Queer Projection
This is a movie podcast about finding queer themes damn near everywhere. Hosts Alethia St. Joan and Danny Carroll share a 30+ year friendship that has been bound together by a shared love for movies. A trans woman and a gay man respectively, Alethia and Danny explore what these movies meant to them while they were young and closeted, and what revisiting these movies means for the actualized, arguably maladjusted adults they’ve become. It’s a heady, often crass and sometimes crude blend - part nostalgia trip, part queer theory, part film criticism. Check it out!
Queer Projection
Almost Famous
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Back from our short summer break with a major favorite! Let's get on the tour bus, sing our hearts out to Tiny Dancer, and try and get between Penny Lane and Russell Hammond. Don't drink out of the red cups, don't imagine any of these people are your friends, and certainly DON'T take any quaaludes. Enjoy!
Oh, hello Lethea. How you doing? Hi, Dad. What do you type on? What do I type on? Uh shoot, I don't know this one. Fifth Goronas Galaxis Deluxe, I think, is what he says. Right. That's the one. That's what do you type on? God, what a what a strange what a strange idea that that's something you would ask somebody.
SPEAKER_02For me though, you know Was this the first, like, falling in love with Philip Seymour Hoffman movie we saw? Because I think we saw this before we discovered Magnolia. And I guess we'll run from Twister.
SPEAKER_01Twister. Probably. I mean, you know what? That's landing right there, but uh for me, I think I have spent much of my life um for the love of last few decades with uh Zoe De Chanel's lily white hands on my shoulders just assuring me that someday I'll be cool. And it's gotten me through. Um, and folks, today you're gonna find out whether it's true or not. Uh you are listening to our podcast, so hopefully you're winning in. Alright, let's do it. This is Queer Projection. Welcome back. You ready, Lithia?
SPEAKER_02Yes, I am. Let's go.
SPEAKER_07And third nomination for Cameron Cross. In 1996, he was a double nominee for Best Picture and Original Screenplay for Jerry McGuire.
SPEAKER_00Oh man. Um, the movie was a love letter to music and to my family. Uh so I dedicate this to all the musicians who inspire us and uh to my family, Alice Crow, Cindy Weber, and uh Nancy Wilson, my incredible wife and collaborator. Um thank you, Dreamworks, vinyl films, Andy Fisher, Scott Martin, Lisa Stewart, Neil Preston, Danny Brampson, and uh this incredible cast and crew. Kate, you're magnificent, Francis. I couldn't dream of a of a greater way to live out this screenplay that uh is based on my hopes and dreams. So also uh wouldn't be complete without saying hello to the master himself, Mr. Billy Wilder. So uh to you, Audrey and Billy.
SPEAKER_02And thank you so much, everybody, for this is uh Queer Projection. My name is Aletheus St. Joan. This is Danny Carroll. Hello, Danny. Hello. And uh this is the podcast in which we uh reach way deep back into our cellulite pasts. Danny and I have been friends since we were in fourth grade, and uh we bonded over a shared love of movies, and in this show we revisit those movies. Uh the ones that we obs this is terrible. The ones that we obsessed over as claws queer youths, and uh we re-examine them from our vantage points as uh very much out queer adults. Yes. Yeah. Again, I'm gonna I'm gonna re-fewing us. I'm gonna retake that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Or, you know, just like let us be warts and all. Um, but yeah, you know, like like she said, this is sort of a film podcast, sort of a nostalgic podcast, sort of a queer theory podcast. Um we figure it out on our way which episode is gonna be what. So I think we're gonna be kind of quick about this one today, because this was an important movie to our adolescent era, but I have seen it many times in the era since. So I'm not gonna be seeing it necessarily with some fresh eyes. But to make this interesting, Alethea, we're gonna do something a little different. We're gonna do like a side-by-side viewing, right?
SPEAKER_02We're gonna do a normal episode and we're then we're gonna do a little bootleg edition, which literally means uh we're going to cover the theatrical cut, uh, which is the cut that we grew up with. It was the one that we had on video, and it was it was the one that we originally fell in love with. And for a bonus episode, we are going to examine uh the true um cut of this film, which is known as the bootleg edition, uh, which is really terrific. Like, there's not much more to say about that. Danny, I have a very vivid memory of having an early middle school movie night where we watched this on VHS. I remember some of our early, like, I believe Kate was there. Remember, like Olivia Cool was there? Probably Lindsay Williams then, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And I remember you making us rewind that sequence of like three shots when they're in the party at the um on Sunset Strip, whatever that hotel is called. And uh, and and and it cuts that close-up of Kate Hudson looking across the room to Billy Crutup, and it goes from like a wide into a tight close-up on her face, and it's very kind of the way it timed with the music is very um just great cinema. And I remember you rewound it like several times and made us all focus on that. Really? Yeah. You mean you were like this, this is what I'm all about. Yeah, I remember. Come on. No, I swear to God. Really? Yeah, because I was like, good then.
SPEAKER_01Uh God. I don't know why that bums me out. I don't want to think back to me having like intense vision as a child. I I want to believe that my memory of myself is entirely mythologized and that I actually had no true artistic eye, and that it was all just sort of a sense of self-aggrandizement, so I can feel better about being a useless almost 40-something. So, all right, almost famous. This is a great movie. Uh I mean, I it it it was, I think, a great movie to be watching as a teenager because it is so much about teenage awkwardness and so much about the intense notion of the person you know yourself to be, but just haven't become yet, you know?
SPEAKER_02And uh and that's especially exacerbated because there's that great scene early on where William Miller, the young version of him, uh finds out that he's actually like a year older or a year younger than he was uh led to believe that he was. And it suddenly comes to like illuminate the reasons for all of these like uh social ills that he's been experiencing.
unknownEleven!
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I loved that. Um, and you know, right again, we're gonna talk so much about the performances or try not to, you know, just wax too you know too complimentary, but Frances McDermott right off the bat as the mother just was. This is one of her classics. And you can just feel it from the first conversation she's having with the child actor that you're like, oh, okay, this is on a this is gonna be on a uh a smart granular level. It's just I don't know. She teases up very well, that whole beginning. Let's talk about the facts. Okay, yeah. So this is Cameron Crow um writing a semi-autog biographical, sort of fictionalized version of his um, you know, adolescent uh time touring with uh I think it's the Alman Brothers, right? Or Led Zeppelin? Uh it was Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin, yeah, it was Led Zeppelin. And and so, yeah, it is, you know, the basic plot is following this uh wannabe, or actual, I guess, depending on how you look at it, young journalist, uh young rock journalist who goes on the road with his band Stillwater and ends up sort of um having his heart broken and his eyes opened and just sort of the the way of the world being laid bare before him in this experience. Uh so a perfect adolescent movie, ultimately, when you get down to it. Um and the uh the lead um character William Miller, uh played by sort of a I don't know, I don't want to call him a one-hit wonder, but Patrick Fugit is really only known for this, right?
SPEAKER_02What is he the most recent thing I can think of is from like 10 years ago. He was in this um interesting indie movie called Queen of Earth with Elizabeth Moss.
SPEAKER_01He's a great it's a great performance, and I think he's so solid for the role.
SPEAKER_02Um I mean speaking of things that are earnest and pure, this this movie maybe takes the cake in terms of earnestness and purity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it's still a little cruel in some ways. Even though it's pure, there are there are there are cruelties in this movie that everybody sort of casually dishes out at each other in a way that is not necessarily pure. Yeah. It's kind of like, you know, there's a purity to the promise that people are gonna break your heart, you know? And and if we can forgive each other that and just be on the journey of self-improvement, then maybe all of this won't hurt as much in the end. Like, I don't know. You know, there I I it is pure in that I think it's a morality tale in that way.
SPEAKER_02But it's it's very hard on its sleeve. And yeah, and I I would I would I would say courageously corny.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. I mean, come on, it uh the one of the most famously sort of saccharine, but also like famous beloved like beloved scenes is the tiny dancer sing-along. Yeah. And they're all hung over and it's so silly in so many ways. But there's a fits, and there's so well.
SPEAKER_02There's also a scene that's played for uh romance that uh has not aged well.
SPEAKER_01Yes, there's uh quite a bit of stuff like that, but also just poor but but you know, that I think what feels awkward about it is that it plays second fiddle to what I think is the is the main criminal behavior in this, or from the film's viewpoint, which is just the intense misogyny, you know, that that just is rife in the world and and how no matter how much you try and get a grip on it, it it'll come for you. It'll come for everyone because it's yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Just the way they have to distinguish themselves, uh like uh uh against like the stereotype of groupie. They're like, we are not groupies, we are band-aids, you know. We don't sleep with the band, we just you know just blowjobs and that's it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, so in the second half of this, I think what I want to what I'm gonna want to be exploring in terms of the queer stuff um is just uh our sort of like standard model of like who are the others in this movie? How are they othered? How are they put aside, um, and how are they, you know, perhaps exploited or not properly seen or seen falsely, like all the stuff that's wrapped up in the queer experience is going to be in the character of William and these groupies and and you know, just the phenomenal, phenomenal movement Kate Hudson, uh who is just again, I think the other standout she's the star of this movie ultimately.
SPEAKER_02Uh what if God, uh Anna Pack's in it too. She's great. Um She's great. I love her so much. What is that actor's name? Uh Farooza Balk? Is that her name? Who plays like uh Faroza Bulk Faroza Balk? Who plays like the goffy kind of one who runs into the wall accidentally? She's the best.
SPEAKER_01Right. But so that's what, you know, that's what I'm gonna be looking for when I rewash this movie. And when we do this sort of bonus episode, I'm also gonna be trying to look at at what if I can because God, I I don't I don't really remember this bootleg cut. I know I saw it and saw it accidentally, thinking I was watching the regular cut and being like, why does this feel so uncanny valley? Like it doesn't quite fit my memory.
SPEAKER_02Um It's really good. There's I I I literally I only have one complaint is that it um uh one early scene goes on longer, so like there's there's a there's a like comical cut in the original cut that I really enjoy, and it's not in the Blue Lake edition, unfortunately. Oh, interesting. Well, remember when Philip Seymour Hoffman's like uh when he first meets William Miller, he's like, I gotta go. I can't can't can't hang around all day talking to my many fans, and then it cuts to them like hanging out later.
SPEAKER_01That's not that's not in the long run. I do remember that cut. Oh, okay. Well, you know, we're not doing that episode yet though, so let's stick to the let's stick to the brass tanks here.
SPEAKER_02Um Danny, this is all this is also one of those uh trailers from our from our adolescence that I have like tattooed in my brain. I remember every moment of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02This is one of the ones that I would I would uh scan the DVD at FYE and I would watch the trailer on the tiny little TV they had in there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I remember back in the day, God, it was just the art of storytelling in a trailer, another sort of lost art here. But I I remember just, yeah, I don't know. I think it was like the cute boy in long hair thing. I was immediately drawn in. You know, I I had such a crush on this character when we were first watching it, and being unable to sort of express that. And again, another movie where I think uh tidy whiteies prominently featured, and just me not quite realizing what was going on on my head, that it was just like really doing it for me. And you know what? It's not just a fetish thing. I currently own approximately 40 pairs of tidy whiteies. I just like a pair of clean white underwear. Um fetch me a red raincoat.
SPEAKER_02Danny, do you remember this um movie night I'm referring to, though? It was don't. It was literally do you remember my my house um in Brendan Court, the one with the pool? Wow. I remember Olivia Cole definitely being there. So I imagine Kate was Lindsay and whoever, maybe Katie Murphy, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01So funny. Yeah, no, I don't I don't. I don't remember that at all. I especially don't miss my like unsettling bit of I don't know, film theory I was trying to do. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02No, but like everybody thought it was like cool. Everybody was like, yeah, Danny, cool. Yeah. Sorry, no, Danny, Danny seemed like a complete basket case when we were kids. We had no hope and anything. The fact that he is where he is nowadays is really quite remarkable.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So before we do our watch, uh, I just do I do think there's some interesting things that our audience might be interested to know. Um Billy Krudup, who we have not mentioned yet, uh so hot. Playing um, I guess sort of the other lead, Russell Hammond, but it was originally gonna be Brad Pitt, apparently. Really? I did not know that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, he's and no, he's too he's too hot.
SPEAKER_01You know, the the the the story is that they got, you know, they did a rehearsal table read, um, and Crow and Pitt right after the table read just came immediately together and were both like, yeah, this is not it, this is not a fit. Like they both mutually understood, like, yep, nope, we missed it on this one. Like Brad was like, I don't think this is me, and Crow was like, no, that's not you.
SPEAKER_02Billy Critup is a is a very, very handsome uh man, but um in this movie, like he needs to look like slightly more generic rock star than Brad Pitt would kind of give you. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess it was written with Pitt in mind, like he's supposed to be extremely sexy, and one of the key ideas is like Billy Cruddup is more relatable and he's getting all the attention.
SPEAKER_02And it's true because Billy Cruddub does does have the looks to back that up, but it's more relate his looks are more relatable than Brad Pitt's.
SPEAKER_01Yes, they are relatable. And I also think Billy Krdup um brings with him this underlying like he plays um a really intense masculine insecurity very well, uh, that I think has served him in so many of the other movies he's been in. Um and uh I think it's on full display here, but but he is an infuriating character in this movie, um and and very, I don't know, unlikable. But isn't it interesting that also um Sarah Poly was also gonna be considered for Penny Lane but dropped out at the same time that Brad Pitt did?
SPEAKER_02Uh that complet So we almost had That completely makes sense. Sarah Poly rule, she she's actually a director herself now, and she's uh just terrific.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um but I always love that what if stuff when it comes to casting. You know, what if because it is like you know, it it it is Kate Hudson's uh quintessential role, right?
SPEAKER_02It is her it's kinda it's kind of her only good one. I think is she good in anything else?
SPEAKER_01I can't think of any other maybe Songs on Blue this year. It it is just so owned by her in every way.
SPEAKER_02Um you know, it does make sense, it does make sense that he would shoot for somebody like Brad Pitt though, because he just worked with Tom Cruise and Jerry McGuire.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah, no, no, no, it makes sense. Um yeah, so and some other interesting behind-the-scenes stuff that I didn't realize. Uh, that the music written for the movie, the Stillwater Songs, um Cameron Crow's wife, Nancy Wilson, was in heart when she wrote uh three of the songs.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I did know that.
SPEAKER_01Peter Frampton wrote the other two. Um, and I guess Mike McCready of Pearl Jam is the person playing lead guitar every time we hear lead guitar in the movie.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's cool. Um yeah, I definitely Peter Frampton, I do think a lot of I I want to say Russell is kind of based on, or at least like some of the more unsavory elements of Russell's personality are a little based on Peter Frampton. I think. Um Okay. This could be here saying I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I heard that.
SPEAKER_01I mean he was a he was a technical consultant on the film, so maybe Cameron Crow was like, hey, just pay attention to the way he acts and just like do that weird shit.
SPEAKER_02Um every time I hear Peter Frampton, I just think of that uh Ways World joke, Frampton comes alive, everybody in the world in Frampton comes alive. He lived in the suburbs, you were issued it. Came in the mail with samples of Tide. Okay. We have to redo we have to redo that because that's an ab uh audience, that's that's an early abandoned episode that we never released.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we were having trouble figuring getting a grip on what we were doing. And when you know what, frankly, we're still having trouble getting a grip, but not exactly on this podcast. All right, I think we've talked enough for the first half here, teeing it up. I'm gonna be doing um my exploration of how this makes me feel from a queer othering perspective, and if I can remember anything about that time in middle school when we watched it. Alethea, I will see you on the other side. Uh, see you when we get back. I will see you uh back in 1973, Dan.
SPEAKER_05This week, rock star Billy Krudep gives a teenage journalist the story of his life, and almost famous. Winnet Peltro tests her luck with love and karaoke in duet. And federal agents track down a ruthless killer using Jenny Fox as base. Okay. Billy Kurtos is a rock god in the making, and Kate Huston is the groupie who loves him and Almost Famous. It's one of five new movies we'll be reviewing this week, and I'm Roger Evers, film critic for the Chicago Sunshines.
SPEAKER_04And I'm Richard Roper, columnist for the Chicago Sunshines. Almost Famous is a consistently funny and exceptionally insightful rock and roll movie that spends more time behind the scenes than on stage, as we see the ascension of a fictional 1970s group called Stillwater through the eyes of a boy wonder critic and a groupie from Caliban like sexy shadows. This is Cameron Crowe's first film since Jeremy Maguire, and it's his own story, as he really started out as a 15-year-old rock critic writing for Rolling Stone magazine. Crowe's on-screen altar ego with William Miller, played by legendary madman critics Western Bayes, for advice.
SPEAKER_03These people are not your friends. You know, these are people who should write sanctuary stories about the genius of rock stars, and you will ruin rock roles.
SPEAKER_04Now, once William gets a signal from all he's found to write about still watch, he dies with any.
SPEAKER_05But the thing is you go into a situation where you're talking to a guy, right? And you're the reporter, they're looking at you and they're thinking this is a case, but he has the power of the truth. Right. And if the way this is fine from all these things, you can use the guys. People probably not gonna understand how good this movie is. It has nothing to do with whether you like rock music or anything else. It's a human story. If you like good stories, if you like stories you can identify with, you will like this. You're right. Okay, our next movie is named Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, and it's sort of an American beauty cross with The Virgin Suicide.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Wow, Alethea, you were just like way too excited to get into this. I had to like stop you several times before we started recording because you just had so much to say about this movie.
SPEAKER_02It's true. Yeah. Um this was this is uh just such such a joy to um re-watch. I was also marveling at how a movie that at its time was like really kind of nostalgia baity. It was made with like a nostalgic rose-tinted perspective, like attached to the material. But a movie made in the early 2000s that is nostalgic for the early 70s makes me nostalgic for the early 2000s, where we were all nostalgic for the 70s.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, no, I I couldn't agree more. No, it's it there was a yeah, okay, so we can get into this. But yeah, no, my rewatch, you know, again, I had seen this one uh fairly recently. I think it's been like about two years since I've seen it, and it's just it really, it really is a classic. Uh in terms of just it not, it's just so great every time you watch it. And you know, it it is because it it is a music movie. I was watching it uh on a TV with some phenomenal sound, and anytime you cut to the band on stage and it just comes in so much louder than the rest of the movie, it really makes you want to rock. Like it's a great rock movie.
SPEAKER_02That first that first song performance, Fever Dog, you definitely feel that. You feel the excitement of being backstage.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the drums. Oh, yeah. You can tell that it's like and and yeah, and and written by what's her name from Heart. Like you can tell it, it's that's that's Cameron Crow's wife, I think. Yeah, they clearly designed that opening for the cinematic quality of it. The dr the way the drums come in and everything.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, and getting and getting pulled into the group huddle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's great.
SPEAKER_02Um okay, so so um there's a couple things I think. Um there are elements of this of this movie and the the way the story's told, and just you know, the um the the kind of sentimental sheen that's kind of over everything that um can feel a little rote at times, you know, if you like, I don't know, like don't have a heart. But uh also I think there's a few um elements of the writing that are really, really kind of good and like make it so memorable. And um one of them is that Stillwater is like like the what nobody's pretending that they're like an amazing rock band. Right. Like they're supposed to be kind of mid, like it's they're in, as Lester Banks says, the death rattle, you know, when like the corporations are starting to take over and they are like kind of the epitome of that. Yeah and like they're kind of lame, and I think that's sort of a master stroke of the story.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, no, definitely. Um the pressure of ego beyond just the rock star ego stuff, the fact that everybody is sort of um uh haunted by a sort of mythologized version of themselves, you know, Penny Lane, a whole different, a whole different um persona, you know, that she wraps around herself. Like she wraps that beautiful fur like uh coat she has, that thing. I don't know, you know, that quintessential article of clothing that she wears.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's like and it's and it's such a dramatic crux fire, or just like such an important dramatic moment later on when William learns that um that uh he was the only one she ever told her real name to. Even Russell didn't get that. It's like a little quiet victory at the end that he gets.
SPEAKER_01It is pretty great. Yeah, it is. So, okay, so you were saying beforehand, let's I just I also just want to mention it, is so because this is such a Hollywood movie in that, you know, it it is it is very much a we're gonna laugh, we're gonna cry kind of movie. And and there are there's comedy that is so built in and engineered and done well, right up against the serious drama. And then and it's just it does have that Hollywood um sheen and shine, and uh what's the quote uh from LA Weekly? Um the film shimmers with the irresistible pleasures that define Hollywood at its best. It's polished like glass, funny, knowing, and bright, and filled with characters who lives are invariably sexier and more purposeful than our own. And like that is such a key to a great movie. Yeah. It's why we go to the movie movies. Why we go to the movies. Yeah, it's why we go. Uh Cole Kidman.
SPEAKER_02Also, just also just the the the um just like amazing fantasy of this movie and knowing that like a version of it actually happened to Cameron Crow. Like it's just it's just such like a pulse-pounding adventure that like any young, like passionate and slightly nerdy person, or even not can like just really get behind.
SPEAKER_01Oh, definitely. And yeah, we can talk about that because I think there's some serious queerness going on there. Um, but uh like you were saying the joke of the movie's filled with these sort of um, I don't want to call them schlocky, but like funny, like uh era-based jokes. Like the the key one is Jimmy Fallon being like, if you think um Mick Jagger's still gonna be out there trying to be a rock star at age 50.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Historically, sadly mistaken.
SPEAKER_02Definitely there for a laugh. My favorite one is when uh Ben Fonctor is at the end. Um mentions that they have like an early facimile of a fax machine, and he's like, get this. It only takes 18 minutes a page.
SPEAKER_01I that's kind of a groaner. Because I even even in the 70s. No, but even in the 70s, they're like, yeah, I can send pages over the phone line, but like I could also just say it to you, and your secretary could write it down faster. You know, like there was some of that. So I don't think there was gonna be an ooing and an eyeing over like it takes 18 minutes, that's all. Like, I don't know, feels false to me. But whatever.
SPEAKER_02They might be in bad taste, but I always love when movies do that. Like in Titanic, when Rose is like something Picasso.
SPEAKER_01Right, I again. It's yes, you're right. It's it's like when they say the title in the movie. You can't help but be like, and so also you're saying right before we got on here, uh, so Philip Seymour Hoffman's part, Lester Bangs, they're based on a real life character. Yes, Lester Bangs.
SPEAKER_02Lester Bangs was a real rock critic, and I believe uh did serve a kind of as a kind of mentor figure for a young Cameron Crow. Uh according to Cameron Crow's new autobiography, The Uncool, which is amazing, by the way. Uh uh some of the key lines in there, like, hey, I've met you, you are not cool, like, oh man, you made friends of them. All that stuff he said is like taken directly from Lester Banks's real mouth. That's that's kind of gross. Uh, from his mouth to Cameron Crow's real mouth. But yeah, um, so I did the math, and uh Lester Banks died when he was 33 in 1982. And crazy. This takes place in 1973, at least the main part of the story.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I I can't stand for that. I mean, Philip Seymour Hoffman is not 25 years old when he's playing Lester Bangs in this movie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's like 30 four, probably, I think.
SPEAKER_01Really? Even that, I mean, he looks older. But yeah, no, just the idea that like somebody playing like a washed-up rock journalist, technically being 25, it just it does sort of make you queasy at our ripe age. Yeah, but also, I don't know, interesting, uh, interesting choices just in terms of like it it it obviously makes way more sense for the st the lines that are coming from um this character to be coming from somebody a little bit more grizzled, you know. Uh but hey, who knows? Maybe he looked 40 at 25. That was a thing that happened. Um yeah. Um you know, I do kind of want to say just about this sort of Hollywood Sheen thing, just to go off of that. You know, I do think this movie also has that sort of obvious retrospective memory thing that Stand By Me, the episode we just did, also has going on, where it is trying to say very like forthright, very, you know, uh in an unconcealed way, that like these are embellished memories, you know, that like I'm telling a good story based on what happened, and am I perhaps drawing together edges that were not naturally drawn together? Um and so again, I think if you can if you have the instinct to forgive it that falsehood, it becomes an absolute masterpiece. But if you are a little turned off by what feels like a veneer of falsehood not quite recognizing the lens, it it can come across as kind of silly. So I don't know. I think it's interesting. I think that's kind of where it hinges based on you know and how you're gonna take it in. Um but the reason it works so well is due to a couple of key things.
SPEAKER_02One, um Silwater being sort of a forgettable band. Um also, um let's talk about uh his mother for a second, played by the great Francis Victormond. Okay hold on, pause real quick. I gotta grab my beverage. My mouth is starting to be. Actually, I gotta grab my beverage too. I'm really glad you said that. I'll be right back.
SPEAKER_01So fine. Let's talk about the mother. What do you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_02Okay, well. Um I mean the mother character in this is a little I I think we could draw some analogues to your childhood experience. Oh, definitely. Oh yeah. Uh also definitely. But you know what though? You know what really makes her such a great character? Like little little little notes of sweetness, like the fact that she lets him go at all is like uh just adds like a star to this movie, I think. Yep.
SPEAKER_01No, I I I I think I mean it's a fascinating character. Somebody you really just want to know what her life was like that made her this way. Especially in this viewing, I was like, you know, okay, so how old is she gotta be in this movie? She's 40s, maybe, maybe late 30s, is when we first meet her.
SPEAKER_02She's like 29, probably. Oh god, please.
SPEAKER_01Eleven! Um but uh it it I you which I so okay, so the 70s, so she knows she's becoming a female intellectual in the 50s and sixties. Yeah, but she's like very conservative, though.
SPEAKER_02Like she thinks. I think she's a Nixon voter.
SPEAKER_01Well, no, she's sort of like a California conservative, in which it's like, I don't know, there is this there's a social liberalism tied to an intense desire for law and order and the and rules and things like that. Um You know, I I I do genuinely think that our that there was a kind of person back then that fell victim, not vuln, yeah. But was well convinced by the essential purity of sort of like rule of law and that there isn't nuance to things like drug abuse and that sort of thing. And and I don't know, I I don't know. I I don't wanna I I think she's Gestapo in a parental way. I don't think she's Gestapo in a political way, if that makes sense. Yeah. Same thing with my mother. Um and and yeah, and and you know, I I do think it's funny you watch her. It is, you know, when she's on the phone with Russell, that um that scene is so wild because you watch her go through her own internal journey where the moment she feels like she's wrested control, her tone changes, and suddenly she's appealing to him and and and and engaging with generosity of spirit and mind and things. And it's like that is such a type of person where they will be cagey, they will be on the attack, but the minute they have the upper hand, suddenly they're like, you know what, listen, this is all for your own good.
SPEAKER_02And apparently that was that's Cameron Crow's mom to a T. He said that is exactly her.
SPEAKER_01Because there is an intense gentleness, but also an intense sense to fight. And when you have that intense sense to fight and battle, especially for people you love in defense of them, or whatever, you know, her intentions may have really been. Like uh there are people who catch themselves once they realize, you know, their intensity and their anger has succeeded in some way, they rapidly back away from it because they're like, oh shit, that's not me. Even though I had to engage that in order to get my point across or rest control the situation or whatever. And and I don't know, it's just so the every scene is is so rich with a complex individual. You know, she is such a complex individual. Um, and not just a character who could have been played for laughs, is just like the crazy mom, you know?
SPEAKER_02But but but she still totally gets those laughs too, but they're just much richer than they otherwise would have been.
SPEAKER_01It's true. No, you're you're totally right. Sophisticated, uh sophisticated comedy.
SPEAKER_02I love the opening minutes, especially uh the the confrontation between Zoe De Chanel and her, and then when Zoe De Chanel just stands in front of her while she's playing Simon and Garfunkel as like her statement of why she's leaving to become a stewardess. Yep, I love it. And god, that sequence where where where he finds all the records she left him, and he's just like he's just like he's he's just like draping his fingers across like the covers, the like those beautiful old covers and playing Tommy and and she says if you light the candle you will see her whole f whole future and then the movie jumps into the future. It's good stuff.
SPEAKER_01I am I wrong. I thought I heard some perhaps apocryphal story that in real life she didn't leave him, you know, matches and a candle or whatever. She left him a joint with matches in the Tommy cover, and that's really what happened. But they had to make it a candle for the movie because they couldn't have an 11-year-old boy smoking a joint and kicking up.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, it should have been a joint. That would have been so much better.
SPEAKER_01But and also the idea being like, you know, you'll be cool, and it starts with a joint. Just like a little two on the heads are cool kid.
SPEAKER_02It's not his character. I mean, his character is a but his teetotaler.
SPEAKER_01You know what? I haven't even I haven't even looked that up to find whether there's any trace of this online. So this could be me just spouting bullshit, but I feel intensely like I remember that being the case. Uh maybe I should look it up. But anyway. So yeah, let's, you know, we've been talking for a minute here already. So I I know it's such a rich movie and there's so much to talk about, but I want to kind of get into the queerness angle and see if you had any thoughts about that. One of the things that I thought was sort of interesting that I noticed in this viewing, uh, in terms of how William is treated by the rest of the characters, specifically Penny Lane. Um, you know, we we know that, you know, it is sort of true one way or another, no matter how you look at it, that that that they're treating him as kind of a non-male, almost like a non-threat, like like he's a man the way. Sort of a unit. Exactly, exactly. And and there was a there were moments throughout the beginning with Penny Lane, especially when she's just sort of, you know, being very up close and and intimate with him, and then an arm's length away, you know, like she's really treating him like a gay best friend, you know. She's really treating him as such a non-threat, and also in so many ways, like like one of the girls, you know, and very obviously like go up to the top of the steps with the rest of the girls, you know. God, that's probably why I love this movie so much.
SPEAKER_02Because I I just I remember I I remember having just very vivid sensations watching this and just seeing the way like girls interacted. This is true in life too, but just the way girls interacted and me just like so not having that in my life and just like longing for it and feeling like I was being robbed of that.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's so true.
SPEAKER_02There is very different from how boys relate to each other.
SPEAKER_01Yes. But it's also this is a movie um that's very much about camaraderie, you know. Uh what's the news? There's a newsweek quote, David Ansey says, character-driven, it relies on chemistry, camaraderie, a sharp eye for detail, and good casting. Like so much of the movie is carried on the way the people are with each other, you know? And just I, you know, there are moments where Kate Hudson is mugging for the camera where I'm just like, oh, I can see how you were like given, you know, did she win best actress for this? Or was she just nominated? She was nominated. She did not win. Nominated. Oh, okay. I can see why she didn't win, actually. But I can see why she was nominated. Because there are moments where the cameras like hanging on her, especially when she quote unquote meets Russell Hammond for the first time and they have that weird like and she just sort of like wipes her nose.
SPEAKER_02Well, but it's but it's made, but it's made clear that they actually do know each other.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah, and then hold on her making faces. Nothing is said, but she just goes through a range of just like just like cute faces. Well, but she's like she's got that Goldie Hond smile. It's just magic. Right. No, I'm saying it works. It works unbelievably well. But I think it's kind of silly. I don't know if you're familiar with that viral video of I forget what the influencer is, but she's like on the beach and she like flips her hair and she like smiles, then like looks intensely into the character, into the camera, and then sort of like laughs again, like just going through like a mugging range of emotions. And it, you know, and it and and it went viral for being like, look at look at this fakery, you know? But Kate Hudson does it, and it doesn't seem fake at all. It's like you have to be able to go, you have to ha ha laugh, and then you have to also kind of just get a little bedroomized, like, oh my god, I have a secret, but also, oh my god, no, I don't have a secret, I'm so silly. I'm just gay, I'm just being silly with you. Like, oh god. Life is life is absurd, truly absurd. Life is absurd. Maha girls are absurd, frankly. But yeah, no, no, uh, to to get back to William and and being stuck in this feminine camaraderie thing. I don't know. It's he is rendered so oddly in that you know fundamentally from the get-go that he is entranced by um Penny Lane. And and he he so clearly wants her so badly. But like, not just out of fear of making an overture, but it's almost like he he doesn't have the compulsion towards I don't know, there's it's strange. He is he is sexless, even in the moment where he's supposedly you know, the first of what can be construed as sexual assaults scenes where he's losing his virginity in the in the flower the kid. Let's deflower the kid, you know. And you know, yeah, I mean at that point in the movie he's 16, right? Or is he 17? You know, but at least you know when you meet him. Is he 15 the entire movie?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the movie only takes place over a few months.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I thought it took place over like a year.
SPEAKER_02I don't think so. I don't know, I don't know. A couple of months. Um yeah. But also, but also, I mean, uh he he is raised by women, you know, so he has a different perspective and a different relationship to femininity than I think most like rock and roll dudes at then would have. Who were like trading like 14-year-old girls between them and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, right. No, and then there's a lot so there's a lot of obvious and thematically important objectification of people taking place in this movie. And for the women at least, from the get-go, there's like a sharp recognition that it's like what we're gonna be objectified, so how do we make it so that we're not? You know, how do we elevate this so that we can fight off being uh inevitably objectified, you know, for being hot girls on the road. But in the same sort of way, uh, you know, William is objectified too. He is objectified, he's made a death. Decoration on the tour in the same way the girls are. You know, it's a way to pump up everybody's ego to be like, yeah, we're traveling with a journalist. You know, he's Rolling Stone is paying for his shit. All we have to do is let him on the bus.
SPEAKER_02Like they also don't know he's 15.
SPEAKER_01They don't. And it is a and I, you know, I didn't quite realize that that call with um William's mother. Oh, uh, and and Russell, where she's like, where she tells Russell that he's 15 and he kind of like looks back over his shoulder.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Uh that look is so good. It has so much in it.
SPEAKER_02And just a sort of it's like he's trying to scrub like his his drunken memory of like, were any crimes committed?
unknownLike, holy shit.
SPEAKER_01For real, though, for real. But no, it's the there is a there is an objectification of him and and and and he senses it, and you see that it's part of the journey. This this isn't deep down, but I do think that there is a queer adjacent struggle with sexual sexual identity and sexual sort of existence in the world. You know, like when he's screaming at the room full of people, like, what am I to you? Tell me right now what am I? And then that could cut to him pulling the laundry down the hall. Um but and she calls him opi and everything, but like it's clear that he's like, Okay, you you bro you accept me, you bring me in, but I'm still so on the outside, aren't I? Because none of you look at me like a man, none of you are looking at me like a real sexual object. You you're looking at me even when you are looking at me sexually, it's like a plaything for the girls, you know, because I'm non-threatening in my sexuality and my gender as a man. I'm just like a it is like a eunuch, very much so. And he seems stuck in that. He seems stuck in the in in the like, oh fuck, am I a eunuch? Like like, oh no, oh no. Like, is this is this just because I'm young? Is this my personality? Like, like, I am I ever actually gonna be like cool in a way that makes me desirable and fuckable the way somebody like Russell Hammond is?
SPEAKER_02Like I know it's and you just want to be like, calm down, kid, you're gonna be a famous director one day.
SPEAKER_01And and the casting is remarkably good because you know what, even he has sort of a Kate Hudson smile in that like he will be bashful to characters, and you can see the characters soften at this just sort of like goofy, adorable, pinchable-cheeked grin, you know. And it's funny the way you see it happen in the movie in ways where it's like, is this the actor wielding an expression that he knows he wields well, or is this William wielding an expression you know he wields well? And and I'm looking at it because it, I don't know, it it is it is really good character work in the sort of wide open-eyed way that he exists, that still has this pinprick intensity of hunger that is almost predatory, you know? But and I might have some controversial opinions here if we can move on to the more prominent moment of of um sexual impropriety when he kisses a a passed out Penny Lane during her overdose.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, part of what really makes that like hard to forgive is that it is 100% play for romance. We are we are we are meant to feel um uh not repulsed by that.
SPEAKER_01It's an incredibly well, but but it still manages to be I don't know. A is such a stupid line. I'm about to go where many, many men have gone before. It's delivered poorly because I think the actor is like, I don't know if this is right. Who am I talking to here, really? Like, and and and the fact that it is icky, it's icky one way or you know, no matter what. I will say though.
SPEAKER_02Wait, but but then it cuts to her like having her stomach pumped, and that Stevie Stevie Wonder song starts playing.
SPEAKER_01And he's just staring at her dreamily. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, she's maybe I mean, maybe that's an acknowledgement, actually, that that you know, that was improper. Yeah, he's seeing such a bizarre moment.
SPEAKER_01In her he's seeing her at in her weakest, most disgusting moment he's ever seen her in. It's like he loves her more. Yeah, and but no, you know what? I I I I kind of see that too. And again, I don't think that there that it is enough to be redemptive for the behavior itself, but like there is a revelation he has after doing that, after you know, stealing the kiss and then you know witnessing her there. There is a sort of I think he does sort of have a come to God moment of like, what what what am I after really here? You know, what am I looking for? Um, and yeah, I don't know. Uh and but but so here's but part of my math in why, you know, I mean what when that when the moment happened, my roommate who hadn't seen it in years but had seen it, he was like, Oh god, he was like he had like forgotten about the kiss. He was like, ew. Like the visceral reaction to it is quite pronounced these days, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but back then, back then it really wasn't like seen as a big deal.
SPEAKER_01I know, and it's kind of remarkable too, because because but because there is on some level this okay, he's like he's a he's a he's a eunuch and he's taking advantage of a vulnerability, but like he's it's just a kiss in some ways, and and and it definitely in the 70s of it all, it's the whole it's just a kiss. Like stealing a kiss is nothing.
SPEAKER_02But but it's also pathetic, like you you you don't have the balls to kiss her if she's pathetic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But also again, I think it hails back to my sensation that it's like he has been suffering in objectification this entire movie for from his own state of being. And he's also been witness to all of this wanton objectification of women that the women seem to navigate or don't care about, or like even with the you know, being sold for a case of beer, like it was devastating for her, but still it's like, uh, what what kind of beer, right? was the line, you know, like that's still a recognition that this is all part of it. It's it's like he's like he tries in that moment to be like, what is it, what does it feel like to do that to other people the way that I've seen it being done to the girls and to me? Like he he tries it in a way that is again not justifiable, but he himself at that point in the movie is at such a breaking point. But instead of breaking, he he steals a disgusting little kiss. And I think that makes it kinda magical, even though it's sort of a vile move, if that makes sense. Yeah. I don't know. Um but really only if I, you know, do the math that way. And if you actually agree with the with the idea that that that he is um managing the realization of his own self as an object to other people, um that can be considered in a way that he's never been considered his whole life, seen in a way he's never felt seen in his whole life, and still not be sort of allowed fully into the thing. That is such a queer experience. I'm sorry. It really is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's interesting. Um do you okay, do you think the big plane cr the the aborted plane crash sequence, do you think that works?
SPEAKER_01Uh it's sillier than it needs to be, I think.
SPEAKER_02I agree, but goddamn if it doesn't like get me, like when it really like crests when he just starts telling each of them off as they're like, you know, uh facing death.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yes. I I think from a from a writing perspective, I I think there is a Deus Ex Machina thing going on here where it's like, how do we get these characters to just finally say it to each other? And it's like the easiest sort of solution to jump to that sort of high stakes thing is to make it so that everyone's about to die. You know, like I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, but you'll see rock stars and plane crashes. There's uh some very big uh very big cases where we lost uh some very promising rock and roll stars due to trouble in the skies.
SPEAKER_01Ray, what the fuck is up with that? Why did it seem like that was constantly happening and then doesn't happen anymore? Is it just like better planes? You know, like what's going on? What's good, what's going on there?
SPEAKER_02I think so, yeah. I mean, who we got? Plane crashes in general. We got Buddy Holly, fucking Leonard Skinner crashed. Who else? Uh there's others.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know. That is kind of wild. I guess people were always dying in planes back then, but you yeah, I don't know. Um I don't like planes. Don't like them, Dan. Don't like them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I broke, I like I like I like it down here. Yeah, where we belong, where God put us. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Right? Yep. So yeah, no, I that I think the watching it this whole time, that's kind of my um whole sort of like queer theory on this movie, is that uh he is being pushed into a queer space by all of the characters without him identifying as queer, you know? Um he's being he has he has an othered gender, he has an othered sexuality, and he is becoming aware of that as it's happening to him, which is kind of like a sexual awakening, except that he's like, No, no, I'm not these things that you say I am, that I'm being pushed into being. I I am the enemy, you know? Like, I am full of Vim and vigor.
SPEAKER_02I am dangerous and seriously pissed off. And she just and she just giggles at him like sweetie.
SPEAKER_01I know. I feel like I've had those moments my entire life. I'm sorry. Uh there I just I think back to I think back to the time during our crucible rehearsal in high school when like I just ad-libbed a really intense like yes or something, and everybody burst into laughter on stage. Here I am thinking I'm eating it up, being like, damn, am I dramatic? And every and people cannot hold it together. That's how funny it is.
SPEAKER_02Daniel, I not only remember this vividly, but I was standing directly next to you and you said and you did that like to my face. And I remember just the laughs bursting out of me. Why don't you people see that I'm terrifying? Thank you for reminding me of that. That's gonna keep me keep me laughing.
SPEAKER_01But no, I have I have had numerous humiliations like that in my life where I think I'm eating it, and everybody's like, you are not.
SPEAKER_02Um that should be the title of your your autobiography, numerous humiliations. Eating it. Not eating it, eating it. Um speaking of autobiographies, I cannot recommend Cameron Crow's book, The Uncool, enough. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So fucking good. So fucking good. Go check it out. Okay, so we've been talking for 34 minutes here. Danny, should we cover anything else? Is there anything you've been, it's one of those movies we could devote a lot more to it. We could go piece by piece because it's just phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02But well, as as we mentioned before, we're going to be covering the long, uh untitled or bootleg cut uh as a bonus episode. And I don't know, like it's been a minute since I've seen that cut, and I remember liking it, but watching the theatrical, everything just flows so well and it's like so economic, but still like sort of like at an epic length, or it still kind of feels that way. I was like, I don't have I don't see how this could be made better by extra material. So I'm going to be very I'm gonna be very interested. I'm gonna be very interested to see if it indeed uh is better and all that stuff's necessary, or if that material is just good on its own. Okay, but not necessary. Well then I'm not sure. I have a lot of like Cinephile friends for whom the longer cut is like the only version they've ever like bothered watching. And that's so strange to me because like my childhood is so like I or my uh early adolescence is like really tied to this cut of this movie in particular. That and like Daisy Confused were very big around the same time for me.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Daisy Confused. We were gonna do that in the first season that we didn't. Why didn't we?
SPEAKER_02I don't remember. Well, we should do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we should do it. I it's been a year since I watch it, I think. I you know, I always just try and drag people in who haven't seen it before so I can try and do a fresh eyes thing with it. Um all right, well then let's cut it off here and we're gonna save our more granular beat-by-beat exploration of this movie for the bonus when we do a compare and contrast of this in the bootleg cut. Yeah. Um, what do you say?
SPEAKER_02Uh I say, I say yay. I say Daniel, are you where are you right now?
SPEAKER_01I'm in Los Angeles in Highwater Village.
SPEAKER_02Are you home? Yes. Me too. I'm always home. I'm on cool.
SPEAKER_01She's setting me up for a line from the movie. All right, it's enough of that. Alright, everybody, thank you so much for joining us again this week. Um, small chance, not confirmed, that we might just be throwing a bonus episode at you coming up instead of a regular weekly release because summer is getting a little crunched for us.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stand by me, we'll be done on time.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I'm not talking about that. We're just gonna just give us some padding here. Uh, just in case. You know, you'll be surprised. Um, but yeah, do not miss our bonus episode on the bootleg version of Almost Famous. Um, and as always, thank you for joining us as we uh reflect on our friendship and the movies we love.
SPEAKER_02Well, this one, this this one in particular was a real special one for me to add this movie uh very special. This movie is like a warm, a warm blanket full of hugs. All right, everyone. Hope you're having a lovely summer. Alethea, uh, I'm gonna be in New York soon. Can't wait to see you. I can't wait to see you either. And um, I'm trying not to freak out, but rock stars have kidnapped my son. All right, we'll get him back.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, and takes a note. All right, great. All right, bye, Daryl.
SPEAKER_02Bye.