WOODSTOCK '99: PEACE, LOVE, AND RAGE (B+) - Editor Garret Price transitions to directing with this curated examination of Gen X's attempt at staging an iconic music festival. Actually, the staging was led by Michael Lang, the mastermind behind the original cultural touchstone 30 years earlier, and this film plays out as an interesting clash of the generations.
Woodstock '99 featured only three female acts amid a sea of testosterone-fueled post-grunge knucklehead bands, and the crowd reflected the pre-millennial mood of pent-up frustration that would explode on the streets of Seattle later that year. At the Woodstock sequel, the target would be the commercialism of the festival itself. Whereas the original hippies chilled out with pot and LSD, the Xers were whipped up by overnight ecstasy-enabled raves. The result was a burst of sexual violence and rebellion against the $4 bottles of water and capitalist propaganda permeating the event.
Price does a fine job of placing the viewer at the scene of the sea of hormones, mud, piss and shit that roiled over a blistering hot July weekend in upstate New York at the site, ironically, of a former military base. (Talking heads, including former Spin reporter Maureen Callahan and writer Dave Holmes, are particularly insightful here with their recollections from the front lines.) The clusterfuck was even too much for host MTV to handle, with the veejays eventually decrying the event as it unfolded (or unraveled). The proceedings would descend in to a chaos of looting, vandalism and arson in classic "Lord of the Flies" fashion. (A shot of looted frozen pretzels flying through the air like angry seagulls is haunting.)
Frat-boy bands of the era including Korn, Bush, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and the Offspring (singing, appropriately, "The Kids Aren't Alright") stole the thunder from legacy acts like Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson and George Clinton (none of whom are featured). Only three prominent female acts were booked, and it's scary to watch Jewel warble onstage and risk taking a deadly flying object to the neck. By the time the bonfires grew out of control, the peril is barely leavened by the good nature of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tentatively covering Jimi Hendrix's "Fire."
The film, though, does want to have its cake and eat it too, at times. While decrying the "show us your tits" culture that predominated, Price proceeds to show us a lot of tits during the nearly two-hour run. He tut-tuts the caveman mentality while cashing in on it himself. Still, in his defense, he is attempting to produce a clear-eyed recap of the buttoned-up catastrophe that was the twilight of the Clinton era. And we can see parallels between the pent-up brutality of those 20-year-olds and perhaps some of the same figures, two decades later, who air their grievances under political cover these days. It makes you wonder whether we'll ever get over this.
BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED (2016) (B) - Theater people! Lonny Price directs and narrates the tale of the Broadway musical that -- despite being graced by legends Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince -- bombed spectacularly in 1981, crushing its cast of young actors. Price, an original cast member who went on to be a stage director, gathers many of his former co-stars, as well as Sondheim and Prince, for an emotional reunion and a reconsideration of their efforts.
The results are surprisingly endearing. Price stumbles on a trove of film footage, running from the first auditions through the trainwreck of an opening night. We meet actors as young as 16 (Abby Pogrebin was the youngest) then and now. The cast included future "Seinfeld" star Jason Alexander, who had hair then (and miraculously does again now). Alexander joins his fellow actors in opening up not only about that jarring experience but also how he has coped since and what theater has meant to him (a shy child) throughout his life. Pogrebin is insightful too; she went on to have success in TV journalism. Most others seems to long have made peace with the fact that starring at a young age in a Sondheim musical did not line their future path with riches or fame.
Sondheim and Prince (who died in 2019) also soberly participate (separately) with rather fond recollections of the production that ended up breaking up, for many years, a legendary collaboration that had broken big in the '70s with the likes of "Sweeney Todd." They acknowledge, in retrospect, that the play's concept -- a cast of kids telling a story in reverse chronological order -- wasn't as compelling as it seemed at the time. And the featured songs all sound pretty much like duds. Former New York Times critic Frank Rich is on hand to explain just how badly "Merrily We Roll Along" (based on a 1934 play) was received.
But it's the former cast members who are the stars in this production. They laugh, they cry, they shrug off the sting of rejection all those years ago. Price sets this up as part reunion and part therapy. He and his cohorts finally learn the lessons of friendship and regret that the original musical explored.
BONUS TRACK
The Offspring (Dexter Holland and Noodles) actually come off as level-headed and thoughtful in "Woodstock '99." Let's flesh out the documentary's snippet of an all-time classic, "Self Esteem":
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