A more accurate and representative title might have been "Remaking Woodstock" because that's clearly what Lee set out to do.
Comment
08/27/09
Taking Woodstock (2009)
49
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:166
Fresh:81
Rotten:85
Average Rating:5.5/10
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.
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... [More]
Starring: Demetri Martin, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Imelda Staunton
Director: Ang Lee
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Reviews for Taking Woodstock
This is surely the calmest and warmest portrait of chaos I've seen on screen...
08/27/09
Captures a lost innocence -- but the toneless monosyllables and "very cool's" and "groovy's" grow quickly vapid or spacey.
08/27/09
Even as a mind-clearing break from Lee's darker, more ambitious work, Taking Woodstock is an underachieving movie, so slight and gentle-spirited that it seems to be looking at the summer of 1969 through a scrim of rosy gauze.
08/27/09
Ang Lee’s 11th collaboration with producer James Schamus starts out strong and funny before getting mired in 60s nostalgia.
08/27/09
Watching the film feels a lot like leafing through an album of someone else's vacation photos: Pleasant, but gets old fast.
08/27/09
The scruffiness is hardly accidental, but it gives the picture a gentle warmth and easy charm that make it as pleasant, if as passing, as a warm summer breeze.
08/27/09
[It] takes advantage of yet another anniversary celebration of the three-day music festival, but Lee only uses the milestone for surface draw. Otherwise, this aimless, pointless, emotionless and self-aggrandizing debacle would have no reason to exist.
08/27/09
Like its central character, Woodstock never makes it to the big show. But the lesson seems to be that it's not the destination that matters, it's the trip.
08/27/09
Like the mild-mannered protagonist, Taiwanese director Ang Lee sees the '60s through a rose-colored telephoto lens, but his sympathetic spirit extends the generous message of the hippie era like a passed joint.
08/27/09
Taking Woodstock has the freshness of something being created, not remembered.
08/27/09
Top CriticThe hippie mindset is that either you're with them or you're not, and similarly Taking Woodstock asks that you ride along its loose, laid-back vibe or start flinging mud.
08/27/09
A distraction that steals Lee's concentration, leaving the film in the same condition as the real Woodstock: muddy, scattered, and overlong.
08/27/09
It's not a bad film but I have a feeling that it's too chaotic. It lacks somehow some central gravitas, despite the comedic elements, to bring it all together.
08/26/09
Taking Woodstock takes us behind the scenes at that amazing event, and deals with ordinary people swept up in it. Don’t expect concert scenes, because there are none.
08/26/09
It does at least come across as a portrait of an era that's affectionate, authentic and pleasingly adult in its tone and concerns.
08/26/09
This is the yawning of the Age of Aquarius.
08/26/09
Lee and his producer and screenwriter, James Schamus, have turned Tiber’s book into a gentle, rather tepid film. Its first half is modest and likable, but it goes on for over two hours.
08/26/09
Top CriticReally, it’s the same circumstance captured in Bye Bye Birdie, but Lee and Schamus lack a sense of humor.
08/26/09
All the tie-dye, reefer, skinny-dipping, split-screen cinematography (from Eric Gautier) and acid-trip psychedelics courtesy of Tiber's encounter with hippies (Paul Dano and Kelli Garner) can't make up for the film's major sin of omission: the music.
08/26/09
Top CriticLatest News for Taking Woodstock
November 13, 2009:
James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
James Schamus might be a workaholic. If it's not enough that he's the head of Focus Features -- the independent imprint of Universal -- he's also an established producer and... More...
November 12, 2009:
Five Favourite Films with Ang Lee
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...
August 27, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Guess Halloween 2's Tomatometer!
This week at the movies, we've got the return of Michael Myers (Halloween 2, starring Malcolm McDowell and Scout Taylor-Compton), three dimensional fatalities (The Final... More...
August 27, 2009:
Box Office Guru Preview: Fans Choose Sides in Horror Showdown
In a move that studios rarely make these days, two films from the exact same genre open opposite each other on the same day targeting much of the same audience. The Weinstein... More...
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