 | |
List Price: $69.99 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 3648
Released: June 9, 2009 |
| Our Price: $45.50 |
| Used Price: $26.80 |
|
MPAA Rating:
Media: Blu-ray |
|
Editorial Review:
The three-day Woodstock music festival in 1969 was the pivotal event of the 1960s peace movement, and this landmark concert film is the definitive record of that milestone of rock & roll history. It's more than a chronicle of the hippie movement, however; this is a film of genuine historical and social importance, capturing the spirit of America in transition, when the Vietnam War was at its peak and antiwar protest was fully expressed through the liberating music of the time. With a brilliant crew at his disposal (including a young editor named Martin Scorsese), director Michael Wadleigh worked with over 300 hours of footage to create his original 225-minute director's cut, which was cut by 40 minutes for the film's release in 1970. Eight previously edited segments were restored in 1994, and the original director's cut of Woodstock is now the version most commonly available on videotape and DVD.
The film deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and it's still a stunning achievement. Abundant footage taken among the massive crowd ("half a million strong") expresses the human heart of the event, from skinny-dipping hippies to accidental overdoses, to unpredictable weather, midconcert childbirth, and the thoughtful (or just plain rambling) reflections of the festive participants. Then, of course, there is the music--a nonstop parade of rock & roll from the greatest performers of the period, including Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Canned Heat, The Who, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone, Santana, and many more. Watching this ambitious film, as the saying goes, is the next best thing to being there--it's a time-travel journey to that once-in-a-lifetime event. --Jeff Shannon
Description of Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut (40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition and BD-Live with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Content) [Blu-ray]:
This director’s cut of Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music, released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of that legendary concert event, has to be one of the most impressive Blu-Ray releases of 2009 or any other year--and that’s even before you put the discs in your player. The box is designed to resemble a faux fringe jacket (with an iron-on patch attached), and inside are all manner of shiny bells and whistles, including a lucite paperweight with images from the event, a reprint of LIFE Magazine’s original festival feature, and reproductions of various Woodstock memorabilia, right down to notes left by concertgoers ("Please meet me in front of stage. I have your insulin pills") and a three-day ticket to the event. And hey, if you’re looking for subtitles in Finnish, Thai, or Polish, you’ve come to the right place.
The movie itself now weighs in at nearly four hours long, and is presumably the way director Michael Wadleigh wanted it in the first place. The Blu-Ray transfer is definitely an upgrade, as is the soundtrack, which was originally recorded on 8-track tape under less-than-ideal conditions. (Using modern digital technology, audio engineer Eddie Kramer, who was hunkered down in what passed for a recording booth at the Woodstock site, has painstakingly restored the soundtrack--even bringing in some of the musicians to re-play their original parts, as on Santana’s “Evil Ways,” one of the previously unreleased bonus performances. Considering that the event is something of a sacred cow by now, this trick may strike some as blasphemous. Then again, this is hardly the first time that a live concert recording has been sweetened, re-recorded, or otherwise enhanced. In fact, it'd be hard to find one that wasn't. And the additions would have gone largely unnoticed if we hadn't been told about them.) In the end, though, there’s only so much improvement possible, and Woodstock was never about technical brilliance anyway. Nor was it mostly about the music, either. Nor was it mostly about the music, either. There are some terrific performances, from acoustic numbers by Richie Havens and Crosby, Stills & Nash to powerful electric contributions from Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, and Joe Cocker. But the truth is that Monterey Pop, which happened two years earlier, was the more exciting concert, and of the several artists who appeared on both bills (including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, and others), all of them made better music at the California festival. But Woodstock was always less a concert than an overall cultural happening, and Wadleigh and his crew, often employing an effective split-screen technique, do a superb job of corralling and conveying the remarkable atmosphere and spirit of it; you didn’t have to be there to recognize that this was the zenith of the Age of Aquarius (it was also the twilight; with Altamont looming, things would never be this peaceful and idealistic again).
Of principal interest on the second disc will be two hours of additional musical performances, including both additional tunes by those who are in the main feature and appearances by five artists who for various reasons (ego, money, quality, time) never made it into the film at all; of the latter, Creedence Clearwater Revival is excellent, Paul Butterfield and Johnny Winter are good, Mountain is mediocre, and the Grateful Dead, with an interminable (38 minutes!) "Turn on Your Love Light," are awful (a special Blu-Ray-only feature lets users organize this material as they see fit). Meanwhile, "From Festival to Feature," a new, hour-long look at the making of the movie, is absorbing and minutely detailed. The Amazon-exclusive content (included on disc 2) is an additional 20 minutes of never-before-seen performance footage in high definition from Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish plus three bonus featurettes. --Sam Graham
Product Description
1969 was a year unlike any other. Man first set foot on the moon. The New York Mets won the World Series against all odds. And for three days in the rural town of Bethel, New York, half a million people experienced the single most defining moment of their generation; a concert unprecedented in scope and influence, a coming together of people from all walks of life with a single common goal: Peace and music. They called it Woodstock. One year later, a landmark Oscar®-winning documentary captured the essence of the music, the electricity of the performances, and the experience of those who lived it. Newly remastered, the film features legendary performances by 17 best selling artists. Bonus content includes: • Customize your own Woodstock playlist!• BD Live Enabled Features Including Media Center, My Commentary, & Live
Blu-ray UCE feature list:
- Amazon-exclusive bonus content (included on disc 2) with never-before-seen performance footage in hi-def from Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish plus three bonus featurettes
- 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition includes:
- -Lucite display with images from the festival
- -60-page commemorative LIFE Magazine reprint
- -Iron-on Woodstock patch
- -Woodstock fact sheet
- -Reproductions of festival memorabilia, including handwritten notes and a three-day ticket
- New retrospective: The Museum at Bethel Woods: The Story of the Sixties and Woodstock
- Woodstock: Untold Stories: Over two hours of never-before-seen musical performances by Joan Baez, Paul Butterfield, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Mountain, Santana, Sha Na Na, the Who, and Johnny Winter (Exclusive to Blu-ray: customize your own Woodstock playlist)
- Woodstock: From Festival to Feature: comprehensive featurette gallery chronicling the festival and the filming from start to finish, interwoven with interviews from Martin Scorsese, Grace Slick, director Michael Wadleigh, Woodstock Festival executive producer Michael Lang, and more
- Enhanced BD-Live bonus features
Stills from Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut
Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut (40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition and BD-Live with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Content) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Blu-ray NOT NECESSARY!!!! 
2009-11-09 - Although I love the new footage as it is such a joy to see Janis Joplin and Credence and Mountain I must say that buying this 40th Anniversary edition on Blue Ray is a whopping waste of money. A film is only good as its original source and the 16mm film that Woodstock was shot on is so incredibly poor that enhancing on Blue Ray only magnifies the grain and the shoddy essence that previously was fairly unnoticed. So dear souls hoping to UPGRADE your visual anatomy of the Woodstockian world on display may lessen the blow to their mind and their wallet by simply staying with the 40th year anniversary set on regular and NOT Blu ray DVD. The film is what it is and if you havent seen it by now and your not under 30 then you should be ashamed of yourself. A great experience none the less but
repeat viewings will not be on your to do list for sometime to come. God bless us everyone and for pete sake dont take the brown acid.
Awesome Woodstock DVD 
2009-10-28 - About 3 hours of extra concert footage - CCR and extended Who made it all worthwhile. If you're a "Deadhead" you'll love their footage. Clever packaging. Well worth the $$$.
Woodstock 49th Anniversay Box Set
2009-10-27 - I wasnt at Woodstock, but i sure knew what was happening in the music world---wanted to be there but could only follow it in the papers and TV---this boxset has to be the Ultimate viewing material available to us to date. the quality is way better than past releases (especially VHS)extended scenes with the crowd makes you closer to what your watching, you can feel the vibes--all the bonus material especially the bands that didnt get included in the original release kept me excited as i got to view some of my favourite groups in action with the times---all in all, if you want a step back in time to view what you missed not being there and if you were there, a trip to your past--BUT THIS GREAT COLLECTORS EDITION WOODSTOCK 3 DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC
Woodstock
2009-10-24 - This was a once in a lifetime event that will most likely never happen again. Great artists, great music and a great view of how we were going to change the world through music, peace and love. So glad I got this on Blu-Ray.
rip off just DVDS 
2009-10-21 - This guy sends you just the rwo DVDS NOTHING ELSE!!! NOTHING that was advertised. All the little extras you don't get.`
