The '60s (TV Episode)

• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Drama
• Movie Type: Coming-of-Age, Ensemble Film
• Themes: Generation Gap, Fighting the System, Social Injustice
• Director: Mark Piznarski
• Main Cast: Annie Corley, Charles S. Dutton, Cliff Gorman, David Alan Grier, Leonard Roberts, Bill Smitrovich, Josh Hamilton, Julia Stiles, Jerry O'Connell, Jeremy Sisto, Jordana Brewster
• Release Year: 1999
• Country: US
• Run Time: 172 minutes
• MPAA Rating: PG13

Plot

Originally aired as a two-part miniseries on NBC, The 60's follows two families whose lives mirror much of the political and social tumult of that decade. The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian (Jerry O'Connell) joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael (Josh Hamilton) becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie (Julia Stiles) gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor (Charles S. Dutton), a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet (Leonard Roberts) moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton (David Alan Grier). The 60's incorporates much newsreel footage from the era in an attempt to give the proceedings a greater realism, as well as a soundtrack of many popular songs of the era, including a new recording of Bob Dylan's Chimes Of Freedom by Dylan and Joan Osborne. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide