Home :: DVD :: Classics :: Comedy  

Action & Adventure
Boxed Sets
Comedy

Drama
General
Horror
International
Kids & Family
Musicals
Mystery & Suspense
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Silent Films
Television
Westerns
Alice's Restaurant

Alice's Restaurant

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $13.46
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 >>

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme shows
Review: Move over Sex and the City, Friends, Seinfeld and Fraser. Alice's Restaurant is the original ensemble of totally dysfunctional characters. It lacks the 90's humor, though, I guess because in the 60's long hair, sexual promiscuity and smoking weed were, like, new (at least in films), and every young adult's problems could be blamed on the Vietnam War.
This film is a must-see because it is so bad--like "Plan 9 from Outer Space". Try to watch Arlo's daffy smile without sniggering. My favorite line is where a guy goes berserk, and the tender/tough Alice restrains her husband's attempt to help with the command "Don't crowd him!" Perfect advice, as the kid just needs to run outside to find some "space".
The film reaches its climax with (are you ready for this) a motorbike race. Alice's team turns out to cheer for their rider in a long scene which belongs more in an Elvis Presley romp than in this unintentionally laughable view of the "counterculture".
And I will NEVER forgive Guthrie for kicking that groupie out of bed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: yeh, I got a conviction for littering too. Same scene. . .
Review: nailed by an incriminating envelope with my name on it. Didn't get me outta 'nam, though.

Still and all, it's great to know somebody got out of it without hiding behind a fancy college diploma. Yeh, Arlo and Mohammad Ali did it for real.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ALICE'S RESTAURANT!
Review: Okay, I fully admit that I like the SONG "Alice's Restaurant" a lot better than the MOVIE, but his 1969 film directed by Arthur Penn is pretty good! Inspired by the "true" story of Arlo Guthrie being arrested for LITTERING in a small New England town, this film covers everything in the song and a whole lot more in fleshing out the tawdry little tale! My favorite part is when Arlo goes down for the draft! PAT QUINN plays the immortal Alice and ARLO GUTHRIE plays the immortal Arlo, with James Broderick along for the ride! Of course watching this film today gives you more of a sense of NOSTALGIA for the end of the Sixties than a sense of moral OUTRAGE at the man for coming down on Arlo and Company! This is the original R-Rated version of the film and has the added value of ARLO on the audio commentary! It just makes you want to go out and take some 8 x 10 glossy pictures!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ALICE'S RESTAURANT!
Review: Okay, I fully admit that I like the SONG "Alice's Restaurant" a lot better than the MOVIE, but his 1969 film directed by Arthur Penn is pretty good! Inspired by the "true" story of Arlo Guthrie being arrested for LITTERING in a small New England town, this film covers everything in the song and a whole lot more in fleshing out the tawdry little tale! My favorite part is when Arlo goes down for the draft! PAT QUINN plays the immortal Alice and ARLO GUTHRIE plays the immortal Arlo, with James Broderick along for the ride! Of course watching this film today gives you more of a sense of NOSTALGIA for the end of the Sixties than a sense of moral OUTRAGE at the man for coming down on Arlo and Company! This is the original R-Rated version of the film and has the added value of ARLO on the audio commentary! It just makes you want to go out and take some 8 x 10 glossy pictures!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Alice's Restaurant: A Vision of Joyful Abundance
Review: The excellent-quality Alice's Restaurant DVD is a cultural gem! Thanks to audio commentary by Arlo Guthrie himself, Alice's Restaurant merits nomination as the greatest movie ever about the 60s or, for that matter, any time of profound social and spiritual change! What adds human depth to this movie is that many people involved in the real-life drama are here, in the same locations, playing themselves!

The 60s social/intellectual/spiritual divide is illustrated in Alice's Restaurant by this insane question: can anyone who dumps litter be sufficiently moral to help kill people in another land? The social divide of the 60s has additional clarity in Alice's Restaurant because the movie director was in one ideological camp and Arlo Guthrie was in the other! In addition, an extremely valid spiritual dimension is provided to the story because Alice's restaurant was in a church; a fertile and far-reaching symbol! It makes the movie and real-life story into one wonderful (but never utopian) heart-warming adventure!

The movie has an amazing number of dimensions. What amazes most, however, is the Alice's Restaurant song, on which the movie was partly based. It still sounds wonderfully fresh and naïve! It maintains its power because it is not only a celebration of the genuine joys of life, love, and friendship but also an indisputable anthem that fully affirms the great natural value of simply having fun in life when you can 'get anything you want'. It seems a totally innocuous, irrelevant song ... yet, that remains its overwhelming strength rather than its weakness. After the movie, how life-affirming and universally joyous an anthem the song becomes!

My hat is off to you Mr. Guthrie! Thank you!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Question
Review: This isn't so much a review, but just a question - what's the deal with the "Special R rated version" advertised under "Special features" at the back of the dvd case? When I played the dvd, there was no special r rated version in the features menu. Is this some kind of joke? The irony really struck home when I listened to Arlo's commentary about the limited nature of the sex scenes - "that's all you could show at that time". Anyway, I would have bought the dvd regardless of the bogus extra feature. I wouldn't say its a great movie, but it does really capture the essence and atmosphere of the late sixties (even though Arlo manages to point out some of the inaccuracies of the director's presentation of the hippie life style). Also has some nice autumn scenery of Stockbridge, Mass. And an interesting jam session with Pete Seeger. All in all, a keeper.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Alice is a GrOOOOOvy cook
Review: This movie embodies the contrasts of the 60's. It shows the freedom of being young and the joys that accompany it. It also shows the fear of being drafted into a war in which the counterculture was determined to stifle. "Alice" also shows the sensitivity and the integrity that Arlo Guthrie possessed and continues to possess in his 50's. Although this movie is so timely with the issues of the 60's (war, drugs, and nonconformity), it is also timeless because no matter what the decade, or what the issues at hand, everyone is, at one point, the idealistic child (represented by Arlo and friends) and the "Not young but not old" confused, mid to late 20'something adult (represented by Alice and Ray). Both represent phases of life common to all of us. Do not be mistaken, it has its moments of drama and tragedy, but it is ultimately humorous and making a mockery of the establishment that rejected a generation. Arlo is quirky and hilarious. He is a brilliant storyteller, and most would agree that this is his best story of all. A MUST SEE!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Must see if have ever heard the album
Review: This very roughly made video, is not one containing any startling cinematography, but its a good story, and a fun movie to watch, especially on Thanksgiving day.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 60's aren't over till the Fat Lady gets high!
Review: Very entertaining for 60's enthusiasts-or Guthrie fans, Woody or Arlo. Arlo's humor is laid-back; the (re)action of the Law was so typical of that time; makes me want to go back in time to relive it all, good or bad-this is a cult-classic for every Thanksgiving!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: NOT LIKE I THOUGHT
Review: Well it all started yesterday when my dad, my cousin, and I went to the local video rental store. My cousin was looking for a Led Zeplen movie. Well we got there and the road was all frozen from the snow so we had to be carful. We walked in, looked around didn't find the movie so we spotted "Arlo Guthrie's Alive's Restaurant". We thought since we all loved the song that we'd check it out. When we got to the house we were shocked. The movie was not like we expected. I would not recomend it if I worked at the store.


<< 1 2 3 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates