992.

Overall, the film won 44 awards and got 120 nominations (awards page at IMDB), making it one of the biggest critical successes of any rock film. Both Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand won multiple acting awards for this, and Crowe won several for his screenplay, several for film.

2 comments:

Unknown November 4, 2010 at 8:32 PM  

I am going to check this out! great review!

José Sinclair November 5, 2010 at 4:44 PM  

If you like this film, or this type, you'll also enjoy Crowe's grunge rock romantic comedy SINGLES, with Matt Dillon the bone-headed leader of a Seattle band, who's having romantic problems with an attractive neighbor (Bridget Fonda), and several other subplots involving the loves of other characters, including George Scott's son Campbell, in a hilarious sex scene with Kyra Sedgwick, that includes an NBA player cameo..

an excellent 'modern rock romance' comedy, and also one of Dillon's best, for comedy anyway
-- Jose --

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These are the individual film reviews of what I'm considering the best 1000 dvds available, whether they are films, miniseries, or live concerts. Rather than rush out all 1000 at once, I'm doing them over time to allow inclusion of new releases - in fact, 2008 has the most of any year so far, 30 titles in all; that was a very good year for films, one of the best ever.



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