the leading man is my tpye

That was an excellent one.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This terrific rock concert documentary radiates a delightful sense of joy, optimism, and totally infectious positive energy. Many of the top musical acts of the period are present and accounted for and for the most part are in peak form: Janis Joplin does a blistering performance of "Ball & Chain," Jimi Hendrix likewise kills it with his ferocious cover of "Wild Thing," Canned Heat seriously smoke, Otis Redding puts on a hell of an exciting show (Redding really knew how to work over a crowd), the Who do a raucous version of "My Generation," Simon & Garfunkel offer a peppy and pleasant "Feelin' Groovy," and Ravi Shankar tears it up on his sitar. Moreover, it's a treat to see the happy and attractive hippies in attendance having what appears to be a grand merry time. Done in a rough'n'ready style by D.A. Pennebaker, this baby overall hits the rousing rock'n'roll spot something sweet.

I found this documentary on DVD at my local library.I know all about the 1960s, I graduated from high school, I graduated from college, I completed my graduate studies, I got married, I started my career, I had my first child. She will be 49 later this year, 2018.But I never went to any music festivals. So finding this film on DVD was a joy. It has a good mix of on-stage performances and views of the mostly young crowd away from the stage. While I didn't know any of them I recognize all of them. That is how we looked and behaved in the late 1960s.Funny, when I was younger I avoided Janis Joplin, I just hated her singing style. But I saw a documentary on her, I became a fan of sorts. And here at roughly 25 minutes into the documentary she performs "Ball and Chain" which was a real show-stopper., showing her extremely wide range of talent. There is a memorable shot of Mama Cass Elliot in the crowd mouthing "WOW" when Janis' performance was over.Anyway, good film that brings back good memories.

D.A. Pennebaker may have "captured the spirit of the '60s" and all that, but the fact is that the original "Monterey Pop" has big problems, which the passing years have not rectified. Now, one can buy a deluxe Criterion Collection DVD set that has extra discs that include all the outtakes from the original footage plus extras upon extras. But the film as originally released, for all its legendary status, all 79 minutes of it, is often a flat-out bore. The single- disc original version I checked out of the library today also has some extras, including a conversation with producer Lou Adler and filmmaker Pennebaker. That only seems to reveal that Pennebaker was somewhat clueless in his approach to putting the final cut together. This is especially true in the decision-making regarding which acts to include. I mean, the guy left out Laura Nyro, Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds from the original flick, choosing instead to include people like Country Joe and the Fish (boring), Hugh Masakela (meandering) and at least one group that didn't seem to be identified and whose music was mediocre. The filmmaker also seems to think he made a brilliant move leaving out the Paul Butterfield Blues Band from the final cut, but it's hard to trust him given who's onstage instead. Also according to Pennabaker, Mama Cass Elliott wanted him to cut the Ravi Shankar performance. It seems to rouse the audience here, and it's used as the climactic performance of the concert, but few people want to listen to extended rave-ups on a sitar. (I fast-forwarded through it, only to find that the film was now over.) There are other problems, for example, Janis Joplin is clearly performing at night, yet through her performance, the camera cuts to Elliott in the crowd, supposedly gushing about Joplin's talent, only—doh!—Elliott's in broad daylight, and it's obviously an insert from another part of the footage. Cheesy. And stupid. Did Pennebaker think no one would notice? Other bad things: A ton of boring footage of hippies being hip (a little goes a long way); camera work that focuses on Grace Slick mouthing the lyrics to "Today" while Mary Balin is singing the opening verse, which makes it look like his voice is coming out of Grace's mouth; and when we finally get the great Hendrix, what is he singing? The godawful "Wild Thing," which is about the last song anyone wants to see him play, even if he does set his guitar on fire and dry-hump the amps. Pennebaker supervised about 6 cameramen, plenty enough to get a lot of cool footage. Too bad the final results look ofttimes amateurish. Meanwhile, the synching and cutting are okay but not great. The Mamas and the Papas come off pretty good. Ditto The Who. And Joplin. Simon and Garfunkel sound good, but they're singing "Feelin' Groovy," not exactly cutting edge. Otis Redding is okay, but a mite tiresome. There's some saving grace with the film crew getting a lot of footage of California girls in all their hippie-dippy glory, but that gets tiresome too. "Monterey Pop," at this late date, looks mostly like a big experiment with lesser results. For maximum effect, keep your finger near the fast-forward button.

This has to be one of the greatest concert documentaries ever made. You get to see some of the greatest early performances by some of rock's greatest legends (Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Janis Joplin) as well as the performance of one band on their last legs, the Mamas and the Papas. The festival also could be seen as a turning point in popular music due to the fact that after the festiveal the more singles oriented acts were being pushed aside in favor of the more progressive album oriented artists.Also, if you need more convincing of how much of a pivotal event this was, check out the outtakes video. It contains many of the performances that didn't make it to the film, including Buffalo Springfield without Neil Young who had quit the band a month before their scheduled appearance. Replacing him for this performance was David Crosby, who performed earlier with the Byrds but joined his friend Stephen Stills and the rest of the Springfield for the show (less than a year later Crosby and Stills would team up with Graham Nash and the rest is history). Also check out Laura Nyro. Legend has it that she was booed off the stage. However, she gets a nice applause for her renditions of her classics "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Poverty Train".