I watched this film thinking it might be a departure from the usual stereotypical hippie-consciousness tome, but it seems as if the movie industry is bound and determined to rewrite the past by churning out enough newspeak to cover the truth as they possibly can, even if they have to use top shelf actors to do it. What surprises me is that this ensemble consists of people who could have afforded to "just say no" at their respective career levels, because they were already established and had a reputation as accomplished professionals with some measure of scruples.
But they didn't. They drank the Kool-Aid, and now the producer and director expects us to take the cup.
Well, I wont drink, because I grew up during that era.
Everything in this film misses the mark, even Winona Ryder's speech, which is supposed to be a culminating moment where she is supposed to make the "squares" and conservative pro-war folks in the audience take a deeper look into the real meaning of the war. What we get is the usual pap lines like "are we fighting to win?", instead of "what are we winning".
The film divides the groups of people into neat little boxes marked "hippies" and "squares" when in reality those lines were somewhat blurry. There were plenty of longhairs who were hardworking folks who felt like they were a part of society, even if they weren't square. Hippies didn't believe in money, material possessions or being a part of society. The slogan was "Tune in, turn on and drop out", and many longhairs didn't believe in that slogan. Most hippies were as misinformed about the war as everyone else in 1969. It took an intellectual thrust to clearly define the immoral and illegal nature of the War in Vietnam and the plain truth is that most of the hippies were simply too stoned to bother doing any heavy thinking. Another disappointment, the complete denial of the fact that the anti-war movement was consistently and successfully infiltrated by communists and CIA operatives, something totally overlooked in the movie. Good and honest people were compromised in 1969, and lives were destroyed by the very government that sent our children to fight and die. The intellectual class knew that the government was fighting the war both at home and abroad, and the effort by the intelligentsia to expose this sham was ground under the boot of government oppression and disinformation. This was the crux of student rebellion against the war.
It is an insult to condense the complex issues of the time into a feel-good afternoon matinée, and no attempt to justify this film's existence will satisfy the demand that ANY movie on this subject pay respect to honesty, because with honesty sacrificed on the altar of good intentions and entertainment, you have nothing left to learn from 1969 and therefore no basis for a movie at all at that point, unless your only intention is to misinform, which is something that this movie does rather well.
But they didn't. They drank the Kool-Aid, and now the producer and director expects us to take the cup.
Well, I wont drink, because I grew up during that era.
Everything in this film misses the mark, even Winona Ryder's speech, which is supposed to be a culminating moment where she is supposed to make the "squares" and conservative pro-war folks in the audience take a deeper look into the real meaning of the war. What we get is the usual pap lines like "are we fighting to win?", instead of "what are we winning".
The film divides the groups of people into neat little boxes marked "hippies" and "squares" when in reality those lines were somewhat blurry. There were plenty of longhairs who were hardworking folks who felt like they were a part of society, even if they weren't square. Hippies didn't believe in money, material possessions or being a part of society. The slogan was "Tune in, turn on and drop out", and many longhairs didn't believe in that slogan. Most hippies were as misinformed about the war as everyone else in 1969. It took an intellectual thrust to clearly define the immoral and illegal nature of the War in Vietnam and the plain truth is that most of the hippies were simply too stoned to bother doing any heavy thinking. Another disappointment, the complete denial of the fact that the anti-war movement was consistently and successfully infiltrated by communists and CIA operatives, something totally overlooked in the movie. Good and honest people were compromised in 1969, and lives were destroyed by the very government that sent our children to fight and die. The intellectual class knew that the government was fighting the war both at home and abroad, and the effort by the intelligentsia to expose this sham was ground under the boot of government oppression and disinformation. This was the crux of student rebellion against the war.
It is an insult to condense the complex issues of the time into a feel-good afternoon matinée, and no attempt to justify this film's existence will satisfy the demand that ANY movie on this subject pay respect to honesty, because with honesty sacrificed on the altar of good intentions and entertainment, you have nothing left to learn from 1969 and therefore no basis for a movie at all at that point, unless your only intention is to misinform, which is something that this movie does rather well.