Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

Hoping to dodge the Vietnam War draft, two teenagers enrol in college, and when study proves too demanding they drive across the country encountering free love, drugs and the hippie movement in this odd little film from the pen of On Golden Pond's Ernest Thompson. The film has several dramatic moments that rival 'Pond' in their intensity, most notably an altercation between co-lead Keifer Sutherland and his gung ho older brother who is excited about being drafted. The tension in the air between Sutherland and Bruce Dern as his war veteran father is well conveyed too. The film trips up though whenever it tries to inject comedy into the story. At its lamest, there is an extended sequence in which co-lead Robert Downey Jr. runs about an auditorium in his underwear after turning up stoned to his sister's graduation ceremony. It is also hard to know what to make of an early played-for- laughs sequence in which the friends hitch a ride with a much older man who only has one thing on his mind. The drama here is really good though, with both leads as well as Winona Ryder in support having their fair share of strong moments. The return home sequences are especially memorable in this regard, but with Thompson trying to make his film equally as funny as it is moving, the results are a little mixed, even if the film leaves a favourable impression overall.

This would have been better titled "1988 with 1969 fantasies." The opportunity to re-do the sixties idealism to a new crowd was squandered here by stereotypes. It was clear the writers and/or producers got their ideas from nothing but a few library books.While the attempts to not go OTT with the fashions was honorable, they didn't go far enough. A few short dresses didn't cut it.And the older brother becoming an MIA was so predictable it was pathetic.The best thing about this flick was the soundtrack. I could listen to Cream's "White Room" all day.I kept waiting for Keifer to repeat Daddy Don's line from "Kelly's Heroes." "Give me those positive waves." Shaky at best.

I only watched 1969 late night one night because the title indicated to me that it might be a film dealing with the issues of the time in the year with sincerity or promise, or even as a documentary. I didn't know how the film would go after the first couple of scenes I saw, but Bruce Dern seemed formidable enough to keep a watch. When the credits started to roll though I thought to myself, "what a cliché ridden disaster this became, why did I stick with it?" I guess I stayed tuned because the actors seemed promising enough- Dern in a supporting role as a hard-nosed father, his son in the lead played by Kiefer Sutherland, his cocky best friend played by Robert Downey Jr., and his beautiful sister played by Winona Ryder. Sutherland's character, Scott, decides he doesn't want to go to Vietnam like his brother, so he enlists into college with Downey's character, Ralph, and the two begin to discover what they've been sheltered from- free-love, drugs, and soon enough sex. Some of these early scenes seemed to look kind of silly, but I enjoyed the (partly obvious) soundtrack and thought if I stayed with picture (instead of flipping to a different, better movie) it might pay off in the second or third act. I got proved wrong, as line after line and moment after moment seemed to lower my expectations, and the characters headed towards an last scene that made me want to puke in my lap.The probable cause of the pits in this movie come from writer/director Ernest Thompson. I don't know who he is really, and I haven't seen any of his other efforts as a filmmaker, but it looked as though he was either tapping into his own by-the-numbers first account of the turmoil that went with coming of age in that year, or was tapping into the memories of other baby boomer yuppies who still try to think back to when they wanted freedom before gluing themselves into the "me" generation. The players tried to do what they could, a couple of scenes had some laughs, and I grinned at a line or two from Downey Jr. Yet I couldn't get over how much the movie hit its well intentioned points home with near propagandizing techniques. To sum it up, this is absolutely the soapy, "made-for-television" version of what life was like in 1969. If you want the truer, earthy version(s) see Woodstock or Easy Rider - those two may be folklore at this point for that generation, but at least they work as being entertaining thirty-four years later to the following generation. Grade: D

I saw this movie for the first time recently and after seeing some of the comments saying this movie was good, I had to speak up. I thought it was a horrible waste of time. The story was weak (I wasn't even sure of the intention of the plot), and poorly told. It seemed to jump around too much with no flow. It seemed to be a bunch of cliche scenes with little relation to an overall story line. The acting was mediocre and the points of the movie were cliche and done over-the-top. I was disappointed that I had actually sat through the whole thing. The sound-track was okay but conveying the feel of the 60's just didn't happen at all.