8th Favorite Movie - Almost Famous

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

During the summer between 9th & 10th grade, my brother introduced me to classic rock. He had already gone off to college, but left behind his extensive collection of homemade-dubbed cassette tapes. I think that he was already buying CD's, so he didn't need to have the tapes with him at college. I probably spent 8 hours a day on the computer that summer, playing adventure games and - believe it or not - chatting with people "online". You may be surprised at that since the year was 1989, a good 5 years before most people heard of email and Al Gore invented the internet. But I had a Commodore 64 computer in my room with a 300 bps dial up modem, and there was this thing called "Popnet" where you could dial up and chat with folks, post messages to bulletin boards, or play simple text-based games like Battleship online with people. The first half of that summer, I listened to the latest pop music station on the radio whenever I was on the computer. The second half of the summer, I listened to Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. My brother refuses to remember this next occurence, but I distinctly recall the day when I grew tired of hearing "Girl You Know It's True" 8 times a day (the radio station would play it once every hour) and asked my brother if he would recommend one of his tapes for me. He gave me The Eagles Greatest Hits, which he still denies to this day. Apparently he is not much of a fan of them anymore. I listened to that tape for a few days until I got to know all the songs and then asked him for another recommendation. Again, I distinctly remember him saying, "maybe you are ready for Zeppelin", and handing me a copy Led Zeppelin I.

If you have seen Almost Famous, you know where I am going with this. There is a scene in that movie where the older sibling goes off and leaves behind her classic rock collection for her younger brother to experience for the first time. He grows to love the music, and before he is even out of high school he winds up covering the tour of an up-and-coming rock band for Rolling Stone magazine.

The premise for the film is based on the real life experience of director Cameron Crowe (one of my favorites) who toured with several bands in the 1970's - Allman Brothers, Lynryd Skynryd, and Led Zeppelin - while writing for Rolling Stone. Two lines in the film he supposedly overheard from bands while on tour: "I'm the singer and the frontman, you're the guitarist with mystique" (Robert Plant arguing with Jimmy Page backstage) and "We don't care what you write, just make us look cool" (Glen Frey of The Eagles to a teenaged Cameron Crowe). Crowe almost called the film Untitled, as a reference to the album more commonly known as Led Zeppelin 4, but settled on using this title for his Director's Cut.

With these experiences being so close to his heart, Crowe injects so much warmth into Almost Famous. Frances McDormand, who plays "his mom", turns in a wonderful performance, as does Kate Hudson who plays his crush, Penny Lane. Hard to believe how far she has fallen after winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress here in 2000.

The Director's Cut DVD has some great extra scenes in it that are actually inserted into the original film. It also has a great deleted scene in which William plays "Stairway to Heaven" for his disapproving mom, who is also a college lit professor - to show her that that not all rock and roll is about sex and drugs, that this one actually talks about Tolkein. Zeppelin's asking price to use their landmark song was too high though, so in order to watch the scene with the music you need to have your own copy of the song ready to play along with the DVD.

How much you like this movie may depend on how much you like classic rock. Essentially, Almost Famous is Cameron Crowe's love letter to 1970's rock music.