Abbie Hoffman

Ex flower child goes looking for revolutionary hero and finds a brilliant no-quitter with a good appetite.

Filmmaker Morley Markson shows Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and other '60s rebels, then and now in a follow up to his 1971 film "Breathing Together: Revolution of the Electric Family."

HEAVY PETTING is a hilarious and salacious exploration of the sexual mores of the 50's as seen through the eyes of a generation that lived through the Sexual Revolution. Creative baby boomers-- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- candidly recall their sexual coming-f-age tales in intimate interviews. Joyously campy and refreshingly carefree, HEAVY PETTING blends humorous, unbelievable footage of unhelpful sex-ed films with classic snippets of THE WILD ONE and Elvis' hip gyrations, not to mention Bernhard talking about playing "doctor", always observant Ginsberg on a disastrous encounter with a girl, and Byrne on the childhood myths of masturbation. Eternal mysteries such as the female orgasm, the universal appeal of Marilyn Monroe, and the rituals of high school are laid bare by this lovable group of characters.

Abbie Hoffman's first interview after seven years in hiding. My name is Abbie... I am an orphan of America.

The title of this Canadian documentary may have some relation to Canadian Marshall McLuhan's theories. It combines interview with famous U.S. militants of the '60s, such as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, with reenactments of their Chicago trials (i.e., the "Chicago Eight," etc.). Other figures of cultural interest from the time, including Alan Ginsberg and Buckminster Fuller, are interviewed or featured. The filmmaker indicates his belief that powerful forces in the U.S. government worked together to suppress American radicals. This view, widely disbelieved at the time, has since been confirmed.

In 1969, Taylor Mead complained to his friend artist Wynn Chamberlain that Andy Warhol had never paid him for any of the work he had done for him and Wynn said he would make a film especially for Taylor. Inspired by the banality of 1960's television, Chamberlain wrote and directed Brand X, an 87 minute series of faux television shows spoofing the politics and mass media of the day, complete with commercials for Sex, Sweat, Computer Dating and Peanut Butter. BRAND X follows Taylor Mead through a day in a wacky television studio as he portrays an exercise guru, a talk show host, a veteran returning from the American Civil War, a hospital patient in a soap opera, the President of the United States and a televangelist giving the Nightly Sermon. BRAND X satirizes President Nixon, the Vietnam War, sex, drugs, computers, money and race relations.

The Youth International Party, whose members were commonly called Yippies, was a radically youth-oriented and countercultural revolutionary group opposed to war and the status quo of American culture. Known for using theatrics and humor to advocate social change, several Yippies were notably on trial as the Chicago 7. Primarily consisting of footage from the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago which sparked massive demonstrations that were met by violence and hysteria caused by the police. This film also includes found newsreel footage as well as Pigasus - the pig the Yippies advanced as a candidate for President of the United States.

A critical yet sympathetic examination of the anti-war movement in New York City, shot in 1968, one year after the Summer of Love. The film traces the development group of activists on the Lower East Side. We see their growth from isolated, alienated individuals to a politically empowered community. Filmed between the protests at the Pentagon and the demonstrations at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, it includes portraits of Abbie Hoffman, editor Paul Krassner, folksinger Phil Ochs and anarchist Tom "Osha" Neumann.