Movie Trailers

• Directors: Cameron Crowe
• Producers: Cameron Crowe, Lisa Stewart, Ian Bryce
• Writers: Cameron Crowe
• Genres: Drama, Music
• Actors: Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Jason Lee, Patrick Fugit, Anna Paquin, Fairuza Balk, Noah Taylor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman

In 1973, William Miller (Patrick Fugit) is a 15-year-old boy aspiring to be a rock-and-roll journalist, despite the desires of his eccentric, overprotective mother, Elaine (Frances McDormand), who wants him to go into law. Shunned by his classmates (most of whom are two or three years older than he is), he writes for underground papers in his hometown, San Diego.

He goes one morning to watch as a local radio station interviews pioneering rock journalist Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The two hit it off, and Bangs gives William a $35 assignment to write up a Black Sabbath concert. William, without credentials or a ticket, cannot get into the arena. He meets up with some semi-groupies who call themselves “Band-Aides,” named Estrella Starr (Bijou Phillips), Polexia Aphrodisia (Anna Paquin), and Sapphire (Fairuza Balk), as well as their leader, Penny Lane (Kate Hudson). Then he runs into the opening band on the card, Stillwater, who was running late. At first they dismiss him as a journalist, “the enemy”, but when he calls them by their names and praises their most recent work in detail, they realize that he is a genuine fan and allow him backstage.

…

The final scenes are a picture of the cover of the Rolling Stone issue that will feature William’s story with Russell’s picture on the front with the rest of the band behind him. We then see images of Penny leaving on her dream trip to Morocco, William at home with his sister and mother, and of Doris, which will take the band (without William) on its 1974 tour (with the marquee “NO MORE AIRPLANES TOUR 1974″). Though, as Bangs suggested, rock ‘n’ roll may be changing from an art form to a profit center, it is implied that at least Stillwater will be immune from this.