Are You With Us?: Almost Famous
By Ryan Mazie
October 21, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Recommended by friends for the longest time, I finally added Almost Famous onto my Netflix queue list around the start of my freshman year in high school. The red envelope sat on my counter for, according to my Netflix rental history, nearly two months. I wanted to punch myself for not watching it sooner. I never have seen a movie that appealed to me so much on a personal, critical, and entertaining level.
Almost Famous balances the line between tear-jerking drama and laugh-so-hard-you-cry comedy set against the music of the late 1960s and ‘70s. Feeling as if the whopping 50-song soundtrack throughout the film might have alienated me, it could not have been further from the truth. With his directing and writing prowess, Cameron Crowe brings to life the wild and loose '70s, filled with leather, vinyl, and Rock ‘n Roll. The story focuses on 15-year-old William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a music junkie, wanting to fly the coop, living under the same roof as his overbearing single Christian mother (Frances McDormand).
Receiving the opportunity from Lester Bangs (the always worthy Philip Seymour Hoffman), a local Rolling Stone rock journalist, to cover a Black Sabbath show, through luck and chance William ends up befriending their opening act, Stillwater. Offered the opportunity to hit the road with the up-and-coming rock band for a Rolling Stone cover story, after much worry from his mother about missing school and his safety, William embarks on a once in a lifetime journey with the dysfunctional band.
I love the concept of celebrity. Picking up a People magazine, watching the E! Network, or scrolling through TMZ.com gives me a thrill. At around the same age of William in the movie, I got my first taste of journalism and meeting fame. I began writing movie reviews and celebrity interviews for a teen section of South Jersey’s regional newspaper, the Courier Post. Now, three Oscar-winning directors, a former president, a late-night talk show host/author, and dozens of actors and actresses later, I still get that giddy feeling of meeting someone in the industry that I love so much and desire to be a part of. And Fugit nails that feeling perfectly.
After a nationwide casting call, Cameron Crowe picked the unknown Fugit for his first feature role. Balancing professionalism and teenage insecurity, feeling like an outsider in the fast-paced Rock 'n’ Roll world he loves so much, Fugit feels realistic and not wise beyond his years like most child actors. That is in part a testament to Crowe’s fantastic writing that earned him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
A former Rolling Stone writer himself, this partly autobiographical film has an undeniable personal touch, making this Crowe’s finest work so far. Coming hot off the heels of his blockbuster Jerry Maguire, Cameron proved he wasn’t a one-trick pony. Showing that you don’t need to use a handheld camera to give a film an intimate feel, I truly felt like I was on the tour bus with Stillwater and the groupies. Rock 'n’ Roll was glamorous and seemingly untouchable, but pulling back the curtain, Crowe creates more than memorable moments about the downside of fame. The best example is when lead guitarist and egotist Russell (Billy Crudup) trades the band’s groupies, “The Band-Aides” (a ditzy Anna Paquin, Fairuza Balk, and their wise but aging leader Kate Hudson) to another band for $50 and a case of Heineken. A devastating conversation that follows with Crudup and Hudson is definitely what earned Hudson her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Winning at the Golden Globes, Kate proved her place in Hollywood, giving her career a major boost.
Out of all of the actors in the film, Hudson has had the best commercial career. Starting off with more diverse and dramatic roles, she soon followed the paycheck. After Almost Famous, she has had 13 major starring roles. Nine of those films were icky romantic comedies. While How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, her first major hit and foray into the genre, brought a smile to my face, the one-two-three-four punch of You, Me and Dupree (yuck!), Fool’s Gold (yikes!), My Best Friend’s Girl (what did I do to deserve this?), and Bride Wars (there’s a special ring in hell for this one) show that Hudson seems to have a certain box office clout, but it will be interesting what will become of her career once she gets too old to play these type of roles. However, with films like the fun horror The Skeleton Key and this year’s indie The Killer Inside Me, there is hope for her yet.
Fugit, while steadily getting work, has seen most of his films go straight-to-DVD. His most notable role since Almost Famous was a bit part in last year’s mega-bomb, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.
Crudup, in one of his best roles as a paranoid and wacked-out from fame guitarist, should have gotten an Oscar nomination for his performance, but was ignored in the heavily competitive year. Going the independent film and theatrical route, Crudup has sprinkled some blockbusters in his filmography, most recently as Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen. Instead of Crudup, the film's third Oscar nomination came from Frances McDormand for Best Supporting Actress. Brilliant as an over-bearing mom who you just want to hug and not listen to at the same time, McDormand steals the show whenever she is onscreen. Anytime she picks up the phone to call William you know you are going to laugh. Yet her character is far from stereotypical, playing drama as well as comedy, in a heartbreaking scene when she realizes that she cannot protect her children forever. That doesn’t mean she won’t damn well try, though.
The fourth and final Oscar nomination the film received was for best editing.
Crowe later went to direct the love it or hate it (I’m in the former) Tom Cruise starrer Vanilla Sky and the not-even-worth-renting Elizabethtown. Not heard from since that 2005 non-starter, hopefully Crowe will make a comeback next year as he is returning to his musical roots for a Pearl Jam documentary.
Critics welcomed the film quite literally with opens arms, with Roger Ebert writing, “Oh, what a lovely film. I was almost hugging myself watching it.” Earning a 90 on metacritic.com, Almost Famous received the rare “universal acclaim” tag. However, with a weak box office and a September release, the film seemed overshadowed by bigger dogs come awards season. It was released by DreamWorks in 2000, the year the studio truly became a force with hits like Road Trip, What Lies Beneath, Meet the Parents, and two of the aforementioned Oscar big dogs, Gladiator (which went on to win Best Picture) and Cast Away. The last two are what they focused most of their awards campaign money on, leaving Almost Famous as their third-wheel.
Released September 15th in a scant 131 sites, Almost Famous surprised, opening in eighth place with $2.3 million ($3.4 million adjusted for today) and a killer $17,669 per theater average. DreamWorks added 1,000 more theaters the next weekend, resulting in the film's biggest weekend with near $7 million. Sadly as more theaters joined in the subsequent weeks, the box office went down. By week five the film was on 2,262 screens, the highest number it reached, but had an awful $969 per theater average, sending the film into freefall from there. Winding up after a promising start with $32.5 million ($48 million adjusted) and an additional $14.8 million from overseas, the money it earned still did not cover the film’s surprisingly large $60 million budget.
However, Almost Famous found its real audience on DVD. Released for Christmas time in 2001 was the “Untitled: Bootleg Cut” edition (Untitled was the film’s original name until DreamWorks demanded a name change). The Bootleg Cut adds an additional 40 minutes to the films already long 122 minute run time. While I wondered why Crowe would choose to expand upon his already perfect film, it shows that there were two excellent paths this movie can go down and if the expanded version had been released, Hudson might not have just been nominated for an Oscar, but won it.
While it is hard for a movie to stand the test of time - especially one that is set in the past - Almost Famous feels ahead of movies even today. With the smartest and most realistic writing for a teen actor among any other film, Almost Famous rings true, especially in today’s fame obsessed culture, making the film with us. Further cementing it as a current favorite, when Blu-Ray came on the scene, this was among the initial batch of films to get the High-Def treatment.
One of my most favorite movies, Almost Famous isn’t almost perfect. It just is.
Verdict: With us
10 out of 10