Beach Boy Blues: ALOHA Trailer

Some people never got over ‘Nam, or the night their band opened for Nirvana.

I wonder if Cameron Crowe ever got over ALMOST FAMOUS.

Prior to his Oscar-winning, semi-autobiographical love letter to rock & roll, he had strung together a great series of scripts and directorial efforts above love and all its messy and awkward moments. From “You had me at hello” to “I gave her my heart; she gave me a pen”, he seemed to have away with expressing things we all wish we could be witty enough to express. In our best experiences with love and our worst, most of us never find the words that Cameron Crowe found in the 80’s and 90’s.

But something went awry at the end of 2000…Crowe’s stories themselves became messy and awkward. While I found things to enjoy amidst VANILLA SKY, ELIZABETHTOWN, and WE BOUGHT A ZOO…there was no denying it felt like it was missing some of that “Crowe Gloss”.

These stories were less Exile on Main Street; more Steel Wheels.

So now we arrive at ALOHA, and it seems…familiar. But if we continue with my music metaphor, we must remember that everyone from Prince to Johnny Cash staged comebacks by getting back to what they do best. So perhaps the familiarity in this trailer is actually a sign that Crowe once again is expressing things we wish were witty enough to express.