Absolutely the worst movie.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I watched this movie and I grew up in the 1960's and this movie told it like it was. A lot of people did not like the war and that it was wrong. Basically it was about people who had the right to make a choice and to stand up and say that the war was wrong and that they do have a right to protest it. The one son made the choice to go to war and the other son chose not to. The daughter also had to right to choose whether or not she wanted to keep the baby that she was going to have.The music and the clothes were very authentic and so were a lot of the scenes from the war, the riots, the Black Panthers, Woodstock Festival, the Hog Farmers, Haight-Ashbury district and the Watts Riots. The thing that did disturb me was the scenes where black people were being beat up by whites, mainly the KKK.The only scene that I thought was stupid was when one of the leaders in the apartment was stupid enough to light up a cigarette in the same area that he is building a bomb and blew himself up.I did like the ending because no matter what their difference of opinion was, the family was brought back together.

oh ya, I was there and can vouch for the veracity of many of the scenes in this series. My background was that of a naive shy geeky type and it took me a long time to come to terms with what happened during the 60s. A time of very rapid and huge social change. The course of the decade is mirrored in the story presented in this excellent representation. The remnants of the bobbysoxer era gave way to some pretty horrid psychedelic tunes but then Jimi Hendrix hit the air waves. His legacy will in 200 years be similar to Amadeus Mozart: they both revolutionized music, lived on the edge, died young and broke. The difference is we have Jimi's live recordings and know his resting place. The characters then undergo some defining moments, and the war in southeast Asia spills over. The end of the film was rather abrupt and bewildering, same goes for that decade. I was there when the hippie era ended in a similar fashion.Plausibility of this story ranges from dead on to highly unlikely. But you have to remember the hippie era was partly based on a lot of media hype and voyeurism. This range of views is correctly portrayed.Julia Stiles was uniquely outstanding in her role as the wayward daughter who struggles against the downside of a society that in some cases was determined to devour its young. I too was kicked out of the house at a young age but I deserved it having chosen to sport long hair and argue with my parents at every opportunity. Fortunately I had a job at the time and all was forgiven eventually. Gee, thats exactly what happens in this movie. Its no wonder Ms Stiles has gone on to many more film projects and I hope to see her in roles that extend her talent.Out of all the portrayals I have seen of that period, 'The 60s' is the most accurate. I was there, I should know. I even lived in a hippie house the summer of 1970. It was a farm house converted to a non-denominational church and some teens from around Canada and one chap from Jamaica were there on an exchange program. Music, motorcycles, pot, hitch-hikers, stern faced members of the establishment, oh ya, I had some flashbacks watching this one.You can look back but you can never go back.

This was a great, but not very in-depth, overlook of the sixties with examples in the hippie movement, Vietnam veterans, African-American freedom fighters, the intellectual radical left and traditionalists. Most of the actors gave solid performances, especially Jeremy Sisto. Very nice full-circle story. My only beef with the film was that, as usual in Hollywood films, the end trivializes the rest of the content.

For some strange reason, I end up finding this movie on VH1 when I have a long ironing session. It is entertaining enough to keep it on. Since I've watched it a couple of times, I thought it would be interesting to detail some of the less thought of continuity aspects of the series.I agree with most user comments regarding the lack of character development/screen time of the African American characters, especially Emmet. We find him rioting in South Central L.A. at the end of the first part, and ten minutes into the second part, he's a Jimi Hendrix look-alike in San Francisco. Ten minutes later, he's a Panther. We know the Herlihy's live happily ever after, but don't get any kind of closure from his character at the end. And what happened to the mother?Another puzzling detail is how Michael and Brian smoke pot using a rather large device inside the house, where their father (with his straightforward, military antics) could have easily found them. Sure, the girl gets kicked out for getting pregnant, but the guys can smoke on the kitchen counter. On non-continuity issues, Josh Hamilton looks way older than what the character calls for; he must have been already in his thirties when the movie was being shot. Jordana Brewster is actually in college now, making her 16 or 17 at the time the film was made. Ick. I didn't really feel any chemistry between them, and the dialogue had a high degree of cheesiness to it ("What did you forget?"... "My heart"... Oh please!)I think that NBC tried to cover as many bases as possible in four hours. It is debatable whether they should have dealt with fewer plotlines and events and try to make a better move, or whether it turned out okay to treat many circumstances with limited depth.