Watch Getting Straight For Free

People are voting emotionally.

How sad is this?

Absolutely Brilliant!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Don't you feel when they tell you war's a game / You're dead before you even start to play / Don't you feel you're just a number not a name / Your number's up todayDon't you feel what Chicken Little said is coming true / Can't you see the writing on the wall / Don't you feel the floor and ceiling closing in on you... Or don't you feel at all?"Getting Straight" has to do with something few even remember anymore: overthrowing the "Nixon People"--the 1950's culture. But it's not about getting "straight", it's about becoming the opposite. It's about realizing who you really are and what you must be.Elliot Gould is an English teacher who is caught between these two worlds. He is is a graduate student who has his all-important Masters' thesis meeting soon. He's also a LITTLE too old for the world of the protesting and demonstrating college kids, angry about 'Nam, social injustice, repressive politics...and gender-segregated dorms.In the film, he tries very, very hard to see both sides. He even becomes the conduit for communication between the two sides. But at every turn, his efforts at cooperation, reconciliation, and approving things are thrown back in his face by the old people, who just don't "get it", and never will.The final straw for the kids comes when the University responded to demands for co-ed dorms by moving the dorm curfew for other-sex visitors back by 30 minutes. The point is: they genuinely thought that was enough. As the intermediary, Gould pointed to a kid who had just thrown a rock through the Administration building window and told the the University president, "See that kid? A year ago he just wanted to get laid. Now he wants to kill somebody! YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HIM GET LAID!!"But the older generation never understood that what was going on was not just about getting laid or 'Nam, it was an American Revolution of a kind not seen since the first one. And they didn't know it was about to blast them into the dustbin of history.The last straw for Gould himself was when he tried to play by the rules at his Masters' meeting with the English faculty. He answered increasingly ridiculous questions the way they wanted him too. But in the end, like the kids, the situation with the old people became something he could no longer tolerate.In his case, it was a closeted homosexual professor (in those days nobody talked admitted it openly) who insisted that Gould agree that the in the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby's woman friend Jordan Baker, a golfer, was a reference to homosexuality, and that in fact there was a gay relationship between Gatsby and his neighbor Nick Carraway.He finally realized that he has to be a radical, too, because old white man insists on forcing old-white-man beliefs on everyone else, no matter how poorly they fit. He climbed up on the conference room table, announced that the greatest American literary form was the dirty limerick, told one, and then joined the rioting kids who had just broken down the English building door and were tearing everything up. He threw a symbolic rock through a window, and had became radicalized.

I saw this film as a student, when it first came out. As someone who was involved with important issues like the Vietnam War and civil rights and free speech, I was totally offended by the film's nihilism, the ideas that students demonstrate just because that's what today's students do, and that there are no substantive issues involved. The film is all about the main character's life style and sex life, and (as I recall) his meaningful, altruistic, innovative, and condescending attempt to teach literature to ghetto kids by getting them to read comic books.In addition, (as I recall) we are clearly supposed to sympathize with the main character for being in trouble because he was caught cheating at an exam. At the schools I went to at the time, we took our politics and social issues seriously, but our academics no less so.

************ Caution --- Contains Spoilers ********** Have you ever wanted to tell off your boss? Have you ever longed to tell off a rambling, narrow-minded, spacey, self-righteous college professor? If so, `Getting Straight' is the movie for you.`Getting Straight' is almost a good movie. The story line is very dated, very much in the 1960s. The script and the acting are uneven, the characters are flat, and overall the film is just average. But – the REAL value in this movie is the climax!Harry Bailey (Elliott Gould) is a penniless graduate student working on his Ph.D. thesis in American Literature. Everything is going wrong for him – he never has enough money for the rent, his old clunker is always breaking down, he's worried about his thesis, and even his girlfriend Jan (Candace Bergen) starts dating a wealthy doctor.The academic aspect of this movie is very true to life. To earn a Ph.D., a student must pick a very specific topic and write a comprehensive book that covers every bit of knowledge on that subject. The thesis topic must be approved by the advising professor, and students have five years to finish it. When completed, the student must defend his/her thesis to a panel of professors who ask very incisive questions.There is a lot of ‘Sixties flavor to this film. Student leaders are trying to radicalize the student body, Harry's friend is always working on beating the system by draft-dodging scams and welfare scams to collect $900 a week. This movie came out not long after Kent State, Columbia student strike and the `Moratorium' March on Washington. The dialog and the clothes and the "zeitgeist" in general are all true pictures of a bygone era. However, some other movies have done a better job, such as "The Strawberry Statement" or even "Hair." I was in college at the time, and the majority of students were trying to get an education. The political radicals were a minority, although most students were against the war in Vietnam. If you rent this movie, I would recommend checking in at the beginning for a few minutes just to get the background, and then fast forward about 75 minutes to the exciting climax.Harry's PhD Thesis presentation scene will have you laughing and cheering! His thesis deals with the literary value of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. As Harry tries to make his points, the professors derail him on a tangent that Fitzgerald may have been gay. No matter which book he references, one of the ivory tower denizens will always relate it to Fitzgerald's alleged homosexuality. When Harry defends his points about `Tender is the Night,' one prof enthuses, `Ah, yes, perfect, don't you see that the Dick Diver Character was the manifestation of Fitzgerald's repressed latent homosexual drives?' Unable to take any more, Harry explodes, `Well, that must have been news to ZELDA!' Shocked, the profs are speechless as Harry grabs each man's copy of the thesis and tells off the eggheads one by one. Jumping up on the table, he trashes everything they believe in as he throws papers all over the place, especially in their faces. It is a better catharsis than `Dilbert.'The denouement comes as the student riot finally erupts on campus. Harry sneaks out as small hordes of authentic sixties hippies run through the building and seize rooms including the one holding the stupefied, frightened professors. Jan magically appears among the anarchy and once again pledges her love to Harry, who has decided to leave the academic establishment.Harry never indicates what he will do instead of teaching in college, but the happy couple walks off into the sunset in search of a better tomorrow. If they ever make a sequel to this movie, I wonder if Harry would start a `dot-com' company.

Too bad Richard Rush doesn't make more movies. He's got a fantastic style, as can be seen in the more recent "The Stunt Man" and this movie should have retained a "classic" status. Set in the campus riot era, Harry Bailey only seeks to fulfill his dream of becoming a teacher, molding another Salinger and making enough to live on. He can't be bothered with the idealistic ravings of his younger friends and fellow students until he see "it's not what you do that counts, it's what you are". Check out this totally superb performance of Elliot Gould's. Even if you find the movie dated and somewhat silly, Gould is extraordinary. Unfortunately Candy Bergen has about one decent scene, the rest of the time her acting is very trying. The rest of the actors are right on though, especially a very young Harrison Ford.