Wednesday, June 10, 2009

So we can agree the Kate Hudson nom was a stretch: "Almost Famous"

I liked this movie better the second time around, but it's still overrated. Entertaining, sure. Good music, yes. Anna Paquin in her panties before she got overexposed, I like. But it's no "Vanilla Sky."

(Kidding. "Elizabethtown" was the shiznit.)

As you know, "Almost Famous" is Cameron Crowe's semiautobiographical tale of a kid who gets assigned by Rolling Stone to follow a band on tour in the '70s. The fictional Stillwater is plenty dysfunctional, our hero is plenty wide-eyed and his mommy is plenty worried. As you might guess, hijinks ensue.

Patrick Fugit is the kid, William Miller, and he hasn't done anything this big since. He's not bad. Believable. Mom is Frances McDormand, while his wayward sister is played by Zooey Deschanel. As for that crazy rock 'n rool world, Billy Crudup is the band's guitarist, and Jason Lee is the lead singer. They argue a lot. Kate Hudson is a groupie, and Philip Seymour Hoffman turns up as famous rock writer Lester Bangs. Good, solid cast.

The kid's odyssey with the band is fun stuff, especially his attempts to figure out Crudup, whose performance many praised. They're right. His and Fugit's dance is the best part of this. The road stuff is fun, too, although it goes on a little long, and I frankly got sick of Hudson after a while. But all in all, like I said, this is an entertaining tale. Heck, it might worth it just for the words of wisdom from Bangs. I close with this exchange, which is pretty damn good:

Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.

Miller: Well, it was fun.

Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.

Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.

Bangs: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.

Miller: I can really see that now.

Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love ... and let's face it, you got a big head start.

Miller: I'm glad you were home.

Bangs: I'm always home. I'm uncool.

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