Customer Reviews

Dynamite Chicken

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One of the best films of this type we've ever seen, dealing with the late 60's & early 70's counter-culture mix of music, comedy, etc., with some of the biggest stars-to-be of the era. Highly recommended.

I had never heard of this movie before but it looked somewhat interesting and was only three bucks so I decided to take a chance on it. This film is sort of like a late 60's guerilla precursor to later parody compilations like The Groove Tube and Kentucky Fried Movie although it is nowhere nearly as funny or as well done as either. The whole point of this "free-form" film escaped me other than it was apparently primarily intended to mock the "establishment" circa 1969. It is a random assortment of brief sketches, monologues, film clips, musical performances, and "Hippy" political statements. There's also a fair amount of female nudity on display (if this film were rated it would be rated R). A young Richard Pryor does a number of brief monologues and a couple of sketch comedy groups (one including a young Fred Willard) do their thing, more political statements are made, there are some montages of old movies and commercials, and there are a couple of running gags which aren't that funnny. There are also some "man in the street" interviews (primarily about what the American flag means to various people).

Overall this thing is pretty disjointed and doesn't make a whole lot of sense...but the DVD is cheap and possibly worth the purchase price simply as a time capsule of what the radical left was thinking around 1969-70 and also as a glimpse into what underground comedy amounted to at the time.

The picture and sound quality are pretty lackluster and the DVD is obviously a direct transfer from a rather beat up print of this low budget film but is still watchable. I can't imagine anyone is ever going to bother to clean this up any further so what you see is what you get...again the price is pretty low, so taking that into account, it's okay.

Certainly not for everyone (unless you still live on a commune somewhere and/or want to watch a nun do a strip tease) but I have to admit it was somewhat interesting from a historical perspective as a filmed artifact of the late 60's (as seen through the eyes of the Woodstock generation) and as a film that was clearly meant to "Stick it to the man".

Excellent Film!!! It does a great job of taking the clothes off of the already naked emperor. Many poignant parallels with today's problems as it was made during the bombing of Vietnamese people. It attacks racism, nationalism & small-mindedness in general, in a lighthearted, brave & funny way. Slaps complacent conformists upside the head! Maybe that's why you get a lot of, "I can't figure this one out," sorta reviews on it. Because this film was created as a non-linear collage of images & outtakes, it may go over the head of someone used to typical Hollywood flicks that spell out every banal detail with canned laughter. Some really clever insights in the film. Many witty parodies of this pyramid scheme that we all have come to love so much. An amazing use of reactions to the U.$. flag to delineate the intense schisms in this society (i.e. freedom vs. blind obedience). The Uber Alles attitude that people were fighting against then, is unfortunately still a cancer today.

The only reason I bought this is because I'm a Richard Pryor fan. It was good to see a young Richard Pryor again and if this was just a movie of him talking about anything it would be a hundred times better. It's just bits of Pryor hanging out on the outdoor basketball playground interspersed with some unfunny skits and comments from 60s pot head political whiners. They hate the U.S. flag and let you know that they consider it nothing. That kind of thing.

It's possible that 60s and early 70s pot heads and acid droppers would really enjoy the entire movie in a room filled with black light posters and purple light blubs. They would love the attempts at President Nixon jokes. You know how those people laugh like an uncontrollable hyena. Unfortunately for those people, it's 2011 and they are all dead now.

Dynamite Chicken is a great title for a comedy but there's nothing really that funny in this movie. A comedy is supposed to be funny. The movie is so dated that you have to be between 40 and 50 to even understand the political jokes and even then, the jokes aren't funny.

It was very not anything at all I did not enjoy this one. I am not sure what it was all about.....