Taking Woodstock

Director Ang Lee's new film "Taking Woodstock" is frustrating mix of contradictions.
The film gets the look and the feel of the times right on. But it's troubling that the film doesn't contain one single performance that makes any kind of real impression.

This is really a film about "Woodstock" the cultural event, not "Woodstock" the concert. You only see the stage itself from a distance, and there's hardly any music. The movie is much more interested in wading through the muck with the rest of the huddled masses.

At the center of it all is Comedian Demetri Martin. He plays the son of struggling motel owners who's hoping to save their catskills hideaway from foreclosure.
When he reads that the Woodstock festival has been kicked out of a neighboring town, he offers his land and more importantly his festival permit to help.

Martin can be hilariously sublime in his standup and on "The Daily Show," but he fails to score many points here.
He's really there more as a plot device to lead the audience through the experience and he's entirely unnecessary.
Eugene Levy is a great choice to play Max Yasgur- the man who opened his farm fields up for three days of peace and music. But he has too few scenes to make any impression at all.
And the less said about Liev Schrieber's transvestite transgendered former marine the better.

The film offers a pretty good example of what it must have been like to be there as the woodstock nation invaded upstate new york.
But without an interesting story to tell, it lacks any real life and vivaciousness to speak to a new generation.

"Taking Woodstock:" C