I remember liking this movie when it came out. But I was a twat then. I know this because I’m a twat now. Just watched it again, and frankly I’m a little surprised at the publicity it got. I don’t get it.
That being said, if you look at all the movies about music that were coming out around the turn of the century, they were all pretty warped. Seriously. Everyone in SLC Punk looked like a Hot Topic employee’s living dissertation of what a punk looked like in real life. For that matter Adrien Brody only sorta comes off as anything like a punk in Summer of Sam (arguably not a music movie, I know). The only one that came kinda close was Rock Star and I think I might be wrong there. The whole thing looks too clean.
The same thing strikes me about Almost Famous. Too warm. Too hippie. Too even-keeled. I mean if you wanna walk away from rock and roll with a “feel good message” I suggest you do a remake of Forrest Gump where he travels the world with Hunter S Thompson.
Where to begin…..
I don’t know. Kate Hudson looks like Robert Plant with cute mini-boobs. As if that wasn’t distracting enough, her weird fairy-casting-casual-sex magic routine and actiing like rock will save everything is about as pretentious as it was to make this movie.
Of course somewhere near the end of the second third the movie seems to right itself and something about the spirit of rock comes through. It’s pretty diluted but if you listen to Phillip Seymour Hoffman you can catch a couple glimpses.
A movie about Lester Bangs probably would’ve been cooler. But then again, writers don’t have groupies….
