Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 273
 WOW March 28, 2009
bluejeanbaby (montclair, nj)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
I've always been fascinated with my parents generation and when they showed me this movie (i was probably around 8 or 9 years old) I immediately fell in love with it. It's been one of my favorite movies ever since. I've seen it so many times and there's so much I could say about it; I could go on for ages. If you are a fan of music: EXCELLENT performances by musical legends throughout. If you are a fan of documentaries: this one is extremely well done on all counts - from the performers on stage to the audience to the townies to the various (and many) people who made this event possible...right on down to the in-depth look at the port-o-san facilities - this movie is sheer entertainment through and through. And how beautifully it was executed.
As far as bringing in the musicians: I agree that things should be authentic. But it would be nice to hear it the way it was intended. That being said: I hope to hear the original version AS WELL AS the new version if possible. I pray that they don't mess with "soul sacrifice" though b/c it is just about my favorite part of the movie and i love it as is. Did they do this with other artists in the film as well or just Santana?
I would like to know more about what is offered on this DVD (commentary, extras, previously unseen performances and whether those will actually be integrated into the film [i hope not] or included as extras, etc...) as well as with the collectors edition set as a whole (the pictures that are up are giving me an idea....but i want to know more!). I've pre-ordered it already b/c i love it that much and it doesn't really matter in the long run...but i'm so excited I want to know more! - if anyone has any info about this stuff please post.
Other than that, enjoy this absolute gem of modern american culture! :-)
Superb Documentary April 24, 2009
Richard B. Schwartz (Columbia, Missouri USA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
The director's cut adds approximately 45 minutes to the film--a landmark documentary with Martin Scorcese showing his chops as a film editor and Michael Wadleigh lovingly retooling his masterpiece. The 'times' are evoked with precision, humor and objectivity. This is not a pure gush. The balance between music and interviews/commentary/vignettes is approximately 60/40, with standout performances from The Who, Joan Baez, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Ten Years After, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker, et al. It is not a 'greatest hits' compilation, since some of the greatest hits did not yet exist, but the editing, the split screen images and the atmospherics are superb. This is not an ode to hippiedom, though some might see it as that. It is a beautifully shot, loving documentary, with the love bestowed on the music and the strange attractions of human behavior.
The Woodstock Experience You've Been Waiting For June 10, 2009
William Caputo (Scranton, PA United States)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This 40th Anniversary collector's edition is a marvelous paean to what is arguably the greatest documentary ever made. The Warner Brother's Director's Cut in 1994 was a drastic improvement over what was already a wonderful film but their dvd version of it did not do the Director's Cut justice......until now.
This set comes with a completely remastered 1994 Director's Cut (although the tribute to the now-deceased Woodstock participants at the end of the film has not been updated) and a bunch of cool extras including a replica of a $24 woodstock ticket & a complete re-print of Life Magazine's issue on the Woodstock coverage, just to name a few things.
The film is on two separate discs with the interf'ingmission happening at the end of the first disc, just like that great ol' Director's Cut.
Also, there's a great extras dvd that has performances by bands not seen in any version of the film. They include:
The Grateful Dead - a 37 1/2 minute jam session that concludes with their speakers blowing out, replete with smoke!!
Canned Heat - you see the lead singer with the unique voice sing "On The Road Again" and Bob Hite saying to the crowd that he has to urinate (this is only heard in the film but now you get to actually SEE IT!)
Creedence Clearwater Revival - You see them play 4 songs from their Woodstock set (most famously "Born on the Bayou") and you see John Fogerty getting a little testy with the sound crew at the end of the aforementioned song. Classic stuff!
Mountain - if you've ever owned the Woodstock album, you've heard their stuff. Now you get to see them perform 2 songs (not their big hit "Mississippi Queen" because it wasn't written yet) and the gigantic fat singer (The Mountain) really belts out the tunes.
Paul Butterfield's Blues Band - again, if you've owned any Woodstock albums, you probably heard this guy (who died in 1987) but now you get to actually see him belt out some blue-eyes soul! He's not that remarkable but his back-up band is fantastic.
Johnny Winter - Yes, Mr. Albino himself! You see the master perform a great 10 minute song/guitar solo that is to die for.
Other extra footage contains other songs from the performers who appear in the film (e.g. Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Sha-Na-Na, Jefferson Airplane, & The Who [the Abbie Hoffman-Pete Townshend confrontation is not included since no known video footage of it exists]).
The extras disc also has a memorable montage of scenes from the festival's opening and closing with inspiring commentary by the Legendary Emcee himself, Mr. Chip Monck.
Included on the extras disc are interviews with Michael Lang, Michael Wadleigh & others (even Mr. Monck!)
And you gotta love the swede fringe box! Well done Warner Brothers....you finally got the DVD right.
The Whole Magilla July 20, 2009
J. M. Jacobs (East Helena, MT, USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I just spent a goodly chunk of my weekend steeping myself like a Boomer Tea Bag in all the content this one offers. It made me miss the feeling of my youth and my high school days from 1966-70 and my time in college immediately thereafter.
I went to college right after high school, so I never had to go to Nam, but a few of my friends and a couple of cousins got snatched up in the draft, and so the Vietnam War was a pretty personal thing to me. I grew up with it in my living room, so to speak.
During this time, Rock 'n Roll music was a vibrant, living, pulsating thing to a teenager, and it was directly connected culturally to almost all of the nation's youth. Today, with all the segmentation of the music to serve a specific slice of the market, no one genre of music - Rap, Hip-Hop, Alternative Rock, Folk/Americana - has the power that Rock 'n Roll does here.
The half-million or so people who attended Woodstock pretty much back up that statement.
Seeing the original film in the theater was a pretty powerful experience given the time it came out and the social context that surrounded it. The Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Flower Power and the anti-war movement... seeing this movie again and having all the additional content to complement it was truly a rich experience for me. Everything looks and sounds great here... given the limitations of the recording environment changing all the time with the rain and swapping out entire bands one after the other without benefit of a sound check. Because of this 'mixing on the fly', every so often you'll hear vocals that sound sort of compressed and mushy, but not often.
Everything there is to say about the content has pretty much been said in the other reviews, but I would like to point out one little gem buried in those extra performances - Johnny Winter doing Mean Town Blues. He's playing a Fender 12-string Jaguar electric and he literally tears it up. In my humble opinion, second only to Hendrix, this is the best guitar playing on all the discs combined. Carlos Santana, John Fogerty, Pete Townsend, a couple others... all great here, but Mr. Winter really outdoes himself with this performance. If you like your Blues with a healthy dose of nasty, greasy slide, this one cut is almost worth the full price of the entire set. What a treat!
Lastly, I was reminded of Hunter S. Thompson in his work from 1971, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and his lamenting of the passing of the idealism of the 60's.
He was right. There was truly something special going on then... and not just at Woodstock.
A Document of a Feeling July 12, 2004
J. Christmas (New Brunswick, NJ)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
It's inevitable that arguments will take place, as they do in these reviews, about what the meaning of Woodstock really is -- many have evoked peace and anti-vietnam sentiments and a great social movement, while others take a more mocking tone and dismiss it as a kind of upper middle class fantasy camp, a sewing of the oats before beginning corporate life.Not having been alive in the 60s, I only know what I've read and been told by those older than myself, but I'd guess that the first assessment is a bit idealistic, while the second is unfair, and that the truth is "somewhere in between," to fall back on the cliche. What the film does successfully document, I gather, is what it felt like to be young and hippie and excited about music and social protest and all the things Woodstock at least appeared, at the time, to represent. The feeling is what's embodied in the filmic techniques, the scenes chosen, and the performances themselves, and this makes Woodstock a successful documentary. The 60s were many things, and no film could capture all of them. Actually, in spite of the fact that it allows itself to get very much caught up in the excitement, I think the film has its moments of ironic distance and sobering reality, such as the port-a-san scene (particularly the extended shot of the average joe cleaning the things). For a good counterpoint, I recommend the Isle of Wight festival film, which captures the darker, more selfish side of the hippie generation.
Showing reviews 11-15 of 273
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