Almost Famous

...Where's the darkness in this movie...

...But Almost Famous is less a rock Crowe works from a sure sense of op- bildungsroman than a boys fantasy story, positions, and Almost Famous basks in something akin to Tom Swift and His Also avaiial Ic the fun of surrounding a smart but ide- Amazing Rock Machine...

...To- a happy ending, and it all feels too clear Famous is loaded with Cat Stevens, ward the middle of the movie, William and clean...

...For long stretchvision of his future as well...

...with porn-star-sounding names like Famous up the arc of a moral lesson into Tellingly, the soundtrack of Almost Penny Lane, Sapphire, and Polexia...

...Where's the risk...

...Gradually a kind of plot de- Phyllis Tickle leads worshipers onscreen today...

...Rather, some gentle affection his whole future...

...and he barely see s to care about losing his virginity...

...But William has everything, hinges on concerns that seem vaguely handed nonfiction book, Fast Times at right away...

...The problem is At, Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime alistic and almost criminally adorable how to draw resounding life lessons tikid ("Who brought Opie...

...Set in San Diego it philosophy from them, and keeps getin 1973, the film follows a fifteen-year- ting lines like "Rock and roll can save x114, old named William (Patrick Fugit), a the world-and the chicks are great...

...His work has the quality of a star long to be "dark and mysterious," but rock critics worship musicians and covet student who does the assignment better alas, as one of the groupies tells him, their approval, writing well about them than anyone else and then adds a touch "Honey, you're too sweet for rock and means risking their wrath-is so narrow, of flair...

...it's good-boy through and through...

...For all Mom's worries about the perils of rock, William is never taken in: He instantly recognizes Russell's displays of narcissism for what they are, instead of being wowed...

...Wonder, and the movie itself has a soft barely causes a ripple...

...Almost Famous published a slick and almost eerily suredidn't want...

...L' e William the movie comes across as enetically incapable of badboy rocker rebelliousness...

...ucation...

...Will William heed Bangs's William's own idealized notions of in- trained on what's popular, but they also warning, or cave in and cozy up to Still- tegrity...

...William's rock-crit- real action is going on everywhere but wrote the screenplay) helped define'80s ic mentor, Lester Bangs, warns that a where the teacher wants us to look...

...More important, can we really be- back into his once passionate love of house...

...And nalist," or sell out and write a puff piece...

...road with Stillwater, playing the comedy tradition, The Divine Hours trilogy As things turn out, William's future is of William's phone calls home to Mom offers an authoritative yet gentle now...

...www...

...rector Cameron Crowe's three parts egomania, hedonism, and warmly personal look back phony profundity...

...teen flicks...

...Bangs gives him a few velops in the triangle involving William, through a new season of sacred assignments, and soon Rolling Stone is Russell, and the lead girl groupie, Penny devotion based on the Benedictine calling to ask whether William is avail- Lane, played with angelic sultriness by Rule of fixed-hour prayer...

...Elaine can rest reassured: rock is really about romance, not sex...

...Crowe can't resist pushing Almost into a kind of serenading pop violin...

...Will he stand tall as a "rock jour- how much more complicated the rock and a stealthy human complexity...

...Rand Richards Cooper Enrich each day SEX, DRUGS & MOM 'Almost Famous' with Imost Famous is writer/di- water, a group that is one part talent and prayer...

...William's impossible expec- the adversity, the obstacle, the danger...

...His own films so far-witty rock writer's first duty is to "be honest The film doggedly preserves a core of romances informed by a participant-oband merciless," which above all means innocence about music and human mo- server's eye for the nuances of youth culnever befriending the band you're writ- tives, and thereby remains lodged inside ture-ran feel a little like TV, unerringly ing about...

...Audiences will love this movie for its intelligent, mellow gentleness-a funny, feel-good movie even parents can like...

...Elaine panics, but hey, what's an details of William's excellent adventure I achievement-oriented single mom to do...

...and while roadtripping sounds racy, really her son is out there honing his ethical skills, saving rockers' wayward souls, and carving out a nice little career for himself, all at once It's enough to make every Mom rush A sentimental education out and buy her boy a Stratocaster...

...someone from the charmed story of precocity ,,I Doubleday asks) with bad-boy rockers and sexy girl meeting incredible good luck-where's Available wherever books are sold groupies...

...she's thinking es he's happy just to take us out on the Manual far dirt V e' Restoring and renewing a belove law school...

...0 Commonweal 2 4 October 20, 2000...

...bright kid with a passion for Black Sab- Stillwater's handsome lead guitarist, The bath and Led Zeppelin...

...Frances McDor- Russell (Billy Crudup), is the special obmand (Fargo) plays William's embattled ject of William's hero worship, and D I V I N E but spirited mother, Elaine, a Shake- Crowe plots a course of disenchantment H O U R S speare-quoting professor whose idea of that includes an acid-tripping Russell family fun is sitting around discussing shouting from a rooftop to a throng of PRAYERS To Kill a Mockingbird, and who rails fans, "I am a golden god...

...result is a magnificent beacon for kid, and has to sell the idea to his mother This is an autobiographical film-the all who seek the divine path...

...Not only that, but he's going to warmly and wittily transforming a boom cupy William, surrounded as he is by start treating his groupies with respect, box, that instrument of public disruption, glitter and fame and sexy, available girls too...

...heart...

...William may Crowe stakes out-namely, that while himself...

...We can only guess, for instance, at keep surprising you with good writing water...

...The able to do a piece-unaware he's just a Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn's daughter...

...dr gs hold no allure...

...Remember the lovely scene in Say take center stage in the movie...

...Crowe won't let us see it that way...

...The dilemma But then, Cameron Crowe is a bit tidy and warmly pleasant aura...

...match those of Cameron Crowe's own, And so William lucks into the job of cov- right down to the Rolling Stone gig-and ering an up-and-coming band, Stillwater, you can feel Crowe trying to fashion his for a legendary national magazine, and experiences into a narrative of moral edhis road trip into the rock world begins...

...doubleday...

...first...

...Writing about music for his school (she has him put Russell on the line for a guide to a daily cycle of prayer...

...com tations collide with the reality of Still- All three of Crowe's earlier films (Say Commonweal 23 October 20, 2000 Anything, Singles, and Jerry Maguire) fea- indeed professional, that it risks turning it's really good, but also because it makes tured protagonists wanting things they a boy's coming-of-age story into a primer them feel cool...

...Crowe's sunny, genial charm turns Almost Famous into a revisionist triumph of pop over rock...

...Williams older sister, mean- satire in the manner of Rob Reiner's claswhile, schools him in rock-as-revela- sic rock mockumentary, This Is Spinal P H Y L I. I s T r C K L E tion-listen to The Who's Tommy with a Tap, it's not because Stillwater doesn't candle burning, she says, and he'll see deserve it...

...At just twenty-four Crowe couldn't have and having things they on journalistic ethics...

...world looks from where Lester Bangs is always they aim unabashedly for the It's a little weird to see such questions sitting...

...After all, Almost Famous remains a boy's movie to Anything when John Cusack holds up a in journalistic consequence, this isn't ex- the end, with William rescuing Russell boom box blasting Peter Gabriel's ballad, actly Woodward and Bernstein territo- from a dangerous slide toward careerism, "In Your Eyes," outside his girlfriend's ry...

...That was a prime Crowe moment, lieve that ethical temptations so preoc- music...

...Ultimately, Crowe settles on trumped-up and classroomy, as if the Ridgemont High, the movie of which (he a drama of integrity...

...paper, he sends some clips to famed rock stinging verbal spanking), or a harrow- In this second volume, critic and Creem magazine editor Lester ing plane ride through a storm, when Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman, again band members start spewing deathbed Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime, showing why he's the best younger actor confessions...

...The movie comes off as neater Elton John, Joni Mitchell, and Stevie in fact loses his virginity, and the scene than its own materials...

...the teachers love it, first becauseroll," and the same may be true of Crowe...

...Microphone in hand, A at a boy caught between the acolyte-journalist keeps trying to elicrock and a hard Mom...

...Of course, Mom has a keeps reining Crowe in...

...for AUTUMN against "the poetry of drugs and promis- If Almost Famous never becomes a o~d WINTERTIME cuous sex...