SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

polano-1 i was there, 20 years old, with 2 other Italian friends (on a blue 500 fiat car), sleeping in 2 Canadian tents: Italians were a lot, anyway, and we met a few of them in Amsterdam - desolation row was full of french people, and many people were just taking' hard drugs, not even trying' to move from their sleeping' bags- i've recognized myself, thanks to you-tube excerpt, in the movie (that i'm gonna by via amazon tonight), and after 37 yrs i remember the camera that was shooting' me (sayin' then to my friends: i'm sure they will cut me out) - i remember also running' all the time to find a place, and a feeling' of tiredness, because of our long traveling' from Italy, via Yugoslavia, and then Holland, and then england (taking' with us coffee, pasta and Italian food, you know ;-) - real problem was the WC (don't talk about) - i bought in advance the tickets by mail, but we're the few, and the day people broke the fence was scary, really - the atmosphere, to be true, was more like a busy busy mess as a bee kingdom, and the weather not bad - the final night was like apocalypse now, in a way: i got fever and stomach illness :-( while Hendrix playing i went back late, tons of soda cans like Egyptian pyramids, fires everywhere, and fish&chips stands selling' for nearly nothing' all that remained - so we're finally eating' like wolves - OK, folks, that's all, for the moment - i have few b/w pix too (anyone interested?)Sp, proud-i-was-therePS any site of people who were there?

gulag I find it very interesting that it took 25 years to get this documentary seen. Meanwhile there are now generations who believe the Woodstock myth: That one should follow one's instincts and intuition minus logic minus reality. (Yes I know there are better aspects of the dream.) Even the more well known Altamont festival took years to be as known as it now is, which still pales in comparison to Woodstock. Everyone knows Woodstock. Just as everyone knows the flower power myth and the San Francisco dream. Yet the media didn't really cover the failure of the hippie dream. (The media also hardly covered the deaths of Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison.) I suspect that was for two reasons: One, it didn't mean that much to the straight media at the time; and two, there was a lot more money to be made off of the dream than off of its failure. And yet we all live in the fallout from that of that failure without really understanding it. Gimme Shelter, the film of the Rolling Stones at Altamont, is one essential document of the failure of that dream. And this film is another. I echo the words of the others here who recommend this to anyone interested in rock music. I would extend that to anyone who wants to understand why the present moment is what it is: Not as the final explanation but as a historical step along the way.Yes there is brilliant music here. The Who's Naked Eye stands out as it does at the end of the film. And interestingly enough I'm sure it was placed at the end as a comment on the nature of such dreams. Pete Townshend understood fairly early on the failure of the dream. 'Won't get fooled again' is indeed the cynical motto of the years from Punk and Beyond. Now, however, even those words seem like a hopeless dream. I don't think we understand where we are until we understand that we will be fooled again and again, and until there is a major paradigm shift. As long as music is held in a divine light we will be drawn to it like locusts to a field of wheat. The new paradigm can't be left or right. Rather we need a view based upon intelligence over sensation. Yes Hendrix plays brilliantly here. But it doesn't make me feel good that he does. People worshiped him and let him kill himself. Ditto Morrison. Ditto the dream. See this film. Let your friends see it. Learn. Think.

MarioB Forget Monterry or Woodstock! This is 100 times better! First of all, the comments are like razor's edge! That was peace and love? Never! Money was everywhere! That was trouble? Some sort! This is a great film in a cinema point of view? Kind of. But where it stands in 2000 is about the music. It rocks hard in a way Woodstock had never done! Violent performances by The Who! Hendrix, Ten Years after, Free are great! Watch early bluesy Jethro Tull doing a fantastic number! But not really the Doors... More rare moody numbers are delightfull, like Leonard Cohen. See Joni Mitchell full of emotions, because a freak have gotten on stage to make music with her. To me, this is the truly early 1970's rock music. Not that hippie music from Woodstock.

George Carr This film chronicles the 1970 Isle of Wight Rock Festival from behind and on front of the scenes. Incredible concert footage of Hendrix and Jim Morrison (both of whom died just after the festival) as well as numerous other pop, folk, and rock artists make this film wonderful just as a concert video. Even more revealing, though, is footage of the festival's production and management, including riots, rebellious patrons, break-ins, and mordant commentary on why rock festivals don't happen anymore. Beautifully paced and edited.