cameron crowe Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Would you want your children to know you were the real-life inspiration for a famous tale of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll? Fast Times at Ridgemont High holds up as a heady brew of authentic teen life in the late 70s / early 80s, mixed with a fine sense of the absurd and served up by an amazing cast. It's definitely a teen sex comedy that DOESN'T suck. The movie's 25th anniversary two years ago inspired plenty of "Where Are They Now" recollections; our own Erik Davis offered his observations on an eye-opening gallery of "then and now" images for the cast.

Before the movie, however, there was the book, and before the book, there were the real-life students of Clairemont High School in San Diego, California. Cameron Crowe, then 22, went undercover at the school in 1979 to research a book on teen life. He'd graduated from another area school in 1972 -- at the age of 15! -- and was busy writing for Rolling Stone (as documented in Almost Famous), so he took a refresher course by soaking in the atmosphere at the school. Recently the class held its 30-year reunion and it turns out that some of those students have become very protective parents, according to a report in The San Diego Union-Tribune.

One graduate won't let his 15-year-old son watch the movie: "We are not going to show it to him until he's in college." The former class president says she finally allowed her daughter, a senior at the school, to read Crowe's book but isn't ready yet to allow her to see the flick, though she admits that it accurately portrayed the sex and drug activity among teens at the time.

Now that most of us acquire our music online these days, radio DJs don't have the same sway as taste-makers that they used to. But in the '70s, the final word in rock music was Rodney Bigenheimer. In George Hickenlooper's 2003 documentary about the infamous DJ and rock music icon, Mayor of Sunset Strip, we are shown Bigenheimer as an awkward and strange little fellow who, in the end, did it all for the music. Now, thanks to the nice folks at SlashControl you can now watch the documentary as one of their collection of (pretty awesome) free movies.

You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Bigenheimer was one of the biggest names in the rock music scene, and was credited with helping to break bands like The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Nirvana, and even Coldplay. Bigenheimer has been relegated to the 'graveyard shift' these days at KROQ, but considering that Hickenlooper was able to get appearances from some of the biggest names in rock (everyone from Mick Jagger to Rob Zombie) you can't deny Bigenheimer still has some clout.

Hickenlooper's film is more than just a walk down music history lane. It also manages to show you someone who truly loves the music, and maybe it's a little sad that it never quite loved him back. But this documentary reminds us that his legend lives on -- you might even remember a certain homage to Bigenheimer in Cameron Crowe's rock n' roll tale, Almost Famous when he works in one of Rodney's famous quotes "It's all happening!", and during the 'Mayor's' reign at KROQ, it really was...

Watch The Mayor of Sunset Strip at SlashControl

The 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray and DVD of Say Anything came out yesterday, and to mark the occasion, numerous men with lots of free time dressed up in trench coats and hoisted boomboxes above their heads and marched throughout New York City serenading people with the strains of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes," and a cover version of the same song by The Lloyd Dobler Effect. Check them out in the gallery below.

Damn, that movie came out 20 years ago? That makes me feel incredibly old. The first time I saw that movie will be forever burned into my brain since it was my first and only date with the captain of the women's volleyball team in high school. However, the movie on Blu-ray looks better than it ever did back in theaters, circa 1989, and hopefully it'll inspire legions of Lloyd Dobler fans for years to come that will fare better than I did.

The Blu-ray version of the movie is a 1080p high-definition upgrade of the original DVD release from 2002, along with a newly remastered 5.1 audio mix. In addition to the upgraded image and sound, this includes all the features from the previous version (commentary from Cameron Crowe, John Cusack, Ione Skye, deleted scenes, and more), along with three new featurettes. The best of the bunch is "An Iconic Film Revisited: Say Anything... 20 Years Later" featuring new interviews with Crowe, Cusack, Skye, John Mahoney, and Nancy Wilson.

You all remember the romantic rite of passage known as the mix-tape, right? Where you would try and convey how deep, charming, profound, and downright cool you were by compiling a group of songs for your intended? In the world of movies, filmmakers use songs all the time to create a mood, explain an emotional 'state of mind', or even to fill in what they don't have time to explain. As it turns out, so do we, and that's where the art of the mix-tape comes in. But this isn't just about music, and Cinematical is a film site after all, so I thought it would be fun to put together a little mix tape of songs I've come to love thanks to hearing them in the movies.

Now before we start, I should warn you that my mix tape isn't just a collection of run-of-the-mill love songs, because as I keep telling everyone, I'm not a run-of-the-mill girl. Instead, I've put together a 'celluloid compilation', that if given to me would guarantee that I fell head over heels into film geek love.

After the jump; some movie songs that would woo me right off of my feet (in no particular order)...

If ever there was a director who truly loved rock and roll it's Cameron Crowe. The man started his illustrious career as a rock journalist and as a film maker, and he also made one of the greatest rock movies of all time, Almost Famous. Grunge legends Pearl Jam and Crowe go way back; the band appeared in his film Singles, and Crowe helped put together Pearl Jam's Single Video Theory back in 2000. Now, Crowe has made music videos in the past, but this has to be the perfect combination of band and director because nobody respects rock and roll more than Crowe ... and nobody takes it more seriously than Pearl Jam.

Back in May, the band showed up at Seattle's Showbox for a surprise concert with Crowe behind the camera shooting a commercial for a deal between the band and the discount retailer, Target -- and yes, you just read that right. I guess everyone involved was happy enough with the footage -- so happy that it became the basis for the music video for their new song, "The Fixer", included on their upcoming album Backspacer, which will debut via iTunes and Target on September 20.

Pearl Jam had infamously refused to make music videos back in 1992, and other than an animated creation for Do the Evolution (courtesy of Todd McFarlane) they have stuck to their word. I have to admit, as much as I admired their principles, I kind of missed seeing the band in action. Maybe I've been out of the Pearl Jam loop for a while, but dang if this isn't a happening little track and a pretty cool looking video -- and the coffee-drinking, flannel wearing gal who still lives somewhere inside me couldn't be happier.

After the jump: Pearl Jam's The Fixer...

Sometimes navel gazing is a good thing, if an artist looks truly and honestly inside him or herself for material. If they're truly gifted, and can tap into something universal or human, the result can be a masterwork. But if the artist finds himself too far removed from everyday life, or if their visions and ideas are too close to home to find a logical shape, the result can be something of a mess. Navel-gazing dramas are a dime a dozen, but it takes a special talent to try it with comedy. Judd Apatow's Funny People was the #1 movie in a very slow week, which shows that audiences were probably about as fond of it as critics were. I would bet the main complaint across the board was the same: it's too long. Either way, there's usually something interesting about these projects.

1. Elizabethtown (2005)
Though Apatow is catching up, Cameron Crowe is the #1 comedy navelgazer in the history of cinema. This rambling, sprawling thing was supposed to be a cute romantic comedy about a depressed schlub whose life is turned around by a cute airline stewardess. Unfortunately, too many useless subplots about funerals and forgotten bands get in the way, in addition to the fact that the male character is overwritten and underplayed by Orlando Bloom, and the female character is underwritten and overplayed by Kirsten Dunst. The whole thing culminates in a weird musical, mix-tape road trip odyssey that must have lit Crowe's fire, but didn't spark for anyone else.

The realm of music documentaries is about to get a little grungy. Billboard reports that Pearl Jam is itching to get a documentary made about themselves, and they want old friend Cameron Crowe to do it: "We're building up to our big 20th anniversary," McCready said. "We're trying to have a little campaign of building rereleases with new mixes and new outtakes up until that time. We're trying to do a movie with Cameron Crowe with all of our existing footage."

In other words, a sort of reunion movie with the man who gave us Singles all the way back in 1992. As you might remember, the members of Pearl Jam acted as the rest of Matt Dillon's "Citizen Dick" band, which leads me to this Scenes We Love clip -- Dillon's Cliff all eager to hear only the good things in a review of their band, which results in the awesome silence followed by "...other than that, he was ably backed by Stone, and Jeff, and drummer Eddie Vedder... I mean, that's good."
Seeing this makes me wish that there was a Crowe clone that could be sent back in time and take all the footage himself. The only thing cooler than music docs made by Crowe is music docs filmed by Crowe. And speaking of the filmmaker, when will he wipe Elizabethtown from our memories and give us more classics, beloved, and music-filled movie wonder? It looks like that Volcano Romance won't be it...

This just in: Zack Snyder's use of Leonard Cohen's Hallejuah made moviegoers around the world forget they were watching Dan and Laurie get it on. I don't know where their minds were yanked to, but everyone found it distracting.

I was one of the few who didn't. In fact, I would say John Cale's version in Shrek was more distracting, considering the sexual themes of the song and the movie it was playing in. Then again, Shrek was full of adult moments, and Hallejuah was probably just another thing for the parents to enjoy.

But as always, we like to take such mildly combative subjects and put them up for discussion here. Surely there's a ton of moments in movie music history that yanked you right out of the film and left you giggling, wincing, or rolling your eyes.

On the goofy end of the scale, I would offer Top Gun, with Kenny Loggins' Playing with the Boys as a bunch of shirtless hunks play volleyball, or any of the power ballads in Rocky IV. (Still, freedom was against the ropes in that movie. Maybe I'm being too harsh.)

On the "ok, but too obvious" scale is the use of U2's Pride (In the Name of Love) in Elizabethtown. Normally, Cameron Crowe's music is impeccable, but playing it while Orlando Bloom is standing outside of where Martin Luther King was assassinated? Yeah. Not good. There's tons of moments like these. Let's write the definitive list here.

(And in order to give credit where it's due -- this idea was partly inspired by a discussion I had on the /filmcast last week ... which was partly inspired by our Good Music from Mediocre Movies debate here on Cinematical. It's like a sweater that keeps on knitting and knitting.)

So we've all heard of the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, right? Well step aside Ms. Thang, because there's a new clichéd sheriff in town, and this time she's equal parts cute, cuddly and quirky. Before I get started, I just want to make sure you know I think Natalie Portman, Kirsten Dunst, and Penelope Cruz are wonderfully talented actresses. Unfortunately, I also happen to think these gals have perpetuated one of the most cloying and sickeningly adorable characters to ever grace the screen: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (it's a mouthful, but bear with me...).

Maybe the easiest way to define an MPDG is to leave it to the originator of the term, Nathan Rabin, who first used it when reviewing Elizabethtown. According to Rabin, the MPG is "that bubbly, shallow, cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." Or maybe an easier definition is pretty much any girl in a Cameron Crowe film ... or Natalie "My hair's blowin' in the wind" Portman in Garden State, who seems to be everyone's pick for the most annoying MPG in cinematic history.

So what makes this character different from other free-spirited, whimsical ladies like Susan Vance in Bringing up Baby or Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's? Well, there is a very small difference, and it's that the MPG has no function other than to support our sulky fellow as he makes sense of his suspended adolescence or commitment issues. The MPG in the end isn't even a fully realized character; she has no storyline or purpose other than to serve as a romantic vision for our mopey hero -- maybe it's a small distinction, but hey, the devil is in the details.

Cont'd...

Judging from the most opaque details that Variety has run regarding writer-director Cameron Crowe's next project -- his first in four years since the much-maligned Elizabethtown -- it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that Crowe is perhaps hedging his bets with a more reliable genre effort.

According to the trade publication, "Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon will star in an untitled Cameron Crowe romantic comedy adventure at Columbia Pictures." Since that's quite literally the gist of it, it seems fair to infer that the film will skew closer to Crowe's similarly themed and relatively successful Say Anything..., Singles, and Jerry Maguire than anything else on the man's resume, and I say that as someone who loves Almost Famous, dug Vanilla Sky, and will give Elizabethtown a second chance once there's nothing else on television.

For all we know, it could end up being some wildly unique "romantic comedy adventure," although it's not like the bar has been set incredibly high. While I do enjoy the works of Judd Apatow, the rom-com genre appears to have boiled down to his efforts and those of whichever cast member of 'Grey's Anatomy' couldn't resist a generic pitch and an easy paycheck; as such, having Crowe return to the field might be just what we all need.