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Almost Famous
DVD Review by Yanman |
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"You will never get paid much. But, you will get free records from the record company." Cameron Crowe the writer and director of Jerry Maguire got his start as a music writer for Rolling Stone magazine. While Almost Famous is not a true story, it is loosely based on his adventures during this time of his life, the early 70's. It is more then just a coming of age story and more then just about rock and roll, it is about people and how they interact and it helps to define an era gone by. Kate Hudson truly shines in the comedy that may just be one of the best of the year 2000. William Miller (Patrick Fugit) is a child genius, two years younger then his classmates and still smarter. His sister is rebellious and his mother is neurotic, and William loves rock and roll. He starts out by sending his school newspaper articles to Creem Magazine to get their attention, and when he meets the Editor Lester Bangs he gets an actual assignment. Only a short time after that Rolling Stone contacts him and asks him if he would like to do an article for them at the ripe old age of only 16. Hardly able to contain himself, William hits the road with the up and coming band Stillwater. It is here on the road that William meets Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) and the rest of the "Band Aids" a group of female fans that do not want to be called groupies. Over the next few weeks, William travels with the band, trying to get an interview with the lead guitarist and getting the story of rock and roll on the road. Can he get the story and the girl? Normally we would make a comment about the scenes here that have an amount of film grain, the scenes here however are concert settings and the grain actually adds to ambiance. The Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 video looks very good otherwise, and does a good job of showing the subtle colors of the early 1970's. Presented in either DTS or Dolby Digital 5.1 the soundtrack here is phenomenal, offing concert sound from all directions. The dialog is clear and concise in either version of the soundtrack, but the concert locations do tend to sound just a bit more full in DTS. While there are three or so "real" extras here the one we would most like to see is blatantly missing, of all the things that would add value to this movie a directors commentary would seem to be the most obvious. Considering that most people consider this the story of director Crowe's life, his commentary about it would certainly be welcomed here. The included HBO making of featurette is the closest thing that we are going to get. Other extras include a music video and some of Cameron Crowe's original Rolling Stone articles. I tend to like coming of age comedies quite a bit, they are fun and they remind us of days gone by. Unlike most recent films in this genre, however this one doesn't feel childish or juvenile at all. If you were alive at all in the seventies (maybe even if you weren't), this one will view like a soundtrack of your life, stop and listen to the music, you'll be glad you did. You are home…
This DVD was reviewed on Yanman.com's Reference Theater #1, using a Toshiba SD-5109 DVD player, Toshiba TW56X81, and M&K 750 THX Speakers. Panamax protects all systems at Yanman.com. |
Almost Famous Kate Hudson truly shines in the comedy that may just be one of the best of the year 2000. Staring: Kate Hudson Directed By: Cameron Crowe Running time: 123 Min. Bonus Materials
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