The Movie
When a movie is as celebrated and beloved as Almost Famous, but it kinda tanked at the box office, we have to wonder why. My best guess is that the raging undercurrent here is music, and we live in a society that values music less and less. I'm old enough to remember vinyl, not just as an alternative playback format but almost as a symbol of a way of life. Even brick-and-mortar record stores, now dwindling, were more than a place to grab the latest disposable pop product, they were a haven to explore. In short, too many people just don't understand the passion for music that infuses every frame of Almost Famous.
Of course, 1973 was a long time ago, and the world was a lot different. A guy like William, a 15-year-old rock journalist, could land a gig writing a major story about the about-to-break-out band Stillwater for Rolling Stone, and even tag along on their American tour for the adventure of a lifetime. Along the way he meets and can't help but fall for Penny Lane, a mysterious "Band-Aid" (don't call her a groupie), but she's smitten with Stillwater's guitar hero. Between the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, there's seldom a dull moment.
Almost Famous is based on the personal experiences of writer/director/producer Cameron Crowe, a successful journalist before penning Fast Times at Ridgemont High and embarking upon a filmmaking career. The band Stillwater is a fictionalized amalgam of real acts that Cameron toured with and interviewed, including The Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin. This Best Buy-exclusive Blu-ray is the "Director's Edition," also known as the "The Bootleg Cut" or simply "Untitled." It contains more than a half-hour of excellent little scenes woven back in, expanding our understanding of all the key characters and creating a richer picture of their story and their whole world.
The Picture
There's a lot of detail evident in this 1.85:1 AVC presentation, with some enjoyably delicate nuance as in a beauty shot of thin telephone wires stretching out toward a radiant sunrise. Overall the image shows low noise and minimal (but some) grain from start to finish. This Blu-ray doesn't always like the fine lines of William's go-to corduroy jacket, and I noticed some mildly unpleasant edge enhancement, but the edits back to the added footage are mostly subtle.
The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track delivers an outstanding you-are-there presence, perfect for this story of a young visitor suddenly thrust into a strange new world. A respectable amount of incidental effects are mixed into the rear channels. Classic album cuts extend out into the rears just enough to make them more engaging to movie audiences, while still respecting the stereo essence. The concerts or the backstage experiences are quite different, with a full, strong 360-degree spread.
The Extras
All of the extras are ported over from DVD, none in HD. To Paramount/DreamWorks' credit however, "almost everything that's available" (Crowe's words in his audio introduction) has been collected here. The audio commentary is one of the best ever, with Crowe joined by his assistant Andy Fischer and associate producer Scott Martin from Vinyl Films, family friend Ivan Corona, Mark Atkinson from DreamWorks and Alice Crowe, Cameron's mom, played in the movie (more or less) by Oscar-winner Frances McDormand.
"The Making of Almost Famous" (25 minutes) is a multifaceted look at the process, and from here the rest of the bonuses are primarily music-oriented. We discover Cameron Crowe's Top Albums of 1973 via interactive cover art with spoken insights, and meet Lester Bangs, the legendary editor of Creem (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) via a vintage two-minute interview. There's a music video for the Stillwater song "Fever Dog" (five minutes), a demo for the song "Love Comes and Goes" by Nancy Wilson (four minutes, played over behind-the-scenes footage) and "Small Time Blues," a three-minute expansion of a quick moment from the film, a tribute to Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris.
The entire Cleveland Concert is shown here (about 16 minutes total), and the section entitled "B-Sides" shares a cast script-reading for a faux band interview (five minutes). "Stairway" is awesome, a key sequence where the son plays the song for his mother to convince her he should be allowed to make his journey. We have to play the song on our own and synch it up over the Blu-ray to get the benefit, owing to pesky music clearance issues (twelve minutes).
Several relevant Crowe Rolling Stone articles have been reprinted as onscreen text, with audio intro. The entire Oscar-winning script is here as well.
Final Thoughts
Considering what Blu-ray offers in terms of seamless branching, I'm growing frustrated whenever a studio misses the chance to include the theatrical and extended editions of a movie on the same disc. There's a deluxe DVD of Almost Famous that includes both cuts (albeit on two discs) and even a CD of Stillwater songs, absent here (although maybe that's not such a bad thing....) Anchorman, another Paramount/Best Buy exclusive, packed two different edits of the movie, a second disc of extras, and even some chatchkes in the box. We should wonder what some future, non-exclusive release of Almost Famous might have in store.
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