This is a really low-budget movie with a bad script full of clichés and equally bad acting. Even the actors who later became well-known do a poor job & overall, it comes across like a high-school play. Only classic car aficionados could possibly enjoy it. Even the scene with Dermot Mulroney and Ricky Schroder shirtless only lasts a minute or so.
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Yes, it is a very poorly done movie. The background music is good but the narration device lends the movie a self-importance it does not deserve. It fails to capture the times. The worst parts of the whole mess are the feeble attempts at mixing in real history. The best thing here is when anyone unfortunate enough to be watching this is reminded that there was a great show called Shindig!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8UbwKTRT7I
I graduated in '65, and there are lots and lots of small errors, but probably you'd have to be my age to notice. Basically, it was sappy and sentimental, and I just do not dig nostalgia and all that "good old days" *beep* at all.
It seemed like it was trying to be another American Graffiti, but it had neither the story or the talent.
It didn't seem "low budget" to me, however. Just a collection of the best-selling cliches of the sixties.
One small error I got a kick out of was when the guy turned on the TV after hearing about the rioting in Watts. TVs in those days took a half-minute to warm up. You didn't get a picture instantly. The riots themselves were like that. They started gradually and took a couple days to develop fully.
Another cliche I disliked were the cars. A '57 Chevy was a classic even then, and it's doubtful (but not impossible) that a high school student would own such a nice one. And those hot rods at the drive in were pure fiction. There are more of those classics on the road now (believe it or not) than there were then. In those days, cars like that were only in magazines and car shows.
I also missed the slang/jargon we used in those days.
And the *beep* stereotyped teacher and principle. Yes, adults were definitely more authoritarian then, but they weren't "tinhorns" about it.
Aw, why'd you get me started. I've only watched the first 20 minutes of it so far. I just had to drop in to cuss it out. It was rank. A real "winner" as we used to say.
I thought for sure that, when I checked imdb, this movie would've been a network or cable TV movie or maybe even direct-to-video, but . . . it got a theatrical release? Wow.
I don't know which was this film's most egregious sin:
a) The horrible Ricky Schroeder breakdown scene at the burger joint, or
b) The overall stench of 1990's political correctness (that was not there in the real 1965) that permeates the characters as they stand on soapboxes pontificating about their empathy with Negroes (having met & known only one), Kreskin-like ability to see Vietnam as a mistake (that most other people couldn't see til late '67), and sense of entitlement as the "future of America".
No wonder writer/director Floyd Mutrux seemed to fall off the face of Hollywood after this. Sorry, Floyd . . . sometimes they also serve (as cautionary tales) who crash and burn.
I don't know what was worse: the cliches, or Ricky Schroder's acting.
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