The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick

After watching this "film" i was moved to seek out the fiction of

Phillip K. Dick.

So that's a good thing....Dick comes of as an interesting writer

worthy of further study.

The filmmakers, however, have assembled the material within in

such a fey, self-satisfied and fanboy-esque ineptitude that i found

myself, after a time, staring out the window and listening, rather

than watching the amateurishly-assembled and shot interview

footage or (especially) the amazingly ill-conceived "animated"

scene breaks. The people responsible for this have no idea of

film-making or pacing; had they no idea of how the silly, repetitive

"animated" scene breaks would grind everything to a halt? Jesus.

If you want to learn more about Dick, fine...you can get some idea

from the material within. But, as film-making, this is an amateurish

embarrassment.

As a certifiable "Dick-head," I bought this docu in the hopes it might shed some additional light on one of the greatest purveyors of sci-fi and American literature in general. Dick was a brilliant -- a superlative I seldom use -- man. His stories were fascinating meditations on what constitutes reality, self, etc. Sadly, this docu is a cheapo featuring some nice interviews with Dick friends and fans (could have done without the fans, who while sincere didn't seem that knowledgeable or at the very least interesting).

Most distracting -- and reeking of padding -- are the "animated" segments. Truly awful. I assume they were done in Flash, but they are static beyond belief. I speed-scanned through them all.

Dick deserves a fine documentary. This isn't it. Read Lawrence Sutin's bio if you seek info on Dick. Or read Paul Williams' interviews with the man. Skip this sorry effort.

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.

PKD is a good subject for a documentary, but this piece is hampered by a lack of visual stimulus, a slow-starting narrative, and especially an overload of silly graphics.

The content starts getting intriguing and compelling about half-way through, but it takes some time to get there, a shame, since it seems that there is plenty of material to start off this direction at a much earlier point. In addition to this, there is a sequence of CGI that is repeated again and again, that is painful to watch, but is unrelenting. Although removing it would make this a very short documentary, it is cruel to leave in.

All that said, if you're a fan, you might as well watch it, there is plenty of interest, especially if you thought Jason Koornick was a spazz in grade school.

I want to make my review a riff on another review, written by Kurt Winter of New Jersey. He starts off by saying, "If I weren't already a PKD fan ... this docuflick would do absolutely nothing for me." And that is the very heart of the problem here. If I did not know who Phil Dick was, I would not have learned it from this film. When was he born? When did he die? Where did he grow up? These things are never stated.

Winter writes, "While it was certainly informative, it could have been edited better, and could have been more broad." I completely agree, especially with the editing. Sometimes the different voices blend together to tell a story, sometimes they seem poorly connected. And the segue from one spot to the next is weak.

More charismatic people to interview, or at least an eloquent narrator, would have helped a great deal. Just showing clips from people who knew Dick does not really tell the story. These people should be used to support the story, not be the backbone. The younger guys with websites seem completely out of place and even if their words are true, they come off as amateur.

But, hey, if you are a Dick fan and want to hear his friends -- including Robert Anton Wilson and the author of "They Live" -- this is worth checking out.