Search - My Dinner with Jimi on DVD

If you can remember the sixties...

Triple Your Money Back | Los Angeles, CA USA | 07/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At long last, the sixties as seen through the drug-addled orbs of a cat who was really there, living the high life with the Beatles and the Stones.
I first thought this was going to be a documentary...the Turtles released one in 1990 called Happy Together, so I assumed that this would be actual footage from back in the day.
BUT NO, my cats and kittens...
it is much, MUCH more than that.
First of all, it's a comedy, mostly, starring a bunch of fresh-faced kids in their twenties BEING the Turtles, the band from the sixties who were the first rock band to play at the White House. And while that particular story is not told in this volume, the author, Turtles' lead singer Howard Kaylan, has filled the screen for an hour and a half with enough stories to tell around rock and roll water coolers for decades to come.
It seems that fame was thrust suddenly upon Kaylan and his bandmates and we witness his early photo sessions,(with a moustached John Corbett playing Henry Diltz), we go backstage at the Whisky A-GoGo with their manager,(a suitable slimy George Wendt, and learn draft evasion from Frank Zappa's manager, Herb Cohen, (Curtis Armstrong).
The ordeal of prepping for the draft board exams, when both Howard (played by Acadamy Award nominee Justin Henry--Kramer Vs. Kramer), and Turtle partner Mark Volman (a wonderfully comic Jason Boggs) proceed to intoxicate themselves with abandon is only a set-up for the draft board sequence that follows...Taylor Negron is a standout here.
Where, I hear you ask, is Jimi?
Well, the title IS a bit deceiving.
But he's coming.
Not, however, before we meet Graham Nash, Donovan, The Moody Blues, Brian Jones, and, in an amazing scene, the Beatles themselves.
Folks, right here, you got your price of admission.
I promise, you will never forget that scene.
Brian Groh, the actor who portrays John Lennon, would face little competiton in an indie movie award show UNLESS...
he was in the same catagory as the gentleman who lets us into the very soul of Mr. Hendrix himself. The actor's name is Royale Watkins.
Write it down.
He is amazing.
The ending is a little fuzzy, as well it should be, going by Kaylan's recollections, but the movie is a total surprise and a five star gem.
It's all done on the cheap--you can tell that these folks found a great project and did it for a song...
and there are plenty of great songs in this movie too--the soundtrack should come out as a CD.
All in all, if you're at all curious...if you EVER wanted to live or RE-live the sixties, this is your movie.
(Note...there is quite a bit of casual drug use portrayed in the film without moral or social consequence, so if you have little ones, be advised.)"

If You Care About The 60's, Get This Film!

G. Ratcheson | Washington | 07/02/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I just watched this tonight; it's wonderful. Screenplay by Howard Kaylan based on the Turtles 1966 rise to the top & 1967 visit to London. It was touching & hilarious, get this one!"