You won't be disappointed!

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Excellent but underrated film

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Czech director Milos Forman made his American debut with this sweetly-zonked look at the generation gap, circa 1971. Straight, tightly-wound suburban married couple just outside New York City panic when their teenage daughter runs away...but eventually they tire of looking for her ("She's probably out there having fun," the kid's father says, "so why shouldn't we have some fun, goddammit!"). Scenes of the grown-ups letting loose with marijuana experimentation and strip poker are intercut with teenagers auditioning for a musical, and this is where Forman's true talent comes to the fore (he's mad about faces, and passionate about eccentrics and talent). The well-chosen cast (including Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin, Audra Lindley, Paul Benedict, Georgia Engel and Allen Garfield, with music performances from Ike and Tina Turner, Kathy Bates and Carly Simon) is uniformly excellent, though the thin screenplay (penned by Forman with John Guare, Jean-Claude Carrière and John Klein) doesn't give the actors much to work with--they're all flying high on the exuberance of collaboration. Forman's vision is predictably cockeyed, though his pacing is slow and his staging is sometimes puzzling. For instance, is he holding the singers at the audition in esteem with his camera or using them satirically? The blank faces of the judges are probably meant to get a laugh, but their dumbfounded reactions shouldn't dictate what we're experiencing watching them for ourselves. The movie does take off on occasion, but it isn't from energy (Forman doesn't display a temperament, he's of the low-keyed school of filmmaking); the sheer intrinsic delight of showcased talent gives the picture its charge, ultimately making it a unique, quirky bird all its own. **1/2 from ****

Having seen director, Milos Forman's two Czech b/w classics, The Fireman's Ball and The Loves of A Blonde (or a blonde In Love, as I knew it) I saw this, his first US film upon its original release. I remember it being controversial although not a big hit, but I loved it. It barely has a narrative story line, no big stars, Buck Henry being the most well known, but it just made me feel good. It wasn't one of those films preaching at one side or the other (that's kids and parents!) and just seemed to present a little of what was happening towards the end of the sixties and derive some good natured humour from it. Watching it again, I was amazed at how well it still works. There are no embarrassing moments, it looks good, sounds good and probably does you good. I have no idea why the recent Park Circus DVD release box is so subdued but then this is not a jazzy, wacky film, just a relaxed, intelligent picture of a very strange time. Wonderful.

I am not in Forman's movies but definitely, if not with his first two, with this one he is able to catch the eye. Especially after his previous one in which he presented man's life through the libido's desires to light fires and of the firmen's to put out fires like the libido put out with age.Here age again is central theme. People say that every big producer should have done 80's movie about the American teenagers or movie that shows a bathroom. In this we can see both things. How much the generations walk past each other, how much the adults do not remember their past and how much the present of their children is well known to them. Parents are always worried and will worry, that is the system in which we have decided to be. There is choice but is there any boldness? This movie is not comical, not nasty, not joyful, not sad not strange, not boring, not traditional, not well known, maybe reminds of the opposite of all this but is not one of them. Definitely in it is hinted the talent of the producer which for now is staring deeply into the psyche of his personages and slightly is touching social questions which he will rise in hi next movies.The movie is two-shifted, behind it is the music of the life, the different songs about different moments with different moods in them. It is innovative and it is interesting. But how is made that way I leave to your imagination.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

Milos Forman's first American release is part social satire, part farcical look at two morose, middle-class parents (Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin, both outstanding)who begin to enjoy life only after their teenage daughter (sad-eyed LinneaHeacock) runs away. At once funny and touching, Forman and veteran Bunuelcollaborator Jean-Claude Carriere ("Belle du Jour," "Diary of a Chambermaid") concoct a simple story of unexpected depth, a wry comedy that unfoldsgradually, gently lampooning marriage and family life while painting a sensitive portrait of the confused, disenfranchised youth scene of the 1960s. Formanregular Vincent Schiavelli makes his debut here as a bell-bottomed marijuana"expert," who carefully instructs a banquet hall full of clueless parents in the fine art of getting high. A young Kathy Bates and a spirited Carly Simon appearbriefly singing at a theatrical audition, while Georgia Engel and Audra Lindley turn in subtle, nuanced performances several years before their televisiondebuts on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Three's Company," respectively. A beautifully observed, underrated gem.