Rating: 
Summary: if you love janis joplin
Review: I love janis joplin and seeing her preform 'work me lord' is the most wonderful thing I've ever seen. It sends chills up my spine, I love the song and watching her is like watching an angel. If you love janis half as much as I do, you've got to buy this. I rented the video, and had to buy the dvd because I can watch her over and over again and it never loses its magic. BUY IT!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Classic woodstock
Review: I hope they release a criterion version of this film with more songs from each & every band that performed there, complete & uncut with onstage comments backstage interviews if they have any. Large booklet containing photos of every band off & on stage. Excellent remastering & picture quality. A biography of every band. Conversations with band members. Commentary.
Showing clips of every band member performing on stage with the band and more.....................
Rating: 
Summary: actual
Review: dados los tiempos que corren esta película se ve actual, no acusa el paso del tiempo,En cuanto a als actuaciones son muy buenas, aunque hay algunos peros: falta gente imporatnte como MOUNTAIN,butterfield blues band,melanie,creedence,más canciones de crosby,stills,nash.
Hay un abuso excesivo de la doble pantalla, este es un efecto que lo único que conmsigue es que no prestes atención a ninguna de las imagenes con detenimiento.Pero a pesar de todo ello su puntuación no puede bajar de cuatro.
Rating:
Summary: mind boggling
Review: great movie for people who didn't make the festival. Gives you a small, but detailed sight of what the great time was like.
Rating:
Summary: It's not just about the music
Review: A previous reviewer has made mention of the fact that so much of the best music from the concert doesn't appear in the documentary footage. I concur, and I advise anyone who owns the motion picture to buy the soundtrack as well. There were tremendous performances by Sly and the Family Stone, Paul Butterfield, Melanie, Mountain, Johnny Winter, Creedence Clearwater Revival and others that ended up on the cutting room floor. Time couldn't possibly allow all three days' worth of music, but the film was about so much more than the musical performances. Aside from the atrocious weather that plagued the event, some of the performances were awful, including the Who's set, which sounded like they were playing in a cardboard box; Arlo Guthrie's, who stormed off in anger after constant helicopter interruptions; CSNY's, with their out-of-tune guitars and off-key vocals; and the Grateful Dead's (absent from both the film and the soundtrack), which ended when a rain-soaked Jerry Garcia was electrocuted by a mike-stand. Ironically, the thrilling conclusion to the festival, given by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was witnessed by only a few thousand stragglers, as many people had already gone home -- or never even made it to the show because of all the abandoned cars on the highways. Some very poignant and very human moments were included in the film, especially those with the chief of police and the Port-o-San cleaner, as well as some difficult moments, such as the irate farmer who lost his milk supply and had his fences broken due to the massive crowds and blocked highways("It's a sh*tty mess!" he says). Joan Baez' protest-laden set was equally poignant, and Country Joe MacDonald's exhortation "How do you expect to stop a war if you don't sing?!?" epitomizes the attitude of the Nation's youth towards an unpopular conflict and "the establishment." Most wonderful in all the film were the interviews with festival-goers and the impromptu stage announcements, interspersed between the concert footage and the stylistic, multi-screened editing. How they managed to dub all those various performance clips with the soundtrack is amazing in itself. This tremendous work of art won an Academy Award, and gives great snapshots of popular culture of the late 1960's. It's an important piece of American film and also of American history. But once again, if you really want to experience the MUSIC, buy the film AND the soundtrack.
Rating:
Summary: Got To Get Ourselves Back To The Garden!
Review: In a manner that must shock and amaze us all, this superb documentary catches the spirit and "geist" of the sixties counter-cultural movement like nothing else could. As a child of the sixties, and someone involved in all of the activities and social issues described herein, I find myself once again amazed whenever I catch this on TV, usually late at night. For through the space of this seemingly endless concert film are the continuing threaded elements of a very important story, the epic tale of how a separate and distinct subculture in attempted to stand amidst the blaring hostile spotlights of an overbearing and dominating mainstream culture. The parts of the movie I love watching best are not of the performers, but rather are the threads connecting them, the bits and pieces of extraneous events, conversations, and interactions that helped to flesh out the details of exactly what the social ethos of the counterculture were, and how they would inform, describe, and detail its members. The first few minutes of the film, consisting of long and cinematically gorgeous shots of young "freaks" congregating to build the sound stage for the concert in an overgrown glen in upstate New York on tractors, horses, and in trucks and cars is breath-taking, and sets the stage for the kind of laid-back presentation that follows. It is difficult to explain or to articulate what Woodstock meant, both to those of us who were lucky enough to be there and to the rest of us who experienced only vicariously through the countless stories and tales that emanated from it afterward, and from documentary evidence such as is provided by this film, that the so-called youth culture existed and thrived, by at least some 500,000 and most likely by many, many more freaks than that. For in truth reality was the coming of age of the youth movement in the same moment it became its funeral dirge, for the dominating mainstream culture recognized both its threat and its opportunity for them, in cultural and commercial terms, and the elements of the youth culture was quickly co-opted by advertising and business. Yet for all of that, what we had was a wonderful moment, however brief, in the warmth of togetherness in the sun. Watch the movie and celebrate. We've spent the last thirty years mourning our collective failure by letting the Woodstock in each of us die. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Dance to the Music
Review: Where was it on the video? Dance to the Music by Sly & the Family Stone was one of the greatest moments at Woodstock. It's on the album (yes,I'm old enough to have owned albums), but unfortunately missing here. Another great moment missed by the filmakers was the Airplane doing Volunteers. The film starts out with the intro. and then completely skips over the song (it's on the cd for anyone who wants to hear it and it rocks!). At the end of the day, the film depicts many great moments, but missed too many festival highlights that were on the original album and are now on the CD. The filmakers should have added those cuts. The CD is a better buy for your money and listening pleasure.
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Summary: Great Music and Revealing Social Chronicle
Review: Ok, the music is the greatest...it's true. However,
this chronicle reveals what was great about the "hippy" movement
and the seeds of its undoing. Perhaps better than any social movement, the hippies were, for a while, successful in "deserting" capital. Rather than take capitalism head on and butting heads, they just deserted and created an alternative space. It certainly had the establishment frightened and probably came closer than any attempt since Post WWII of bringing a collapse
to capitalism in the west (save, perhaps the events of May 68 in Paris). However there were, so it seems, the idealistic hippies and the stragglers who later joined, exclusively for the drugs and free love. These latter were operating in as much a "get over" mode as the greediest capitalist and had little if any idealism.
This phenomenon is superbly described in Jay Steven's
"Storming Heaven, LSD and the American Dream". Very telling is an interview with a young man at Woodstock.
He came to party and get laid. He wanted "to do do his own thing".
The journalist then asks the young man, "What about Nixon, he just wants to do his own thing, too?" Silence. A good follow up to this movie would be PT Anderson's "Boogie Nights". Between the two, we can see how the lack of serious political consciousness among some of the "unidealistic" hippies combined with the "do your own thing" mentality entrained the Me generation 70s and the free-market corporatism of the 80s to today. This film is a keeper! Thomas Seay
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular account of the event that deffined the era
Review: No words can describe how wonderfully this film has captured the moment in the event which defined the Hippie Movement, which amazed the world by truley and fully living up to its catch phrase: "Three days of peace, love, and music", and which made those who did not attend wonder what they were thinking.
The music, first and foremost, is truley wonderful. Spectacular performances by CSN, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ten Years After, Richie Havens and so many more. I most especially enjoy watching Joe Cocker's rendition of "With A Little Help From My Friends". His voice and the energy which radiates from him as he performs is truley mesmerizing. And of course who could forget Jimi Hendrix famous performance where he tore up his guitar with his captivating version of the National Anthem. I also love Country Joe's performance of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag". A wonderful performance, it truley captivates the peace and love of the event as, toward the end of the song he encourages the audience to stand and sing to end the war...and the majority of the 500,000 or so audience members stand and sing along.
But it's not just the music that make's this film wonderful. The film show's the organization of the event, the building of the stage etc... We meet the people who made the event possible. And when the people begin to enter the site without paying for tickets....and the producers realize how much money they've lost...they shrug it off and say that they don't mind because the event and the people loving eachother and sharing everything is such a beautiful thing...and that the money doesn't matter. Do producers of rock concerts (or producers of anything for that matter) ever say that money doesn't matter these days? It truley shows what a wonderful generation it was. The audience is beautiful as well, everyone being themselves, everyone having a good time and sharing the experience that was the last bang (and what a bang it was) for the Hippie Movement.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful
Review: I am young. I am 20 years old. I love the "jambands" (excuse the stereotype). While I wasn't even alive for woodstock, I have been to many of the big festivals of my time: Phish's Clifford Ball, Great Went, Big Cypress, and countless summer festivals, including the (infamous) 2001 Gathering of the Vibes, 2002 Gathering, Berkfests galore, Bonnaroo. I didn't go the the recent Woodstock, for I don't particularly care for the musicians there. I have been on tour, living out of a van, for many months straight. Admittedly, this is nothing compared to many followers of the Dead; however, I "get it." I understand the mentality, I understand karma and believe in it, I've had my "fun." Watching this movie brought tingles. The definitive Woodstock chronicle is this movie--it portrays the sense of community, of oneness, of togetherness in a cause, of pure times for just having fun. I've experienced it. For those who believe that Rock and Roll is about violence and rioting at large festivals, take a step back and ask why. I'll let you come up with an answer. But know this: the spirit of woodstock is alive and flourishing in modern times. Buy this movie, savor it. You may find yourself in shock, or disbelief, if you haven't lived through the times. But imagine yourself in the context. Put yourself there. Get in the mindset. Watch this movie. You won't be disappointed.
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