On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: MAGIC TRIP (Magnolia Pictures).

Ken Kesey & The Merry Band of Pranksters Take A MAGIC TRIP On Demand
By John Werner

For me the 1960s are a hazy memory, not because I was tripping my way through them. I was born in 1960 and was too young have the ‘experience’ firsthand. I was vaguely aware of civil rights and hippies and the summer of love, only because my mother was a liberal leaning housewife and my best friend’s brother was a hippie. However, there are some things I do remember very clearly like the Miracle Mets, the Moon Walk and my 1964 trek to the World’s Fair.

So when I saw the footage of the “Unisphere”, the enormous stainless steel globe that was the centerpiece of the fair and an icon throughout my childhood, in the documentary MAGIC TRIP, I immediately wondered, ok, (full disclosure) fantasized that I had been at the fair the same day as Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.

Ken Kesey, the famed author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the 1964 World’s Fair with a renegade group of counter-culture truth seekers known as “The Merry Band of Pranksters.”

Kesey had traded in his typewriter for a film camera with the intention of making a documentary about the psychedelic expedition he was leading. He loaded up an old school bus with an eclectic mix of friends and acquaintances that included Neal Cassady, the real-life inspiration for Jack Kerouac’s Dean Moriarity and headed out on what promised to be a long strange trip. That film was never completed and went virtually unseen for nearly half a century.

I am always a little skeptical when a film promises a glimpse at never-before-seen footage. Usually you get a minute’s worth, over and over again inside the larger picture. But with MAGIC TRIP it was virtually all unseen.

After Kesey died in 2001, the footage that had been spliced and re-spliced over and over by the Merry Pranksters was given to the UCLA film archives who entrusted filmmakers Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood to finish the movie Kesey and the Pranksters shot.

Gibney and Ellwood have crafted a colorful, entertaining slice of Americana that truly hasn’t been seen before – the dawn of the psychedelic counterculture.

Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood / MAGIC TRIP (Magnolia)

MAGIC TRIP is the best road movie I have seen in a long time. The film opens with a three-minute prologue that sets up the story, the history and the trip perfectly.

So even if you have no idea what I’ve been talking about up until now, you’ll still get it. The footage is carefully and beautifully restored and the original sound, while almost never in sync, combines with some terrific interviews from Kesey and the Pranksters to form a coherent narrative even when the subjects themselves are less than coherent.

The graphics and animations are imaginative and fit the movie nicely. One of my favorite parts of the film is when the filmmakers treat us to a Kesey acid flashback that rivals Winnie the Pooh’s Heffalumps and Woozles.

MAGIC TRIP is a tie-dyed ride through a changing America that everyone will enjoy whether you’re nostalgic for that long strange trip or new to the scene.
 

- John Werner

 
John Werner is a screenwriter. He also directs, produces and edits documentaries and TV specials. You can find him at www.howlatthemoon.tv

Look for MAGIC TRIP (Magnolia Pictures) under your cable system's Movie On Demand section.

You May Also Like...

THE TRIP - DEMAND IT

THE PERFECT HOST - DEMAND IT

ZONAD - DEMAND IT

THE BANG BANG CLUB - DEMAND IT

SUPER - starring Rainn Wilson - DEMAND IT

THE MAN FROM NOWHERE - DEMAND IT

SEPTIEN - RISK IT

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS - DEMAND IT