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Woodstock Not Worth the Trip

Mixed reviews for 1960s coming-of-age flick

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:08 PM CDT

(Newser) – Taking Woodstock isn’t really about the music: it’s more about coming of age on the outskirts of the festival. Critics are lukewarm about Ang Lee's latest effort:

“You can’t deny the smiling mood that wafts through the film like incense,” admits Anthony Lane of the New Yorker, “and to that extent it honors the original three days; but not once does a character’s show of feeling stir you, send you, or stop you in your tracks.”

Stephen Holden of the New York Times calls the “likable, humane” film “a gentle, meandering celebration of personal liberation at a moment when rigid social barriers were becoming more permeable.”
“All the tie-dye, reefer, skinny-dipping, split-screen cinematography and acid-trip psychedelics can't make up for the film's major sin of omission: the music,” Peter Travers writes for Rolling Stone.

[Videos (1)]

In this film publicity image released by Focus Features, Demetri Martin, left, and Eugene Levy are shown in a scene from "Taking Woodstock." (AP Photo/Focus Features, Ken Regan)

In this film publicity image released by Focus Features, Kelli Garner, left, Demetri Martin, center, and Paul Dano are shown in a scene from "Taking Woodstock." (AP Photo/Focus Features, Ken Regan)

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Woodstock Not Worth the Trip

Mixed reviews for 1960s coming-of-age flick