Rating: 
Summary: multifaceted
Review: I actually have a small music credit in the movie so I'm partial & proud. I love the movie and purchased the DVD hoping the "director's cut" with some 40 minutes of deleted scenes would have a bit more of ME than the theatrical release had. Unfortunately this DVD edition is not a director's cut as it was promoted to be... hopefully the next edition will help to further stroke my ego. That does not change the fact that this is very fresh take on music of the 70's which viewers of all generations should be able to relate to. Do not pass it by.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Flawless
Review: OK, that's a bad attempt at being punny - in fact, in my opinion, this movie is flawless. Kate Hudson is magical, Billy Crudup is enviable, Patrick Fugit is charmed and Frances McDormand is everything that makes your mother your mother. Underneath it all is the music, and if you can't remember exactly where you were and how you felt the first time you heard a really great rock song, buy this movie to remind youreslf -- or to substitute for the experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Cameron Crowe - An American Genius!!!
Review: Almost Famous is a sweet/funny/touching semi- autobiographical snapshot of Cameron Crowe's teenage life as a fledgling rock critic. Patrick Fugit is perfectly cast ( and could pass for a young Crowe) as William, with all the emotions and insecurities of a typical 15 year old boy.Kate Hudson is extraordinary as groupie Penny Lane,sensitive yet all knowing.Frances McDormand plays William's off-beat, eccentric, yet loving mother with her usual zeal.This film is a great reminder for all us kids who grew up on 70s rock."Stillwater", the fictitious band dramatized in the film, is a perfect amalgamation of Zeppelin, with touches of other 70s greats (Foghat?) thrown in. I don't know how many times as a teenager I daydreamed about hanging out with my favorite band Aerosmith (70's Aerosmith, not 2001's)backstage, with Joe Perry shouting to me, "hey man, throw me over a cold one". This film is not to be missed...
Rating: 
Summary: Almost worth watching
Review: What an over hyped disappointment.I was really looking forward to seeing this,but is not in the same league as Crowe's other movies.Crowe normally has good actors in his films,but in this one,well,all I can say to Patrick Fugit is don't give up your day job.His was probably the worst performance by a leading man in recent memory and ultimately lets the film down,and as for the overrated Kate Hudson,an oscar nod for staring into space half the time,it seemed to me that she was just reciting lines from a script and not acting at all.Thank God for Frances McDormand for giving it a touch of class. Overall,I felt emotionally detached from this movie,which is strange for a Cameron Crowe film,but his self-indulgence here is to blame,and I also couldn't help thinking that"This is Spinal Tap" is the final word in rock movies,so do yourself a favour and watch that instead.
Rating:
Summary: 'Almost Famous' (Should be titled 'Almost Almost Famous')
Review: You've got to be kidding! Were Kate & Frances really nominated for Academy Awards for this boring movie? My husband and I both fell asleep several times and we tried to watch it twice! Don't bother. I can't believe Mr. Ebert gave this movie any credence whatsoever. Ms.McDormand's character was different, but she was like most of my friends!
Rating:
Summary: TOTALLY COOL ROCK-N- ROLL MOVIE
Review: "Almost Famous" is a comedy/drama/on the road type of film that tells the tale of a 15 year old boy named William Miller being on the road with a band called Stillwater. Along the way, he makes friends and falls in love. Miller, played so perfectly and brilliantly by Patrick Fugit, wants to be a rock journalist much to the chagrin of his mother. Frances Mcdormand plays his overbearing, overprotective mother, and every scene she is in cracks me up. She was also excellent in this movie, and definitely deserves her Oscar nomination. Speaking of Oscar, Kate Hudson, who is also nominated in the same category, Best Supporting Actress, is also great in the movie. She plays Penny Lane, a groupie..excuse me, "Band aid", she says she is just a big fan of the music and wants to be around the band. She would rather be around famous people cuz they are more interesting. William gets his first professional gig as a writer for Rolling Stone. He is to go on the road with a band and write a fantastic article about his journey with the band Stillwater. Does he ever get his whole story amidst the drugs, sex, and rock and roll? You will have to watch this movie to find out. I am a huge fan of alot of the bands used in the movies soundtrack, which is awesome by the way. There are a few songs you won't recognize, but you will know who's singing. It is said that this film is a semi-autobiograpical account of Cameron Crowe's early days, before his career took off.He is both the director and writer of the movie. The band Stillwater is a composite of the bands, yes there was more than one, that Crowe went on the road with. This maybe not be the classic 70's film that Dazed and Confused is, but it is pretty darn close if you ask me. I actually originally wanted to see this movie because Billy Crudup, who I admire as an actor and just like to look at, was in it. I also wanted to see it because it was the latest Cameron Crowe flick as I have loved most of the films he has done: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Singles.. I consider "Almost Famous" to be one of the best films of the year 2000. It had a very endearing quality(especially to those who grew up in the 70s and loved the rock and roll that came out of it) and some of the best performances of the year. It's a great rental....
Rating:
Summary: Best 70s Rock Movie Ever!
Review: Anyone who gives Almost Famous less than 5 stars simply doesn't get it! Not only is this the best film to be released in the year 2000, it is the best movie about the rock scene of the early 1970s that I have ever seen - period. Although I was only about five years old when this story takes place, I'm fairly well read on the history of rock music. I have to admit that I caught absolutely zero historical inaccuracys during the course of the film. Cameron Crowe knows his stuff. The film is well executed in every area - Direction, Writing, Casting, Acting, Cinematography, Editing, Soundtrack, et al. I've never felt more satisfied after shelling out eight bucks to see a film than I did after seeing A.F. ...and who cares that we have to wait a while for the "special edition director's cut" DVD. I already bought the current edition and I look forward to buying the director's cut as well. Nuff Said - this film is a timeless classic and deserves all of the praise it's been getting.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Buy it. I dare you to avoid falling hard for Kate Hudson in this moviee
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, simply brilliant!
Review: I would have to say that this is one of the best movies I have ever seen, if not the best. Period pieces can be a gamble, they're usually inaccurate, or overly goofy, but this movie was very well done. Billy Crudup does a killer job of playing a messed-up rock star. He probably won't win any awards for it (the best ones never do), but he is definitely deserving of it. Patrick Fugit is a likeable young actor, and Kate Hudson is extremely talented (not to mention very beutiful). The story, basically, is of a young writer in the early 70's who goes on tour with a nascent rock band to interview them for a magazine article, during which he befriends the band members, and finds love with a mysterious female follower. I found the story to be particularly enthralling, due to my love for music, and for the fact that I myself love to write, so it was easy for me to put myself into the place of the main character, and see the story through his eyes. I also enjoyed the gritty depiction of the life of a rock star, it's important that people remember that it's not all glitz and glam. The world has changed in the past thirty years, but this story could easily occur much the same way in the here and now. I cannot recommend this movie enough. It will surely stay in your mind for days after you have watched it. Also, there are tons of great songs in this movie, many of which can be found on the soundtrack. There's even a song by Stillwater, the fictitous band from the movie. I know these guys are actors, not musicians, but they rock! The part where they are singing "Tiny Dancer" on the bus is really cool, too, I'm guessing it symbolizes something, but I haven't figured out what yet. It had to have some meaning. Anyway, there are plenty of reasons why you should see this movie. It is the greatest thing to come out in a long time. And look, Kate's on the cover, excellent choice:)
Rating:
Summary: Did I See the Same Movie?
Review: After reading through the reviews on this site, I can't believe that I saw the same movie. Although Cameron Crowe specializes in subject matter that doesn't require heavy mental lifting, and he has a more than a little tendency towards smaltz (engraving "You complete me" on wedding bands must be a cottage industry by now), he at least tries to push tired genres forward in his movies (as in his take on the teen love flick in "Say Anything"). With that in mind, and with the rave reviews that "Almost Famous" has received, I was ready for an entertaining couple of hours. What a collosal disappointment. It took me a while to put my finger on why I disliked this movie so much, but then a quote sprung to mind. When talking about the drippy Scott Mackenzie hit "San Francisco", which tried to descibe the summer of love, hippies, etc., Grace Slick said "We weren't that nauseating". I guess that's it. Everyone is nauseating in this film, some more than others (and some literally so). Billy is supposedly an above average 15 year old rock fan in the '70s, so above average that he basically runs away from home to go on the road to cover and up and coming band. However, I have never seen a person less interested in rock music. And speaking as a former 15 year old rock fan in the 70s, I would have sold my next of kin to have met Led Zeppelin then. Billy, when presented with a golden opportunity to do so, mearly shrugs and goes on doing whatever the hell he's doing in this movie. (Ok, so maybe he's not a Zep fan. If that's the case, then he isn't a Bowie fan, or a Dylan fan, or a Stillwater fan for that matter.) At one of the 7000 points in the movie that are supposed to have profound meaning, Billy screams to the groupies "What do I mean to you people?". The answer of course is absolutely nothing. Unfortunately he means absolutely nothing to the audience as well. Speaking of Stillwater, the band I guess is supposed to be a composite of all that is wrong with a hedonistic 70s band on the cusp of success, but stereotypes get in the way. Stereotypes can be a great thing in rock movies (Spinal Tap-need I say more?), but if a film maker is going to try and address the issue at least somewhat seriously, a third dimension is needed to flesh out these characters. Maybe the 70s, like the 60s, are becoming such a cliche that anyone who wasn't old enough to remember them is doomed to perpetuated these tired portrayals, but let's hope not. And speaking of tired portrayals, perhaps there was not greater surprise (and I don't mean that in a good way) than Kate Hudson's take on Penny Lane. I had heard this was a breakout role for her. The only breakout in this film should have been the customers from the theater after watching this tripe maquerading as drama. To me, it is obvious how Hudson got this role. She has a sly, beguiling look that is truly engaging. Unfortunately, this was obvious to Hudson as well, because she uses it about every thirty seconds (and on the movie poster as well). To paraphrase Gertrude Stein (who said remarks are not literature), looks are not acting. She doesn't bear all of the blame, because after all she is yet another two dimensional character from the writers, but next time she plans on portraying a groupie from the 70s, she should rent "The Song Remains the Same" first. Which leaves us with the script. There is a disturbing tendency in films recently. It seems that by adding the "based on a true story" qualifier, writers see that as carte blanche to throw in the most ridiculous garbage. "Almost Famous" is just the latest example of this. The almost plane crash plot device in this film was so transparent that it would have been ridiculed in any intro to script writing class. Besides, it was done much, much better on the last episode of Seinfeld. And please, if any film has had a plot so neatly wrapped up with a pretty bow at the end, I haven't seen it. So for those of you who are too young to know what the 70s rock scene was like, please, please, don't take this as any type of truthful document. Get a good rock documentary like "The Kids Are Alright". There is a 70s movie put together by an ardent rock fan (who was 19 when he made it) that shows all the highs (and some of the lows) of that time and place.
|
