Almost good (Almost Famous (DVD))

Member Name: DanooMak19

Product:	Almost Famous (DVD)
Date:	14/02/01 (23 review reads)
Rating:

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Almost Famous, is a coming of age tale set in the 1970's about a sheltered 15 year old, william who lands himself a job as a rock critic working for rolling stone magazine, covering a tour of fictional Band, Stillwater. The film charts Williams loss of innocence as he devolops relationships with Penney lane a glamourous "band aid" (Groupie). Billy Crudup as the lead guitarist of stillwater, and Phillip Seymor Hoffman as rock journalist Lester Bangs.

I was really looking foward to this film especially as it was directed by Jerry Maguire's Cameroen Crowe- one of my favourite films of the nineties.

However I was sorely disapointed- the narrative of the story seems to be quite messy taking about half an hour to end it self,

The central relationship between William and Penney- feels unreal, I couldn'trelate to williams feelings of love towards Penney- who was simply an airhead who never gave william any reason to fall in lovewith her (I'm afraid Idon't find Hudson an appealing starlet)

To be fair there are good things about this film- basically the bits with Phillip Seymour Hoffman andthere the odd good song on the soundtrack- but it was a massive disapointment to a fan of the makers and of the genre-

for me the biggest mistake was in the casting, if the Billy crudup character had actually gone to Brad Pitt as previously planned it would have greatly improved the film- his star quality would have given this fictional 70's charater a context- for the way people treat him (girls swooning/ men jealous/admiring etc) a girl that melts your heart just by looking at you kate hudson is not- but that's just my opinion, but Katie Hlomes or natalie portman would have done it for me in a flash- as for Patrick Fugit (Fugit and Crudup- two surnames that sound like the type of swearwords ITV use to dub over action movies...) it's his first job as an actor it shows- but there may be hope for him ye
t... - overall: a watchable disapointment.

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