Monday, January 19, 2015

Almost Famous

This has been on my "watch eventually" list for quite some time. For years, I've heard what a fabulous movie this, how Kate Hudson is amazing in it, and how watching it is some kind of transcendental experience. Uh, yeah, not so much. Set in the 1970s, William is a 15-year old aspiring rock journalist who worms his way backstage at a Stillwater concert. His maturity and insight persuades the band to invite him to come on tour with them. Incredibly, his mom agrees and he spends a few weeks touring with them. Along the way, he meets Penny Lane (Hudson), a teenage "band aide" (groupie) in love with the guitarist of Stillwater. William soon falls in love with her, loses his virginity to other groupies, and manages to write a story deemed worth of the cover of Rolling Stone. The movie is a semi-autobiographic retelling of the life of Cameron Crowe, the movie's director, who really did go on tour and write for Rolling Stone as a teen. While entertaining, I can't say this was particularly great. Reviewers called it funny. It's really not. Reviewers described Kate Hudson like some mystical creature putting in an out-of-this-world performance. She wasn't/didn't. Outside of one scene toward the end, she's really just your generic pretty face. So we're left with a pretty average movie that doesn't match the hype at all. 5/10.

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