It's like watching gawky, awkward teens trying to read the manual on how to be cool. At times, these kids are so pedantic and serious about trying to find the formula for being hip that you wish they would not try so hard.
Four young men decide to form a band during the 1960s. Along the way, they discover sex and marijuana. The band isn't bad, but there are the usual conflicts, egos and fights over who will be lead and who will get the chick. We are instructed to have great respect for the rock idols of the time, and we are instructed on the blues.
The story is told in a painful way. The actors all have low affect and seem to be drained of enthusiasm as if they took their cues from scenes of Bob Dylan interviews from that period. Bob Dylan was cool in the early 1960s because he was famous and had a lot of hit songs. These kids,really, have no reason to act like Dylan.
The plot is sequential, but disjointed. There is the young-old conflict from the era. Pro and AntiVietnam arguments. A nod to the civil rights issues of that time. These kids are searching, but they are jerks.
In the end, the story drifts. The ending comes out of nowhere and applies to nothing we have seen as if the film-makers ran out of ideas and decided to paste a final thing onto the last part of the story.
In contrast to films that make us nostalgic for the sixties and send us back to those feel-good sounds of the time, this movie uses a lot of music, but fails to connect emotionally to the time.
Four young men decide to form a band during the 1960s. Along the way, they discover sex and marijuana. The band isn't bad, but there are the usual conflicts, egos and fights over who will be lead and who will get the chick. We are instructed to have great respect for the rock idols of the time, and we are instructed on the blues.
The story is told in a painful way. The actors all have low affect and seem to be drained of enthusiasm as if they took their cues from scenes of Bob Dylan interviews from that period. Bob Dylan was cool in the early 1960s because he was famous and had a lot of hit songs. These kids,really, have no reason to act like Dylan.
The plot is sequential, but disjointed. There is the young-old conflict from the era. Pro and AntiVietnam arguments. A nod to the civil rights issues of that time. These kids are searching, but they are jerks.
In the end, the story drifts. The ending comes out of nowhere and applies to nothing we have seen as if the film-makers ran out of ideas and decided to paste a final thing onto the last part of the story.
In contrast to films that make us nostalgic for the sixties and send us back to those feel-good sounds of the time, this movie uses a lot of music, but fails to connect emotionally to the time.