Amazing that Ang Lee can make such a listless movie about arguably one of the most high energy times in recent history.
Taking Woodstock (2009)
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Reviews Counted:168
Fresh:81
Rotten:87
Average Rating:5.4/10
Consensus: Featuring numerous 60s-era clichés, but little of the musical magic that highlighted the famous festival, Taking Woodstock is a breezy but underwhelming portrayal.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for graphic nudity, some sexual content, drug use and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Aug 28, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $7,366,736
Synopsis:
A generation began in his backyard. From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true...
A generation began in his backyard. From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was.
It's 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The bank's about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn't paid the insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents.
When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for the motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor's farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever. --© Focus Features
Starring: Demetri Martin, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Imelda Staunton
Starring: Demetri Martin, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Imelda Staunton, Eugene Levy, Dan Fogler, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Director: Ang Lee
Director: Ang Lee
Screenwriter: James Schamus
Producer: James Schamus, Ang Lee, Celia Costas
Composer: Danny Elfman
Studio: Focus Features
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Reviews for Taking Woodstock
An interesting idea, but it doesn't really have much to capitalize on outside of the authentic period reproduction.
Watch carefully as the film tries to ramrod too many themes, invoking split-screen technique, and see if you can identify how often self-indulgence is confused for enlightenment.
Não se revela particularmente interessante ou minimamente revelador no que diz respeito à natureza de Woodstock ou do próprio protagonista.
A minor work from Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee that is enjoyable but ultimately underwhelming.
This may be a minor movie, but it displays the hallmarks of a major talent.
Achieves the highly improbable by making one of the most exciting events of the 1960s look really boring.
Taking Woodstock is entertaining, funny but also very slight film. Unlike the real Woodstock, it won’t change lives or burn in the memory.
his is by no means a terrible film, but from a filmmaker as exceptional as Ang Lee it's a rare disappointment.
Taking Woodstock will leave the unstoned cold and won’t have anyone aching for those legendary ‘three days of peace and music’ that wasn’t there in the first place.
Some will revel in it, but (younger) viewers may find Taking Woodstock old hat.
Ang Lee's latest dissection of the American dream is one of his most complex and even most deceptively subversive films.
Their roles are played largely for easy laughs in James Schamus's script, which meanders in an echo of the freewheeling vibe of peace and love.
Undermining the entire snooze-fest is Lee and Schamus's sentimental, clichéd view of Woodstock as the last flowering of hippie innocence.
Ang Lee’s attempt to put the Swinging Sixties on the screen with love, respect and a dash of humour is a distinct disappointment.
If this is Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee's attempt at comedy he should stick to heavy drama.
A damp squib, thrown fizzling into the memory arena of the world’s pioneer rock festival.
Lee wants to combine a landmark moment with a coming-of-age story, but his style here is so loose and rambling it's impossible to sense the excitement of the former and the particularity of the latter.
Has some great moments along the way, but as a whole never quite comes together
Latest News for Taking Woodstock
November 13, 2009:
James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
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The rule that no two Ang Lee movies are ever the same is confidently kept intact with the release of his latest, Taking Woodstock, a comedy about the true story behind the... More...
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