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From: 10e@hpcvia.CV.HP.COM (Steve_Tenney)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: THE DOORS
Summary: r.a.m.r. #00946
Keywords: author=Tenney
Message-ID: <1991Mar13.001853.23142@cbnewsj.att.com>
Date: 13 Mar 91 00:18:53 GMT
Expires: 25 Mar 1991 13:00:00 GMT
Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Reply-To: 10e@hpcvia.CV.HP.COM (Steve_Tenney)
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Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, Oregon
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				  THE DOORS
		       A film review by Steve Tenney
			Copyright 1991 Steve Tenney

     Yes, after watching Oliver Stone's (an appropriate last name for
the director of this movie) THE DOORS, you remember it even if you
really weren't there :-)!

     I saw the Doors at Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco back in 1968
(or was it 67).  At that time we were really into the San Francisco
Sound--a la Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis), Jefferson
Airplane, the Grateful Dead, the Sons of Chaplin, Moby Grape,
QuickSilver Messenger Service, etc.  So on this one night when this LA
Band showed up on stage, with Morrison and his black leather pants
(hey-- we were more into knee-high leather moccasins, paisley shirts and
stuff), slithering across the stage on his belly while reciting his
"poetry" (Dylan was more my kind of poet), we had rather mixed feelings
about the experience.  Somehow The Doors just didn't fit into the
atmosphere in old Avalon Ballroom that night.  Somehow you really got
the impression that Morrison was on a less-than-healthy trip, so in '71
when I heard of his death I wasn't surprised at all.

     I really "dug" this Oliver Stone movie, even though I found it
somewhat depressing.  Naturally, a movie about the self-destruction of a
rock hero during a very turbulent age would tend to be depressing.  I
found myself trying to sift from this movie any positive memories of
that era I could.  There were many positive idealist, though naive,
aspects of the counter-culture movement, especially around the San
Francisco Bay Area.  But unfortunately that movement was born by drugs
and eventually died by drugs.  

     The Doors was brilliantly filmed, acted and directed, and caught
the very strange, exciting and destructive character of that time.  It's
probably a movie you will either want to see three or four times or
else....  not even once, depending on your taste and background.

Steve Tenney
Hewlett-Packard  Corvallis, ORE
10e@hpcvia.CV.HP.COM