Il vangelo secondo Philip K. Dick

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.

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.

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.

This documentary explores the life and work of Philip K. Dick (PKD), a unique writer whose mindbending work and concepts have had much influence in films inspired by his work such as "Total Recall' and "Blade Runner" to "The Matrix" and "Fight Club".

Unfortunately though it deserves an A for Effort, this film is flawed in a number of ways.

Nothing of Dick's background is revealed, the film focuses more on the latter years and 1974 Gnostic religious experience of Dick than on his early life, and this is to the film's detriment as clues to these events could might lie in his formative years. As the previous reviewer noted, the same rhythm and animated sequence of PKD sitting at his typewriter are repeated endlessly over old audio recordings of Dick's interviews

I would like to have seen more of Dick's associates and family interviewed, and more of the feel of an overall biography.