kelliott4978 I just watched this "documentary". I'm at a loss for words to express anything good about this piece... Which can only be described as a high school quality, steaming pile of sh!t. It pains me to say something so harsh about a documentary, because I usually love documentaries. I don't usually write reviews, but felt it necessary to warn others who might want to learn about Philip K. Dick. This low budget mistake is a dis-service and will turn watchers off to PKD through sheer boredom- which I can only assume is the exact opposite of what the producers had originally intended. Speaking of producers... Mark Steensland and Andy Massagli give credit to themselves no less than 6 TIMES EACH in the opening/closing credits for this festering ball of cat vomit . One of them lists himself as "Camera Director"... Which consists entirely of placing a camera on a tripod with seemingly no regard for lighting, then making sure that camera NEVER moves. Bravo. Unrated and uninteresting, this is an hour and 21 minutes I can't get back. Not only that, but what a horrible loogey to hock on such a great writer as PKD. Thanks a lot. In contrast, the episode of Prophets of Science Fiction dedicated to PKD is excellent! And the camera moves. And Ridley Scott doesn't credit himself 6 times... Although, he deserves it far more than these hacks. Thank you, drive-thru.

biggiesmartypants I didn't read any Philip K. Dick and only saw Bladerunner. I thought this documentary was great though because it shows what an interesting man PKD was. The people that are being interviewed i think are very relevant and interesting (even the 'fanboys', i don't hate those :). I was completely taken away by the documentary so i think the build up was good. The animation of PKD was fun and it was nice to hear the subject speak (he passed away in 1982, you heard him speak through before made tapes), though, maybe because i couldn't lipread him, i thought the tape was a bit inaudible .Maybe the last ten minutes or so were weak because the makers didn't know where to go anymore and worked towards a "go read some PKD". And in this last last part it was strange that the guy from agnostic magazine, who first had said PKD liked that Plato had liked Confusius because he was the only one never to have had a epiphany, thus illustrating PKD was down to earth about his own drug/stress/etc. induced epiphany, now said PKD maybe will have started a religion in a hundred years, thus not being down to earth himself after all.I think fanboys don't like the movie because they think they know everything already. But a good portrait isn't just about facts. Fanboys probably already knew the story about PKD's safe being broken into by, maybe, the FBI. But for me a science-fiction writer going on to write his 8,000 pages exegesis inspired by a epiphany is just, 'wow'..I think i will go read some PKD

dbborroughs Rambling chatter about Philip K Dick, best known for the novels that became Minority Report, Blade Runner and Screamers. The chatter is loosely grouped together by subject but it drifts back and forth through many subjects. Its interesting to listen to but a bit tough to watch.The trouble is that this is nothing more than interviews with people who knew Dick talking, inter-cut with some audio interview footage spiced up with cartoon of Dick at the typewriter. There is almost nothing other than the interviews themselves, no photos, some fleeting shots of printed material and of the outside of Dick's house. There is no narration, no attempt to explain any of the works he wrote or of his life, its simply remembrances that will mean nothing to anyone who has never read any of his books or, more importantly, never heard any of the stories of the man. My Dad who watched this with me was totally bewildered because he didn't know about Dick's life.If you want an introduction to Philip K Dick and his work go somewhere else, this will put you off him forever. If you already know the man you may want to rent this, and then do something else while listening to it since its a dull thing to watch, but an interesting thing to listen to since the stories told are quite funny assuming you have some context to understand the craziness of them.

tedg Spoilers herein.I corresponded with PKD during his flowering period. He was an amazingly reflective mind: someone like Nash (with whom he was also communicating) who could deeply engineer his alternative existences. He had completely and utterly merged this arbitrary parallelism with the ambiguities of the word: the reader and writer, the writer and character, the creator and character, the character as creator, the word and meaning in all this.That is his genius, something he explored with other writers, but few scifi ones, and with an appalling, exhilarating fearlessness and personal investment. We do have some clever films that have resulted and a strangely stupid fan base. Some of those fans, parasites and acquaintances conspired to create this documentary.As you no doubt know, this is poor, even annoying, in terms of production values. That would be tolerable if anything interesting were conveyed. But though some of these people knew him, they are all completely uninteresting and apparently never tuned into the man's juice.Ted's evaluation: 1 of 4 -- You can probably find something better to do with this part of your life.