I thought of this exchange while watching Almost Famous, Cameron Croweís highly entertaining and charming autobiographical film, his funny valentine to rock níroll in the early 70s. Weíve come to expect that eventually everyone tells everything. I donít mean the kind of information $40 million and an army of government authorized snoops will get you, or even the damage friends and relatives can do for a fee (poor J.D. Salinger!). Increasingly people tell on themselves.

But it is very difficult to tell people how lucky youíve been. Even the most modest admission of past delights and accomplishments often spoils in the telling. Itís not that you begrudge Cameron Crowe his talent and the storybook good fortune of becoming a Rolling Stone reporter while so young mom has to drop you off at the gig, but Almost Famous has so little conflict or edge surrounding its young protagonist that if you didnít know it was based on Croweís own experiences, youíd wonder who dreamed up this rock ní roll Doogie Howser. In this rock ní roll fantasy, no one gets hurt beyond a few bruises.

Both Broadcast News and Almost Famous are in part about the corruption and corporate takeover of an ideal. Almost Famous is best when it sticks closely to expressing the thrill of the music and how rock ní roll changes and sells out due to its enormous success. Almost Famous also sails when it is demonstrating the effects rock ní roll had on family dynamics.

Rock ní roll first disrupts life for Cameron Crowe stand-in William Miller while he is still a little boy. His single mom is a college professor who has embraced some of the ideas changing the world (sheís a free-thinking vegetarian) but abhors rock music and drugs. Frances McDormand makes this complicated character utterly winning and believable, a kind of fantasy mom. (When she lectures a vain rock star on the phone and quotes Goethe to him, it is easy to believe that the power of her words reaches through the phone and grabs the very soul of him.)

Williamís groovy older sis, sick to death of momís narrow mindedness about music, leaves home as soon as sheís legal. She puts ìAmericaî by Simon & Garfunkel on the turntable, says this song explains why she has to leave and then splits. She leaves her records, and her little brother is hooked. Theyíre all thatís left him.

When teenage William Miller, well played by big-screen newcomer Patrick Fugit, wins the friendship of legendary critic Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman giving another in a lengthening list of brilliant performances) by sending clips from his high school paper, young William is hooked even deeper. Bangs gives him his first assignment, covering Black Sabbath for Creem magazine.

William has trouble getting backstage until he wows one of the opening acts, Stillwater, by praising their music and showing off how well versed he is with the creative intricacies involved in producing a record. I wish there were more moments like it in Almost Famous.

Showing off gets William in. Affectionately dubbed ìthe enemyî by the band because heís a critic, he still manages to get invited along. Heís especially liked by guitar god Russell Hammond (the appropriately sexy and charismatic Billy Crudup who, in true rock star mode, is best when outrageous, really wasted and standing on the roof of a fanís house somewhere in Kansas).

With the help of Bangs, William is hired by Rolling Stone to follow Stillwater and profile them. Some very funny moments in Almost Famous are of William and Bangs making up the kind of nonsense the magazine wants to hear. The time on the road is filled with sex, drugs and rock ní roll. The bandís troubles ó how to win success and stay true to their roots ó are handled straight, with Spinal Tap irony hanging in the air but played deadpan. When Jason Lee, giving a wonderful performance playing the lead singer of Stillwater, screams at Crudup, ìYour looks are becoming a problem!î Crudup doesnít want to understand what he means, but we do. No doubt.

Like all Cameron Crowe films, music is handled with great care and affection. With his wife Nancy Wilson, a founding member of Heart, as music director, the 70s sounds of Stillwater are right on, man! Crowe and Wilson collaborated to compose Stillwaterís songs, and they are played by musicians who lend authenticity, guys like Peter Frampton. And there are countless music cues, many of them mainstream choices, but hardly less pleasurable just because they are standards now.

Groupies, or ìband aidsî as they prefer to be called, round out the scene. They are minor but amusing, especially when they turn their talents on William shouting ìOpie must die!î Kate Hudson plays Penny Lane, the woman who aspires to be Russellís muse and main squeeze but is also adored by William. The character of Penny Lane is loosely based on a real person. So the credits tell us. In the film, she doesnít quite live up to her own expectations. Now many years later, whoever she is, she has her bit of poetry, inspiration to an artist who truly cares about the music.