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DOMINOES: An Uncensored Portrait Of The 60s, a Powerfully Moving Documentary Film, was Released on DVD on November 9, 2009

DOMINOES: An Uncensored Portrait Of The 60s, is a powerfully moving documentary film that was released on DVD on November 9, 2009. The film chronicles some of the most explosive years in modern history, 1965 to 1975, and is accompanied only by an ageless soundtrack (no narration) by The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Santana, B.B. King, Marvin Gaye, Grateful Dead and many more legendary 60s rock music artists.

Boston, MA (PRWEB) November 18, 2009 — DOMINOES: An Uncensored Portrait Of The 60s (http://dominoesmovie.com), is a powerfully moving documentary film that was released on DVD on November 9, 2009. The film chronicles some of the most explosive years in modern history – 1965 to 1975. DOMINOES is a mesmerizing montage accompanied only by a soundtrack for the ages — a rollercoaster ride, without a word of narration, from Watts to Woodstock (http://dominoesmovie.com/woodstock-then-now/), from the streets of Paris to Kent State, from the Democratic Convention of 68 to the fall of Richard Nixon, and from world student rebellion to the fall of Saigon. It is as much a brilliant homage to the Western democracy, as it is a caustic metaphor for all that is wrong with it. And over everything is DOMINOES’ pulsing, evocative soundtrack by the Rolling Stones (http://dominoesmovie.com/rolling-stones-gimme-shelter/), Neil Young (http://dominoesmovie.com/neil-young-ohio/), Santana (http://dominoesmovie.com/santana-incident-neshabur/), B.B. King (http://dominoesmovie.com/b-b-king-the-thrill-is-gone/), Marvin Gaye, Grateful Dead (http://dominoesmovie.com/grateful-dead-dark-star/) and many more legendary artists.

Here’s Nat Segaloff’s new film review of DOMINOES:

Dominoes at Twenty: A Revisit and Reappraisal

By Nat Segaloff

Twenty years ago, as critic for The Boston Herald, I wrote that Dominoes “passionately, but not judgmentally, recaptures the music and images of America’s counterculture” and added that it “doesn’t flinch, yet also doesn’t lie.”

Seeing it anew — long after the era it so movingly chronicles has been subjected to everything from college study to Orwellian revisionism — I can’t help but marvel at how the film hasn’t dated. I’m even jealous; I have wrinkles, but Dominoes doesn’t. In fact, it is more alive now than when it was given a furtive, abbreviated release so long ago that the digital revolution wasn’t even a whisper.

Filmmakers John Lawrence Ré and co-producer Barry Alexander Brown performed a brilliant balancing act when they completed their film in 1989. They went to great lengths to license key songs and indelible images from the activist middle sixties through the early seventies, and combined them in a work that was resolutely anti-nostalgic. Yet that doesn’t mean that it isn’t compassionate. Whether cringing at Watts burning in August of 1965, democracy being assaulted at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Woodstock Nation being born in 1969, or the May 4, 1970 murder of four students at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard, Dominoes not only tells it, it sings it and shows it as it was.

Perspective, by definition, is a shifting thing. What anchors Dominoes is that it creates a mood, not a polemic. After all, Ré didn’t invent the images; a nation did, a generation did, an era did. What the filmmakers did was skillfully structure the kaleidoscope of history into a cohesive whole that conjures powerful memories and then steps back — the way a catalyst sparks a chemical reaction while retaining its integrity.

The music is as evocative as the visuals; how often can an entire generation say, “They’re playing our song”? This was, after all, a time when young people took to the streets to the beat of protest chants, rock music, and the solidarity of concerts. It was a time when FM replaced AM, songs broke the three-minute broadcast embargo, and they began to be about more than puppy love and hot rods. Dominoes breathes the throbbing, street-savvy sound of Motown, the timeless “Freedom” of Richie Havens, Canned Heat’s playfulness, and CSNY and Neil Young singing “Ohio, the anthemic protest song .” It’s all here.

More important than Baby Boomers using Dominoes to relive their lives, it’s possible to use it to bring Baby Boomers’ Babies up to speed. The fifteen selections are, after all, among the world’s first modern music videos, only they’re designed to sell history, not consumer products. If it’s possible to bridge the generation gap with a movie, Dominoes is a good first step. Twenty years after it was born but not seen, it’s time has finally come to be seen, heard, and felt. And not a moment too soon.

About Nat Segaloff:

Segaloff is a Hollywood Renaissance Man. A former journalist, film reviewer and cultural writer for the Boston Herald, he has evolved into careers as studio publicist, college professor, entertainment critic for CBS, author (of nine books), on-air talent, screenwriter, producer and director. He is currently working on the launch of the new cable TV network The Africa Channel and is writing the biography of director Arthur Penn.

DVD Review Packages are available. To get a package, email or call Barry Brown at pr(at)dominoesmovie.com or (617) 938-3879.

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