Wednesday, August 12, 2015

I Miss the Old Days

Hippie Films: 50 Far-Out Essentials 

10 comments:

Jeff Meyerson said...

We saw ZABRISKIE POINT when it first came out and thought it was one of the worst pieces of crap I'd ever seen. Whenever I read how a movie was a bomb but is now a "cult favorite" (most recently: HEAVEN'S GATE) all I can do is laugh. Antonioni did not have a clue and hiring non-actors didn't help. Awful, awful, awful.

Next I'll tell you how I really feel.


Jeff

Jeff Meyerson said...

PSYCH-OUT was a trip indeed, but Otto Preminger's SKIDOO was nearly as unwatchable as ZABRISKIE POINT. Frankie Avalon as Cesar Romero's son, with matching mustache, was one of many lowlights, and this was Groucho Marx's last film, playing "God."

Jeff

Jeff Meyerson said...

I read about AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL a couple of years ago so got a copy but we gave up after about 20 minutes.

Back in the late 1960's we used to go to the movies almost every week and we often saw double features, usually a new movie we wanted to see plus whatever was playing with it. One of the "whatever" films was the awful MORE. If you ever wanted to see Mimsy Farmer shoot heroin under her tongue, this is your chance.

We really liked I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS when we saw it on its original release but on a more recent viewing it has dated very badly. Still, in those days Peter Sellers was one of the few British actors who seemed able to do a creditable American accent.

I was surprised at how many of the 50 I've seen.


Jeff

mybillcrider said...

I, on the other hand, am not surprised at all.

Jeff Meyerson said...

You've probably seen most of them yourself.

Jeff

mybillcrider said...

Quite a few, but not as many as you have.

Deb said...

An odd list; some were more or less movies made at a later time about the hippie days; others were made with a hippie sensibility ( all those Roger Corman flicks); and some were just...weird, man (SKIDOO). But they did mention two of my favorites, WILD IN THE STREETS and I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS.

Todd Mason said...

And typical FW half-informed top-of-the-headedness....no recognition that THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT is based on a book...weird incorrect assertion Charlotte Rampling is in VANISHING POINT, etc. Boy, RPM sure was a drag, man. Among many others. While some more-interesting examples were coming from Europe than were cited.

Don Coffin said...

I saw most of them (36 by my count, actually, although my memory isn't what it used to be, and some of the ones I remembered seeing, I wish I hadn't remembered). Of the ones I remembered seeing, these are the onew I thought worth remembering:
Zabriskie Point
Yellow Submarine
Alice’s Restaurant
Two-Lane Blacktop
Silent Running
Medium Cool
Monterrey Pop
Easy Rider
The Strawberry Statement
Woodstock
Cisco Pike
Vanishing Point
Riot on Sunset Strip
Taking Off
Brewster McCloud

Cisco Pike and Two Lane Blacktop aren't, really, counterculture movies. Neither are some (most?) of the ones on the list--The Happening, for example, is Hollywood trying to be hip.

Thing is, there are others (and I'm sure I'll think of them when I'm trying to sleep tonight) that deserved mention. (Unlike Jeffrey Meyerson, I thought Zabriskie Point, while something of a mess, was visually interesting, if sort of clueless about the counterculture).

mybillcrider said...

Zabriskie Point did have a great Roy Orbison song.