I Don't Know if I've Ever Been Almost Famous But I Saw a Film with that as its Title

Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugit in Almost Famous

Friday night the missus and I watched a film called, Almost Famous from 2000. I saw it when it first came out but hadn't since. I had the vague recollection that I didn’t like it at the time although I couldn’t tell you why. Even vaguer was my recollections of the film itself. A young reporter? Rock and roll? Kate Hudson was in it? It’s the sort of film that is made reference to every now and again. No one calls it a classic but it's not widely disparaged. It’s also obvious that it means a lot to some people. It seemed worth another go although I can’t tell you what finally got me to watch it again.

Almost Famous is the autobiographical tale of director Cameron Crowe’s experiences as a fifteen-year-old reporter (!!!) following a rock band on tour for purposes of writing a story for Rolling Stone magazine. It stars Patrick Fugit as the precocious writer and no that name is not familiar to me although he’s been in a few films I’ve seen, never in big roles. In Almost Famous the band is called Stillwater — it’s fictional. Crowe was embedded with the Allman Brothers. Kate Hudson plays the primary groupie or Band-Aid as they call themselves. She along with Frances McDormand as the kid’s mother steal every scene they’re in. McDormad, as we know, is a multiple Oscar winner but Hudson seems to have mostly done mediocre rom-coms. More’s the pity.

If it’s true that I didn’t like Almost Famous twenty-three years ago I’m at a loss for why. I found it to be a delightful story, with excellent pacing, a good soundtrack and good to outstanding performances. The story it told was worthy of the two-hour screen time. It was sweet, it was coming-of-age, it was about love and dedication and a young man learning life lessons in real time during the heady experience of traveling with the famous — or almost famous.

But Almost Famous also was a cold slap in the face for me.

In a good way.

I am a writer. I was once a young aspiring writer. I was a brash young reporter. I was a talent. I was cool. I was “going places” (never got there). But I tossed it all away. I was hedonist. I loved chasing women and getting high too much more than I was ambitious. I was lazy. I was stupid. I squandered my opportunities. 

In recent years I’ve come to wonder why there was no one around who would set me straight. I never had a mentor; I never had an older wiser voice around me prodding me in the right directions. Actually there were some voices about that occasionally tried to give me counsel but I was much too arrogant to pay them any heed. So perhaps trying to talk sense into me would have been fruitless. After all, how do you talk sense into the senseless?

Like a lot of good films, Almost Famous convinced me (again) that I have to get more serious about my writing. Mind you I’ve finished my third novel (well, almost) have the draft of a fourth and have started a fifth and write on this blog at least four times a month but I tell you it’s not enough and in all earnestness it isn’t. I squander far too much time poking around various corners of the internet. One can always do better and I can do a helluva lot better. Fucking internet.

(I have no idea how or why the above paragraph came out looking like that. I swear it's not my fault and I tried to fix it -- to no avail.)

I loved being a reporter. It seemed at the time that it was my calling. So naturally I quit when I was twenty-five. Idiot.

Is this the cause of my depression? Do I live in regret of my mistakes? Do I wallow in self-pity at the wounds I inflicted — on me? Better question: can I not learn to live in the moment? Can I not learn to be grateful? Can I not appreciate what I’ve done, where I am and where I’ve still to go as a mortal?

You’d think.

Almost Famous focused my thinking in a particular direction and I appreciate when a film does that. Yesterday I watched the great Russian film, Come and See (1985) Klimov which has to rank among the great World War II pictures of all time. It’s a visceral viewing experience and for fleeting moments hard to watch. It caused no great introspection on my part but did get me thinking about human’s incredible capacity for evil and destruction. Brutal honesty in film is much to be admired if it is presented in a way that is palatable to audiences. The imagery of Come and See is rich and powerful and glorious despite the horrific subject matter.

So, yeah, films — good ones — can send your mind into different directions.

What have I learned from writing this? Probably that I’m doing all right. I need to appreciate today, learn from yesterday and keep an eye out for tomorrow because it’ll be here soon enough.