Taking Woodstock

When a young and up-and-coming man in a local no-name town convinces the town council to have a bigger summer concert, he suddenly becomes overwhelmed by the response. A son of Jewish immigrants who operate a run-down motel just outside of town, Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin), serves on the town council and with a little left-hand behind the back transaction uses the permit to schedule some of the biggest names in music.

After making arrangements with local dairy farm operator Max Yasgur (played by American Pie father Eugene Levy), the organize the festival to use his farm and plans start rolling fast. Jake spends the next couple of weeks getting the hotel and field ready, but as the day approaches, the town soon becomes overwhelmed by hippies and the locals are not happy. Originally scheduled to be a concert requiring tickets, common-sense led them to change it to a free concert. There was no way they were going to be able to control the mass of people that showed up. The festival finally arrives and Jake experiences life at Woodstock and learns more than he ever learned at college.

Also staring in this movie are Imelda Staunton as Jake's mother, Henry Goodman as Jake's father, Live Schreiber as a transvestite (yes, you read that correctly), Dan Fogler as a head of a local theater troupe, and Emile Hirsch as Jake's friend who recently returned from Vietnam.

I'm no historian on the Woodstock event, but this is totally how I pictured events as they played out. Thousands of hippies. Dozens of naked people. Acid. Camping. Rock music. And more naked people.

Directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), Taking Woodstock is Rated R for nudity, drugs, and yet more nudity. And the movie comes in right at 2 hours.

I liked Taking Woodstock for the seemingly obvious reasons. Not only is it funny (Jake's mother is hysterical), but there's also that good quirky small-town dialog. Not an Academy-Award winning nominee, but not too bad. I give Taking Woodstock 3 stars.

Some interesting facts - the concert was actually in the town of Bethel, New York, about 43 miles from the actual town of Woodstock, NY. Performers at the festival included Ravi Shankar, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, John Sebastian (Welcome Back Kotter), Canned Heat (Goin' to the Country), Mountain, Grateful Dead. Creedance Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Ten Years After, The Band, Blood Sweat & Tears, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Sha-Na-Na, and Jimi Hendrix. Can you imagine that concert today? It wouldn't happen. Too many stuck-up greedy bands. This was quintessential 1960's.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Another series of movies that are out of order (see Star Wars), X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the prequel to the previously released X-Men movies. Fortunately for this movie watcher, I never saw the others, so watching what should be the first in the series is actually the first one for me.

One of my most recent Netflix rentals, Wolverine is studded with many 1st and 2nd tier actors including Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, and Danny Huston. Lynn Collins stars as the female protagonist who you've probably seen in the Number 23.

The film starts with Wolverine as a young child, then follows his brother and his progression in wars throughout history. The dude never gets old. After a mission that has a disastrous ending, he decides to leave the group and try to live a normal life.

However, after many years, the leader of the group comes back for him with bad news. Someone is killing the X-Men. Unnerved at first, he changes his mind after his girlfriend ends up dead.

The forthcoming battles will not disappoint. It is full of high-tech special affects and non-stop action. And the ending totally leaves the series open for more sequels.

Wolverine, directed by Gavin Hood, is rated PG-13 for almost non-stop violence and some partial nudity, though if memory serves me right it was Hugh Jackman's butt. If that's your thing, you won't be disappointed.

I enjoyed this movie and would watch it again. I give it 4 stars.

Defiance

I love a good war movie. Heck, I usually like a bad war movie. Especially when it's about World War II. It is such a fascinating part of our history. Almost the ENTIRE planet was at war. How crazy is that?

Defiance is a war story that is a true story about a not-so-glamorous part of the war. The movie is set in Eastern Poland in the woods. There, the Bielski Brothers have fled their village after a German invasion and while roaming in the woods happen upon a group of wandering Jews who had fled the Nazis. Note that I separate Nazis and Germans. They were 2 distinct groups. The Germans were the soldiers. The Nazis worked for the political party and for the most part are the ones that ran the concentration camps and the Jew extermination policy. One could be a part of both groups, but being a German did not make one a Nazi, just as an American in the army is not necessarily a Democrat.

Defiance stars Daniel Craig (James Bond in both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) as Tuvia Bielski and Lieve Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate and RKO 281) as Zus Bielski, 2 brothers. While both men acted with fake Russian\Polish accents, Liev Schriber actually made a good Polish Jew, whereas Daniel Craig makes a good Brit speaking in a Polish accent who probably doesn't go to church as often as his mother would like.

Once the first few families of Jews were found, Tuvia decides that they must protect them. Over time, the refugees number in the thousands. Zus, on the other hand, wants to be a fighter rather than a protector and leaves to join a Russian detachment. Meanwhile, Tuvia, the now default leader of the refugee, finds himself fighting not only a war, but partisan bickering and struggles for gathering food, protecting the people, and trying to remain unseen by the occasional German observation planes.

Almost the entire movie is set in the woods of present-day Belarus, though filming was actually done in nearby Lithuania. Another notable fact is that many of the cast were relatives of surviving refugees, which number in the tens of thousands.

Defiance was directed by Edward Zwick, no stranger to directing big films, also known for Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, and Blood Diamond.

The movie states that it is 2 hours and 17 minutes long, though my DVD player was able to knock it out in 2 hours and 5 minutes. Perhaps I have an aggressive DVD player. Defiance is rated R for violence, mostly for violent gun battles and exploding bombs, and language.

Though an interesting story, the acting was a bit melancholy and dialog was slow. After watching the movie, I read about the true story and found it to be fascinating. However, I will have to give the movie 3 stars. I think it could have been a little better.