Indyrod This outstanding Oscar nominated documentary is very informative about a period of American history, that most Americans don't know much about. A group of revolutionaries, calling themselves "The Weathermen", planned to overthrow the US government in the seventies because of the Viet Nam war. Archival footage and interviews with members of the group is fascinating to say the least. They were not terrorists and no one was killed by the actual Weathermen group. Around 1970 they went underground for 11 years being hunted constantly by the FBI, and conducted property and building bombings to protest acts of the US government. It all came to an end when the War ended, but their story is as amazing today and as it was then, in fact, their cause is just as important today because our government is repeating history with the ridiculous Iraq war. Two excellent commentaries, one with the co-director and the other with two of the leaders of the group are highly informative. I love historical documentaries, and this one is extremely well done.

noizyme The Weather Underground was an interesting storytelling of the protest group the Weather Underground. They played an interesting role during a heated time in America from 1970-1980, raising awareness and raising tension throughout the nation as they were growing in notoriety for setting off bombs (literally) in public government buildings every time the US took part in any atrocity. Their message was "Bring the war home" referring to the Vietnam war, which is documented in having a huge death toll by the hands of the US soldiers overseas. If people didn't do anything about the war, they would show Americans what war was by creating war here in the States.This DVD is packed with excellent footage that I've never seen. It offers a viewpoint from the director of what exactly this group of around 30 individuals were thinking about when they decided to take on the US government and its grounds for staying in Vietnam and other actions which the gov't helped in doing. There are plenty of extras on the DVD, including a great commentary by two of the more outspoken members of the Weather Underground, who shed light on their views of other members and their words (which happen to clash with what might've been true). There is full videos of footage from their meetings and a commentary from the director.I can't say if everything that was on the DVD was true for the time, even when everything seems to be in order historically and fact-worthy. As I watched this documentary, though, I got a deeper sense of a mission gone a-wry and a real-to-life feel of drama and a meaning to life beyond capitalism and sitting at home while people die for this country and don't speak up against the Vietnam war (which happens to resemble the most recent 2003 Iraq war best). The DVD might be sending messages out about protesting wars and government actions and how essential it was to this group, and in a way, it makes the viewer feel a slight empowerment to set things right today during our Iraq war, but most of us would probably end up like the group before the Weather Underground (the SDS: students for a democratic society) whom the Undergrounds were a part of, but split because of their blatant inactivity against the gov't when the call came.I loved the film for what it was as a film. I gave the rating for this one a 7 out of 10 stars. There were times when you didn't want to side with the WU. They turned into misguided individuals which can distort their own views to take on any cause of help that the US gave other countries, which cannot be held completely responsible on the US' part. The director had a weird way of showing the transition from their peace-loving group to this more active, bombing group (a typical shot of the ocean on the beach for about a minute or so), but other than that, I got a real education of what they were doing, what the Black Panthers felt about them, and their sense of realism and understanding in the growing world at the crazy time of the late 60's and early 70's. Also included were awesome ambient and funk cuts from the likes of Aphex Twin and Sly and the Family Stone. I loved it, check it out.

BreanneB I thought that this movie was not only excellent but also very informative about a very tragic and horrific period of time in our country's history. This film shows the actual people that were involved in some way or another and clips of news reports and other real life things. Although, you don't see the infamous and high profile Weathermen Judith Clark and Kathy Boudin in the main film, you can hear Boudin talking in one of the extra features. Clark, was sentenced to 75 years to life for the deadly armored car heist that left 3 law enforcement officers dead, Boudin, received 20 years to life, and Boudin's Husband David Ritter received the same as Clark did. Although, Boudin, was paroled from prison in August 2003 and left in October, after serving 22 years. I personally think like many others that she should have gotten the exact same sentence as the other two. She only received leniency because her father was a big time lawyer. There should have been no special treatments at all for her.

eht5y The Weatherman faction remains one of the more troubling aspects of the 60s counterculture, for manifold reasons. How did a bunch of well-educated, relatively privileged white kids transform from idealistic protesters for peace into revolutionary terrorists? How were they able to reconcile the inherent contradiction of using violence as a means of pursuing peace? Can violence ever lead to reconciliation, or must it necessarily beget more violence? Sam Green and Bill Siegel's documentary examines all of these questions while remaining remarkably objective. It's a pity that we should feel surprised when a documentary filmmaker actually attempts to uphold the all-but-obsolete standard of objectivity; nevertheless, Green and Siegel deserve to be complimented for presenting a film that is perhaps more a window into the confusion of the times than a history of one peculiar faction of anti-government activists.Green & Siegel intersperse archival footage with commentary by a number of the Weather Underground's leaders, most of whom retain their revolutionary idealism, even if they have grown circumspect about their methodology.The film persuasively channels the aura of violence and political unrest that characterized American culture as the first vestiges of counter-cultural idealism gave way first to frustration as the war in Vietnam escalated and then to radicalism as, one after another, civil and human rights activists ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton were brutally silenced, possibly by order of American government agencies such as the CIA, NSA, and FBI. Simultaneously, the tenor of apolitical American life shifted from the good vibrations of psychedelia to paranoia and suspicion. The image of the blissed-out, peace-loving, groovy hippie was replaced by the crazed expression of Charles Manson, whose murderous id made every God-fearing citizen's worst nightmares reality: acid-crazed hippies rampaging the suburbs, butchering innocents in order to start a revolution that would overthrow the status quo. Siegel's and Green's direction employs numerous archival clips that are shockingly graphic, including horrific footage of executions and the bodies of civilian casualties in Vietnam (including many women and small children) and uncensored crime scene photographs from the Tate-LaBianca murders ordered by Charles Manson. The material is somewhat objectionable, but serves the purpose of expressing the climate of fear that made it possible for the likes of Mark Rudd--now a quiet, somewhat melancholy math teacher at a community college in New Mexico--to drop out of sight and begin plotting the violent overthrow of the American political system.The film presents the Weather Underground as admirable in its courage and determination, but also as terminally misguided. Weatherman leaders repeatedly express their solidarity with the Black Panthers and any revolutionary movement of underclass 'brown or black' people on the planet, but the few Panthers who comment for the film either disavow the Weathermen or express perplexity at their determination to identify with the struggle of blacks and other oppressed ethnicities. As adults, several of the group members acknowledge that, even when they were harassed or beaten by police, they were still treated far more humanely than their black counterparts, and so were never truly in the same struggle as those whom they supported. Some of the members still speak nostalgically about their Weathermen days and claim that they'd do it all over again; others express disdain and regret over their complicity in the deaths of innocents.As we begin to see history repeating itself in Iraq, 'The Weather Underground' is all too timely. What was different about the 60s and 70s, when so many young people became committed to political activism, from the present, when the numbers are relatively few? Will the process that brought about the Weather Underground repeat itself, or was this particular group less a consequence of the times than of the choices of a few charismatic but misguided and naive twenty-somethings? Did Weatherman make a difference, or was it simply another small piece of the catastrophic collage of the Vietnam era? This film raises more questions than it answers--which is probably what art should always try to do.