ninafina Funny, good music, great actors, important message.

davethemathtutor Well, I've finally seen this hallowed cultural icon of the Sixties, and I gotta say, it stinks. It's a musical, and that's a lot of what's wrong with it: "Age of Aquarius" and "Let the Sunshine In" are pretty good songs, and "Easy To Be Hard" is passable, I guess, but all the rest are just awful, with unmelodic music and pretentious lyrics. The dancing is good, and Twyla Tharp's choreography is excellent, but that can't make up for the lousy songs.Then there's the story. Treat Williams stars as the leader of a small band of hippies, and his character strikes me (at age 68) as pretty obnoxious. Did director Milos Forman really intend for the hippies to come across as such smug, narcissistic jerks? *Were* we such smug, narcissistic jerks? I wonder.All in all: An embarrassment to all us old ex-flower children.

edwagreen Music and the anti-war feeling regarding Vietnam is marvelously staged in this 1979 film.Treat Williams is way-out and way-too-good as a hippie caught up in the period.The musical production numbers are marvelously staged in a film attempted to draw rebellious America with the establishment. I think that Damon Runyan would have had a ball with this excellent film.I wish that Charlotte Rae had had a speaking part in the film. When the hippie culture invades the well-off people's party, Rae as a guest of the elite, dances on the table thereby showing that she is willing and able to follow a different way of thinking as well as life.The integration of the army brass at the induction center participating in the singing is well done and shooting down the tower that produced the anti-establishment songs being sung over it were memorable.

TheLittleSongbird Hair isn't for me one of the my favourite film musicals(excluding animated films for now, West Side Story, Singin' in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Meet Me in St Louis) nor do I think is one of Milos Forman's best films(Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). It is much better than it's given credit for though, true it is inferior to the stage show and has its problems, but there are far worse film musicals out there(Xanadu, Can't Stop the Music, Mame, Grease 2, Across the Universe The Wiz, A Chorus Line) and for me it ties with Annie(1982, I know lots of people hate it but I love it and have done since childhood) as one of the most underrated.The story(the stage show does have a stronger one but not with its disjointed moments) does get weaker towards the end with an ending that is rather over-the-top, and the sequence with Claude's hallucination bogged things down a bit.It does however do a more than commendable job turning the stage show into something coherent and something that is still of relevant value now. Most of the story is good though even if re-written, with some well-explored, relevant themes of poverty, homosexuality and racism, even if these themes are closer to the 70s period rather than late 60s but I don't think it mattered too much. It is also successful in being not just tragic and poignant but also thoughtful and funny. The film looks wonderful, with the era detail, cinematography and colour a colourful and beautiful feast for the eye. The music is also fantastic, there are catchy numbers like Aquarious, Sodomy and Flesh Failures but also some really powerful ones like Walking in Space and Easy to Be Hard.The choreography looks dazzling and is danced and paced with sheer infectious energy, while the stage show has even more energy the film comes very close to matching it. Who can forget Treat Williams' table top dance? I can't. Forman I have always considered one of the most intelligent and underrated directors, while Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus are very well regarded and deservedly, few of his others have matched that, and it is a shame but movies like Fireman's Ball are also very good. And he doesn't undermine the energy, music, choreography or performances in any way, if anything he accommodates them while phoning it in. And of course the performances are just great. I don't think Treat Williams has been better, and he certainly hasn't been in a better film since Hair, while John Savage and Don Dacus are equally terrific and Beverly D'Angelo is smoking hot. Cheryl Barnes deserves a mention as well, as her Easy to be Hard rendition is one of the most powerful and heart-wrenching scenes of any film musical to me and what an entrance.All in all, not without flaws but much better than it's gotten credit for and deserving of being judged on its own terms. 8/10 Bethany Cox