Elizabethtown (2005) -vs- Almost Famous (2000)

Two Cameron Crowe movies about protagonists without fathers in their lives square off. The defending champion, Almost Famous, puts a 15-year-old version of Cameron himself on the road as a teenage reporter for "Rolling Stone" magazine. The challenger, Elizabethtown, puts a twentysomething failed shoe designer on the road to pick up his dad's body and bring his ashes home.

Cameron Crowe really doesn't know how to make a movie that truly sucks. His output has been uniformly above-the-norm. The list of his movies that I love includes Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. So knowing that a new Cameron Crowe film was out was a cause for great anticipation.

What I discovered is that, brilliant as he is, Crowe is not quite perfect. I like Elizabethtown a lot in many places, but I didn't love it all and there are some uncharacteristically flat moments. Having said that, however, an average Crowe film is better than a good film from a lot of other people. That's because he aspires to touch your heart with his writing and directing and almost always does. In this case, not as deeply, and not as honestly, as some of his other films, but he still touches it.

Crowe appears to be honoring his own father, with this film. Apparently, he died unexpectedly in 1989 of a heart attack, when Crowe was just starting to get noticed in the film industry. I lost my father a few years ago about two weeks before I was elected chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. I can definitely relate to the sense that somehow there were opportunities missed and that regrets are inevitable. Yet, even with this being true, the only path is forward, forgiving yourself, appreciating the life that has passed, and hoping to appreciate other parts of life more fully because of the experience. So props for putting that emotion on film, but a shake of the head about how little we learn about how Orlando Bloom's Drew Baylor actually felt about his dad. I'm sure Crowe was being subtle, but he was one shade too indistinct for my taste.

This isn't much of a fight, though, because Almost Famous is one of those truly perfect films for my taste. It's funny, touching, nostalgic, insightful. It just works on so many levels. Even though the relationships with a 70s touring rock band are more rarefied than a today character dealing with the loss of his dad and a new love, the Almost Famous version still rings more true. Every film is a thousand different decisions, nobody gets them all perfect usually (there's always The GodfatherElizabethtown, I'm still shaking my head over Susan Sarandon's tap-dancing, the elastic time frame in the relationship between Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, and how some of it feels just a little too pat or too cute. exception), but Crowe's 2000 hit gets a significantly higher percentage. In

William Miller (played by Patrick Fugit) gets this advice from legendary rock critic Lester Bangs in Almost Famous: "Be honest and unmerciful."

Almost Famous. Because if Crowe had followed Bangs' advice while in script, he'd have made a handful of better decisions, and could have made a great film rather than just a good one.