First glimpse: Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock

Actor Demetri Martin stars in director Ang Lee's upcoming film about the Woodstock music festival. (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)

I love Ang Lee, I really do. I think he is sweet and kind and means well, and he certainly took a huge risk in directing Brokeback Mountain. I was hooked on the way he gently explored the tenuous dynamics of loving but complicated families in his early Mandarin-language films like Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet. But for every great movie Lee's made (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm), there's a total turkey to even the score (Ride With The Devil, The Hulk). And now that I've seen an early trailer for his latest flick, I can't decide which category it falls under.

Here's the first peek at Taking Woodstock -- or at least the trailer that premiered on Important Things With Demetri Martin (the namesake of the Comedy Central show just happens to be the star of Lee's film).

I'm feeling like it has too much of a broad, kitschy retro vibe for my liking (see also: A Walk On The Moon), and the narrative (at least based on the hasty overview crammed into the two-and-a-half minute clip) seems rather hackneyed. [Summary: "Oh no! Mom and dad might have to sell their motel in upstate New York unless I come up with a solution. Oh look! Some hippies need a place to hold their concert. Where can I find them? Heavens, these longhairs are out of control. Wait, they think I'm cool! Crap, they're causing mayhem. Hey, don't give my parents pot cookies. The town is angry. Mom and dad, help!"]

I also feel like Ang Lee was a strange choice to direct this flower-power hippie-dippie acid trip of a film, but maybe I'm being too narrowminded. Who knows -- maybe he has some deep connection with the music of Hendrix and Joplin to which I'm not privy. He's just always felt like more of a straight-laced family guy to me.

--Sarah Liss