Purely Joyful Movie!

Just so...so bad

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Woodstock is one of the few documentaries I ever watched and definitely the longest I ever watched. The version I watched was 224 minutes long, some parts were a tad boring, but on the whole it was a wonderful experience. So good that I did it again recently to remember it and write this review.Being a BIG fan of the 50's, 60's and 70's music helps, they really don't make music like they used to.This is more than just the music though, it is like being there. If you are young (15-30) get a copy and see this for the music and the people of the time.Times change and it is good to be able to look back, this documentary allows us to see a glimpse of the past.

Documentaries about musical events do not really lend themselves to a review. However Woodstock was just as much a social event as a concert. For several days the fields changed into a temporary city. It is interesting to see how Michael Wadleigh displays and interprets the attitude of the crowd. He interviews the visitors, and asks them about their motives to be there. Most of them are barely grown people. Many simply follow the flow, but for others the festival is an opportunity to increase their wisdom of life. They arrive as groups and communes, and try to learn from each others experiences. There are spiritual meetings. There is recreation and fun, like the mud slides in the rain. But there are also social experiments, like nude swimming and even public drug (ab)use. They blow to make other people interesting. They may have read about the evils of drugs, and gave up reading. The cast of singers and song groups looks impressive. But to be fair, I did not like their music then, and in the film it looks truly poor and miserable. In many cases the appearance consists of screaming and physical convulsions. Today such a performance would not attract such an enormous crowd. It takes the drummers a minute to notice that their band has stopped playing. Joke: what is the difference between an electric guitar and a chainsaw? The grip. Probably it makes more sense to interpret the festival as a demonstration against war and violence. America was in the grip of the civil rights movement. Several charismatic leaders had been murdered. And most of all, there was the appalling war in Vietnam, which threatened the future of the male youth. On stage Joan Baez tells about the objection to military service of her boyfriend. If your life expectancy is just a few years, there is some cause for screaming and wild social experiments. The right to bear arms is slightly less ludicrous than the right to arm bears. By the way, why do soldier look so tired on 1 April? Because they just had a 31-day March. Actually Woodstock was a sad event. And Wadleigh must get the credit for managing to convey this message - which is a recommendation. Don't hesitate to leave a comment. I love it.

Although I am sure most of you don't use captions, you might want to use them here so that you can follow the lyrics as folks are performing their songs. Plus, if your kids are around, you can then sing along with the musicians--and really annoy the young ones in your house!This is a VERY lengthy documentary about the famous music festival held in 1969. It ranges from 184-228 minutes (depending on which of the MANY versions you see--I saw the 45th anniversary edition). This is important to note because depending on which one you see will depend on just how good the documentary is. I was annoyed when I read after I was finished watching the movie that in SOME versions (and NOT the one I saw), Creedence Clearwater Revival does not appear even though they DID appear at Woodstock*. Considering they were the top group (albeit briefly) in the country at the time, you'd THINK they'd include them on the DVD!!! Additionally, because there are so many acts, you only get a small bit of most of the performers you see. I really love The Who--but most of their songs, for example, you don't get to hear. Likewise, you don't get to see Pete Townsend attack the director or toss Abbie Hoffman off the stage during their performance! Now I am not saying you should get to hear and see every act, but a few simply are inexplicably absent...and a few times interviews and other non-instrumental bits are included instead of more music. So, understand that this is the director's idea of a greatest hits account of Woodstock and may or may not meet your expectations. As for me, I hated a few of the acts and would have loved if they'd chosen a bit differently. After all, Sha-Na- Na DID appear in the film (although they were quite atypical of the rest of the music and they really sucked) but other acts performing (CCR, The Band and a few others) were omitted.*By the way, apparently when the Grateful Dead performed on the very wet stage, the band kept getting electrocuted and their songs were not surprisingly bad. They sued to prevent their inclusion in the film, though you see a few clips of Jerry Garcia near the beginning.

The Woodstock 1969 film is a 10!I would like to know who the hippie woman is who said she was intimidated by the Mic she was being interviewed with in the Woodstock 1969 film?The interview was right before Santana came on in the film. I subtract 2 points from the rating because the people who were interviewed were not credited. Since these people were in the most famous documentary of all time it would of been reasonable for them to be in the credits. This movie caused me to take interest in the history of the hippie movement. So I came up with 8 out of 10 for the rating of Woodstock 1969. I believe this is the best movie of all time. This movie will make you feel like you are back in 1969.