Flyerplesys
Perfectly adorable
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Ella-May O'Brien
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Francene Odetta
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
ditavirga
This movie should be watched at a maximum quality possible because it is so well directed, so well filmed, so well edited that it makes watching it a wonderful visual adventure.There were times I watched with my mouth open (the part where both couples sit at the table drunk and stoned, the clapping there is pleasure to watch as an upcoming editor).Also the beginning is amazing with the music and the music selection in general is so pleasing. A bit chaotic and not fully comprehensible, music is like a cherry on the top. This movie is so beautiful you don't even notice that the story-line is weak and a bit absurd.
moonspinner55
Czech director Milos Forman made his American debut with this sweetly-zonked look at the generation gap, circa 1971. Straight, tightly-wound suburban married couple just outside New York City panic when their teenage daughter runs away...but eventually they tire of looking for her ("She's probably out there having fun," the kid's father says, "so why shouldn't we have some fun, goddammit!"). Scenes of the grown-ups letting loose with marijuana experimentation and strip poker are intercut with teenagers auditioning for a musical, and this is where Forman's true talent comes to the fore (he's mad about faces, and passionate about eccentrics and talent). The well-chosen cast (including Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin, Audra Lindley, Paul Benedict, Georgia Engel and Allen Garfield, with music performances from Ike and Tina Turner, Kathy Bates and Carly Simon) is uniformly excellent, though the thin screenplay (penned by Forman with John Guare, Jean-Claude Carrière and John Klein) doesn't give the actors much to work with--they're all flying high on the exuberance of collaboration. Forman's vision is predictably cockeyed, though his pacing is slow and his staging is sometimes puzzling. For instance, is he holding the singers at the audition in esteem with his camera or using them satirically? The blank faces of the judges are probably meant to get a laugh, but their dumbfounded reactions shouldn't dictate what we're experiencing watching them for ourselves. The movie does take off on occasion, but it isn't from energy (Forman doesn't display a temperament, he's of the low-keyed school of filmmaking); the sheer intrinsic delight of showcased talent gives the picture its charge, ultimately making it a unique, quirky bird all its own. **1/2 from ****
Vihren Mitev
I am not in Forman's movies but definitely, if not with his first two, with this one he is able to catch the eye. Especially after his previous one in which he presented man's life through the libido's desires to light fires and of the firmen's to put out fires like the libido put out with age.Here age again is central theme. People say that every big producer should have done 80's movie about the American teenagers or movie that shows a bathroom. In this we can see both things. How much the generations walk past each other, how much the adults do not remember their past and how much the present of their children is well known to them. Parents are always worried and will worry, that is the system in which we have decided to be. There is choice but is there any boldness? This movie is not comical, not nasty, not joyful, not sad not strange, not boring, not traditional, not well known, maybe reminds of the opposite of all this but is not one of them. Definitely in it is hinted the talent of the producer which for now is staring deeply into the psyche of his personages and slightly is touching social questions which he will rise in hi next movies.The movie is two-shifted, behind it is the music of the life, the different songs about different moments with different moods in them. It is innovative and it is interesting. But how is made that way I leave to your imagination.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/
benwa4u
I'd love to see this again, even if just a rented VHS. I see that it's not out on DVD. Was it ever out on tape?I loved this when I saw it. But it was only the once, and I don't think I even got a chance to finish it. (It was one of very few tapes on an Alaskan fishing vessel, and it wasn't very popular with the rest).Spoilers follow:I remember the daughter that they'd thought still run-away discovering her father (Buck Henry) standing nude on the table, singing. And I remember her boyfriend, who'd suprised her father by looking like a broke hippie, but turned out to earn $90k a year. I remember some of the auditions. I remember the lessons given to the parents on how to smoke pot (killer scene!). I remember a lot of mold breaking, but I'm sad that I don't have the opportunity to see this again.Chris