Rating: 
Summary: Summer of Love...Slight Return!
Review: The Monterey Pop Festival was the Grandaddy of the Rock Festivals! The original film by D.A. Pennebaker crammed 3 days of music into 72 minutes. The film gave us a sample taste of what it was like, but it also made you feel cheated by it's length. The Criterion Collection of Monterey Pop fills in a lot of gaps. I enjoyed the complete performances of Jimi Hendrix & Otis Redding along with additional bonus footage of the Byrds ,The Who, and Buffalo Springfield. The film & sound quality are good enough--it's certainly not "The Last Waltz" as far as being a cinematic achievement! Also I found Charles Murray's commentary on the Hendrix performance to be very informative!
Rating: 
Summary: The Summer of Love---revisited
Review: I just finished watching this last night, and I was
impressed. The digital transfer and restored sound
cleans up the old VHS release. But I thought that they
could have included the 'outtakes' from disc 3 into
disc 1 and expand the original film. 3 DVD's seemed
a bit much (and a little pricey). But for an overall
look at the festival that started it all, this is the
one to look at...
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible transfer of a great concert
Review: A big disappointment - not the show, but the quality!! I have a copy of Monterey Pop outtakes on video from a few
years ago as well as the original film on video, so I am comparing to these.Last night I was excited to find a copy of the box set on
DVD. As I watched the outtakes DVD, I was shocked to see the
HORRIBLE transfer job that was done for this set showing
TONS of ugly dust and hairs all over the faces of these most
important people! This was NOT on the VHS copies. I cannot believe with all the technology they have at their fingertips,
that they didn't even clean the film and telecine before
transferring it!! How could they think of selling something
like this? ...!! Even the most low-brow transfer place knows to clean film and equipment before transferring. Buy the VHS if you can get it, this DVD box set is a waste of money with the very distracting dirt on most all of it.
Rating:
Summary: WORTH THE WAIT !
Review: If you've been waiting for a long time for this , like me , you won't be disappointed . It ain't low cost , but a lot of work has gone into it . The usual Criterion attention to detail and design add to the experience . You will enjoy this set more if you have a surround system and DTS capability . Don't expect thundering bass , it hasn't been toyed with at the expense of the music - rather , updated .
The booklet puts it into context , although I always wonder about people who write about places/things/events when they weren't there themselves . Leave the secondhand stuff out and listen to the commentaries about Jimi and Otis . The writers know a lot about their subjects - I would strongly recommend Peter Guralnick's books on Elvis to fans . Mr Guralnick helps Elvis come across as human , which is quite a feat when you think about it . Buy and enjoy - save up if you have to .
Rating:
Summary: WAITING THIS DVD ! .....................
Review: This is a Treasure of Music !
I copied Original VHS video of MPF, to my Beta Video in the middle of 80's.
Until today this copy video is the best of my collection.
At the end, the dreams come trough, the DVD comes.
Not only MPF film DVD, plus Jimi Hendrix performance special DVD and plus Outtake performance of very valuable groups ( more than 2 hours ) DVD...
Yes, I wait 1 MPF DVD, they gives us 3 DVD...
No more words, .... MUST BUY ! Thanks, Bora CETIN
Rating:
Summary: Put some flowers in your progressive scan ...
Review: Monterey the rock festival still stands in the shadows of the bigger and gaudier Woodstock, but "Monterey Pop" the film has no rival as a time capsule of late-'60s rock. It's smarter, hipper and more musical than other rock films of the era. Audio and video on this carefully crafted three-DVD set easily pass the acid test. Restoration efforts (detailed in the set's splendid booklet and in the extras) yielded a 5.1 sound that's updated yet true to the time -- check out some of the old-style stereo separation and the AM radio punch of the percussion. Rear channels give off stadium ambiance, instrument echoes and audience cheers, making for an open, you-are-there vibe. In contrast, the audio on Criterion's 1988 laserdisc sounds like a decent unidimensional bootleg. Likewise, the video taken from the original 16mm negatives looks flower-child fresh, with almost none of the deterioration that plagued the previous video. Significant color correction is evident, and grain has been banished. (Audio and video on the outtakes have significantly rougher edges, including a lot of hair on the lenses.) "Monterey Pop" captured the hippie music scene at a time closer to the Newport of Dylan than the chaos of the big Eastern rock fests. Many acts were folkies making the transition to rock, accomplished performers right at home on Monterey's small, traditional stage. The mixed bag of performers included hitmakers the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, the Who and Buffalo Springfield. Several of the era's biggest acts -- notably the Beatles and Stones -- failed to make the scene in Northern California, leaving the glory to a pair of mostly unknown performers: Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The DVD's revved-up audio and video powerfully echo the shock of new from Joplin's "Ball and Chain" and Hendrix's "Wild Thing." Time has been kind to many of Pennebaker's creative decisions. The inclusion of international acts Hugh Masekela and Ravi Shankar gives the film a contemporary musical tone. Otis Redding makes the cut, not Lou Rawls. Editing avoids the frantic cuts of rock cliché, making for a nice smooth trip back.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME
Review: The music industry finally listened to the public.Hendrix addicts,like myself,had been begging for a DVD version of "Jimi Plays Monterey" - now we have it.That alone,was reason enough to buy these DVDs,but let's not stop there. "Monterey Pop" and "Shake! Otis At Monterey" are brilliantly captured on these DVDs.For fans of Otis Redding;there is another DVD, "Otis Redding - Remembering Otis",that is a great buy.It's a combination of "Shake" and Otis' breathtaking 1966 Stax-Volt European Tour,which also included performances by Sam and Dave.The third disc in this collection,has an outtake from one of my favorites, (a group you hear little about) Quicksilver Messenger Service. It's just an AWESOME collection of DVDs and a must buy for rock fans. Now if we could only get Jimi Hendrix's "Jimi Plays Berkeley" on DVD,I would be able to "rest in peace".
Rating:
Summary: BEST CONCERT DVD EVER MADE !!!
Review: Great video, great audio, great artists! This dvd makes the Woodstock dvd look and sound like a high school sock hop. The unreleased perfomances are a religious experiance. A definite cranker.
Rating:
Summary: A HISTORICAL EVENT DOCUMENTED FOR POSTERITY
Review: The Summer of Love, 1967, a time that today seems as remote as the Middle Ages. A time when people cared about life, the war in Vietnam; a time when people wore beads and flowers in their hair: a time when LSD and marijuana were abundantly available; a simpler time when people lived for the music. And oh what music! The Byrds, Canned Heat, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and the Mamas and the Papas. And did I mention JIMI HENDRIX? This Criterion DVD has all of the bands that made music relavent, and it contains so much more than the original movie that I have to recommend this set to everyone. Of course, just because it is a Criterion DVD, you know from the beginning that the picture and sound are as good as it gets, and you wont be disappointed. Put this disc on, turn up the volume, and get back to the sixties and enjoy the music and bands that made a difference. And did I mention JIMI HENDRIX? That's right, an entire disc devoted to HENDRIX, his entire performance, caught on film and digitally remastered by Jimi's own engineer, Eddie Kramer. This HENDRIX concert alone makes the set worth the money. This material has been circulated for years as a bootleg on vinyl (does anybody still remeber vinyl?) and CD, but here you get Jimi's searing performance at Monterey in beautiful technocolor and surround sound. Simply put, this DVD set is a must have for everyone that loves rock and roll, and there should be a law that every library in America should have a copy of this available to the public, and it should be mandatory viewing for all high school students.
Rating:
Summary: go back and enjoy
Review: I have nothing but praise for this accomplishment of DA Pennebaker. I saw this in the theatre when it was first released on film and was awed by the performances of some of the greats of that time, some no longer with us ie Janis and Jimi. Viewing it today has the same impact on me now as it did then. This 3 disc set is chock full of performance gems and brief glimpses of the spectators of this event, used like seasoning to set the mood of the performances.
Disc one is the original movie mentioned above, disc two contains performaces by Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding, done as only Mr Pennebaker could present it, but disc three is the real treasure as it contains footage not released until now (that I know of), which includes artists such as The Association, sounding a bit like Devo or Talking Heads; The Paul Butterfield Blues Band featuring the late Paul Butterfield laying down some wild Blues Harp licks that harp players today emulate; Al Kooper, of the Butterfield Band with his awesome blues talent; and rare footage of Quicksilver messenger service.
I am unable to find anything approaching boring or not enjoyable within this 3 disc set. Im glad I waited for it to come out in this format
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