Taking Woodstock

Our parents were there, daisies in their hair, sure we got the iPhone, but a genius playlist don't compare. Still deciphering?

Yes, it was Woodstock, a landmark event hangover-hippies couldn't wait to relive this summer with Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock. Hold the celebratory tokes, however, because Lee's reimagining is about as potent as a clove cigarette.

Based on the autobiography Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte, the film tells the tale of Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), an aspiring interior designer who returns to his parents' home in Bethel, N.Y. when mortage problems arise on their run-down motel. When Elliot gets word that a nearby music festival with headliners such as the Who and Janis Joplin has lost its permit, he offers to host the event on his family's farm to bring in business. The organizers agree, and Elliot transplants the rapidly expanding event to the backyard of a naive milkman (Eugene Levy) with one innocent request: "Just clean up after yourselves." And you thought the Tailgate crew had it rough.

Soon Bethel is transformed into a countercultural Mecca, host to a half million hippies, draft dodgers and a cross-dressing veteran named Vilma (Liev Schrieber). Lee's visual recreation of the 1969 "center of the unvierse" is brilliantly manifested throughout the film. Most notable is a moment when post-acid trip, Elliot first looks down on the undulating Woodstock crowd below him, a heady tribute to the "high and beautiful wave" once described by the hippie herald himself, Hunter S. Thompson. Unfortunately, the film's masterful cinematography is bogged down by James Schamus' hackneyed script, where even the sober characters reach astronomical conclusions such as "perspective is what shuts out the universe, man."

Those hoping for a glimpse of Jimi, Janis, Joan and Jerry should look to the original documentary, as the film focuses on Elliot's coming of age rather than the concert's historic performances. Props to Lee for tackling a legend, but in the shadow of the center of the universe, this film is ultimately a castle made of sand. Happy 40th, Woodstock.