Rating: 
Summary: What a time it was...
Review: I loved this film. Take a wonderful trip down memory lane. Keith Moon, John Entwhistle, Jimi, Janis, The Bear - in all their glory. I must admit I shed a tear or two watching this movie. I saw it at the pictures as a teenager and it has remained embedded in my mind ever since. Young Joe Cocker, young CSN, young Carlos - performers I have seen in recent years - still marvelleous - but oh! how young we all were...
This was truly the end of an era. Of thinking that loving your fellow man and having a few joints would change the world. Look back and long for a simpler time. As Bono once said "Glorify the past when the future dries up"
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Summary: jim
Review: i own this on laserdisc but the dvd in 5.1 dolby digital is far better. classic performances include: santana - soul sacrifice, joe cocker - with a little help from my friends. my only complaint is not enough of csny, the who, santana and sly and the family stone. and too much boreing footage.
Rating:
Summary: A good one DVD effort of this Historic event.
Review: This is a good representation on the Historic rock n roll event on one DVD. It looks and sounds great. I would give it a five star but its a two sided DVD, and I hate having to turn em over. It's a must have for anyone who wants to revisit this historic event.
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Summary: Da Woodstock Nation Whatever.....
Review: The first thing to note is one of the greatest ironies of the 60's: that Sha Na Na---the favorite whipping boys of 70's bashers/60's nostalgics (for all intents and purpouses one and same), y'know, one of the villians Eddie Vedder meant to invoke in his sentinous rant "Against The 70's"---actually appeared in this festival o' peace, love 'n flowers (and, just to thrust the middle finger at all ya boomer chauavinists, did a pretty damm decent performance)! The second thing is something this commiepinko pro-feminist dude has just gotta ask: if this was supposed to be the zenith of countercultural comittment to peace, love, social justice, yaddayaddayadda---then WHERE WERE THE WOMEN? Answer---apart from Joan Baez and Janis Joplin the only women here were shown, tellingly enough in a section of side b of this 2-side DVD, AS "THE BODIES BEAUTIFUL." As a feminist writer said shortly after Altamont: "Women at Woodstock, we were a service industry." That being said, there WERE actually SOME performances that lived up to all the "Woodstock Nation" hype. First off, there was the Joan Baez rendition of a song about labor union organizer Joe Hill (whose working-class activism most likely went over the heads of 90% of the upper middle-class WN citizens), the Who's "See Me, Feel Me" and cover of "Summertime Blues," Arlo Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles," (only now, after having watched MIAMI VICE, do I understand what "keys" meant in his context---yup, it's about a drug---probably pot---smuggeler), Country Joe & The Fish's "Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag," a tune that has gained new realavence in George Dubya Shrub's so-called "war on terrorism" (subistiute "Afghanistan" for "Vietnam" and you'll see what I mean). Apart from that, however, the whole thing proves this---we may indeed have to get ourselves back to the garden, but (as Rapestock 99 so clearly proved) Woodstock didn't cut it.
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Summary: best of the hippie festivals
Review: this is the best of the hippie festivals of the 60's/early 70's. unlike others they show the full performance of the artists, not to mention interviews with actual people who attended and a few artist. this is definitly a piece of history and a good buy.
Rating:
Summary: A great flashback to a watershed event
Review: Woodstock was three days that defined a generation, for better or worse. The DVD edition of the film has the added footage that was once on two VHS cassettes, but the video and audio quality are far superior. The original movie was great, but the addition of extra footage makes a classic even more powerful. Unless you've got a lot of kick-back time, it's hard to sit and watch the entire movie in one sitting. The widescreen DVD format is great, and the movie is so long that it takes up both sides of the disk. Still, anyone who came of age in the late '60s and early '70s needs to own this DVD, if for no other reason than the great added performances by "The Bear" and the rest of Canned Heat. (A fan climbs up on stage and bums a smoke from The Bear, who gives him a smoke and lets the fan hang out onstage.) The epic scope of the original is widely expanded, both musically and with scenes of the crowd, the rush to get the event under way (Richie Havens plays and plays and plays while everyone backstage gets the final details wrapped up). There's just so much more to enjoy. The peace and love ethos of the day may seem dated and cliched to some, but for others it's a fond, fond trip down memory lane. And remember, don't eat the brown acid! A great time is guaranteed for all!
Rating: 
Summary: Inexcusable DVD transfer
Review: I have owned the director's cut of this on VHS for years and the VHS version is superb visually and the sound is excellent. I bought the DVD so I could have chapter access to each performance. Indeed, the DVD does have that, but it is all for naught. The picture on the DVD is vastly inferior to the VHS. Images that can be clearly seen on the VHS don't register many times at all on the DVD, i.e the outline and some features of a guy dancing are clearly visible on the VHS as they were on film in a theatre. On the DVD, you just see the outine of the figure with a hint of subtler visual attributes. The sound on the DVD is the worst I've heard on any release from a major company. I've seen and heard better on second-rate VHS's and DVD's from the likes of Laserdisc. Boy, will I read those ratings on visual and sound quality from now on. The review on Amazon's "technical information" for this DVD is absoulutely correct. I will never buy another DVD or VHS from Warner Bros without first renting and previewing it. So I still watch my 2-tape VHS of this landmark film of this one-time phenomenon. The DVD is on one two-sided disc, which doesn't even break at the intermission, to rub salt in this inexcusable mangling from Warner Bros. First, they blew their initial Kubrick set and now this disgrace. If you want this film on video, get in the well-done and tecnically superior VHS double tape. Incompent .... Jack Warner would have kicked who ever is responsible for this rip-off DVD most deservedly in the teeth...
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Summary: I've Got Blisters On My Fingers....
Review: ...subtitled "The only folks who seemed like they had the most fun were Sly and Janis" ...subsubtitled "Whod'a thought that Peace, Love and Happiness would be so freakin' muddy...?" All kidding aside, if for nothing else the concert stands for the triumph of the protest of the Vietnam War. And the variety of super rockers there. Jimi Hendrix blew their minds, the Who were outstanding in the field, Ten Years After did a bloos number that ended ten years after, Crosby, Stills and Nash did a blowaway version of "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" that was simply spellbinding, Jefferson Airplane--I'm not sure what they did, but Grace Slick had prescence, dig? Santana. Richie Havens. Joanie Baez. Sly and Family. And the great, great Texas blooswoman, Janis Joplin. If you don't get the dance that Syl did in the middle of "Music Lover", you just don't/didn't get it. It is fun to see the response of the townsfolk, pro and con....but we could have done without some of the interviews with some of the stoners, man. Anyway, a bit of rock'n'roll history and U.S. culture on DVD!
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious subtitles!
Review: Ever hear of the publication of listeners' versions of music heard on the radio? ...And how different, in often hilarious ways, they are from the published lyrics of the songs? I played this DVD, and the subtitles appeared, and I decided not to turn them off, even though my Mother Tongue is English. I enjoyed this film in a way I've never had the opportunity to do in the thirty years since the Theatrical release. I wanted to attend Woodstock in real-time, but my Army bosses wouldn't let me leave the hot, humid climate, the bizarre speech, and alien customs of the local people to go to Woodstock; so I stayed at Fort Benning GA that August. But I've known the lyrics of many of the songs on this DVD, and the author of the subtitles apparently never sought out the published versions. Mind you, the performances, being live, were in a sense unique, with innovation and variation on the part of the performers rampant. But the post-Apocalyptic "Wooden Ships" from CS&N tells the story of the meeting of two from diferent sides in the Final War, and at one point, one says, "I can see by your coat, my friend, you're from the other side. There's just one thing I got to know: can you tell me, please, who won?" -referring to the Final War. The subtitles displayed at this point in the performance read, "I can see why you brought a friend from the Other Side....can you tell me, please, who am I?" -referring to an existential question involving a spiritualist? In the Woodstock Era? Possibly, of course! But is that what Dave Crosby (looking young & healthy with his orginal liver!) and Graham Nash meant, or even wrote? In the liner notes on the LP cover, the lyrics were included, as related above. There were a number of these egregious errors, but, as I indicated above, it adds fun to the watching of this great film and being transported back to a time that made Camelot seem lackluster and dreary.
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Summary: More fun than has been legal since the 60's
Review: Hey man, like wow.... you know I was rapping with the Fuzz.. Can you dig it? etc etc WOW! Take a trip back to the 60's. For those of you who were there you'll swear you recognize the faces of people you know you've never met. For those born too late.. you'll swear this was all made up, no one could be that weird! The music is priceless. Santana, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joe Cocker, Sly and the Family Stone, Ten Years After all give unforgettable performances. Lesser lights shine in their own fashion, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and there's plenty of both! The documentary portions are lengthy and numerous... so be prepared to sit through a lot of STUFF. (DVD's are nice that way, you can skip ahead through the STUFF if you're not in the mood) It's a time capsule that's not to be missed. It's a must have for any music fan who owns a DVD player. My favorite music DVD, no other can match the 'peak' performances captured here.
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