Product Description

Audiences and critics alike are raving about this larger-than-life rock'n 'roll favorite that Roger Ebert calls "one of the best movies of the year!" The guys of Stillwater have the sound, they have the look and Rolling Stone Magazine wants their story. For young reporter William Miller, it's the opportunity of a lifetime as he hits the road with his favorite band and discovers the price of fame, the value of family and the limits of friendship.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2950 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Released on: 2001-03-13
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.com
Almost Famous is the movie Cameron Crowe has been waiting a lifetime to tell. The fictionalization of Crowe's days as a teenage reporter for Creem and Rolling Stone has all the well-written characters and wonderful "movie moments" that we expect from Crowe (Jerry Maguire), but the film has an intangible something extra--an insider's touch that will turn the film into the ode to '70s rock & roll for years to come. We are introduced to Crowe's alter ego, William Miller (Patrick Fugit), at home, where his progressive mom (Frances McDormand, just superb) has outlawed rock music and sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) has slipped him LPs that will "set his mind free." Following the wisdom of Creem's disheveled editor, Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman in an instant-classic performance), Miller gets on the inside with the up-and-coming band Stillwater (a fictionalized mixture of the Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, and others). A simple visit with the band turns into a three-week, life-altering odyssey into the heyday of American rock. Of the characters he meets on the road, the two most important are groupie extraordinaire Penny Lane (Kate Hudson in a star-making performance) and Stillwater's enigmatic lead guitarist (Billy Crudup), who keeps stringing Miller along for an interview. From the handwritten credits (done by Crowe) to the bittersweet finale, Crowe's comedic valentine is an indelible, heartbreaking romance of music, women, and the privilege of youth. --Doug Thomas

From The New Yorker
Cameron Crowe's genial but remarkably undramatic account of his life and not very hard times as a fifteen-year-old rock critic in the early nineteen-seventies. Crowe's stand-in, William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a freckle-faced music lover, leaves home against the wishes of his college-professor mom (Frances McDormand) when he accepts an assignment from Rolling Stone to cover a mid-level band called Stillwater. He falls into an intense admiration of the good-looking lead guitarist (Billy Crudup), who is ambiguously friendly, and receives gentle treatment from a trio of groupies, the Band-Aids (led by Kate Hudson). Philip Seymour Hoffman appears as the legendary real-life rock critic Lester Bangs, who mentors William, and Jason Lee rants as Stillwater's infantile lead singer. Much of the movie plays easily and well as a record of good times, but there's no particular point to it. William is never put in enough danger-morally, spiritually, sexually, or any other way-to become a hero for us, and the music of Stillwater is not meant to be great. What's at stake? -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker