The Basic Plot in the Form of a Haiku:

            Sometimes I feel like
            I have wasted two hours
            watching a dumb show.

My Basic Ramblings: I bought into the hype.  How could I resist?  Every day for the week before hand they advertised it like Christmas - "Five Days Until Sweetwater!"  "Four Hours Until Sweetwater!" in a big banner across the bottom of the TV screen.  I figured since X-Files is still in re-runs and I had to iron a bunch of clothes for the week, I might as well watch it.

I guess VH-1 figured that they'd done specials on all the other groups at Woodstock, they might as well do something for Sweetwater.  (I'm waiting for the "Behind The Music" special on Sha-Na-Na, personally.)  I
think I'm speaking for most people my age when I say "Sweetwha?  Who the hell were they?"

Well, never fear, as this VH-1 special attempts to show you exactly who they were.  They use a "clever" framing technique [originally when I wrote that I had "framing" in quotes, but I realized it's more appropriate the way it is now], hiding the story of the group as one former junkie's struggle to maintain sobriety and her job on a VH-1-esque TV station.  What was the point of this?  I guess it was supposed to show the deep parallels between the reporter's life and Nansi's life, blah blah blah, but I just wanted to see a clip of the reporter stoned on TV.  (Sorta like that notorious moment when Jessica Savitch appeared on national TV slurring her words and generally acting looney.)

Anyway, Nansi/Nancy/however it's spelled jumps up one night with the group and starts singing "sometimes I feel like a motherless child", a theme which is repeated over and over AND OVER AND OVER.  Gee, you think Nansi and her mom won't get along?  (and, on a related note, will they reconcile at a later date, on Mom's deathbed?)

Question #1: The insertion of Janis Joplin in the scene at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go was (a) gratuitous; (b) painful; (c) distracting, (d) all of the above?

As best I can tell, Sweetwater had three songs - Motherless Child, What's Wrong With Our Zoos, and Time is A Rainbow, which actually sounded kinda cool.

I've been trying to figure out why Sweetwater deserved its own "VH-1 Original" movie, when it's obviously got "Behind The Music" written all over it.  Band member nearly dies, which breaks up the group, goes on alcohol and drug-fueled tailspin, the band members look worse now than they did before....going by the Drinking Game, you'd be dead by now.

Question #2: Nansi's name-dropping in her voice-over letters to her friend ("We played with 'The Who' and 'The Airplane'!") was (a) gratuitous; (b) painful; (c) distracting, (d) all of the above?

One thing that really annoyed me about this movie was how generically 60's it was.  Now I wasn't around back then, so I don't know what it was like, but it seemed like the screenwriter was told "Okay, now you have to stick the word 'groovy' and 'far out' in there a few times."  And why is it that when you have a group of people dancing circa 1967, everyone's always wearing bright clothes, wandering around like lunatics, with someone blowing bubbles? (Although I do think this is the only movie based in the 1960's that didn't play White Rabbit or Someone to Love.)  Maybe it was actually like that, with the bright clothes and the bubbles and the "far out"s and the beads in the hair, but it seems like a stock character that is modified slightly to create a whole new personality.

So there's a big "Where's Nansi?" drama, she can't be found, she can't be found, suddenly there she is, and it's Michelle Phillips!  I'd recently seen the "Behind The Music" for The Mamas and the Papas, so it was weird seeing her with dark hair.  But they did a pretty good job matching young Nansi and older Nansi, with Amy Jo Johnson. (The best job of old and young matching, I think, was Matt Damon and Harrison Young in Saving Private Ryan.)

In the past, movies have been created by grafting characters and plot-lines upon classics of movie and literature. Strange Brew is Hamlet, Barb Wire is Casablanca, and if you think about it, Sweetwater is Citizen Kane in a way - reporter searching for an elusive bit of information to complete his/her story, interviews various people in the main character's life (some of whom are more forthcoming with information than others), the main character's eventual downward spiral into desolation.  In Citizen Kane, though, we don't have to spend time learning about the reporter's drug addictions. Citizen Kane also doesn't end with Charlie reuniting with his buddies and singing "Motherless Child" at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go.  So maybe it's not the best analogy after all....

If you missed it, don't worry - this is VH-1, so it'll be repeated at least thirteen thousand more times.  (How do I know this?  When a show is aired on television and is immediately followed by an "encore presentation" of the same show, it will be repeated at least thirteen thousand more times.)

Addendum:  I just read a article from last Friday's New York Times that revealed that Nansi's British manager (the creepy one who gave Nansi the piano) was played by.... Adam Ant.  Now I'm going to have to check out one of the thirteen thousand repeats of it, just to see him....