19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
1969- A Time Capsule, April 29, 2001
Robert Downey Jr., Kiefer Sutherland, Bruce Dern, Winona Ryder, Mariette Hartley star in a movie about the Music, The Anger(Remember Riots & Revolution in the streets), and The Innocence of a generation who believed they could change the world!At the end of the 1960s, Scott and Ralph, two college kids from a stuffy, upper-middle class suburban town, decide to spend the summer on the road, living out of their van and experiencing all the freedom the counterculture(Hippie)has to offer. Family conflicts and the harsh realities of the war in Vietnam, however, interfere with their idyll. Scott's older brother, who Scott self-rightously criticized for going to war, is reported missing in action and then comes home in a casket. Then Ralph is arrested for stealing his file from the draft board to avoid duty. Before their "last summer of innocence" is over, Scott and Ralph learn that there's more to being radicals than just drop out and tuning in.If you were there or wish you had been 1969 is the movie for you!96 minutes, Rated R
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly good and timely anti-war "period piece", March 5, 2005
1969 is very special to me. I graduated from high school, went to Woodstock, and attended every anti-war event I could find. I would be inclined to watch any movie about this period, but when this one came on "Tivo" as a suggestion, I was skeptical. The Tivo guide gave it two stars and suggested that it was about nothing but a couple of guys doing dope on the road.
It is actually a pretty powerful anti-war movie, with fine acting from Winona Ryder, Keifer Sutherland, and Robert Downey, Jr., who were big stars in the '80s and I am surprised this was not more of a box office hit for their presence in the cast.
The scenes are realistic, portraying the happy-go-lucky years
of hitchiking, campus protests, "sensitivity" and all that, and
the music is well-chosen for the most part. I thought that there was a gratuitous homophobic scene early on, when the boys are picked up by a not-so-creepy slightly older hippie type and go ballistic, but even that scene is saved by the gay guy yelling out to them as they run away, "I didn't know you were married!"
Scott (Sutherland) is a thoughtful individualistic boy, very typical for the time, and you get the sense that his older brother, headed for Vietnam as a Marine, is not that different, but timing is everything. Bruce Dern as the WWII veteran father is surprisingly convincing (I thought he could only play creepy types) The story is fairly predictable but well done.
Ryder is great playing "Beth" younger sister of the Downey character. And what is it with these early Downey roles? Art imitates life or is it vice-versa? We see him here flipping out on LSD, running around almost naked, etc., same thing we see later in his performance as "Julian" in "Less than Zero".
He's probably the finest of the actors in this film, but this is not his best role. I thought Sutherland did better and, what's more, looked better. He is the star of this movie.
Too bad he is wasting his talent these days on Fox's tacky "24".
Anyway, in any period piece, I am always on the lookout for realism in scenes, props, characters, hairstyles, clothes, you name it. On first viewing, I thought this film did very well on most of those counts.
Only the final scene is unrealistic. This is supposedly set in
Maryland in the early and late summer of 1969. That is too early for the kind of consensus to develop about the war that is depicted, especially in a small town where only one kid has died in Vietnam. (As I write this, the same kind of feeling about the Iraq war is only apparently developing in Vermont)
I would have liked to see these characters attending Woodstock,
as that would have fit into the story well. Also, as in the NBC television series "American Dreams", some depiction of what the older brother was seeing going on in Vietnam would have helped immensely. So this is not quite up there with such brilliant and moving Vietnam films as "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July" or "Forrest Gump", but it's a fine movie and if you are anti-war and a child of the '60s, you will love it.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent soundtrack/solid cast, March 23, 2005
By now, we're used to the coming-of-age theme in movies about this era. But what makes ''1969'' special is its subtlety, in recognizing the differences in the way we reacted to news, gestures, comments in 1969 as compared to now. The term ''innocence'' is overused; it was simply one of fewer dimensions... no internet, fewer TV channels, when newspapers and radio took on a far greater role in forming our decisions. In the hitch-hiking and driving scenes through scenic Maryland, we remember that travel wasn't always comfortable, that we didn't take for granted getting from point A to point B.
Keifer Sutherland, Robert Downey Jr. and Winona Ryder are all fantastic, but Mariette Hartley really does a stellar job as a mom that keeps a family together through incredible strife.
And the soundtrack is really what'll have you hooked. There are the usual 60's staples like Blind Faith (''Can't Find My Way Home''), but also some songs younger viewers might be unfamiliar with or older ones might've forgotten (like the underrated, powerful ''When I Was Young'' by the Animals).
Not a definitive look at an era, but a likeable cast of characters that will have you coming back to watch again.
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