edit: I didn't see "Into Temptation," but likely will be seeing "I Love You Man" tomorrow evening on DVD.
here's my review of "Taking Woodstock"
I liked a lot of this. Overall, it gave me a pretty uplifting feeling afterwards. My criticism of it would be how much of it's focus was a character-study, which I applaud them to an extent. But the amount of hippie culture experiences ratio to the relationships, mainly Elliot with his parents, kind of made it's direction a bit less about how crazy and surreal an event Woodstock was. On the flipside, I really lilked Liev Schreiber and his relationship to Elliot. In fact, had they focused more on those 2, it might have made the character exploration more acceptable.
None-the-less, there was a lot to enjoy about this. The psychedelic trip Elliot does take in that couples van namely. Very trippy. Ang Lee did a good job taking the audience into the possible zoned-out journey of an Acid-trip.
The group of bordering nudist actors, especially early-on, added a good amount of comedic energy. And pretty much every scene they were in, was worth my attention (not that girls constantly exposing themselves in a hippie/expositionary way wouldn't warrant it anyway).
And credit goes to Demetri Martin, who at times didn't blow me away, but I think pulled off the lead role well enough where he didn't leave my mind long after walking out of the movie.
edit: from looking at his credits, he's been a writer on Conan O'Brien. And appeared in "Paper Heart" which I am blanking on when (maybe at the party she meets Michael Cera?) and "The Rocker" which also I can't recall his role.
One thing crossed my mind is, just imagining how many extras they had for this thing. The credits of course didn't list them, but to reproduce in-effect, the Woodstock Festival-size. Probably 1000's, if not 10's of thousands. I wonder if any of them watched this trying to spot themselves constantly. I probably would.
A few other things that come to mind to mention are, I wished they'd have referenced Monterrey Pop (since it was really the precursor in some ways to Woodstock. The people who put on Woodstock must have thought a lot about that festival when trying to set up what became Woodstock). Also the dialogue could have included a little more about the music itself, and the music industry even at-the-time, but overall, this was certainly enjoyable and hardly disappointing. One of the better movies of 2009 certainly.
80/100
trailer looks intriguing enough and enough names in the cast for me to have my hopes up. Hopefully a review will be posted post-viewing right here.
Into Temptation
and depending on schedule, I may try and catch this new picture starring Stage and vocal starlet Kristin Chenowith (and Pushing Daisies of course).
she looks a bit different there. They should get *Within Temptation* to do the music, lol.
Television:
Warehouse 13=almost caught up.
Royal Pains= I need to watch the only the finale.
Being Human= the season finale either was last weekend, or is this coming weekend.
comments should follow, hopefully soon after. Last nigth was the Kevin Gilbert marathon, tonight's these movies, so Wednesday may be the best bet. Thursday I have my Fantasy Football draft. And Friday? I forget now, other than Monk and Psych of course.
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