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 Director
: Cameron Crowe
Starring
: Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Jason Lee,
Patrick Fugit, Zooey Deschanel, Michael Angarano.
Picture
1.85:1 Anamorphic, DD 5.1 and DTS 5.1, Dual-Layer, Keep
Case
Running
Time : 171 mins
The
story:
Experience
it. Enjoy it. Just don't fall for it.
William
Miller (Billy Crudup) is the star of this 70's 'rockumentary'.
Fifteen year old Willam's dreams come true when he lands
an opportunity to write for the rock and roll bible - Rolling
Stone magazine. Despite the objections of his protective
mother, William takes off and hitches up with an up and
rock band called Stillwater in an attempt to write the cover
article for the mag. Now young William find's himself on
the road and surrounded by his idols and their crazy would
of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
The
summary:
Almost
Famous is a hard film to describe. It's Crowe's semi-autobiographical
account of his time as a Rolling Stone reporter, it's a
documentary (Spinal Tap-ish), it's a comedy, it's a drama..
The plot - a young boy's dream come true, joining a rock
band on tour - is certainly original but seems to have trouble
distinguishing itself from being a documentary about the
70's glam-rock era or a film about a child learning to deal
with the adult-fantasy world that he's caught up in. The
band in the film, Stillwater, are made up, but still we
find out very little about them or indeed any other band
from the time (sure they are mentioned and there's snippets
of music but you wont see them). Cameron Crowe tries hard
to summarise and catch the mood of the whole era but ultimately
he ends up disappointing those who remember it by skipping
over anything but the briefest detail. Obviously being deeply
involved in the whole story (the character is loosely based
upon his life as a child) he's keen to include as much possible
but he has a far different perspective of the 70's than
Joe Bloggs. And how realistic is the whole story anyway?
Rolling Stone magazine offering a large sum of money and
the cover scoop to a kid they've spent 5 minutes on the
phone to? Unlikely? - perhaps it was the drugs. But believe
it or not it really doesn't matter too much. What 'Almost
Famous' lacks in reality it makes up for in passion. Young
Will (Crudup) devotes his life to achieving his ambitions
and the story is excellently portrayed by Crowe.
Look
beneath the clothes and the make-up and you'll find a talented
cast. Crudup does a good job in his first venture and Kate
Hudson is almost believable as the young groupie (sorry
Band Aides!) Penny Lane, though it must be said, she has
very little to do other than look pretty for the camera.
Jason Lee also features though you may not recognise him
at first glance. All in all Almost Famous will appeal to
the widest possible audience. It's a great film in itself
and genuinely funny but if you were part of the seventies
generation or perhaps just fascinated by another great(ish)
era in music then you'll certainly want to give this a try.
Sad though it is, technology these days means that culture
isn't solely based around music anymore - if you missed
the 60's + 70's they're gone for good, so sit back, grab
your Frampton LP and step into Camerons time machine...
Dreamworks
have done a good job with the disc but alas not the great
job we were hoping for. Whilst this has certainly not been
stripped bare of extras, it's not the special edition we
were hoping for considering the delay in release. To be
fair, their is a special Edition to follow at some time
in the future but at least they've told us beforehand. It
must be said though that the actual transfer is excellent.
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Extras:
*
Stillwater Music Video - "Fever
Dog" Music Video.
*
Behind-the-Scenes -
"The Making of Almost Famous". This
is an superbly put together half-hour documentary featuring
interviews with the stars of the film plus of course Cameron
Crowe. A great accompaniment to the film.
*
The Rolling Stone Articles - This
is a good idea. 7 of Cameron's articles from the magazine
covering interviews with The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin,
Neil Young, Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, Van Morrison
and Joni Mitchell. Lengthy text articles with an introduction
on each article by Cameron Crowe.
*
Theatrical Trailer
*
Cast and Filmmakers -
Text details of all the
cast and crew. These are actually selected separately but
they're the same format for each.
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