Search - Alice's Restaurant on DVD

Great DVD - But...

Arlo Guthrie | Pittsfield, MA | 04/01/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I had fun doing a running commentary for this new DVD release which I know you'll enjoy. However, because MGM/UA would not allow our small company to purchase the DVD at a decent wholesale price, they've cut us out from selling the product through our own retail outlet (we can buy it cheaper here at Amazon) where we've been selling our CDs and VHS movies (including Alice's Restaurant) for years. We are boycotting the sale of the DVD until changes can be made. Stick with us and wait. Then buy it here or anywhere. Thanks, Arlo Guthrie"

Alice's Restaurant: A Vision of Joyful Abundance

ruzzante | UK | 03/06/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The excellent-quality Alice's Restaurant DVD is a cultural gem! Thanks to audio commentary by Arlo Guthrie himself, Alice's Restaurant merits nomination as the greatest movie ever about the 60s or, for that matter, any time of profound social and spiritual change! What adds human depth to this movie is that many people involved in the real-life drama are here, in the same locations, playing themselves!The 60s social/intellectual/spiritual divide is illustrated in Alice's Restaurant by this insane question: can anyone who dumps litter be sufficiently moral to help kill people in another land? The social divide of the 60s has additional clarity in Alice's Restaurant because the movie director was in one ideological camp and Arlo Guthrie was in the other! In addition, an extremely valid spiritual dimension is provided to the story because Alice's restaurant was in a church; a fertile and far-reaching symbol! It makes the movie and real-life story into one wonderful (but never utopian) heart-warming adventure!The movie has an amazing number of dimensions. What amazes most, however, is the Alice's Restaurant song, on which the movie was partly based. It still sounds wonderfully fresh and naïve! It maintains its power because it is not only a celebration of the genuine joys of life, love, and friendship but also an indisputable anthem that fully affirms the great natural value of simply having fun in life when you can `get anything you want'. It seems a totally innocuous, irrelevant song ... yet, that remains its overwhelming strength rather than its weakness. After the movie, how life-affirming and universally joyous an anthem the song becomes! My hat is off to you Mr. Guthrie! Thank you!"

From someone who knows Arlo

Lisa M. Pignotti | Austin,TX. | 10/07/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am a folksinger and have known the Guthries for a very long time. I knew Marjorie Guthrie, but not woody because I was just little when he died.
I can tell you that Marjorie Guthrie loved this movie and would be very happy that people are still watching it. Marjorie died of cancer back in the 1980's.
I myself love this movie and have seen it many times. As I'm writing this, the movie is on TV right now. I ran to the computer to see if it's on DVD. I really thought it wasn't out on DVD yet but to my surprise it is and I ordered it right away. This is a movie I will love all my life time and my son too,
who I named ARLO. Please do watch this movie. It's one of the best in movie history."

Alice is a GrOOOOOvy cook

nickilo1 | nickilo1@aol.com | 08/07/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This movie embodies the contrasts of the 60's. It shows the freedom of being young and the joys that accompany it. It also shows the fear of being drafted into a war in which the counterculture was determined to stifle. "Alice" also shows the sensitivity and the integrity that Arlo Guthrie possessed and continues to possess in his 50's. Although this movie is so timely with the issues of the 60's (war, drugs, and nonconformity), it is also timeless because no matter what the decade, or what the issues at hand, everyone is, at one point, the idealistic child (represented by Arlo and friends) and the "Not young but not old" confused, mid to late 20'something adult (represented by Alice and Ray). Both represent phases of life common to all of us. Do not be mistaken, it has its moments of drama and tragedy, but it is ultimately humorous and making a mockery of the establishment that rejected a generation. Arlo is quirky and hilarious. He is a brilliant storyteller, and most would agree that this is his best story of all. A MUST SEE!"