ALMOST FAMOUS

2000

If you've been reading the Fall Film Preview columns and web-sites, you've seen this film touted as one of the big promising hits of the Fall movie season. What a disappointment it is. Writer/Director Cameron Crowe("Jerry Maguire") has written a sweet, little autobiographical story about his days as a 16-year-old writer for "Rolling Stone" magazine. He followed a warm-up group, and wrote about his and their experiences on the road. The most positive thing about the film is how it faithfully recreates the period of the late 60's and early 70's...the clothes, the cars, and especially, the music (everything from Led Zeppelin and Elton John, to the Chipmunks!) As far as the story goes, there's very little there, and what IS there needs to be cut by at least 15 minutes. It bogs down in parts. However, the actors(all excellent,) do convince you that they ARE who they are portraying. Billy Crudup and Frances McDormand, as always, are perfect. Jason Lee and Kate Hudson always seem to be playing themselves...graduates of the George Clooney school of "acting." What more can I say...there are a lot of laughs in the film. But there are a lot of yawns too.

3 Stars

NJB

It was beginning to look like any filmmaker's labor of love meant box office disaster -just look at Costner's Postman and more recently, Travolta's Battlefield Earth. Cameron Crowe, however, has taken his experiences as a teen-age rock reporter and made a worthy follow-up to his last hit, a little film called Jerry Maguire. How much of the film is real and how much is just good story telling, I can't say. Young William is a gifted but slightly lame fifteen year old who is hired by Rolling Stone to do an article on an up and coming rock band in the early Seventies and along the way begins his journey into manhood. Strong performances all around from the cast which includes Frances McDormand, Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Pay attention to the soundtrack, which is good and not as overwhelming as most Seventies-era films. Humorous and touching, this one is a winner.

4 Stars

CDF