This past summer marked the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock concert - and to celebrate that, Ang Lee made a movie about the back-stage production of the festival - about people we've never heard of or cared about. I guess a movie about the concert would be dumb, or something. Oh - and despite the fact that the anniversary fell on a weekend this year, the film was released two weeks after the anniversary. Brilliant!
Wry funnyman Demetri Martin a kid who works at his parents' ramshackle Catskills motel. Out of boredom and sarcasm, he becomes the head of the dumpy town's chamber of commerce where he gives a permit for a concert to the organizers of the Woodstock festival. Immediately the hamlet is overrun by hippies and freaks who come in from around the country to set up the concert.
His old-world parents and most of the neighbors are suspicious at first, but ultimately enjoy the money the out-of-towners bring. Eugene Levy plays the farmer on whose land the concert ultimately would take place. Max is a bit of a bumpkin who also sees the concert as a big money windfall for his dairy farm.
One nice thing that Lee does is to use split screen and montage elements showing a few shots at one time, referring directly to Michael Wadleigh's marvelous 1970 documentary Woodstock. It's a clever detail that shows that Lee watched at least one movie in advance of making this one. But that is about all the class and beauty we get in the whole film.
The writing is generally silly or dumb with long stretches of scenes where basically nothing happens. It feels much longer than its 110 minute running time. When the concert finally begins, we see absolutely no musicians and hear none of their music. There are a few songs on the soundtrack used throughout the film, but that's all the texture we get.
In one scene when the concert is finally on, Martin walks through the crowd to see the show. Hearing no music, he asks what is happening and a stagehand tells him they had to stop the music because of the rain. This is totally lame. He then goes into a VW van with a hippie couple who give him tabs of acid and he trips out with them for awhile. But why was more was not done with this set-up? You're telling me the guy never actually heard music at the concert - even from a distance? What's the point of him having an acid trip if he's just going to be inside a car for it?
Martin as actually pretty good - and much more likable here than in his normal shtick on his show or the Daily Show. I don't know if this is because he's a good actor or because he's such a good comedian that he can fake good acting well - but I would be interested to see him in a more serious role again.
This movie basically made me dislike hippies more than I already do. In this film, they're rich and pretty and seem totally unaware of the hell they're unleashing on this little village. Martin and his family are nice, but they are not enough to hold my attention. This is a very boring movie and it seems like a big waste of an opportunity.
Stars: .5 of 4
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The real life guy the movie is based on had a much wackier, out there life. It's strange and sad the movie turned his story into such bland, vanilla fare. As someone else said, Ang Lee is such a square that he's the last person in the world suited to telling this story. Obviously, he can handle gay fare, since Brokeback Mountain was great in my opinion. But it's bizarre that a movie about a gay guy coming to terms with his sexuality (the main thrust of the film, in a way) in a setting of total liberation never even comes out.
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