Review: Taking Woodstock

Review: Taking Woodstock

Rating: *

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 52%

I really had high hopes for this movie. With Ang Lee directing, I expected a new slant on ancient history. And, indeed, the first half of the movie delivered. By focusing the story away from the main stage, Lee gave us an innovative take on Woodstock -- the story of how a series of unrelated circumstances conspired to create three unreproducible days of music and joy in August of 1969. There are engaging performances from Demetri Martin, the young, closeted good son to his Catskills-resort-owning parents, played uproariously by Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton (yes, Dolores Umbridge). Liev Schrieber as cross-dressing, pistol-packing Vilma controls the screen whenever he's on camera, and Jonathan Groff is incandescently beautiful as the laid-back, smiling young thing who seems to function like a other-worldly guardian angel over the whole festival.

The second hour of the movie, however, devolved into the worst cliches of Summer of Love movies: the psychedelic acid trip accompanied by group sex and undulating graphics -- and the old folks stoned without knowing what hit them on pot-laced brownies. If those scenes had been edited out, the movie might have had a chance, but, as it stands, just catch the first hour on cable or skip it altogether.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it