jcain1635 I can see the charm in propaganda films that are well made or fun to poke fun at. This was just dreadfully boring. Things just happen. The characters have no real motivations. The acting is just bad enough to be annoying. The camera work is all flat shots. I would prefer to be waterboarded than to watch this dull film again.

moonspinner55 Ordinary 15-year-old teenage girl, feeling like an outcast at a new high school, falls in with the stoner crowd after being offered hallucinogens at a party. Eventually, she's a runaway living on the streets and, after returning home to her well-meaning but naïve parents, is stuck with a bad reputation among her peers--and labeled a 'fink' when she turns in a fellow teen druggie. TV-made "message movie", adapted from the fictional cult book by Anonymous (Beatrice Sparks), purports to pack a punch, but instead seems tentative and a bit awkward (this mostly due to the inexperienced younger actors in the cast). William Shatner (as Alice's natty father) and Andy Griffith (as a priest who works with dopers and drunks) seem to be cast for their name value, although both do solid work in small roles. Jamie Smith Jackson handles the lead with sensitivity and sincerity, and the picture gets a solid B for effort.

lazarillo This is an alarmist TV movie based on an alarmist young adult novel supposedly based on the diary of an actual fifteen-year-old girl who died of a drug overdose. The novel's origins were recently debunked, but anyone with a casual familiarity with drugs ought to realize both the book and the movie are mostly a lot of bunk. For instance, at one point in the book the character becomes a prostitute because she is addicted to LSD. Huh?! First off LSD, can create dangerous delusions and it might melt your mind, but it is NOT addictive. Moreover, it has always retailed for about $1 a hit and any "habit" could be financed by spare-changing for about a half an hourDrugs ARE dangerous, even alcohol and marijuana to some extent, but I don't why people who have obviously never experienced them feel they have to make up ridiculous lies about them to keep kids away. If you tell kids that LSD or marijuana are addictive when they're not, they're not going to believe you about crack or heroin. And while I wouldn't recommend drugs to anybody, I wouldn't recommend going through life being a total tool either.But getting to the movie (which actually leaves out some of the more absurd scenes of the book), I kind of liked it. It has a very groovy 70's feel to it. Being a TV movie it doesn't have nearly enough psychedelic freak out scenes, but it's better than most TV movies, definitely better than the kind they make today. It also feature Ayn Ruymen, a really pretty if obscure actress who appeared in Paul Bartel's "Private Parts" about the same time. Of course, it also was the debut of McKenzie Phillips the first of three completely untalented daughters of John Phillips of the "Mamas and Papas" fame, and if you know anything about THAT family, it's pretty ironic that any of them would have appeared in an anti-drug movie. Still it's good to finally this is available on (legitimate) DVD.

iquestionmarc When the book came out in the late 60's or early 70's it was promoted as non fiction. The author hoped to inform, educate or scare kid's about the dangers of drug use. At that time in the 60's and 70's drugs were considered cool and hip and the dangers of it weren't really known on a wide scale as they are now. The author went onto pen more books about the perils of teens going down the wrong path. She did a popular one almost as popular as go ask Alice and it was on teen prostitution, and another on aids. Decades later the author was revealed (Beatrice Sparks?)and Go ask Alice was changed to being classified as fiction. The book is still either way a great read and written so amazingly sincerely that after finding out it was fiction it is still hard to believe. The movie doesn't do the book justice, but it is fun to watch for 70's kitsch purposes. However when I watched it at 12 after shortly after I read the book, it sort of freaked me out but that was before I got HBO. The movie should really be remade as a time period piece of the late 60's early 70's, and not set in todays world.