So much average

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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.

The ensuing forty plus years have not been kind to "Monterey Pop", the rockumentary that intended to capture the spirit of the three day concert event that kicked off the San Francisco 'Summer of Love'. I found the film to be rather underwhelming, and find it surprising to be so much at odds with other posters on this site regarding it. Honestly, the only acts I found to be entertaining both musically and artistically were Janis Joplin (Ball and Chain), Otis Redding (Been Loving You Too Long), and Jimi Hendrix (Wild Thing). All performers were personal favorites of mine back in the day, and I still listen to their music now, maybe even more so than I did back then.As for the rest, mainly disappointing. The Mamas and the Papas with their opening number sounded more often than not to be off key with unsteady voices. Canned Heat, Simon and Garfunkel, The Animals, not very exciting, while Hugh Masekela didn't convey an identity with his rambling performance. Jefferson Airplane - as uninspiring as their Woodstock clip, though they might have had a good reason for that one, coming on a Sunday morning to a worn out crowd with absolutely no energy. The Who was OK, but you could tell that smashing guitars and destroying their instruments was something new for the audience, even Hendrix' electrifying performance elicited puzzled looks from the crowd. Like, didn't those instruments cost you some money?As for it's influence on the hippie movement and flower power, the seeds were definitely planted and nurtured here, but contrary to what other reviewers on this site propose, this was not 'hippies and great music'. Except for the brightly painted buses and a few other colorful nods to psychedelia, many of those spotlighted in the crowd were rather 'normal' looking by comparison, not even sporting long hair in many cases. Need further proof - how about all those neatly lined up chairs for the concert goers? And if you ask, what about all the cool lava lamp effects that back lit a lot of the performers, try catching any of these headline acts on variety shows of the era and you'll see much of the same.I hate to come across as being that harsh, but for all of it's fame and notoriety as a seminal American music event, "Montery Pop" the movie doesn't do justice to the memory of Monterey Pop the festival. I guess you had to be there.

1967 was the year many of us sort of metamorphosed from being "mod" to the initial stages of "hippiedom", whatever that encompasses. Anti-war protests, love-ins and "flower power" were becoming much more prominent in the American social fabric. As evidenced by this film, the hair wasn't all that long yet, faces were scrubbed clean and most of the people looked pretty much upper middle class in origin, especially evident from the hearty smiles that revealed attentive dental work that lower class kids could not afford! Either that, or the cameras merely focused on the attractive people and eschewed the more slovenly types. It is reminiscent of a loose congregation of 1967 northern California college kids and hip professor types intent on soaking up a vast variety of current musical trends, from the likes of the Mamas and the Papas, to Otis Redding, to Janis Joplin and others, and to the rousing finale by Ravi Shankar.This film, more innocent, peaceful (except for guitar blazing on two separate acts) and soulful than most of its successors, captures the artists and the audiences in simultaneous enjoyment of their mutual celebration. This film is not for those who insist on digitally remastered and edited sound quality, but for those who feel the raw power of the music in its innocent purity and its true to form, unencumbered passion and fervor. The 20 minute or so musical excursion by the aforementioned Ravi Shankar stands to this day as one of the most compelling and spiritually uplifting musical pieces captured on film. Rarely do you see and feel a crowd become totally enraptured and united by an awesome piece of music.In short, this film is a most enjoyable 79 minute trip down memory lane, to an era of unrelenting hope for a more peaceful world. So go ahead and soak in all the "flower power" you can on this film because some concerts in later years didn't pan out quite so peacefully as this one.

Without rubbing our face in visual gimmicks like split-screens, Monterey Pop captures the sweaty, bodacious force of a live rock concert-the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Director D.A. Pennebaker does not try too hard to increase the performances' liveliness; why would you try to increase the liveliness of Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Mammas and the Poppas, and Simon and Garfunkel? Instead, he films them with a wonderfully gritty photographic style, zooms in to so we can see their perspiring faces, and then lets them do the rest. As for 'defining a generation', the film doesn't do so in the kind of exhaustiveness of Michaek Wadleigh's Woodstock but it does give us a feeling of the life of a sixties radical. If there is one problem with the film, it is Pennebaker's idiotic choice of showing us the confusion as to how the massive audience will be able to be fed. This behind-the-scenes moment shows Pennebaker trying to do what Woodstock did. He shouldn't. He shouldn't let the music stop at all; what is so marvelous about this film is not its ability to capture the feel of a generation through interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, but, rather, through the looks in peoples eyes when the music starts.