Almost Famous (2000)'s activity

I watched the extended cut of Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical Almost Famous (some 35 minutes longer), and it on a lazy Sunday afternoon, it doesn't really feel like it's too long and it's hard to figure out what WASN'T in the original. This tribute to the rock'n'roll scene of the early 70s, using fictional band Stillwater as a composite group to hang other bands' stories on, has 15-year-old Crowe stand-in William Miller (Patrick Fugit) follow the group on tour to write an article for Rolling Stone while trying to avoid becoming friends with "the enemy". Fugit hits a ceiling when he's supposed to be angry, but he's very good at quieter emotional moments, and his wide-eyed, open-hearted observer persona is incredibly sympathetic. Other actors at the start of their careers here include Zooey Deschanel (not good), Jay Baruchel (amusing) and of course Kate Hudson, who go on to win an Academy Award and trade it for bad romcoms. She's lustrous as the band's super-groupie, but the people who steal the show for me are Billy Crudup whose rock god genius persona seems to be what he's recapturing on The Morning Show these days, and Frances McDormand as William's highly-educated but over-protective mom - she's hilarious and a force to be reckoned with. Almost Famous, in any edit, has a lot of memorable moments and obviously, a killer soundtrack, but it's sweet too. At the longer length, it's like living through a Behind the Music special and maybe the fabricated movie moments call more attention to themselves (like the plane crash scene), but I'm not complaining.