The Canadian Sportsman
Off Course
Back To Off CourseAugust 25, 2009
Call me a pop culture dork, but I look forward to Tuesdays, the day the new music and movies arrives.
Today was a particularly good Tuesday. With no fanfare, the Canadian iTunes store put the movie Almost Famous up for sale. It’s something of a cult favourite and a flick I have looked for on iTunes every Tuesday for the last 10 months or so.
I have the DVD, but Almost Famous is the kind of movie I never get tired of watching, which makes it perfect to lug around with me on my iPod for times when I am held hostage by Continental Airlines in the Newark Liberty International Airport (a story for another time...) and need some quick amusement.
Why do I love the movie? Partly because it’s brilliantly written (Cameron Crowe won the Academy Award for best original screenplay in 2001 for it), partly because I love the acting job of the ultimate mom, played by Frances McDormand, but mostly I love it because it’s about a fictional ‘70s rock band named Stillwater. Okay, in truth, it’s about a teenage rock journalist following Stillwater on the road for Rolling Stone magazine. Like the documentary spoof, This Is Spinal Tap, Almost Famous scores a direct hit on the insanity of the rock and roll world.
Check out this line from the band’s lead singer, Jeff Bebe, played by Jason Lee the star of My Name Is Earl:
“I work just as hard or harder than anybody on that stage. You know what I do? I get people off. I look for the guy who isn’t getting off, and I make him get off.”
And this exchange from a dressing room scrap that starts when the group’s t-shirts arrive and the popular lead guitarist, Russell Hammond, is the only band member in focus in the picture:
Hammond: “Can we just skip the vibe and go straight to us laughing about (the t-shirts)?”
Bebe: “Yeah, okay.”
Hammond: “Because I can see by your face you want to get into it.”
Bebe: “How can you tell? I’m just one of the out-of-focus guys.”
There’s even an astute observation on high school when the teenage journalist is asked by his rock critic mentor, Lester Bangs (played by Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman) if he is the star of his school. “They hate me,” comes the reply. To which Bangs says, “You’ll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle.”
Classic.
Almost Famous now holds a special place of honour in my iPod beside Caddyshack and Animal House and that classic coming-of-age yarn Stand By Me.
It’s the perfect addition for an iPod used mostly for music. But we’ll save that as a topic for another day.
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