Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs (Almost Famous)

Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great character actor, and everybody can remember him in half a dozen of great roles, where he plays everything, from an introverted nurse, into a world class vilain, but his portrayal of Lester Bangs in "Almost Famous", is still one of his finest, and for various reasons.

The first reason is because Lester Bangs was one of the greatest Rock Critics of all times which means that it will inevitably lead to a direct comparing, and how do you compare to somebody with such a charisma or even give him justice on screen, and the second is that "Almost famous" is semi-autobiographical, it's about the life of the writer-director Cameron Crowe, when he was a teen journalist for Rolling Stone Magazine, and touring the untied states with bands like The Who, or Led Zepplin, in the same fashion depicted in the film, which means that the film is also personal, and everybody knows what personal often means in cinema.

Lester Bangs was famous for his irreverance towards the "Rock Stars" which he saw as "people who were not that special", he is still very influencial as a rock critic years after his death at ayoung age, but the most important fact is that in the movie he acts as the mentor for Henry Miller (Cameron Crowe's alter ego), and that means that the task was not easy, considering the small screen time offred to SHH, who had to make the mentor-student believable to the student himself years later.

The movie is about the journey of Teenage William Miller and the audience into the glamourous world of seventies Rock music and touring, and it's fast paced life, pretences, and the whole "industry of cool" when it was just starting, and Lester is the Equivalent of a Yoda to a Luke SkyWalker, being more of a spiritual guide then a teacher, William calling him everytime he has a problem or an issue with the scary Rolling Stone editors, especially when he is writing the assignment of his life, for Rolling Stone magazine (of which Cameron Crowe is still the record holder as the youngest contributor)

Portraying vivid characters is difficult especially those who did actually exist, portraying Lester Bangs, is almost impossible, but PSH was right for the job, he makes you love the guy and care for him, and want to be tutoured by him about music and life, he has roughly four or five scenes in the movie, but these are probably some of the most memorables ones, he is the one who "been there, done that", so he helps the movie to advance, and of course makes you nostalgic to these days where journalist could write the way he did, or the way Hunter Thompson did, the days there was a margin of freedom in artistic press, way before MTV.

Philip Seymour Hoffman did not win an oscar for that performance, but he did win for his portrayal of another larger then life figure "Truman Capote", but I am sure that the Academy voters had his portryal of Bangs in mind when they casted their votes, i sure would have voted for him !!

and one last quote for the road...

LESTER BANGS
The only true currency in this bankrupt world if what we share with someone else when we're uncool.

I don't know if he ACTUALLY said that, but man it's so true !

Pirates of the Silicon Valley: Steve Jobs, his Friends, and Their Revolution

iPods, iPhones, iMacs, apple had made several breakthrough technological achievments, hard to believe that it started in a garage fourty years ago, and hard to believe that what became now a part of what we are, was just a "crazy idea", bu some former hippes, and how the quiet suburb of Sillicon Valley became the Mecca of Technology, and one of the most expensive places on Earth.

Okay folks we all hated history in highschool, but when a story is so relevant to what we are a do everyday it's good to take a look, and that's the purpouse of that movie, which tells the story of Apple computers, and the two visonaries behind it Steve Jobs (in the boardroom) and Steve Wozniak (in the laboratory).

This Film starts in the Macworld expo, with the historical return of Steve Jobs to Apple, and the deal he accomplished with Bill Gates (staring over his shoulders like big brother) then the movie comes back to the eary days in Barkley university and the student movment, how Jobs and Wozniack were making machines to make international calls for free, and how Jobs was already visionary and mystical, then to the creation of the Apple II, Apple Lisa, and eventually narrates how Steve Jobs ego became a danger on the company and how the constant pressure he maintained on his employees led to dramatic consequences for him and the company

The parallel plot focuses on Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, and Paul Allen, all undergarduate at the time, and how they were developing their own version of the DOS (i know young folks don't remember it but it was Huge a two decades ago, huh cousin ;), and how they became the richest people on earth.

While the movie focuses on the whole mouvment that lead to this huge breakthrough it's main focus is Steve Jobs (played masterfully by ER doctor Noah Whyle) from his early days to his rise to power, to his confronation with Bill Gates, after Bill did to him what He himself did to Xerox park, and how he came again to Apple to save it and turn it into the power house it is now.

And while it's clearly a made for TV movie, it's just one of these movies you can't miss, just for the mood and the historical value and the interpreation, and after you do that, you can go to youtube and watch the Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford, and for real, if all Megalomaniacs were like that, the earth needs more of them.

Jebbiness : 3/5