Greendale Critic Reviews

There is really no other way to categorize this splendid, crotchety artifact.Read the full review

By the time Greendale reaches its rousing crescendo with the anthem "Be the Rain" and Young and Crazy Horse have blown off the barn doors, the Canadian-born artist has crafted one genuinely tasty slice of Americana. Read the full review

To watch Greendale is to understand everything about Neil Young. Like him, it's grungy, honest, disarming and unapologetically original. Read the full review

Sublimely pointed in its idealistic simplicity yet willfully scruffy in presentation -- much like the enduring Young's best music.Read the full review

Has a purposely amateurish feel that doesn't obscure the careful editing.Read the full review

Like "Dogville," Neil Young's Greendale uses the deceptively simple "Our Town" foundation on which to build a platform for some highly personal sociopolitical criticisms, but unlike the contentious von Trier picture, the Young variation gets the job done in roughly half the time with a notable absence of histrionics, plus you can tap your toes to it.Read the full review

Amateur in the true sense of the word -- plainly, proudly homemade.Read the full review

In the history of rock-star indulgence on film, I would rank it somewhere between Bob Dylan's epic carnival of pretension ''Renaldo & Clara'' and the overblown messianic doldrums of 1982's ''Pink Floyd The Wall.'' Read the full review

Beware of stoner rock stars talking politics. No matter where you stand on the spectrum, the ecological/anticorporate idealism of Greendale is so vague as to be insulting to anyone past the backpack-and-Birkenstocks stage of life. Read the full review