Thursday, April 13, 2006

Don’t tell Cameron Crowe, but I may be his biggest accidental fan in the greater Norshore area. This isn’t really a compliment, I know, and yet accidental fandom must be explained, because we’re like normal fans, with decoder rings and t-shirts and everything, only we’re not sure how we got the rings and t-shirts and whether they’re even for Mr. Crowe.

The dots have always been on the page–Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, Elizabethtown–and one day they connected themselves. A few months ago, I saw Vanilla Sky again, and somewhere in the middle of the movie it just made sense. I got it. It’s not the plot, mind you, so much as his watermark. Wes Anderson has his unique brand of humor, for instance, and Ridley Scott’s films usually have some serious meat to them.

Crowe’s movies are expansive, the kind of media that encourages you to stretch your limbs. There aren’t many complicated set pieces, like the overwrought bug pit in King Kong, but there’s a certain mood that stays with you. Your insides simply feel wide. I also had another Cadbury Creme Egg today. Man, was it awesome.