NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

info-16951 This movie might seem appealing to someone who didn't live through the era. Having lived through it in California, I can assure you that little was appealing about screaming students being wheeled away on ambulance gurneys and helpless, drugged girls wandering naked around my university campus after having been raped by various guys. This cynical movie is typical of Hollywood's exploitation of the self-destructive behavior of children and young adults. There was nothing beautiful about the period, and this movie revulses and dispirits. (More lines added to meet 10-line requirement: There was nothing beautiful about the period, and this movie revulses and dispirits. There was nothing beautiful about the period, and this movie revulses and dispirits. There was nothing beautiful about the period, and this movie revulses and dispirits. There was nothing beautiful about the period, and this movie revulses and dispirits.)

MartinHafer This is a film that I had absolutely no interest in seeing. However, a friend offered me the DVD and said I would like it--even if I already had seen and hated THE TRIP (which was also on the same disc). Well, I must say that I was very surprised as I did actually enjoyed it--probably because viewers can see what they want in this odd film. For those who look back longingly to the 60s and its drug culture, the film is like a glorious flashback. And, conversely, for those who felt the late 60s went way overboard and glamorized drug use, then they will probably see the film as a having a good anti-drug message! Imagine, two opposite camps enjoying the same film for entirely different reasons! Oddly, this "hip" film was produced by Dick Clark--a man who described himself in the documentary included with this film ("Love & Haight") as a "total square". Also, it was very unusual to note that all the lead actors were in their 30s--quite a bit older than the actual hippies of the day.The film begins with Susan Strasberg arriving in San Francisco to find her brother. However, it seems as if he's just disappeared and so she ends up shacking up in a wreck of a home with Jack Nicholson and his friends--many of which are in Jack's band. Here, there is lots of free love and drugs as they all dig being in a happening city. While Susan does look for her brother, it's all rather episodic--with lots of exceptional music (by the Strawberry Alarm Clock) presented in a way almost like a series of music videos. Eventually, she does find her brother (played in a bit part by Bruce Dern) but tragedy strikes thanks to LSD and other mind-altering drugs.For an American-International drug film, the production had amazingly good production values. And, if you don't particularly like the plot, you can look at the whole thing as a small time capsule of the era. This would make an excellent double-feature with ALICE'S RESTAURANT. Worth seeing, that's for sure.Finally, as Ms. Strasberg played a lady who had hysterical deafness, there was one odd note. When the bands were playing she said that she didn't dance because she was deaf. Perhaps hysterically deaf people don't, but deaf people in general love to dance--particularly if there's a strong bass--which this rock music had in spades!

gregkero If you look very closely, during the opening main-title sequence, you can spot local Haight-Ashbury residents, including Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, hanging out on Haight Street. It's too bad that Jack Nicholson's contribution to the script, and those of the screenwriters, didn't keep the story moving along at a better pace in a way that would have made the film an interesting, honest look at what the Haight was all about: people searching for peaceful, more spiritually rewarding lives, seeking media attention (to promote their message), while simultaneously shunning the commercialized "straight" world and the materialism of mainstream society. Dean Stockwell's characterization of Dave alludes to that, but the film is so rambling that it never quite gels into what should have been a really good time capsule in the way that Saturday Night Fever was and still remains.

MisterWhiplash Psych-Out is as much a skewed look at the world of hippies as much as it is a praise-full one- Clark knew that he couldn't show hippies as they really were, despite that he could get filming rights in Haight-Ashbury and other sections of San Francisco, but hey if you're not going for realism, go for ciche! And what ciche it is: Strausberg is a deaf runaway looking in San Fran for her brother, played by Bruce Dern (a near Jesus look-a-like), named the Seeker, and yet instead falls in with a psychadelic rock group called Mumblin Jim, headed by Stoney, Jack Nicholson in a pre-Easy Rider look. The plot is used as a thread to showcase various cliched scenes; the pad filled with hippie-people, the acid-freak out, the scuffle with the fuzz (one of which a young Garry Marhsall), the scuffle with the regular folk, and the music scenes, one of which is a abhorrition on Hendrix's Purple Haze (it's the opening chords played backwards!). Yet, I can reccomend this movie to nostagia-fanatics, ex-hippie film buffs, and for those who'd like to see Nicholson before he started making money in Hollywood, and this is not saying he's bad in this, he's quite good considering the tripe of a screenplay. Another small plus is Kovacs on photography.And hey, don't forget the Strawberry Alarm Clock and the seeds! B