The production still tells it like it was during Woodstock. Although I was very young at the time, I sense the picture says it all — wide-eye and open to the new culture of free love, drugs and human be-ins!
A generation began in his backyard…. From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was.
It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The bank’s about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn’t paid the insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents.
When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for the motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever.
A generation began in his backyard…. From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was.
It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The bank’s about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn’t paid the insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents.
When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for the motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever.
A generation began in his backyard…. From Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comes Taking Woodstock, a new comedy inspired by the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was.
It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The bank’s about to foreclose; his father wants to burn the place down, but hasn’t paid the insurance; and Elliot is still figuring how to come out to his parents.
When Elliot hears that a neighboring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much-needed business for the motel. Three weeks later, half a million people are on their way to his neighbor’s farm in White Lake, NY, and Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever.
A man working at his parents’ rundown motel in the Catskills inadvertently sets in motion the generation-defining concert in the summer of 1969. Demetri stars in the film, which he offers an introduction to the trailer from “Important Things with Demetri.”
From Variety comes word that Ang Lee is in talks to direct the film adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi for Fox 2000.
The book told the story of a kid who is the lone survivor of a sunken freighter and winds up sharing a lifeboat with a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and a hungry Bengal tiger.
Previous directors attached to the project include Dean Georgaris, M. Night Shyamalan and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Lee will reportedly supervise a new script after the studio hires a writer.
Production of Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock begins late this month.
Lee’s ensemble cast includes Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton and Liev Schreiber and more as you read this post below. It’s going to be an outstanding film. I am very excited.
The movie is based on the memoir of Elliot Tiber, who played a role in helping the historic 1969 music fest unfold on his neighbor’s farm.
Contingency plans have been put in place in case SAG strikes in the event that work stoppage occurs because of a strike. With that in place Lee’s film is going into full production.
Demetri Martin (”The Daily Show With Jon Stewart”) is all set to play Tiber, an aspiring interior designer in Greenwich Village obliged to run the family business, a Catskills motel. In summer 1969, he was at the center of a generation-defining experience when he volunteered the motel to be the home base for Woodstock concert organizers after his neighbor, Max Yasgur, made his farm available for the event.
Staunton and Henry Goodman are set to play Tiber’s parents while Jonathan Groff is set to play Woodstock organizer Michael Lang. Hirsch will play a recently returned Vietnam vet, Eugene Levy is set to play Yasgur, and Schreiber is in talks to play a transvestite named Vilma.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is set to play a closeted married man having an affair with Tiber, while Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan play a hippie couple attending the concert. Dan Fogler is set play a local theater troupe head and Mamie Gummer is set to play Lang’s assistant.
Looks like Ang Lee’s next project is “Taking Woodstock.”
Lee will direct the comedy based on the memoir “Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, Concert, and a Life,” by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte.
According to Variety, “Woodstock” focuses on the politically turbulent summer of ‘69, story follows an Everyman working at his parents’ motel in the Catskills who inadvertently sets in motion what would become the generation-defining concert.
“Elliot’s exuberant and heartfelt story is a perfect window onto the Woodstock experience,” James Schamus, who is penning the script said. “It explores an inspiring historical moment when liberation and freedom were in the air.”
The film has one lead, based on Tiber, and a colorful ensemble. Speculation about original or period music was not confirmed, though the film is assuredly not going to be about the famed concert itself.
It seems that in the world of cinema, all roads do lead to the US. Even in China, with a self-sustainable film industry and an audience base of over one billion, many of its directors immigrate. One of the best examples is Ang Lee, who after the success of Eat Drink Man Woman went on to make Sense and Sensibility, the Ice Storm, and eventually win an Oscar for Brokeback Mountain. Another example is the lesser -known but equally-talented Wong Kar Wai, who made the touching drama Chungking Express and the beautiful and atmospheric In the Mood for Love. And following suit, this week sees the release of Wong Kar Wai’s first English-language film, My Blueberry Nights.
If this doesn’t sound particularly interesting, that’s because it isn’t. Of course, Wong Kar-Wai’s films never sound like much on paper. Read the rest of this entry »
From Variety comes 
It seems that in the world of cinema, all roads do lead to the US. Even in China, with a self-sustainable film industry and an audience base of over one billion, many of its directors immigrate. One of the best examples is Ang Lee, who after the success of