I am not even sure where to begin with this review. This is a movie that it based on a “song”
written in 1967, which is based on actual events the happened in 1965 with Arlo
Guthrie (the son of Woody Guthrie, he wrote This Land if Your Land). This movie ultimately winds down to the fact
that this young man did not want to serve in the Vietnam War, but it is told in
such a roundabout way that the message is almost lost in the story.
Arlo is a young man who is wandering around the country
running into a very eclectic group of friends and associates along the
way. Eventually he runs into his friends
Ray and Alice, who own a church. They
have turned this church into a halfway house for “lost” kids of the
generation. Well, Arlo thought it would
be nice one Thanksgiving day to clean up their church and haul garbage to the
local dumps. The dump was closed on
Thanksgiving so they decided to just dump the junk off the side of the road. In short time they get arrested, convicted,
and branded a nuisance. Coincidentally,
this saved him from being eligible from serving in the war. Arlo plays himself, even Obie the police officer plays himself, because he didn't want another actor acting like him as a dumb officer.
This show is a train wreck, but I could not look away, and I
think I fell in love with the show. It
was a show that shaped and defined a whole hippie generation, much like the
documentary Woodstock. Netflix claims
that this show is PG, but there is nudity, situations, and drug use. This should be rated R, but if the nudity was
removed it could easily be a PG-13 show.
If you are not interested in watching the show, you should at least go
on to youtube and search for Arlo Guthrie performing Alice’s Resturant, it
ranges from 18 to 45 minutes long; I have posted the 18 minute song and that should be
enough.
I am ashamed to claim that I like this movie, but frankly I
do. That even hurts me to write that;
honestly it is only a 1-2 star movie but I cannot get it out of my system…go
figure, maybe it was the music that had me hooked.
2 comments:
the show sounds like a dumpster fire, not sure why you got hooked in, I will listen to the music tonight when I get home.
I agree when I went on my Paul Newman kick that I got a little weird, but I think you have gone off the deep end with liking this song and movie. Please come back.
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