MY MOVIE SHELF: Almost Famous

The long and the short of it is, I own well over 300 movies on DVD and Blu-ray (I’ll know for sure how many at the end of this project). Until June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #12:  Almost Famous

I have a theory that someone could base an entire masters thesis on the use of music cues in Cameron Crowe films. Having been not only a music aficionado but a professional music journalist at 15, he knows better than any other director the exact right song to evoke the exact right emotion or make the exact right statement at the exact right time. Pick any Cameron Crowe movie and one of the most iconic scenes therein will feature such a song — Say Anything… with “In Your Eyes,” Jerry Maguire with “Free Fallin’,” and Almost Famous with “Tiny Dancer,” are perhaps the top three. He uses these songs very deliberately, with specific intent. Each one meant to convey something vital and meaningful to each film. With Almost Famous, the song is a tension breaker after an especially volatile night of infighting and defection within Stillwater, the band our hero William Miller (Patrick Fugit) is there to interview, but it’s not only that. It speaks to the power of music, to the ability of a song to bring people together, of the community one feels among people who share your love for something. When William stops singing along to tell Penny (Kate Hudson) he has to go home, she tells him what we’re all feeling: “You are home.”

That this movie is autobiographical — Crowe himself spent three weeks at age 16 covering The Allman Brothers Band for a Rolling Stone cover story — almost makes it more fantastical and harder to believe, while still giving it additional heft as a story, particularly with regard to William’s mother Elaine, played with a perfect balance of anxiety and love by Frances McDormand. While both she and Hudson were nominated for Oscars in the Best Supporting Actress category for the film, McDormand’s fussy portrayal of Elaine tended to be overshadowed by the bright shining light of Hudson’s Penny Lane, which is a shame. Despite being at times unreasonable and often out of touch, Elaine is actually the solid center of an otherwise chaotic space. She gives William the strong footing he needs to succeed in this maniacal business, and without her influence hovering both over and inside him throughout his journey, he easily could’ve gotten lost.

This, of course, does not diminish the strength and influence Penny Lane also has over William, over the band, and over all the events of the film. She is worldly beyond reason, often seeming much older and more experienced than she has any reason to be. She guides William, literally and spiritually, through the process of touring with a band and of loving — really loving, in your soul — their music. She’s all about the music. But she’s also all about Russell (Billy Crudup, looking preternaturally beautiful), and that’s really where her age betrays her. Because while she is wise, she is also young and vulnerable and in love with a man she can’t keep. The range in Kate Hudson’s eyes, from the tight shot that cuts from hers to William’s as he’s about to be “deflowered” by the other girls, to the little-girl-lost pain in her tears when she asks why Russell doesn’t love her, to the dawning recall of the memory of the things William said and did when she was overdosing on quaaludes, is really a thing of beauty — especially the deflowering scene, as she realizes the stark longing William has that she join them, that the only one he wants to be with is her, and with only her eyes in frame her expression goes from playful to knowing to just a sliver of sadness. It gets me every time.

Then there’s William’s mentor, Lester Bangs, played by the late and brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman, who says as much in his pauses as he does in his dialogue. Although Lester was a real person, here I like to think of him as a mouthpiece for Crowe — not Crowe as he was at 16, because that’s Patrick Fugit’s job, but Crowe as an adult, giving advice to his former self, as we all wish we could do at times, to be true to himself, to the music, and to the story, and to not be a slave to “the industry of cool.”

“Music, you know, true music — not just rock ‘n roll — it chooses you.”

“You wanna  be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.”

“I’m always home. I’m uncool!” I can relate. If only I’d known it was okay to be uncool when I was 15.

In Defense of 21

So maybe you’ve heard about this?

That’s Miley Cyrus performing at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday. It’s been mentioned just about everywhere people have eyes that roll and jaws that drop. You also might’ve heard about it if you tend to frequent places where brows furrow and tongues wag. Places like Planet Earth, for example.

Suffice it to say that the majority of the conversation hasn’t been very supportive of Cyrus, as if that’s a surprise. Older generations love to lambast younger ones for their wild ways and lack of culture, tearing apart someone’s hair and fashion choices is a national pastime and the entire human race has been villifying sexually suggestive women since before the Dance of the Seven Veils. These reactions are just more of the same.

The thing is, though, Miley Cyrus is 21. Do you remember 21?

I do.

I turned 21 in 1996, so I was all about my plaid flannels and babydoll dresses with combat boots. I dyed my hair, I drank too much, I partied all night. I stretched my limits and pushed my boundaries. I made mistakes, sure, but not everything I did was one, nor were my mistakes limited to that particular sliver of time. I was just trying out life, seeing what it had to offer me. Most of all, though, I was having fun. I was carefree. That’s what Miley looks like to me in this video. She’s at a party, she’s having a good time goofing around. She’s the center of attention, as is the wont of all natural-born performers. She’s being a little bit rebellious, a little bit shocking, a little exciting. In one way or another, she’s exactly the same as the rest of us were at her age except we got to do our acting out in relative privacy and she’s featured in no less than a dozen Buzzfeed lists just for this one thing. If there was such a thing as Buzzfeed or TMZ or, hell, even YouTube, camera phones and instant uploads when I came of age, I would still be trying to live down some of my antics, such as:

• Hosted a costume party dressed as a “dominatrix,” spent all night drunk beyond belief and wearing lingerie.
• Gave an impassioned karaoke performance of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” (because 1996) complete with sing-shouting and all the emotions of my soul.
• On more than one occasion bought under $1 worth of gas because I’d been out all night partying and had no other money left on me, but my gas tank was on fumes and I was still a few miles from home.
• Was frequently heard loudly saying to a friend, “Silly Cassie, tricks are for whores.”
• Was super loud and obnoxious pretty much everywhere I went, particularly if there was vodka and/or music involved (despite never being an international superstar whose job it was to perform a song about coming into your own on a worldwide stage known for pushing limits).

So maybe cut Miley Cyrus a little bit of slack? I’m sure you have a list of events not unlike my own that you’re grateful the Internet never got photographic proof of.

 

/jessica