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++++++++++++++SPECIAL EDITION DVD BOX SET OUT SOON - 12 HOURS OF VIDEO / 24 HOURS OF AUDIO - THE COMPLETE EXPERIENCE ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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If you were there you’re in it. If you weren’t you’ll wish you were once you’ve witnessed this remarkable DVD box set. Based around the critically acclaimed feature film shot in 1993 at what is commonly regarded as the last of the great old-school Glastonburys. its packed to the brim with extra music and video. This could be the nearest you’ll get to actually being there. Oh, and before you ask, this is the original one, not the film made by the organisers that was on BBC2 last year.At the time of filming, mindful of emerging multimedia technologies the makers didn’t just set out to make your average feature film. They made sure they got everything.
Now, spanned across 3 full-capacity disks they have finally finished what they set out to do 14 years ago. On disk 2 there’s even a way of playing it so that it runs for 38 hours. They shot the lot; entire gigs by some of the best bands of the early 90s, interviews, backstage, but most importantly the comings and goings of all the people who make Glastonbury what it is. It’s not just a music festival. It’s a way of life. Why did Mike Leigh call it a masterpiece? Because he got it. He realised that it had managed to capture a very real human experience on celluloid.Glastonbury The Movie was released in UK cinemas on summer Solstice 1996 and was coincidentally the very first movie to be given Lottery money. It’s since gone global showing in every continent, even Antartica.In a world where everybody has sold-out come and see what life was like in that bygone era before Oasis, before Blair, before on site cash-point machines and mobile-masts. Come and see the film that was too real to be accepted by the establishment. The film by festival fans for festival fans.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++"This remarkable film evokes the chaos and wonderment of the event like the slow unfolding of a bizarre and rarely sighted example of fauna.... underlines a real spirituality" Melody Maker"Marvellously honest, beautifully shot. The most impressive festival movie this reviewer has seen in ages" Time Out“The soundtrack is superb†N.M.E.“Pop-pickers and mellow t-heads alike will love this surreal and enjoyable movie†Observer“It’s a masterpiece†Mike Leigh“From the ghostly hazy-blue dawn of the first Friday to the final Sunday sunset, it’s a revealing, gorgeously-shot record of three days of love, peace, unicyclists, fire jugglers, new age hippies with DIY haircuts, dance-mad Ravey Daveys, sitar player’s and ‘really terrible toilets’.†The Telegraph, London“…as if you were there…highly recommended†Premiere“Not since Woodstock has a feature film so vividly captured the spirit and energy of a generation.†Seattle International Film Festival“Engaging and pertinent… 90 minutes of chilled and funky celluloid.†London International Film Festival
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++++++++++++++HERE'S A RECENT REVIEW OF THE DVD:DVD: GLASTONBURY - THE MOVIE - We're still finding more things to watch in this monumental three-DVD box set! Hours and hours, if not days of video (and weeks of audio!): the main movie is supplemented by information, extra footage, videos and extra audio that can be accessed by red button as it runs - worth doing so because they're compiled with detail and care. The second DVD in the set is a three-angle version of the main feature - swap between them to cut your own version of the movie. The icing on this very substantial cake is disc three's motley collection of goodies, peaking with a superb documentary on the Avalon Field (the part of Glastonbury rightly described as the festival-within-a-festival) shot in 1999, and then an 'almost lost forever' doc from the mother of all free festivals, Stonehenge 1984.What makes Glastonbury The Movie so important is that it's the record of a single Glastonbury festival, THE Glastonbury, in 1993, poised at the cusp between the peaking of underground festival culture, the moment before the slide downhill towards commercial assimilation. If that sounds like good-old-days miserablist cant, then watch this and understand, or remember; compare with most big current festivals, those punter milking parlours, nauseating giant advertising opportunities and fossilised Rebellion-- and you'll weep for what is lost. Thank goodness these fine filmakers caught it, and thank you to them for putting this sweet memorial together: at the time, if the mainstream (music) media wasn’t ignoring or denying what was really going on in Britain then, it was ridiculing it. This was Glastonbury at the time when the rave, indie, festy and punk/metal scenes were fusing and creating in their own sweet way; outside the walls. It was raw, rough and spontaneous, but with its act together; it was pure, unselfconscious creativity for its own sake... it was innocent. It was the year after the famously near-disastrously muddy one, which must have put off a few of the lightweights, leaving the following year's beautifully sunny and mellow event to those who really cared.So the Glastonbury The Movie main feature captures a time with a bit of magic to it, for many reasons; it does so by being sweetly random and laid back and following the pace of the three days. There's that wandering-about-looking at all the little wonders of a good proper festival - the humans, the quirks, the ingenuity, the quite splendid untrumpeted bits of art and creativity - studded by live music of all kinds. There's a bit too much of a couple of rather average small bands (mates of the film-makers it seems) and some of the incidental music is not as good as it could be - but that's the only quibble, really. Overall, it's a joy, and the live footage is beautifully handled; performances by Porno For Pyros, The Verve, Back To The Planet, Lemonheads and Spiritulized are spectacularly good. The combination of high-end quality footage (with a creamy atmospheric film look) with straightforward, immediate editing is wonderful - how refreshing to actually get the time to focus on what's going on, to watch the band. The Porno For Pyros section is worth your dosh alone...And getting back to those extras mentioned before, that Stonehenge '84 doc... well, its a short, shambolic film school project from a time when committing anything to video was enormously difficult, but it sent shivers down my spine. A window on a wild, wild time that seems both five minutes ago and a thousand years away - another planet (Oh, and there's a few seconds of what we think is the Dagaband playing in the background at one point!). Stonehenge '84 deserves its own feature, of course (the footage is out there) but this inclusion adds something hard to define to the whole experience of this DVD. The Avalon documentary shows a piece of that underground spirit surviving very healthily into 1999, the organisers of the Avalon Field coming across as warm, wise and likeable as they wrangle bands and talk about steering clear of Babylon (the rest of the festival!). I can't tell you if Glastonbury has any of this spirit left as I can't afford the mortgage on a ticket (and besides, I'm worried about bumping into Trinny and Suzannah or hearing some James Blunt... unfair? I hope so...!).Even more extras - a great little documentary on the Miniscule Of Sound (the world's smallest nightclub), a graffiti picture gallery (bet you wish you hadn't burnt those Banksies for firewood) and some Australian loon interviewing everybody he meets, finally ending up in a moshpit... then there's a collection of oddball quicktime videos of, well, random stuff... then there's hours of music - whole sets from Bender, The Verve, the Co-Creators, bits of Ozrics... Oh, hang on, just found even more extra stuff: a pretty fine set of songs from Evan Dando by a campfire with some friends, more footage of... This review's taking forever, so lets just mention the finest thing in it – an amazing man playing the tambourine. Airto Moreira, go YouTube for him - I'll say no more. Oh yeah, and the man in the ice cream van... and the... Look, its brilliant. This has to be a work of love, of rare understanding for the subject - massive applause for director Robin Mahoney and his team of co-directors, producers and camera team. They come clean in an interview and say they wanted to make a modern equivalent to the legendary Woodstock film... and they might well have succeeded. Even if you hate the very idea of the Glastonbury festival, especially if you've been put off by what it's become or by the way the BBC now cover it, Glastonbury The Movie is an uplifting, gorgeous looking, often funny, warm hearted creation in itself. The dvd package does it more than justice: the generous extras make the most of precious footage and the additional documentaries are the icing on the cake. This is a vitally important snapshot of what was really going on in the UK in the early 90s, musically and culturally, for a generation that was ignored or misquoted, pigeonholed and almost always ridiculed. It vindicates our memories - and inspires for the future. An essential document_+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Glastonbury The Movie DVD promo
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DVD Teaser trailer
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Original Cinema Trailer
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