ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

fredupchurch I remember like it was last week. We all went to the old Visualite Theater in Charlotte and saw it. I have nearly no memory of it at all, except the song and Arlo G. singing and the Woody characterI recall nothing else at all about the plot or how it was directed.I just stumbled across the movie watching TCM.Next Sunday ! plan to ask our minister to re-apply our vows. Wife and I have been through a lot of stress and uncertainty lately.

Mike_Offerosky Alice's Restaurant is one of those film's with a reputation. A film not necessarily classic in the way people speak of it, but one that's definitely of its time. Alice's Restaurant benefits greatly from Arlo Guthrie's charismatic performance. All is well when the film starts Arlo is registering for the draft and trying to get out of it by telling them about a family ailment. Unfortunately since Arlo doesn't have the ailment at the time he will still be eligible. Arlo then tries attending school to get out of the draft. He's given a rough time because he's a hippie and because he gets accused of vandalism (he gets blamed for breaking a restaurants window) he is put on probation (although he was the one thrown through the window). He decides to visit old friends Alice (of the title) and Ray who run a hippie commune. Here is where the film starts to bog down. Ray has an anger problem and it's not really explained what he's angry at or why. Also one of the people from the commune is back from serving his time in the Army so Ray picks him up. There's some feeling that maybe he had some bad experiences in the war and maybe he had post traumatic stress. Then we learn that he was hooked on heroin. The film gets bogged down in plot that it doesn't explain well. Occasionally Arlo visits his father Woody in the hospital and in one memorable scene Arlo plays with Pete Seeger to cheer up his father. Such tender scenes work well. When the film keeps things light it works well. Unfortunately, the film is uneven and that hampers the fun a bit. The music is a plus and some of the counterculture elements play well but the drama seems strained and makes it difficult to slog through. One particular thing that makes the viewer scratch his head is the mood swings of Alice. One moment she's really easy going then she just snaps and blows up. It's very odd. While there are likable elements I just can't fully recommend this piece of nostalgia. It's a real shame because it could have been a real milestone especially with Arlo Guthrie performance and Arthur Penn at the helm.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 1969 was a turning point in American history. And this film is still living on the hippie dream, on the flower kids and their illusion that life is nothing but music and fun. Even the war and the draft are made small and insignificant, as if you could escape the draft because you had been arrested, tried and convicted of a crime like littering. Why not jaywalking? 1969 was the arrival of Nixon, the invasion of Cambodia, after the Tet offensive, escalation and blindness among all political personnel or politicians. The film thus is a full nightmare in disguise as a freewheeling period of complete enjoyment and happiness, wedding and champagne added as a reward for your trust in the future. And yet the film is a tremendous satire of that very short-sighted and careless spirit. Every detail is symbolical and metaphorical. Arlo Guthrie's girl friend looks very Vietnamese, a symbol of the war going on that no one wants to see. The church that is sold is also the symbol of the loss of faith and legitimacy in the US. Everything is just running down and away. And that is crowned at the end by this very last scene where Alice and Ray are literally abandoned by Arlo and Mari-chan, and Alice is not standing in any Wonderland then, but in her wedding dress, early in the sunless morning on the front steps of the church of hers, unmoving and silent in a world where there is a light breeze that makes her veil float slightly, both the veil and its shadow on the church wall, and Alice and the church are captured by the slowly moving camera following some circle whose center is Alice herself and every so often a tree trunk goes by in the picture, and the whole church is surrounded by a complete waste land, all dirt and no grass, brown and muddy. The church itself looks unkempt and its paint seems to be more or less starting to scale. A world abandoned and being wasted, wrecked, dumped along the way of history that is going to come, a vision we can imagine bleak and sad, tearful and fearful, frightening and full of pain. There is like some nostalgia at that time about a good old world that has vanished in thin air and will never be back. See you, bye bye, forever. That was a time when the United States, for the first time in their history, had met an obstacle they could not negotiate. And today this past vision is becoming so premonitory of the forty years it will take for hope to come back in time to be able to assume the changing world in which the US are no longer to be number one and yet when they can recapture some leadership provided they accept to share responsibilities and resources. That idea of sharing definitely was not in the air in 1969 and the dissatisfied young people could only dream of a freewheeling enjoyment of what was at their disposal without any effort of any kind. And the vice-principal of my high school was telling us in the car that took us to the Teachers' Union state convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, how a simple atom bomb on Hanoi or ,Haiphong would bring in victory. The higher the monkey climbs in the tree… You know the second part of the saying I guess, if not go and check in Sri Lanka, for instance, what you can see when the monkey is going up into the tree leaving you on the ground, your eyes rising slowly to follow the butt sight of the acrobatic animal.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

tavm Alice's Restaurant is a time capsule of the attitudes of young people during the late '60s as experienced by folk singer Arlo Guthrie and his friends like the married couple Ray and Alice Brock, played here by James Broderick (Mathew Broderick's father) and Pat Quinn. Very much of its time, Arthur Penn's film tries to mix the humorous with the dramatic with uneven results. Some of the most touching scenes are those of Arlo with his father, folk singer Woody Guthrie (played here by Joseph Boley) and those of Ray and Alice after the drug death of a friend. There's also a nice musical duet with Woody's friend Pete Seeger and Arlo in Woody's hospital room. The most funny scene was the one concerning Arlo's attempts to get more urine for the draft board. Look for Shelley Plimpton, who had married Keith Carradine and gave him a daughter, actress Martha Plimpton, as Reenie who is a 15-year old girl who tries to seduce Arlo and M. Emmett Walsh as a Group W sergeant. Though nominated for Best Picture of 1969, Alice's Restaurant seems dated now. Ray and Alice's remarriage at the end and the followup makes this one of the most bittersweet movies I've ever seen...