DVD Reviews

Taking Woodstock – Blu-ray Review

By Frankie Dees Dec 22, 2009, 14:26 GMT

A generation began in his backyard. From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee comes Taking Woodstock, the comedy inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival.

Ang Lee takes a little break from emotionally pounding dramas to belt out the relatively low-key comedy ‘Taking Woodstock.’ The film is about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the most popular concert of all time. The pic is mildly amusing but will most likely be mildly disappointing as well for Ang Lee fans now used to greatness every time out of the gate.

‘Taking Woodstock’ tells the true story of Elliot Teichberg aka Elliot Tiber who was largely responsible for bringing the concert to the sleepy farmland of White Lake, New York (with the film based on his book of the same name though some elements of his ‘true story’ have been called into question).

Returning from Manhattan to help out his parents (a very effective Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton) with their failing and run-down El Monaco Motel, Elliot uses his powers as the head of the town’s chamber of commerce to secure a permit that just so happens to be perfect for the ‘Woodstock Music and Arts Fair’ which lost it’s permit in another NY town.

Contacting the extremely laid-back event producer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff), Elliot first proposes his parents land to stage the event but when the small swampland isn’t what their looking for, he introduces them to a dairy farmer, Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy).

With close to 600-acres to provide, the beautiful rolling hills of his land are perfect and a deal is made. Of course, all involved have no idea what their getting into and when thousands turn into hundreds of thousands, the once quiet burg of White Lake turns chaotic. But with peace and love, man.

The pic is presented in an almost random fashion, with most sequences surrounding the Teichbergs as they brace their dilapidated motel for the thousands of hippies storming in and Elliot’s general ‘loosening’ up over the course of the fair.

Assembling a nice group of character actors and comedians such as Imelda Stuanton, Eugene Levy, Live Schreiber, Emile Hirsch and Dan Fogler, the film actually comes down to resting on newcomer Demetri Martin’s shoulders as Elliot Tiber.

Unfortunately, Tiber is a character written to be fairly unexpressive and Martin is not quite charismatic enough to give this character the arc that’s needed.

A few other characters pop in and out like Emile Hirsch’s Vietnam vet Billy and Live Schreiber’s transvestite ex-marine bodyguard but they don’t get enough scenes to make much of an impression nor does the actual concert get much playtime (only some distant music and a faraway shot of the stage…) which reeks of a deflating balloon when one realizes this.

Understanding that the music wasn’t the centerpiece of the film, I still have to venture that any film with ‘Woodstock’ in the title would more than benefit from a few choice songs and glimpses at some musicians doing their thing.

In fact, I’m struggling as to why exactly this story needed to be told as a film; all the usual messages associated with the time period are barely broached if at all with the whole film coming across as a little bit of lark on Lee’s part, if a good natured one.

All that said, there’s nothing outright bad about the pic as it’s perfectly genial as you’re watching it but expect the film to fade out of memory as soon as the end credits start to roll.

Like the film itself, the VC1 1080p 1.85 encode is clean but mostly perfunctory. Detail pops out in the few landscape shots but the film is inherently soft which doesn’t allow for a lot of high-def oomph. Ironically, for a film centered on ‘Woodstock’, what we got is mostly ambiance and a lot of front-channel dialogue. For what the film is trying to convey i.e. always teasing that the concert is playing but we never get a good shot, the track works.

The most notable special feature is the audio commentary by Director Ang Lee and Writer James Schamus who offer up some great stories and the trials involved with filmmaking. We get six wisely-cut ‘Deleted Scenes’ that seemed to be of little interest. A quick ‘No Audience Required: The Earthlight Players’ featurette on the nudist act living in Elliot’s barn with the extras package finishing off with the 20-minute ‘Peace Love and Cinema’ making-of featurette.

This was ultimately ho-hum for me despite being a huge Ang Lee fan. I’m not quite sure what Lee was going for here, (trying to capture the hippie spirit I suppose?) and the lack of any significant music, while intentional, was pretty annoying. Recommended for Lee completists.