CommentsXp Best movie ever!

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

TedMichaelMor In "Alice's Restaurant, Arthur Penn exposes the rubbish (that is the correct word here) of aimless aspects of the sixties counterculture without putting down the vitality and importance of playfulness. He does this by posing the intelligent and serious young man Arlo Guthrie and Pat Quine playing Alice against Alice's workshy husband Ray, played a tad heavily by James Broderick, and an aimless community of people skirting life at the former church made restaurant.Director Penn contrasts bright and colourful New England landscape and towns with revolting and ugly icons and rituals of late sixties counterculture. Mr. Penn rightly avoids a big statement by sharing simple experiences interpreted with Guthrie's intelligent good humour. The smallness of the film makes it a great film. An example of this and an expression of the essential kindliness behind the film is the real Officer Obie, Williams J. Obanheim, police chief of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, portraying himself. His Norman Rockwell iconic look (he had posed for the artist who lived in Stockbridge) plays well against the icons of Arlo and his friends.Cinematography by Michael Nibbia is intricate and imaginative. Editing by Dede Allen, one of the most important in cinema history, flows like most of the script by Mr. Penn and gifted screenwriter Venable Herndon. The script is like orchestration of the famous, splendid Arlo song.Production, custom, set design, and other aspects are perfect. This is major and loving effort. Peter Seeger and Lee Hayes indicate the utter seriousness of the time depicted here. Cold, hard images for New York City and austere blue-green scenes in Woody Guthrie's hospital room are simply two indicators of the background. Serious exposure of drug addiction in 1969 when Mr. Penn made this film was accurate, timely, honest, and necessary. This film is not a gloss on a deadly time. I like this movie even more than I like "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Little Big Man", both superb movies.Joni Mitchell's song "Songs to Aging Children Come" is the actual theme song of this marvellous film about a tragic moment in our lives. Emment Walsh has a great scene. I did not much like psychedelic and other countercultural signs and symbols. I used to complain about not knowing how to live as a Danish Modern person in a psychedelic world. My former wife used to go to any concert within two hundred miles that Arlo Guthrie gave. I grew a little tired of him, but I love the stories that inform his life. I like the persona of his sister in interviews. These are serious people who know how serious play is.

James Iliff Arthur Penn seems to portray the hippie culture in a very honest light. He doesn't directly appeal to the opinion of mainstream America, or the establishment "square" opinion of the counterculture, but rather appeals to the counterculture itself in the form of a cautionary tale. In Alice's Restaurant, he does not poke fun at and satirize the hippie culture like in I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, nor does he dramatize it and glorify it like in Easy Rider. Instead, the hippie culture is portrayed in a series of events much like real life experiences of real hippies. At first, the youth gravitated towards the hippie culture and the commune system for its freedom, sexuality, and drug-use. However, as time wore on, the commune ideal began to crumble like many other communist societies do- hippies begin to realize they are leeches on society, and in their valiant efforts to 'stick it to the man,' they incidentally remain reliant on the establishment to live. Alice's restaurant portrays the joys of commune life. In two particular scenes- the Thanksgiving dinner and the final marriage ceremony- life as a hippie is free, careless, and exciting. Everyone is happy and relaxed, there are no problems, and they can freeload all they want. This appealed to many people in the counterculture, and the film even reinforced these sentiments. However, it also appealed to the establishment's ideals. In one scene, Arlo is thrown out of the window of a restaurant for having long hair, as long hair is the stigma of the counterculture movement. This reflects some of the violence of the establishment against the hippies, and demonstrates the daily struggles of being a member of the counterculture. This may have portrayed the establishment as evil and hateful, however by the end of the film, the opinion of the establishment is subtly expressed.As the film progresses, the audience begins to realize the pitfalls of the commune system. One member of the commune falls victim to drug addiction, and overdoses on heroin. His death shows a dark side of the counterculture that is rarely expressed- drugs can be a gritty and terrible thing, and with freedom comes much responsibility to keep such addictions at bay. Free love and drug use may be fun and care-free for awhile, but drug overdose and the epidemic of STDs clearly show that there are consequences for such a lifestyle. Also, on a much more subtle level, in the last shot of the film we see Alice longingly staring at the camera after Arlo has just left the commune. This takes place just after the marriage ceremony, which was the last effort of Alice's husband, Ray, to reinforce the commune ideal. As Ray romantically expresses his ideas of somehow opening another commune, Alice begins to realize the ultimate flaw of the counterculture, and despairingly awaits what will be come a terrible, fruitless marriage. Opening more communes certainly will not fix the problems of the current one- yet it is a common idea expressed by many communistic societies on the brink of destruction. If just one more- one more- commune were to be built, everything would be fine. Every commune begins well, but all suffer the same fate. Ultimately the members of the counterculture are freeloaders on the establishment society, and cannot survive once all resources have been used up in one place. Another commune in a different location may solve the problem momentarily, but unless the commune lives off the land and becomes self-sustaining, it will always fail. This is the limitation of the hippie culture, and this is exactly why such an alternative lifestyle is no longer widely existent today in America. It burnt itself out- and Arthur Penn offers this forlorn prediction in that final shot. Everything has fallen apart, Arlo has given up the commune life for the time being, and Ray is desperately grasping at straws to keep it together and stay sane and happy. Even though Alice has a Restaurant, and a way to make money, ultimately the very hippies they surround themselves with in the commune will suck it dry and move on. In Alice's Restaurant, the counterculture is revealed for what it truly is- fun, refreshing, and irresponsible. The "squares" may not have any fun, but they get things done. Ultimately, the establishment, with all its lousy rules and regulations, stigmas and dogmas, was right- and Penn did an excellent job of gently telling this to the counterculture. The hippie youth went to see the film and surely enjoyed it, but most likely left the theatre with a slight unease and a nagging sense of dread.

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.

Woodyanders Arlo Guthrie's hilariously mordant 20 minute story song gets adopted into an affably whimsical, episodic, occasionally funny and ultimately quite downbeat and sobering free-form feature by director Arthur Penn that astutely captures the key issues and concerns of the 60's hippie counterculture: dodging the draft, smoking grass, getting hassled by the pigs, being persecuted by grossly intolerant, narrow-minded, repressive straight conformist squares, trekking all over the country to find your true self, and defying everyday social conventions so you can do your own thing, man. The rambling, just barely there plot centers on the winningly droll, breezy and irreverent Guthrie's pilgrimage through the counterculture, a bizarre, eventful, eye-opening journey of self-discovery that reaches its peak when Arlo gets arrested for illegally dumping trash, thus making Arlo ineligible for wartime service in the army due to his disreputable status as an unrehabilitated criminal (the scenes at the army center are riotous, with M. Emmet Walsh in a gut-busting early role as the gruff Group W sergeant whose staccato motormouth way of talking renders everything he says incomprehensible).Police chief William Obanheim appears as himself and proves to be a hugely likable good sport by allowing himself to be the endearingly humbled recipient of a few right-on japes made about uptight authority figures. "Glen and Randa" 's Shelley Plimpton has a nice cameo as a cute groupie who hits on Arlo at a party. The film's precise, clear-eyed portrait of the painfully gradual disintegration of flower power idealism and the cynicism and disillusionment that followed in its wake nowadays seems all too grimly true and prescient, with the volatile relationship between vulgar, boorish, obnoxious swinger James Broderick and his frustrated, irritated wife Pat Quinn (they play Ray and Alice Brock, the owners of the titular restaurant) brilliantly reflecting the turbulence and capriciousness of the period. Somewhat erratic and uneven, with a shaky tone that uneasily shifts between comedy and drama, this quirky, laid-back, naturalistic historical curiosity piece provides a lyrical and poignant time capsule of the 60's that for all its admitted imperfections nonetheless remains haunting and effective.