I wonder whether one couldn’t tie this movie (and rock’n'roll?) thematically to On The Road, where the overall journey is a nightmarish disaster, but the first initial steps are so “liberating” and exciting that they’re what lingers in the memory, especially for those of us observers who don’t actually have to live through it.

Anything about rock music is an autopsy.

Rock is dead, it died quietly, when Rap and Hip Hop took over-and filled the world with misogyny.

Good grief, you have to be 45 to remember Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

I don’t know Crowe’s other movies besides Jerry Macguire, although the penchant for using Cruise is obviously a bad sign.

With ALMOST FAMOUS, I now think he might have felt that he had given enough clues–she’s going to Morocco, the band’s name is Stillwater–that he could present the sentimentalist ending without it becoming an authoritative take, but be seen by perceptive viewers as William’s somewhat self-deceptive take. But even if so, this just doesn’t work–the sentimentality and complacent love of what is “so 70s!” takes over.