5/5 Taking Woodstock Under Rated but Spectacular
  by Scott Denny (Runnemede, New Jersey United States)
You know when we saw taking Woodstock I had expected something I guess different that what was brought to the screen.What I had expected to see was the concert acts rehashed throughout the movie,what I got was something even better a movie that brought a good feeling and made me really feel good when I left the Movie Theater.Everything in the movie just fit in so well,from the towns people who hated the rush into their town but found that all those kids were genuine and caring,to a dreamer who was in fact gay and found his own being throughout the movie.I felt this movie was sort of like many other movies in the past like Goonies and nanny Mcfee that were never really given there push when they came out,but make everyone feel good every time you see them.Taking Woodstock should have enjoyed so much more critical acclaim but if you saw the movie you know it did not need that to take away from the movie something good inside yourself,and always carry with you that maybe we cant always judge people by their outright appearence but should take from them what they have inside of themselves...i wish the company would have did the blu ray with the regular version disc like disney does,but well see which one I buy.Incidently just to see the brownie seen in the movie is worth the whole trip,if you dont know what i mean by that buy the movie..
Scott denny

4/5 Stardust . . .Turning Into Butterflies Above Our Nation
  by Diana F. Von Behren (Kenner, LA USA)
In "Taking Woodstock," director Ang Lee sweetly adapts Elliot Tiber's memoir of the same name to tell a small coming-of-age tale amidst the larger backdrop of the behind the scenes coming together of the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival at Yasgur's farm in upstate New York after town residents of the original venue in Wallkill passed a law banning the gathering of over 5000 people without the appropriate permit. Possessing a permit to sponsor a small music and arts festival at the site of his parents' rundown motel, El Monaco, Tiber a.k.a Teichberg, immediately contacted concert organizers Michael Lang and Artie Kornfield and the rest, as they say, is history.

Billed as "three days of peace and music" meant to heal a nation suffering from the ongoing effects of the Vietnam War and the aftershock of the assignations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Woodstock historically served its purpose for the hundreds of thousands that participated. Like America of that time period, Lee's main character Elliot (an unassuming and quickly forgotten Demetri Martin), hears a clarion call of his own; after living openly in Greenwich Village as a gay male, he must hide his sexual orientation from his Holocaust survivor parents when he moves back to Bethel, New York to save their motel. Now he must bite the bullet, rebuke the excuse of handling his parents and their issues and find a life of his own. He is the butterfly of the story, emerging from his cocoon, transforming into the stardust of the famous Woodstock song by Joni Mitchell.

Lee's theme toys with different ideas of freedom whose apt anthem is the opening concert piece by Richie Havens. For Elliot's mother (played with an almost Gestapo intensity by Imelda Staunton,) it materializes in the form of thousands of hoarded banknotes signifying the security of which she has always dreamed. The senior Teichberg (Henry Goodman) finds enjoyment in a newfound energy generated by the `young people' that invade the town, listen to his life stories and applaud his functional gravitas. The preparation, three days and aftermath heal lost Vietnam vet Billy (Emile Hirsch), allow Marine cross-dresser Vilma (Liev Schreiber) to control his confused life for a limited amount of time while assuming an oracle role to the other misfits this film brings together, and provide the westward-ho direction for a newly enlightened and empowered Elliot. Once again, it takes a village . . .

. . . of which some of its inhabitants border on the stereotypical or add nothing to the film other than to provide an entire entourage of sixties characters complete with an Oh! Calcutta! type theatre group that revels in their nudity, a couple of acid droppers in a old VW bus decorated with requisite kaleidoscopic ceiling graphics and angry burgeoning feminists intent on a ritual bra-burning. All of which add layer upon layer onto a fairly satisfying 40 year old glimpse of reality that Lee obviously took pains to achieve.

All of the extras look as if they are from that era with their emphasis on untamed manes of hair (shades of Hair) free of any of the meticulous grooming products so prevalent now--the skinny dipping scenes emphasis this most of all with their blatant display of non-depilatoried body hair suggesting the feral freedom of Rousseau's noble savage so prevalent to that mindset.

Concentrating wholeheartedly on reconstructing his main character's microcosm, Lee steers the storyline away from an emphasis on the concert itself, offering only a hilltop vantage point of the stage with its undulating sea of people that pulses and glows from the perspective of an acid trip. Healing, indeed as are other signs of the time--peace signs, tie dye, fringed vests, floppy leather hats, tokes of maryjane and gobbles of hash brownies.

Bottom line: Ang Lee does a nice job of depicting upstate New York in the late sixties when Woodstock came to town. Instead of concentrating on the concert and its music, he tells a smaller tale of family salvation fueled by the material wealth the festival brought with it and the Age of Aquarian ideals that bespoke a new millennium of desired peace and the main character's self-acceptance. Some stereotypes reign along with a rather weak lead by Demetri Martin, but Lee pulls it off like the pro he is, recreating a nice facsimile of the venue and its time. Many of the film's references (i.e. organizer Lang's hopeful plans to head to San Francisco refer to the role he played in putting together the Altamont Music Festival where the a chapter of Hell's Angels hired to run security ended up stabbing and killing someone and beating up a lot of hippies with pool cues and the Judy Garland record played in the El Monaco bar supposedly refers to the Stonewall riots in Greenwich village, heralding the beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement) needed at least textual explanations for those unfamiliar with the era and its incendiary history. Recommended--however, if you want to hear the music, buy the CD, Music from the Original Soundtrack and More: Woodstock or watch the documentary Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut (40th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition).
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

2/5 2 1/2 stars for director Ang Lee and Co.
  by Beardyjin (New Orleans)
This is not so much a film about Woodstock as it is about the behind the scenes happenings that helped create Woodstock. So none of the iconic musical performances are showcased and instead there's an oddly handled "coming of age" subplot and of course an obligatory acid-trip scene crow-barred in for good measure. As someone born long-after that infamous "summer of love," this film felt like it was way too full of inside references and came off more like a tedious nostalgia trip you might overhear your parents or grandparents discussing after too much to drink one night while listening to their vintage LPs. That being said, those few who were actually at Woodstock will likely have a much greater appreciation and enjoyment of this film. The rest of us who'd like to "Experience" Woodstock can skip this disappointingly forgettable film and just listen to the much more memorable music.

4/5 re-Taking Woodstock
  by James Lossing (Grand Rapids, MI)
The 60's memoir Taking Woodstock is a story about how 20-something Elliot, son of a Jewish couple, was able to lure backers planning a music festival into the area where his parents run a `resort' motel. The story begins in a conservative rural community of farmers and small town folk in scenic New York countryside. The narrative hub revolves around the relationship between Elliot and his aging parents who own the El Monaco Resort Motel, a deteriorating business on the verge of foreclosure. His mother is a bitter character who oversees the finances and ordering of the household. His father is a withdrawn, tired man bent from years of bearing the weight of silent compliance before his wife while attending to the motel's maintenance. The townsfolk are a stagnant traditional group ekking out daily sustenance while news about the Viet Nam war, Arab-Israeli conflict and moon landing catch their attention in the background.

Into this languid summer come two key folk - Michael Lang and Max Yasgur. Lang is an imperturbable saintly visionary from the City with the faith and means to walk the key parties through messy negotiations. Yasgur is portrayed as an enlightened agrarian businessman able to envision qualities lost on his parochial peers and acumen to make this into a venture profitable for all.

There were initial clashes between locals and those part of early negotiating. However, once contracts were settled and the project began to unfold the momentum of the operation overwhelmed the situation. Construction crews, event planners and early arrivals for the festival descended. Masses of gentle folk grew daily until the entire region was gridlocked by thousands of `citizens' of the `Woodstock nation'.

The carnival of freaks, politicos, quasi-psychotic acid heads, spiritualized bohemians and other assorted holy men and women were stereotypically characterized. Locals were bemused, perplexed, exasperated and offended, but most did not fail to succumb to the combination of gentle-spirited hippie culture and the financial boon that poured in.

One particular narrative episode captures the hippie mythos underlying the film's vision. The preparations for the event are done. Elliot, his father and Vilma, a free-spirited transvestite providing security for Elliot's family, stand overlooking a lake as nude bathers play openly. The first strains of Richie Havens move through the woods signaling the festival's beginning. Elliot's father nudges him to go and experience the festival. Elliot hesitates but Vilma urges him on, "Go" he says, "see what the center of the universe is like". Elliot finds himself wandering among groups of camping hippies still some distance from the stage. He encounters a young couple who gently seduce him to drop acid with them. They retire to the interior of their bus richly decorated for inner space travel where Elliot is initiated in the ecstasy of cosmic visionary experience. Some hours later he emerges an awakened soul accompanied by the female consort. Still flashing in colors and serenity they make their way to a bluff overlooking the sea of people dotting the night with campfires. The view is rolling and undulating, wrapping around a vortex - the lighted stage in the distance. The lights, colors and liquid landscape coalesce in a visionary patterned dance around the pulsing brilliant core of illumination flowing from the stage. Space and time are lost in the enveloping ecstatic vision in the presence of the Center.

This scene is the sacramental center of the story. The whole event is actually a festive gathering to celebrate the eucharistic psychedelic ritual. Its enactment is the animus mundi, the navel of the world, around which the dance of being whirls. This entire countercultural phenomena is like a fountain of creative and colorful life flowing from the bellies of ecstatically enlightened participants. Bohemian and transient in nature it wanders about the land erupting into spontaneous happenings. This particular one, though `planned', nevertheless exploded into unexpected proportions and intensity.

Of course this story is one in relatively recent history with many participants - and critics - alive and well. And the verdict of history has unfolded less graciously on subsequent events. This is not lost on the filmmakers who put in the mouth of a confident Lang plans of another festival of peace and love - at Altamont. The irony is not lost on those knowledgeable of the tragic events there.

Following this narrative peak the story winds down to address loose ends between Elliot and his parents. The windfall of the festival has paid off their mortgage with surplus and Elliot is free to complete the process of separation-individuation from his family.

It was a delightful film that will fade quickly from public attention, leave theaters and be on DVD shortly. For some who go it will be for a moment of nostalgia, an entertaining story resonating with faint longings that surface as one ages. For the counterculture youth of today it is not their history, it is the history of their grandparents. The heady excitement of the Sixties is textbook material to them and most are living out their own generational narrative. They have Burning Man, Goa, Ibiza, and elsewhere.

For some the longing pricked cuts perhaps more deeply. Sure enough it was a period whose potency faded with the passing decades. What seemed of cosmic significance at the time was swallowed in the relativity of social change Nevertheless, the glimpse into the white-hot core of mystery pulsing at the Heart of the Universe wouldn't be extinguished. It is a core memory implanted somewhere deep in psychic regions.

After the ecstasy many wandered back into the enveloping social order of the modern world. Some were damaged and wandered for years. Some re-acclimated into the status quo, even `succeeding' well at it. Some found creative paths integrating alternative spaces with demands of survival. Some became monks, roshis, gurus, disciples, teachers, and priests. None, however, whose hearts were pierced have forgotten when they were touched by the Center of the Universe.

3/5 Nothing fabulous - but entertaining, somewhat . . .
  by Bow Down Before The One You Serve (Manassas, VA)
I actually went to the theatre to see this (something I loathe with all the popcorn eaters and cell phones ringing). . . it was entertaining. Not as funny as depicted in the trailers - but interesting. I don't want to own it, but I could say I don't regret seeing it. Let me put it this way, I wasn't irritated or angry when I left the theatre. . . but I wasn't elated or joyful either.