Vanilla Sky Ending: Every Frame Explained

4. Almost Famous

Vanilla Sky
Paramount Pictures

Crowe also can't resist the urge to include a number of references to his Oscar-winning film released the year prior, Almost Famous.

For starters, there's an image of Stillwater's guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup), while elsewhere we can see child prodigy protagonist William Miller (Patrick Fugit) lounging on a sofa with Penny Lane (Kate Hudson).

Vanilla Sky
Paramount Pictures

Most amusingly, there's also a real-life picture of Crowe's sister wearing rollers in her hair, as inspired the memorable scene in Almost Famous where William's sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) moves to San Francisco to become a flight attendant:

Vanilla Sky
Paramount Pictures
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.