TAKING WOODSTOCK

“TAKING WOODSTOCK” (Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton & Henry Goodman)

“It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore; I am sorry...”
Stephen Stills sang that line at Woodstock in 1969 & now, 40 years later, it perfectly describes the movies of 2009. Even though this film was ‘all right’, it wasn’t anything special – unlike the event which inspired its making. I liked most of it, up until the ‘festival’ got started & they then turned it into a long, boring acid trip (just to let everyone know that it was as much about drugs as it was about peace & music?)
Yet another ‘Daily Show’ contributor tries his hand at acting & although Demetri doesn’t ruin the film, he doesn’t add much to it either. I look at his contribution in two ways – One positive; his normal persona fits the character he’s playing – plus it’s the peripheral
characters that are meant to bring some spark to the table, not his – but he becomes a negative because he has to carry the entire film – the film is his story so the camera basically follows him around showing just what He went thru to help make Woodstock happen & what He did during the 3 days of peace, love & music (& DRUGS!) So if you’re expecting to see actors playing your favorite artists & see what sort of backstage shenanigans took place, you’ll be disappointed – there is NONE of that. & that’s why I used Stephen’s line – in the end, ‘Taking Woodstock’ wasn’t as much FUN as I hoped it would be.
Demetri plays Elliot Teichberg; living in Bethel, N.Y. with his aging parents (Staunton & Goodman) helping them run their dilapidated hotel & wishing he had the guts to leave home & get out on his own.
Probably due to the fact that no one else wanted to bother to do it, Elliot heads the city council & every year he helps put together the summer music festival which usually consists of a couple of high school bands. Still, Elliot needs a permit & approval from the council to set this miniscule shindig in motion, so when he learns that the people of Walkill drove the ‘Woodstock’ festival out of their town Elliot contacts Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) & suggests holding it in Bethel. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that Groff was ‘created’ as a clone of the late T. Rex frontman, Marc Bolan.
Eugene Levy plays Max Yasgur, the dairy farmer who initially rents his farm to the festival for $5,000 – until he learns how massive the event was becoming & suddenly his asking price skyrockets.
Liev Schreiber plays Vilma, the ‘person’ in charge of security at the hotel. Playing a transvestite isn’t easy to pull off & sometimes Schreiber hits & sometimes he misses, but I still looked forward to every scene in which he appeared just because Vilma was such an unusual character.
& I hate to say it, but once again, Paul Dano becomes the biggest bummer in a movie by playing a groovy, peace-loving stoner without much conviction. I liked the film up until Dano shows up – then it bogs down with a totally NON mind-blowing LSD trip. I guess Ang Lee wanted to give those in the audience the experience of taking a trip on acid with silly 60’s style artistic images that quite frankly bored me. I wanted Elliot to get to the festival & go behind the scenes – meet Pete Townshend who would abruptly turn around & say, “Get the (bleep) off my stage!” SOMETHING involving some of the acts that performed. Even a contrived meeting with Stephen Stills; Elliot could meet him just as he, David & Graham are about to go onstage & ask how he felt. “How do I feel?” Stills could reply incredulously, “I’m scared sh*tless!” To which Graham could remark, “Hey Stephen, you should use that to introduce us!”
But no, there’s nothing like that – the music is barely heard at all except in the distance. The artists take a back seat in this ‘Woodstock’ & that’s a total bummer, man.
Knowing this would have helped me enjoy the film more, because I did enjoy seeing how the event unfolded & came into being – I just wished they would have left Elliot & his first experiences with sex & drugs behind while we got to peek backstage & watch the professionals have sex & drugs instead of the novices...