Hey! Baby boomers! Stop not understanding the internet for
two seconds (just a single click will do on that link, homie) and look
over here! I need to let you know something. Which is that we get it.
We really fucking get it. You were young once, and at that time
you attended (or didn’t) a thing called Woodstock. Jimi Hendrix was
there, and you wore a gourd instead of clothing, and you got mud on
your stuff. Then the world changed. Forever.
I know my generation is supposed to be the world’s foremost pack of
drooling narcissists or whatever, but Jesus “David Crosby’s
Coke-Encrusted Moustache” Christ, boomers, you have got to be
the most self-absorbed fucks ever. I mean, Woodstock?
Still? Woodstock in new, fictionalized formats? Surely we have
the definitive Woodstock story already, called “all that footage we
filmed at Woodstock.” Surely you have done something since Woodstock
that you would like to talk about. You are relevant. I believe in
you.
At the very least, I can tell you what is not necessary,
which is Ang Lee’s new historicomedramaramedamedy, Taking
Woodstock. Now, this Lee is a confusing fellow: He managed to bury
any Hulk-fueled skepticism under an Alp of goodwill thanks to
Brokeback Mountain, a film with very few discernible flaws
(unless you are a raging homophobe). But Taking Woodstock is
just a big ball of bad ideas.
It’s the story of Elliot (played by the peerlessly adorable Demetri
Martin), a shy, semi-closeted aspiring interior designer trying to keep
his parents’ crumbling Catskills motel afloat. Somehow, Elliot winds up
inviting half a million beautiful and filthy hippies to his tiny town,
and then the world changes. Forever.
I’m not saying that Woodstock-the-piece-of-cultural-history isn’t
interesting. Or important. But Taking Woodstock—stilted,
artificial—is neither. Lee’s depiction expands even beyond the
typical Woodstock clichés (mud, VW vans, special brownies) into
an It’s a Small World ride of everything that happened in the ’60s: As
Elliot walks through the crowds, he passes a draft-card-burning
station, a broke-brained Vietnam vet, an SDS (or was it SNCC?) float, a
booth of bra-burners (Not real, you guys! Not a real thing!) screaming,
“Burn ’em, sisters!,” and much peace and jammin’ and buckskin-clad
people yelling, “You’ve gotta join in demonstrations! Now!” Are you
happy yet, baby boomers?
Ang Lee directed this!? Jesus.
Yeah! The Mercury hired a movie reviewer who knows how to write, and can reference a director’s other films with something more interesting than “the other films he did’ – woo hoo! Keep up the good work, Lindy!
Yeah, I’m a week late. With the obvious aside…come on. Complaining about Woodstock on the other side of the country? Dudes. You don’t even know the half of it. I know. I went to school in upstate NY, in a college town very close to Woodstock. (The actual Woodstock, NY AND the location where Woodstock took place…) I took a class called Arts and Editing, taught by a journalist writing a book with Michael Lang, the creator of Woodstock, about Woodstock. The entire class time was spent editing said book and talking about Woodstock. I had to be filmed talking about Woodstock for a documentary, directed by the same woman who directed the cinematic masterpiece, Havoc. YOU’RE SICK OF HEARING ABOUT IT? I MOVED [approximately] 3,000 MILES TO GET AWAY FROM IT.
You don’t have to be a homophobe to think a boring movie is boring. Brokeback Mountain sucked.