Taking Woodstock Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Downsizing in Hollywood isn't the same as downsizing for you or me. Four A-list directors decided to downsize their latest productions by choice, according to Rachel Abramowitz in the Los Angeles Times. And to hear Sam Mendes (above, right), Ang Lee, Sam Raimi (above, left) and Steven Soderbergh talk, they made the choice in order to save their own artistic souls after working on creatively-draining big-budget projects for years.

• Sam Mendes (Away We Go): "I loved having to work fast again ... You can get into the habits when making bigger films where you sort of expect everything to be there for you. You don't have to work for it ... there was even less conspicuous consumption ... There aren't as many people, and you feel less guilty because you're not spending as much money." Estimated budget: $17 million.
• Sam Raimi (Drag Me to Hell): "I realized all these toys I'm used to are wonderful but not always necessary ... All I really need is the actress." Estimated budget: $30 million.
• Ang Lee (Taking Woodstock): "I faced a lot of pressure [making Lust, Caution] . . . It gets to be too much ... Spiritually and philosophically I was yearning to do something warm." Estimated budget: $30 million.
• Steven Soderbergh (The Girlfriend Experience): "Employing non-actors, by design you are building the piece around them ... It's a good way to work, you're constantly adapting to what's in front of you."Estimated budget: $1.7 million.

I loved Drag Me to Hell and enjoyed Away We Go, so maybe they've got the right idea. What other big-budget Hollywood directors should consider doing a downsized project for the sake of their own artistic souls? McG? Brett Ratner?

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
It seems like forever ago since the teaser for this one hit, and at long last we've got a new full-length trailer for the animated comedy sequel. All of our prehistoric friends are returning and this time they've discovered a subterranean world populated by dinosaurs. Anachronisms aside, this looks to be a lot of fun and the movie hits theaters on July 1.

Astro Boy
OK, if you're going to build a high tech robot boy why would you give him a permanent cowlick? I hadn't been giving much thought to this new CGI version of the classic anime, but this new trailer got my attention. The action and design look awesome, and this one is out on October 23.

Where the Wild Things Are
Judging by the high level of anticipation for Spike Jonze's Wild Things adaptation, I must be the only person in the U.S. who's never read Maurice Sendak's classic book. That said, I really like the creature costumes, even if they do give me H.R. Pufinstuff flashbacks. Wild things will be everywhere on October 16.

When I last posted about Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, I called it a "gay-themed project" and speculated that the film might be about how the main character's involvement in Woodstock "served as redemption for giving up his own artistic ambitions and living most of his life in the closet." Now that I've seen the trailer, which you can watch below, that pompous description seems laughably wrong-headed. This won't just be "lighter" than much of Lee's previous work, as I also wrote; it's a full-on slapstick comedy, complete with a classic underdog storyline, and showdowns between hippies and uptight old fogeys.

Mainstream comedies tend to be under-directed. Even the Team Apatow films, while generally outstanding, don't exactly distinguish themselves formally or stylistically. But Lee is so damn deliberate and meticulous, with every shot and every cut calculated just so, that I'm really curious to see how he handles something this lightweight and apparently raucous. It certainly looks like a new Ang Lee mode; his last film that could be called a comedy was 1993's wistful Eat Drink Man Woman, and Woodstock seems to be worlds away from that film. Before that, Lee made a Taiwanese film called The Wedding Banquet that sounds like it might be closer, but I haven't seen it.

Anyway, I think Demetri Martin, who stars and introduces the trailer, is an extraordinarily funny guy (anyone seen his show on Comedy Central?), and how awesome is it to see someone other than Christopher Guest cast Eugene Levy in an actual movie as opposed to the latest direct-to-DVD American Pie "sequel"? This looks like fun; it's set to be released August 14th.

When Demetri Martin joined the cast of Taking Woodstock, it was set to begin production in late August. In a nice change of pace, the movie is still on schedule, and will begin shooting at the end of the month, SAG strike be damned. But that isn't the only reason to anticipate Ang Lee's project. Variety reports the ensemble cast has been set, and it's insanely good. Get ready for a film that includes the likes of Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eugene Levy, Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Dan Fogler, Mamie Gummer, Henry Goodman, and Jonathan Groff.

Martin stars in the memoir adaptation as Elliot Tiber, a closeted gay man and aspiring interior designer who gives up his Big Apple dreams to run the family business in a Catskills motel. In 1969, he offered the hotel as home base for Woodstock organizers while his neighbor Max Yasgur (Levy) offered his farm. Staunton and Goodman play Tiber's parents, Groff will be festival organizer Michael Lang, Hirsch will play a Vietnam vet just back on American soil, Schreiber is in talks to play a transvestite named Vilma, Morgan will be a closeted married man having an affair with Tiber, Dano and Kazan play a hippy couple going to the concert, Fogler will be the head of a local theater troupe, and Gummer will take on the role of Lang's assistant.

I have a feeling this will be so very, very good.

With Ang Lee behind the camera, there are many possibilities for the upcoming adaptation of Elliot Tiber's memoir, Taking Woodstock, which Eugene blogged about recently. One of them is impending comedy. Variety reports that comedian Demetri Martin is currently in negotiations to star in the film as Tiber. The piece focuses on Tiber's life as a closeted gay artist who has given up his ambitions in the city to move upstate and help his old-world Jewish family run their Catskills motel. He becomes head of the Chamber of Commerce, and when he gets wind of the upcoming Woodstock, he does his part to make it happen.

The memoir details planning for the epic concert, as well as "side chapters" on Tiber, which include meeting artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Mark Rothko, and getting through his closeted life to stand up to cops during a raid at a gay bar. It sounds like pretty meaty, yet potentially fun, material to me, and I'm curious to see why Martin was tapped for this part. He's got his Jon Stewart gig and some smaller acting bits under his belt, but this is a whole different sort of role. I'm also curious to see how this story all fits together without seeming too scattered. At the very least, it should have one very sweet soundtrack.

James Schamus is currently adapting the memoir, and Focus is looking to get it into production in late August.

It looks like Ang Lee isn't heading back into big-budget Hollywood waters any time soon. Variety reports that the Brokeback Mountain director will instead take on another gay-themed project: an adaptation of a book called Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life. It's the autobiography of Elliot Tiber, an unassuming Catskills hotel manager and interior designer who wound up playing a pivotal role in making the Woodstock festival a reality. The point, I take it, is that Tiber's role in one of the greatest events in rock and roll history served as redemption for giving up his own artistic ambitions and living most of his life in the closet.

As readers of this blog have probably guessed, I'd watch a cheese sandwich if Ang Lee directed it. This project seems lighter than anything the filmmaker has done since at least Eat Drink Man Woman, and I wonder how (if at all) it will jive with the deliberate, supremely controlled style he's been nursing in his past few movies. It'll be interesting if Lee takes this opportunity to return to the much looser vibe of his early comedies.

Lee's longtime producing partner James Schamus is also on board for Taking Woodstock, and the fact that Schamus is the CEO of Focus Features conveniently takes care of distribution.