Awful Taking Woodstock tanks at the box office too

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 9:58pm

Oh MY GOD Ang Lee is the worst, THE WORST! Now, I'm usually the first to point out that artistic success is rarely tied into financial success, but in this case Taking Woodstock placing 9th place at the box office for its opening weekend is about 20 notches too high.

After proving he had no feeling or understanding of the 1970s, and then gay relationships of any type, Lee has now managed to get the '60s horribly wrong too. How does this guy get greenlit for movies?

Taking Woodstock is awful. Did I mention it's awful? Just like when I saw the putrid Brokeback Mountain, I thought while watching, "Well, I guess I get the appeal to some people but this is bad." Then for the past several hours I have been seething about its awfulness, Lee's fundamental conservatism that he can't squelch by taking on these supposedly liberating topics, and the awful awful performance of Demetri Martin who had no business carrying this movie. How to explain his casting? Perhaps Mr. Heterosexual Lee has a mancrush on him?

There are several gifted theater actors in this movie who manage to give respectable performances almost despite what is going on around them, chief among them Liev Schreiber. Henry Goodman finds nuance in ways Imelda Staunton as his wife completely fails to do. I can not believe somebody is still doing Sophia Petrillo and thinking this is a good thing. Horrible, horrible.

Although Lee occasionally uses split screen in an homage to the Woodstock movie, he doesn't utilize it to compress the tedious and lengthy exposition. He does, however, recreate a few key images from that movie and then plop his characters Forest Gumo-like into them. Awful. What made him think he could make this movie?

I have yet to read reviews of this piece of crap but will go look for them now. Please let this be Ang Lee's last movie. No other subject deserves his horrible treatment.

Oh, OH, he even effs up the gayness in this movie TOO. What has he got against gay men?

ETA: Oh, OH, how does somebody make a movie about the world's most famous music festival and make it so not about music?

Updated On: 8/30/09 at 09:58 PM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 10:06pm

But how do you really feel?

The book it is based on is not about the festival itself, but how it came to be.

Did I think it was a great flick, no. But I was entertained and interested. Yes, it was a little slow at times, certainly. But I also read the book (which is an interesting story but not a well written one -- IMHO) and knew where the story was headed...so I wasn't suprised by the lack of "concert".

But for the record, I like Ang Lee.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 10:12pm

"Entertaining!" That's what people always say when they're willing to overlook, as if by some contractual agreement, everything that is wrong with a piece of crap like Taking Woodstock. The "book it was based on wasn't about the festival" excuse doesn't fly either. If you are going to literalize a notion put forth in a book and keep it set at a music festival, but you leave out the music festival, you look like a buffoon.

Frankly, I don't give a **** about the music either, that's already documented, but watching Lee contort his way around having to pay for music rights (that scene when people weren't playing because of the risk of shock was just so stupid and cheap) is a study in awful filmmaking.

He's terrible.

[blaxx]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 10:23pm

It certainly hasn't been getting the best reviews.

[Q]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 10:42pm

Well, I do like SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, but that's set in what is now a couple centuries ago. Maybe he should have left it at that.

[singtopher]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 10:53pm

Haven't seen Taking Woodstock, but I looks like i'll pass.

But thank god I'm not the only one who hated Brokeback Mountain. I just figured I was dumb and didn't "get it."

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 10:56pm

There was no get to get. The gays don't escape Taking Woodstock unscathed either.

[BroomstickBoy]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 11:18pm

Count me in as one who both didn't care for Brokeback and doesn't "get" Ang Lee.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 11:22pm

Think I might have to see I can rummage up a DVD of the film through the shelter men circles...If I want it; they will find it.

[Jane2]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 11:30pm

Hmm, maybe I don't want to see this.

Brokeback was horrible, and I didn't like Sense and Sensibility.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 11:37pm

I hated Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and could tell, instantly, from the trailer, that he got 1969 all wrong.

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 11:53pm

The split screen drove me crazy. I thought is was distracting. Taking Woodstock was not as good as I expected it to be.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 8/30/09 at 11:57pm

So...... not even worth watching a bootleg?

[Luscious]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 12:49am

Why on earth would someone who obviously loathes Lee's work run out to see his latest on its opening weekend??? Just seems odd to me. I mean, I've never said to myself... oh, my least favorite director's new movie just opened! Let me run to a theatre to see it!

Updated On: 8/31/09 at 12:49 AM

[Q]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 1:23am

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN offended me. The most succinct analysis I encountered was, "A gay movie for straights by straights."

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 8:29am

Even that is wrong. It's a gay movie for gays, by straights. Which makes it even worse.

[Luscious]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 9:33am

I agree. Only gay people should be allowed to make movies about gay people. And only straight people should make movies about straights. In addition, only black people should make movies about blacks and only white people should make movies about whites. People should stick to what they know.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 9:38am

With Brokeback, Lee took talented actors and interesting subject matter, and made a boring movie. That is offensive to anyone, regardless of their sexuality.

Updated On: 8/31/09 at 09:38 AM

[Q]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 10:05am

Luscious - that wasn't my point. Of course anyone can make whatever they want - but I DO think it's noticable when someone makes a film outside their awareness, and just completely misses the mark. As I feel that one did. Completely.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 10:18am

"...but I DO think it's noticable when someone makes a film outside their awareness, and just completely misses the mark."

I think I disagree. Filmmakers miss the mark all the time, regardless of their awareness with their subject matter. If Brokeback would have been better made with a director who was a westerner, married, but struggling with latent homosexuality, then Larry Craig would have been the right guy.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 2:04pm

I like most of Ang's films. He tends to do a great one and then a clunker. The Wedding Banquet is a great film that is about gays and he handled the material beautifully. The Ice Storm is stunning. Eat Drink Man Woman is great and so is Sense and Sensibility. I really like Brokeback Mountain even though it was depressing. I think he makes beautiful films and he does try to take risks that don't always pan out (Hulk, Taking Woodstock, Ride With The Devil). He is very, very talented and has a beautiful eye for human stories.

[uncageg]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 2:24pm

I enjoyed Brokeback mountain. I didn't buy it to own but I found it pretty true to the short story and thought that Mr. Lee did a very good job of filling in all of the things that were not in the short story. I also think a good job was done of depicting the lives of these 2 in the time that the story was set in. Living in the west, I have talked to ranchers and "cowboys" who could identify with the movie in that they couldn't come out. And there are some that still are afraid to. I think it was beautifully done.

[Jon]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 4:41pm

What did Ang Lee have to do with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon?

[StageManager2]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 4:43pm

Uh, he directed it.

Updated On: 8/31/09 at 04:43 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/09 at 10:14pm

I would have responded earlier today if the BWW Glitch weren't affecting my phone too. It's a pain in the ass, I hope it gets fixed SOON.

So, just to be clear, Luscious, I never said anywhere that I ran right out and saw Taking Woodstock. Had I done that, I would have made the first post in this thread Friday. Historically, when people run right out to see a new movie, they do so the day it is released.

Nope, Friday night I watched a baseball game with friends. Saturday I got up and went and got a really nice hair cut and then a massage. Went out for a nice Mexican dinner with my boyfriend. Went home and read some more of "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All."

Sunday morning I got up and did some laundry. Had a nice breakfast. Went to see an early evening showing of Taking Woodstock. I know I was naive in thinking there was a chance that the movie would be good, but when we saw the preview at another movie, my boyfriend and I both said we thought it looked pretty good. And I was surprised, since I knew it was an Ang Lee movie. Unfortunately, I was probably still coasting on the good vibes I had left over from the HAIR revival. (Incidentally, Taking Woodstock underscores everything the HAIR revival got right and makes look effortless. Apparently it's not effortless since Lee made such an awful Taking Woodstock.)

Now, of course had I decided it was going to suck after seeing the preview that time, and posted that I bet it was going to suck, I would have been told on these boards that I had no right to criticize Taking Woodstock without seeing it. Then of course I would have been told that OF COURSE I thought it was going to suck because I hate Ang Lee.

So, thanks Luscious, for finding a way for criticizing me for going to a movie with the thoughts and hopes that it would be good and then being disappointed. With the movie. That I saw. Thinking it might be good.

But it is not.

And Brokeback Mountain is a lesbian fantasy of homsosexual emotional love presented by a straight man (with his fantasies that even lovers rape their partner's ass on their first sex date), for straight women.