Almost Famous (2000)

Sweet Emotion.

What I noticed more during this rewatch was the way in which Russell actually wants to break up the band. And that William's mum, Elaine, would totally be anti-vax.

Like so many of the great rock albums of the early ’70s, the extended cut is as indulgent and escapist as it is suffused by a subtle but profound melancholy, at once repulsed by the harsh comedown of the post-hippie era and terrified of this moment passing without being properly understood and appreciated.

— Jake Cole (Slant Magazine)

Many love Almost Famous because it’s a movie about falling in love with music. And, like Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (which arrived seven years before), it upholds a kind of mystique surrounding the glory days of classic rock paired with narratives about growing up and the importance of music in our lives.

— Ellen Johnson (Paste Magazine)

Although the rest of the band is concerned with coming across as amateurish to Rolling Stone readers, Russell is affected by a slightly different vanity. ‘Just make us look cool,’ he pleads. This contains inescapable truths. He knows he can survive the break-up of the band, but would he be able to handle the publishing of the entire surreptitious life he enjoys on the road that would reveal a distinct counterpoint to his life off the road with a wife back home? He doesn’t want some superficial definition of cool as living fast with sex, drugs and rock and roll[.]

— David Wallace

It's almost better, though, that Almost Famous wasn’t produced later, when it might have been burdened with double the retrospective responsibility. It doesn’t need to say more about the bygone days of rock dominance, or to consider whether its point of view might be considered “rockist,” a term that became popularized a few years after Crowe’s movie came out. The perfectly crafted Stillwater songs do that critique for the movie: Their song Fever Dog is catchy. Their other stuff, well, it seems fine. Seems like it’s fun live. It’ll do in a pinch. Kinda had to be there. That sort of thing.

[…]

Hilariously, the bassist and the drummer of Stillwater don’t get much to do in those extra 40 minutes [in the longer DVD cut].

[…]

William loves Penny, Penny loves Russell, and Russell loves…? Well, William’s attention, certainly, but there’s almost no chance that either William or Russell will get what they really want out of these entanglements (if Russell even knows).

— Jesse Hassenger (Paste Magazine)