Kattiera Nana
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Perry Kate
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Fluentiama
Perfect cast and a good story
Tacticalin
An absolute waste of money
Woodyanders
While this easy'n'breezy documentary may not be 100% factually accurate, it nonetheless provides a perfectly enjoyable portrait of what the whole 1960's California youth culture scene was like before the hippie flower power movement kicked in. Among the funky sights and activities to be relished herein are groovy bands performing live in clubs on the Sunset Strip (yep, we get footage of the legendary Whiskey a Go-Go), martial artists practicing karate, surfers braving the waves in Hawaii and California, a scruffy outlaw biker gang beating up the cameraman (one of them even spits on the lens!), sexy go-go dancing chicks, dirt bike and go-kart racing, a staged interview with a masked LSD user, and a group of hopheads letting it all hang out after they finish smoking pot and doing dope. Narrated with verve by smooth-voiced disc jockey Humble Harve, well shot by future big-time cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmund, and topped off by an infectiously catchy theme song, it's a total gas, baby!
Hoohawnaynay
Far from a great documentary but fun to watch for the various Los Angeles locations. Weird mix of titillation and anti-drug messages. I couldn't tell whether this was pro or anti teens and LSD. I was a kid in the 60's and this was fun to watch for the clothes, cars and music but incoherent story and at times looked like the director was on acid. Curio piece just take it too seriously. The interviews look stilted and awkward, what little acting this had was very bad. The Whiskey a Go-Go scenes were my favorite and really took me back to that era when my Dad would take me to places that had live music.How they got LA DJ Humble Harv to narrate this is beyond me..they must have thrown some serious cash his way.
Howard Sauertieg
MONDO MOD is aptly described by its trailer as "the film that took a trip and never came back!!!" It attempts to document the hip "mod" scene of the mid-60s and focuses solely on southern California. As a result, the film offers a very distorted look at the "youth culture" of that era. The most popular "mod" activities are, according to MONDO MOD: surfing, rioting, martial arts, Go-Karting, dancing, smoking pot and taking LSD, and riding motorcycles. The Vietnam War is never mentioned. A thirty-something acidhead and the young, very "mod"-stylish owner of a fashion boutique are interviewed. In my favorite scene the acidhead, wearing a mod-ified (no pun intended) executioner's mask to hide his identity, talks about his dozen LSD trips while he is purportedly tripping, and his interlocutor repeatedly turns to the camera to dispense a frightening anti-drug message that utterly contradicts the acidhead's statements. There are a few extended sequences with hot chicks dancing and systematically (not to say "semiprofessionally") disrobing. On the Something Weird Video DVD of MONDO MOD you can see two 7 minute reels of "alternate footage" from the film (with nudity excised from the theatrical release) and the ridiculously over-the-top trailer, plus a whole slew of other hippie-exploitation material.
Gary Dickerson
Purporting to report on the new "Mod" culture of the 1960's (the director doesn't bother to distinguish between mods & hippies, & uses the terms interchangeably), this film is really nothing more than a cheaply-made, cheaply-put-together exploitation film. Lurid details, long (& boring) pieces about "exciting" youth events (motorbikes, surfing, go-carts), & the obligatory warning against drugs (including an "interview" with a guy tripping on LSD) are happily presented alongside upskirt shots of go-go girls, girls in bikinis waxing surfboards, girls in bikinis being shared by bikers, & a tedious climax with a guy & two girls walking zombie-like around a candle, gradually disrobing as the pot apparently takes effect.Like some exploitation films, the whole point is to slip the sex in underneath the alarming news that these people are overrunning the planet - lots of weird statistics are tossed out by the fakey radio deejay narrator, including the fascinating fact that 95% of all teenagers in Iran commit suicide - fascinating, if true, but what the hell does it have to do with kids on the Sunset Strip? - but be warned, while the girlies are awful cute (I was partial to the stripping girl who dances all through the diatribe against pot & acid), there is no actual nudity. Plus, the Something Weird print that I rented had a terrible audio dupe.Not worth it, &, for those of you who think this is really some kind of documentary - give me a break.