Almost Famous (Archive)

19:55Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, I really was struck by that as well, but I'm with you. I had a complete re-appreciation for Francis McDormand's performance and just how Cameron Crowe uses that character. I actually did watch this with Holden and Sophie, my two oldest kids, and I was very gratified at the end of the film that they enjoyed it. They both enjoyed it quite a bit. Holden felt like he could relate to William Miller, even though he certainly doesn't have any sense of his appreciation for music, especially rock music. But the biggest change in me from that time I saw it in 2001 is I had so much more sympathy for the mom.

20:29Adam Kempenaar:I mainly saw her as comedy. It was there for comedic relief. And those scenes still are maybe the funniest scenes in the movie. Anything with her and Deschanel and with Patrick Fugit. But my kids, they didn't see her as a villain exactly watching the movie. But on that Miller spectrum from William, who sees his mom as overwhelming but admirable and well-intentioned, to Anita, who sees her as soul-crushingly overbearing, my kids saw her as closer to Anita. And I think the younger you are, you probably see her that way. Now as a parent, which I was not in 2001, I'm way more in tune with that character and her fears.

21:08Adam Kempenaar:And I don't know if it's the exact same scene you're thinking of or not, but I'd completely forgotten about the one where she is talking to William. It's one of the hallway scenes. It's not the one where Russell gets on. It's the one where they introduce the new girl who says she's clairvoyant or whatever. And William can't hear what his mom's saying. And she's saying, I love you. And the way she breaks down at the end of that scene, Camera Crow gives her a moment to herself. This mom who is emotional, but who has otherwise had such kind of steely resolve, especially with Anita. In that moment, she's just finally done.

21:38Adam Kempenaar:That really resonated with me.

21:40Josh Larsen:Yeah, I do remember thinking of her as comic relief because of those highlight scenes. Also as being, well, you had to have her to show where William was from. Yeah. But this speaks to the richness of the writing in terms of all of these characters, so many characters. How Crow is able to juggle them, give them each their own narratives within William's experience, which is obviously the driving force, and have us feel like we're invested. We're just as invested in how his mom is experiencing this journey he's on almost as much as we're invested in William himself.

22:16Adam Kempenaar:Some of those lines, too, on the phone when she's telling Russell, now go do your best. Be bold. She's quoting Goodta. And you've been kissing. She knows Anita's been kissing. Anita telling her, feck you. And the way she says hey in response to that is so great. And the other really good McDormand moment, though there are so many we could point to, when the woman on the phone, Faruza Balk, I think, answers the phone in the room and she says, is this Marianne with the pot? And they cut back to McDormand and she just closes her eyes. It's just a very subtle close of the eyes. It's everything she feared could be happening has now been realized in that moment with just that one line.

22:56Adam Kempenaar:All those moments between the family, I really do think are gold and extremely funny. I even love the touch. And of course, it's all about the details because it's Crow's real life. And whether he embellished this or not, it seems like one of those elements that had to be authentic. The family whistle. Right. The way that the way that she sends him off to that Black Sabbath concert and says, look for me later. And, you know, if we can't find each other, the whistle. And later in the film, when he's walking away from Penny Lane, we actually do hear that whistle. She is calling for him to come back to the car.

23:26Adam Kempenaar:There are some really nice moments, too, that we get visually from Crow in this movie that I wasn't aware of the first time I saw it. There's some symmetry in some of his shot choices. He likes to use that track forward when Anita is looking at him by the car before she goes, and we get that close-up, one day you'll be cool. and that's echoed then in that shot of William's eyes close up and we get some of that later between him and Penny Lane of course played by Kate Hudson who we haven't really talked about here yet and the love triangle shot is something he uses at least two times maybe three times one of them is when Stillwater is playing the song Fever Dog Russell's on stage so William's standing next to Penny and Russell keeps looking over at them and the way Crow uses point of view and the close-ups, it's about Russell looking at them.

24:17Adam Kempenaar:Who's he looking at? Does William think he's looking at him and he's trying to impress him? Or is he, of course, trying to impress Penny Lane and that's who he's looking at? And the way William turns and sees her, we get that again in some different scenes like the one at the pool after Russell tells him, just make us look cool. In that scene, Penny's the one now in the distance looking at the two of them standing next to each other and we get that exact same type of love triangle cross-cutting that does underscore one of the key parts of the film, which is what Russell says at the end of the movie, which is we both wanted to be with her.

24:48Adam Kempenaar:She wanted us to be together. Yeah, for sure.

24:50Josh Larsen:There's also some nice concert footage, I should say. It feels like real concert footage when Stillwater is on stage and the camera gets looser, more lively, and you're right there with the players, which, again, is a way of accentuating the interaction between Russell and which is another relational dynamic that's central to this, but also between him and Jason Lee's Jeff, the lead singer and the lead guitarist and the tension there. We feel a lot of that in the camera work on stage, not only when they're in moments of tension, maybe even more so when the camaraderie is high and they're both in the same groove.

25:29Josh Larsen:And you understand, as he says at one point, why he's still with these guys, even though he recognizes he has more talent than them. But he may be able to find other bandmates who will put on a better show, but he won't have that vibe when he's on stage with these new guys that he has with these guys he's been playing with for years.

25:50Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, no, that's a great point. And that might be a perfect transition into some of the issues I have with the movie. And I'll build up to Mr. Crudup and Russell Hammond. I think there are some scenes that just play out way too quickly for how important they are to the film or Crow just makes some unforgivable choices. and one of them is when we watch the band meet Jimmy Fallon's agent character, the manager, the road manager character for the first time and he's talking to them about how we're going to go buy a plane, we're going to leave the bus behind, we can fit in more shows, we can make more money.

26:27Adam Kempenaar:It's all about business, business, business and Crow, for some reason, cuts in the voiceover from William's conversation with Philip Seymour Hoffman about how he's here for the death rattle. They're going to strangle all the life out of music. He underlines it for us in a way where just showing William Miller's face in that moment, we know what he's thinking. We're all thinking it. We all remember that diner conversation with Hoffman's Lester Banks, and we're thinking the same thing. He doesn't quite trust us there. I also really hate the scene, frankly, that takes place at Rolling Stone, late in the film.

27:05Adam Kempenaar:He's turned the article in. Oh, yeah. We've now seen two scenes where they're fawning all over him in the piece. He's in the room with Ben Fong Torres, and I should know who the other guy is because it's clearly Rainn Wilson playing a real character from Rolling Stone lore. And they're fawning all over him, and then the fact checker comes in. It's a terribly acted scene. It all happens way too abruptly. They reject his story in like 30 seconds. Right. Even though they've been just talking it up for the last five minutes. and they completely reverse their position and they don't even give him a chance to explain himself.

27:41Adam Kempenaar:And it goes from the cover to the garbage can, just like that. And for me, the details, the verisimilitude of this movie are what's so key to making it great. And Cameron Crowe obviously knows this world. He knows the world of Rolling Stone. He knows what this process would actually be like. And in that moment, it's not even him going for an easy laugh. It's just a shortcut. It's just a shortcut to then get out of that scene and get to something else. But I actually think it's a really important scene since the whole movie has been building up to William actually turning that piece in. I understand them wanting to reject it, but how it's depicted, I don't buy for a second.

28:17Josh Larsen:No, and I don't think, I mean, we have backgrounds in journalism. I think even if you didn't, you would sniff out that something's false there because it goes back and forth so many times. It's false drama. The other issue is that it's a choice of efficiency over atmosphere. so all of those details you're talking about that are in the home scenes well they're not going to be built out here because all this is there to do is to set up the conflict between William and Russell and to fracture them in a way or at least maybe not even fracture them but set up that potential for their reunion and for the reunion to be in a really satisfying way so that's where you see the chess pieces being set up in the screenplay.

29:02Josh Larsen:And because everything else is so authentic and fully realized, it does absolutely stand out.

29:08Adam Kempenaar:It's phenomenal, William, to be quite honest with you. It's sophisticated. It's intelligent. Now, we only had to cut out a couple of graphs. Jeff Bebe's mother already sent over a whole shoebox for a childhood photo. She did. But it's really going to look fantastic. The band just denied 90 % of the story. It's a fabrication. You weren't honest. And worse, you wasted our time. Did you talk to Russell Hammond? Russell Hammond is the one who denied it. Now, wait a second. Denied it. We're going with the Hill. Manuscript's in my office. He's just some fan. What do you expect? So anyway, flip those two pieces.

29:45Josh Larsen:Ben, wait.

29:47Adam Kempenaar:I think that as we have both said, there are a lot of really funny moments in this movie. And for the most part, Crow gets the comedy just right. And then there are other scenes where he just pushes too hard and it becomes too broad. One of them, I think these are minor quibbles, but this is a movie I adore. So I'm going to quibble with it the way we do with the things we love, especially music. The scene straight out of airplane when Sapphire is running along the bus and runs into the beam as the bus is pulling out of the stadium. Unnecessary at best.

30:21Josh Larsen:Okay, but I remember that coming. I remember thinking, oh, this makes you laugh once because it surprises you. The second time you're like, no, don't do that. But going back to Fugit's face, his reaction shot starts it.

30:36Adam Kempenaar:No, that's a good point. That almost makes it worth watching again. Now, we could probably spend 20 minutes on this scene and we're not going to. And actually, Jim Plini, who helped us so much with that voicemail in our setup, he singles this scene out and likes this moment. But if you want to talk about music being used poorly in a movie, everything about the scene, the only scene actually, Josh, in this entire film that really played terribly for me on this rewatch was the one right after Penny Lane takes all the quaaludes. and William Miller, as he says it, boldly goes where many men have gone before.

31:12Adam Kempenaar:It's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable and it's made even more uncomfortable in a movie that has so many amazing musical cues to then have my Sharia Moore pop up on the soundtrack as we cut between William's kind of horrified face and these images of Kate Hudson's struggling legs and body kind of writhing as they're pumping her stomach. I understand, or at least I think I understand, that it's meant to be ironic. Sure, absolutely. The music in that moment is meant to be ironic because there's nothing romantic about what's happening, and I don't think The Crow is suggesting there is, but that doesn't make it any more satisfying to watch.

31:46Adam Kempenaar:And it's another moment where I almost feel like it's intended to be a joke. It's so ironic that I don't understand how it can be anything but us reacting and laughing, almost like when you can't believe what you're watching and you recoil from it a little bit and you let out a laugh. That's what I feel like he's going for in that moment, which I don't understand.

32:05Josh Larsen:I think the difficulty with that scene, and first of all, the kiss, the choice to kiss her while she's just about passed out. And maybe dying. Yeah, wrong choice. You could maybe argue, and I'd have to watch it again, but it was a possibility that crossed my mind as it was happening and I was feeling uncomfortable, is does William think this might snap her out of it? I don't know if that's what the thinking was. Yeah. It's not clear. I think it's just it's the only moment where he can finally fully express himself and his feelings. Yeah, which of course is a huge issue. But what I do think is the ultimate problem with that entire sequence is in one scene that's also doing many other things with their relationship.

32:46Josh Larsen:Crow is trying to squeeze in all of the concerns that Frances McDormand's mother has about this lifestyle that the movie otherwise completely ignores. I mean, this is like, and I remember when this came out, there were people much more familiar with the rock scene of that era said, this is like the squeakiest, cleanest version of what was going on. And unless I'm missing something that's top of mind, you never get a hint of, you know, the cost of any of this hard living that is part of the rock and roll lifestyle. Yeah, it's hinted at. Crow is kind. It's not what it's about. They talk about it.

33:24Josh Larsen:Yeah. Frances McDormand talks about it and there it's kind of laughed off like she's the over concerning mother. Yeah. Then all of a sudden in this sequence it all is supposed to be like here's where she's been discarded as a sexual play thing. Here's where the overuse of drugs has severe serious health costs. Yeah. And it's like all this is bearing down on one sequence. It's just too much. It's not going to be able to do the work that I think Kerr wants it to do.

33:53Adam Kempenaar:And another scene that is too rushed and is about efficiency is the one leading to that, the card scene, where he bets her and she goes to humble pie. I didn't believe any of that either. And I know that that's also what Crowe knows, that life on the road. Why didn't you believe it? I just feel like everything about the way it plays out. It's Russell's performance. It's the way.

34:12Josh Larsen:Not performance, but Russell's demeanor in that scene. It doesn't seem like him.

34:15Adam Kempenaar:Also, the character who is their manager, Derek, and I'm forgetting that wonderful actor's name. Noah Taylor. Yeah, Noah Taylor. Thank you. Everything about it, Josh, it just plays out too rushed. It just seems like Crow needs to get to that moment where they lose her. So she'll feel betrayed. Exactly. So one other quick comedic moment that just does not work for me at all. I don't think you like this movie very much. It's another punchline, Josh. It's another punchline Crow goes for. And it's the scene on the plane. The scene on the plane where the drummer finally speaks and confesses to the whole group this truth about him.

34:50Adam Kempenaar:And the moment he says it, the plane straightens out. They get out of the weather and everything's fine. It's just a moment in a movie filled with these wonderful, funny moments like we've discussed, these moments that feel organic and truthful to the characters. It's a moment like the airplane one where to go to laugh. Absolutely. Just going for the joke. He goes for the gag. And I wish it wasn't there.

35:14Josh Larsen:And I don't think we hear from that character. No, but that's. Is that his only line of dialogue?

35:19Adam Kempenaar:That's actually part of the joke, too. Well, right. Of course. It didn't hit me. It didn't hit me. And we could talk about this for a little bit. I put in, I made the mistake of putting in the extended edition first. I was watching with Holden and Sophie Untitled, the version that came out like nine months after the DVD release. And I started noticing scenes that I was sure I had never seen before. And I look at the running time and it's two hours and 41 minutes long. I'm like, there's 35 extra minutes here. I got to start over. But after I watched this movie again, I went through the extended edition and looked for the differences and I wanted to see what they were.

35:53Adam Kempenaar:And there is a scene. It's the one later in the film where they make the decision to spike the story. The band's talking outside a hotel and they're saying he wrote everything. He wrote the truth. And Jason Leigh's Jeff Bebe's all upset. And then we only get the sense that Russell Hammond may want to spike the story. He doesn't come out and say it. Well, actually, in the extended version of the movie, Jimmy Fallon does a bunch of talking there. He convinces the band that this is a bad idea. It's a pretty good scene. You don't need it. The movie doesn't need it. But I actually kind of really like the scene.

36:27Adam Kempenaar:And there's a moment with the drummer where Billy Crudup says, again, this isn't in the cut that we all saw. Billy Crudup looks at him and says, you had the right idea the whole time to the drummer. And the drummer just kind of rolls his eyes. The joke being, of course, that his approach the whole time to the journalist was to never say anything. Right. So that's the whole thing is that one moment where he finally lets out this confession. The plane straightens out. I don't care. It's a bad joke. John Fedovich.

36:54Josh Larsen:I'm looking up here since we're talking about him so much, which no one would have predicted in an almost famous review.

37:00Adam Kempenaar:But he plays the drummer. No, and I do love that at least the drummer and the bass player are real musicians. And you can tell they're real musicians, not necessarily actors. And they do a serviceable job, but they are the real musicians on stage that we need. Which now brings me to the big thing, Josh. The guitarist with Mystique doesn't have enough of it for this film.

37:21Josh Larsen:Or maybe. I was really hoping you weren't going in this direction.

37:24Adam Kempenaar:I can't help it. Billy Crudup you don't like? I overall like his performance, but hear me out here. it's actually probably more accurate to say that mystique is all he has he has that kind of aloof charisma especially in contrast to jeff bb and his non-stop superficial chatter that makes him kind of compelling you're drawn to him because you want to know what's going on in that head but we do need to buy him as a musician and as an artist you mentioned this that he is someone who sees himself as separate from the band he is gone past them now as he himself verbalizes and it's it's just not there on the screen.

38:01Adam Kempenaar:It's not at all. His sound may be incendiary. William Miller may have that right, but his playing isn't. And there's a reason why Cameron Crowe always shoots him from behind.

38:11Josh Larsen:Well, yeah, I was going to say, do you think we even see enough of that? No, I don't. I don't, and we need it.

38:17Adam Kempenaar:It's not just that Billy Crowe can't pull it off. I think the movie needs it because it's constantly underscoring how great of an artist he is and why William is so drawn to him. And I'm just not sure where they went wrong. I mean, maybe they just did. deliberately cast for what they thought Billy Crudup brought to the role as an actor. And they didn't approach it like the Cone brothers with Oscar Isaac in Llewyn Davis or some other movies where the musicianship really does matter and you have to believe it. But I'm not sure how with Crow's background and Nancy Wilson, his wife's background being one of the members of heart, one of the founding members of heart.

38:52Adam Kempenaar:I don't know how they didn't put more of an emphasis on that. I just think it's essential. Like I said, from every aspect of the band dynamic to that dynamic between William and him and his reverence for him. I like the performance overall. He's out of place on stage. And I think that matters.

39:08Josh Larsen:I can't go with you there. I think you make a choice when you're, and you've cited some movies that made the other choice and it works. The choice to show the art on the screen. I will give you another one, Patterson, where we see his poems. Yes. Adam Driver's poems that he's writing and they hold up. Okay. So that's one choice show the art but man then it better be good it better work the other choice is to not show the painting don't show us the poem yeah and and let the performance and the other cinematic elements make you believe that it is that good we get a fair amount of performance though in this movie josh they're on stage a fair amount they are but as you pointed out it's often he's often from behind we get that one like strong chord when we first see him they're just covering And you realize that he's, yeah, they are covering up, but you also realize that he's in that chord even.

40:02Josh Larsen:He's the driving force of the band. Like the song doesn't start until he gives that chord, turns around and joins the others. So I think there's filmmaking there that makes it work. And Crudup is a performer who's exactly built to play a character like this who doesn't need to show us. He doesn't need to put it on the screen because in almost every one of his roles, he's this sort of guy who, he slouches onto the screen because he doesn't 100 % want to be there. He doesn't need to be there. He's not an actor who has that desire for attention that I feel right away. And I think that's part of Russell's issue too, is he's there just essentially, the end of the day, he's there to play, right?

40:45Josh Larsen:I mean, he takes advantage of all these other benefits that it has, being a rock star, but he is exactly who he says to William and who William believes him to be and who William worships because of it. So I don't know. I think he's a strong.

41:01Adam Kempenaar:That's fine. We disagree. I like the performance. I just needed to see some of the actual artistry. I really did. It makes sense. I can already hear people saying the counter to this is the band's supposed to be a mid-level rock band and their songs are average at best, even if they weren't necessarily written to be that way. But he's not. okay, but he is. And that's the unfortunate part. He really, really is.

41:21Josh Larsen:I don't know that... You're saying you needed to see more of it. Yeah. But I don't know that we...

41:28Adam Kempenaar:I need to be convinced, beyond just the verisimilitude of seeing him do it... One kick-ass guitar solo to just blow your hair back. Yeah, I wanted to believe him as that performer, as that artist on stage. So one other quick thing I did want to mention, totally random about this film, is something did click when I was watching the extended edition. I'm sure there's another line or there's some intimation of it. But in the extended cut, there is a moment that's definitely not in the theatrical where he has to finish his story. He is asked by the other band-aids to take the clothes and do the laundry.

42:01Adam Kempenaar:Right, right. He goes to Russell's room. He's told to go away, and he just kind of breaks down there in the hallway. They finally do come out, Penny Lane and Russell, and they're talking to him, and they're urging him to go on the road, to stay on the road, and we'll do the interview at the next stop, and he says, I want to go home. And I was instantly taken back to The Wizard of Oz. And I was thinking about Judy Garland being lost and wanting to go home. And she has to go see the wizard who ultimately disappoints her before she can go home. And of course, Russell Hammond here is the wizard who completely disappoints him when they finally do get to meet or finally get to connect here in the scene.

42:37Adam Kempenaar:And it's all about, this whole movie is all about life on the road versus the real world back at home and trying to avoid that type of life. And when Russell decides he needs to escape the fantasy of the road life and connect with real people in a real place, where is he? He's in Topeka. He's in Kansas. That's right. He goes to Kansas. Yep, absolutely. So, you know, he could have played Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and really put a point on it, but Cameron Crowe doesn't. Overall, though, the extended edition, if you love this film, it's worth watching, but there's a reason why those scenes were left on the cutting room floor which is usually the case with the deleted scenes and some of them are more examples of going for the comedy where it doesn't really work at all and it's not needed there are a couple moments here or there that actually kind of like including one exchange with lester and william on the street an extension of what we already see where remember he's asked by lester do you like lou reed and he says the early stuff yeah but now he's trying to be bowie he should just be himself and i think the next line is do you take drugs in the longer cut he says now he just wants to be bowie he should be himself and lester says but if lou's doing bowie and bowie's doing lou then isn't lou still doing lou that little that extension i could have watched of course an entire film that was just those

43:59Josh Larsen:well that's just it yeah yeah and you know i can sense there's repetition too having not watched it that sense of homesickness still absolutely comes through in fugit's performance and the scenes we do get. So yeah, you don't, you don't need him actually saying that I want to go home in that scene. That was probably a decent cut to make.

44:15Adam Kempenaar:We're going to get mail if we don't talk a little bit more about Kate Hudson. And I wanted to ask you, I don't have a great take on her performance here. It's one that I do like, but there is a part of me that still feels on watching it again, that it's a little forced. It's just a little bit forced that, that moment where she, maybe for me it's a little bit like Billy Crudup's performance where I need to believe the artistry a little bit more. Her artistry is the way she walks into a room and owns it. She is the center of everything. And we get that kind of scene where they go into that room early in the film at the Hyatt house and she starts speaking in French.

44:55Adam Kempenaar:And for me, Josh, every time I watch that scene, I completely lose her in that moment. And I'm never, I'm never swept up in the glory and the magic of Penny Lane.

45:05Josh Larsen:Well, the filmmaking there doesn't really help her because if I recall, the camera kind of shifts away from her to wander about the room when the scene is supposed to be

45:14Adam Kempenaar:just directing all the attention on her. Now, John Toll's camera loves her, though. Some of those close-ups and any of the scenes outside with the sun and the way it radiates on her, they make her look incredible. Just her face and the way they shoot her, there's magic in that.

45:27Josh Larsen:Yeah, you're probably closer to Debbie then who actually was getting frustrated watching this with me and she just said she's always acting. She's always acting. And I guess I can see that, but for one thing, it's incredibly, the role that she's given, I think is a pretty interesting choice to make when you're telling a story like this. I realize it does revolve in the love triangle with the two male characters, but she also benefits like Frances McDormand does as having her own narrative within even that larger one that may be related and tied to them but also you come to really worry about where she's going to end up through all of this i think that's the element that hudson sells when she finally does let that facade fall a little bit and she's no longer this bright shining flower but more of a trampled one that's refusing to admit she's been stepped on until everybody sees it.

46:26Josh Larsen:And then, you know, towards those scenes, and unfortunately, they kind of tie in with the one in the hotel room where she does overdose that's trying to do other things too. But overall, I still think she's really strong here and is able to bring that sort of that lament and loss, that other flip side that the movie really needs. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I've done twice the things I said I've done.

46:54Adam Kempenaar:What about your mom? She always said, marry up. Marry someone grand. And that's why she named me Lady. She named you Lady?

47:11Josh Larsen:Lady Goodman. Lady Goodman. That's great. Now you know all my secrets. You got me.

47:23Adam Kempenaar:Believe it or not, there's a lot more we could talk about with this film, including the tiny dancer scene on the bus, which maybe fortunately doesn't actually need any words, Josh, to really explain it. It works because it doesn't use any words, so why should we waste some on it? There you go. When we come back, enough of us amateurs. Rock critic Stephen Hyden joins us with his take on Almost Famous. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Dead Man's Wire, the new film from Roque Entertainment.

47:48Josh Larsen:Dead Man's Wire is the incredible true story of the 1977 kidnapping that turned an aspiring entrepreneur into an outlaw folk hero. Directed by legendary filmmaker Gus Van Sant, Dead Man's Wire stars Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes, and Myhalla, with Coleman Domingo and Al Pacino. Now playing in select theaters everywhere January 16th. God, it's going to get ugly, man. They're going to buy you drinks. You're going to meet girls. They're gonna try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs. I know it sounds great, but these people are not your friends. These are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of rock stars, and they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.

48:31Josh Larsen:You know, because they're trying to buy respectability for a form that is gloriously and righteously dumb. You know, you're smart enough to know that. And the day it ceases to be dumb is the day it ceases to be real. Right?

48:44Adam Kempenaar:the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous. We're using that clip to introduce one of the great contemporary rock writers. Stephen Hyden is back on FilmSpotting. Thank you so much for doing the show, Stephen. Thank you. You know, I can't really compare myself to the fictional Lester Bangs. It's funny because when people talk about Lester Bangs now, I feel like everyone pictures Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs. That has become the greatest rock critic of all time. Yeah. Like his portrayal of Lester Banks. Yeah. Because I think the actual Lester Banks, he had some great attributes to him.

49:22But the Philip Seymour Hoffman version is a little bit warmer and fuzzier. You know, I know that's the one I always think of when I think of Lester Banks.

49:32Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. I'm curious first just what your kind of relationship to the movie Almost Famous is. When it came out, you're just a couple years younger than Josh and me. you would have been just out of school, out of college for a few years. I imagine embarking on a writing career, embarking on a writing career about music when something like Almost Famous comes along and it is in your wheelhouse as much as it is. How much were you anticipating it? And then did it live up to any expectations you had? Well, I was definitely anticipating it because I was a Cameron Crowe fan already. I mean, going back to say anything, you know, I loved say anything as a kid and I you know and really every step along the way I was with I mean I knew Cameron Crowe as the screenwriter of uh Fast Times at Ridgemont High you know and I was aware of his you know background as a Rolling Stone journalist you know as I write about in my book I was a big Led Zeppelin fan so I knew that he had uh you know interviewed Led Zeppelin profiled Led Zeppelin when he was a teenager.

50:37And what kind of fantasy is that? If you are a teenage fan of Led Zeppelin and to see this guy that had been able to hang out with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when he was in high school. So when I heard that he was going to make a movie about basically his own life and talking about the Rolling Stone stuff, I mean, it was amazing. I was very excited about the movie. And then the movie came out and I loved the movie so much. I mean, you know, I think a lot of people love this movie. But if you are a music writer, if you're a rock critic, it really is like just a whole other level, I think. It's like being an investigative reporter and watching all the president's men.

51:28Yeah. Or being a fighter pilot and watching Top Gun, you know, or a lawyer and watching a few good men. You know, it's like it is the ultimate sort of fantasy of what you would want to do. And like you said, I was just starting out in my career when this movie came out. Almost Famous came out in 2001. So I graduated from college in 2000. So I was already working and I was working for my hometown paper at the time. And I think I knew at that point that the days where you would go on the road with a rock band for like three weeks were like long gone. Like, you know, like I was pretty naive about how, you know, journalism worked, I think still at that point, but I knew that that was totally a remnant of the past.

52:18But, you know, loving 70s rock and being a music writer, I mean, this was just the ultimate movie for me and the ultimate sort of fantasy. And it's kind of stayed that way ever since. I mean, I feel like this movie, among music critics, it's sort of fashionable to discredit this movie. You know, to say that, like, well, you know, it's just a fantasy or it doesn't hold up as well. But every time I watch this movie, it totally connects with me. And I think, you know, Cameron Crowe, whatever you want to say about some of his movies after this, you know, maybe being hit or miss. I feel like the combination of his music knowledge and also that sort of romantic spirit that he brings to all of his movies and also the humor that he brings it really just it all connects and comes together really beautifully in that movie I mean I feel like if there was any movie that he was going to hit out of the park it was that one you know and for me it totally holds up even now when I revisit it.

53:30Josh Larsen:Yeah, that's what I was wondering. As you look at it, you know, years after you've gotten into your career and it's significantly grown and you've learned the ropes and seen how things work, when you revisit it again, it still has that authenticity to you. It still still rings true in those same ways. Yeah, I mean, I think it is pretty authentic, but it also I mean, it's a totally different era, you know, so there's things that I can't really speak to. Sure. The authenticity of it. I mean, to me, I look at it more as a fantasy. you know and not saying that uh it wouldn't be authentic to someone who was a journalist in the 70s but it's more of like what i wish i could have been through you know i wish i could have had the opportunity to be on the road with one band for like weeks and and to just immerse myself in the world of a band and like all the things that they go through because you there's no way you get that kind of opportunity now if you can spend a day with a band that's pretty incredible and i've had the chance to do that you know here and there right and that's pretty great but like you know we're going to like we're going like across the country it's a different venues and like you're in dressing rooms and you're watching the lead singer and the guitarist argue about the tour shirt you know like you're there's no way a publicist would ever let you do that now but that doesn't detract from the movie for me in a way it makes me value the movie more because i get to i can at least live vicariously through william miller you know i can like i'm not going to be able to hang out with still water but i can hang out with william miller while he's hanging out with Stillwater and have a proxy experience, you know, through this movie.

55:22Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. I wanted to ask you, Stephen, about some of the things maybe Almost Famous doesn't get right. I did have a few issues with the movie as much as I love it. Josh and I discussed them. We agreed for the most part on some of the scenes that just don't quite work or feel inauthentic. We talked about some of the comedy at times being a little bit too broad, Crow going for punchlines, But the one we disagreed with, and I really do want to hear your take, is the performance of Billy Crudup and really more the depiction of Russell Hammond and the fact that they clearly cast someone who doesn't really have any musical ability or who isn't playing the guitar.

56:00Adam Kempenaar:And he's maybe not quite the artist that everyone else makes him out to be and that William seems to think he is. Do you agree with that take or disagree? Well, I disagree with you. So I guess I agree with Josh. That would be me, Stephen. Because I feel like the fact that Stillwater is not a great band is one of the great things about Almost Famous. And I think that was a deliberate choice by Cameron Crowe. I feel like I watched a DVD extra where he talked about writing the Stillwater songs with his wife, Nancy Wilson, from Heart. And how one of the things that they were trying to do when they were writing the songs is to make sure the songs weren't too good.

56:45They succeeded. Because the idea was that this was an up-and-coming early 70s band. Right. But not a great 70s band. Again, one of those middle American sort of boogie rock bands. that would have been big at the time, but ultimately forgettable. And I think when they talk about him being a great artist, I think the authenticity in that is that whenever you're in a band situation and you're talking to artists, there's always that one person in the band that everyone talks about being great, where they talk about this person with a certain amount of awe. And it's the reality that gets created in the sphere of a band, you know where there has to be one genius but you step outside of that and that person rarely is a genius you know they're just a pretty good musician that somehow formed this band and convinced everyone around him that that he was great and i really think that that is what crow is going for i don't think the point is that russell hammond actually is this genius it's that the people around him think that he's a genius i think if that movie like had a sequel that was set like in 1980 or 1981 like russell hammond would probably be on the downswing of his career you know and i think i mean to me that's how i feel like that's how i read the movie anyway so So, yeah, I don't know.

58:17I love the sort of like mediocrity of water. Yeah. And I think that's very deliberate in the movie. I mean, I think that's really works. And that that does feel truer to life in a lot of ways that Crow did it that way.

58:31Adam Kempenaar:And, you know, one thing I need to now watch the film kind of with these eyes is it's not just about how the others perceive him. It's potentially how he perceives himself. He says very directly he thinks that he has more talent than anyone else in the group. But maybe that's just part of his own fantasy, you know, as a character. That's one of the ways that he is deluding himself about his abilities. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And I think that's just a common thing if you're in a band. I think if you have, you know, the, uh, if you're a person who actually says that I belong on a stage or I, I deserve to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

59:06I mean, you have to have a certain level of megalomania, you know, in order to, to, to do that, you know, to have that kind of level of self-belief. Um, but the fact of the matter is, is that there are very few geniuses, you know, like most people are not geniuses. Most people are just pretty good and they put out pretty good music for a while and then they sort of drift away. And that's fine. But when you're in the moment, everyone is a genius. We're the best. We're going to be the next Led Zeppelin. And you go for it and you try your best and then you inevitably fail and you go away. You know, that's the trajectory of almost every single rock band ever.

59:54I'm always going to tell you the truth. From the very beginning, we said I'm the front man and you're the guitarist with Mystique. That's the dynamic we agreed on. Page, Plant, Mick, Keith. But somehow it's all turning around. We have got to control what's happening. There's a responsibility here. Excuse me.

1:00:16Adam Kempenaar:We always love having Steven on the show. Hope to have him back on soon. He's the music critic at Uproxx, and we'll link to his work in our show notes, and you can find that in the podcast description as well. If you'd like to become a FilmSpottingFamily member and get access to our complete archive, please do so. You can learn more at FilmSpottingFamily.com. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

1:01:17We'll see you next time.

1:01:19Adam Kempenaar:Thank you.

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1:02:25Josh Larsen:Honey, Felipe sent another photo. From Argentina? How? With T-Mobile, of course. Mira, he's video calling us. Hola, familia. Did you get my photos?

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1:03:05Josh Larsen:return to the big screen in Super Troopers 3. With more pullover pranks and more over-the-top shenanigans than ever, in this latest installment of the cult comedy classic, like Rod Farva's wildly over-the-top Indian engagement to Thorny's sister spirals out of control, a debaucherous bachelor party, a wedding that Thorny is desperate to stop, and a dangerous drug smuggling ring all threaten the troops' friendships and future. Fill your liter of cola, grab your buds, and roll up to the multiplex for Super Troopers 3. Only in theaters August 7th. Get tickets, meow. Okay, laundry stinks. Literally.

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