`Almost Famous' director does an about-face with `Vanilla Sky'.

Byline: Steven Rea

Last year, Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" offered an autobiographical look at a precocious pubescent rock journalist coming of age in the midst of all the sex, drugs and ego-trips of a band on the road. "Vanilla Sky," the newest from the writer-director _ it opened Friday _ is an adaptation of a 1999 Spanish pic, "Open Your Eyes," about a guy who's stalked by a jilted lover, who falls for Penelope Cruz, and loses his grip on reality. (That happens a lot with guys who fall for Ms. Cruz.)

And still Crowe says he is as attached to the one, steeped in his own experience, as he is to the other _ a rigorously faithful remake of Alejandro Amenabar's art-house hit.

"It's so different from `Almost Famous,'" Crowe says of "Vanilla Sky," which stars Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and, yes, Penelope Cruz, too. "I really like looking at the two of them together, because they're both personal in wildly different ways. And it's been great to have done two projects so fast" _ "Almost Famous" was released last year. …