Alice's Restaurant

This excellent film was written by my late screen writing teacher Venable Herndon, but I saw it and fell in love with it long before I took his class.

It manages to be both good humored and effortlessly profound at the same time. The recruitment scenes are hysterically funny. I miss movies with this laid-back quality. A lot of people are adverse to this type of loose narrative structure, but since almost every flick and TV show has such a rigid structure why can't the rest of us have a couple of films to ourselves.

The final shot of Alice's Restaurant with all its beautiful ambiguity has affected me more than the final shot of the "Searchers" every time I've seen it. It manages to celebrate something and take it with a grain of salt at the same time. Hurrah for the director of photography!

A beautiful trip all round.