The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick (2001) Reviews

• The greatest literary mind in modern SF and this is what he gets...

  Junkie-62003-04-06

  While I enjoyed listening to the handful of people that are interviewed, this is a seriously shoddy effort. No other documentary filmmaker is going to be in fear of being overshadowed by Mark Steensland. He has no narration, no biographical information, no archival footage (of which I have seen and know of PKD on a couple of talkshows), nothing to cut away to from the talking heads, and when he does show a magazine cover and article header they are flashed so quickly that you don't even have a chance to see it without hitting the freezeframe button and not even a PHOTOGRAPH of the man on the box or in the "film"! There are a couple of sound-bites from a wealth of taped interviews that are played with a poorly animated cartoon PKD lip-synching along. This animated PKD also serves to break up the material into sections with looooong animations of him getting paper, inserting it in a typewriter, typing a bit, pulling the paper out of the typewriter and laying the sheet down with one sentence on it. This repeated three times to complete the preface to the section. After seeing this animated sequence that makes South Park look like the height of technological wizardry, it wears REALLY thin. I had to resort to fast forwarding through the animations to get on with the damn thing. Still, the interviews were semi-cool - except for the real lack of information they provide and the somewhat derogatory way in which they are presented. Steensland claims to be a fan, but obviously has no interest in providing any back ground, history, or any details about Dick's life, except for a handfull of moments that portray him as a drug-addled lunatic. This should have been an incredible tribute and biography of a brilliant man, but it is neither. It's so poorly done that it makes the entire documentary genre look bad and will not make anyone want to read Dick's books if they haven't already.

• Soooooooo Disappointing

  bobfingerman2005-02-23

  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.

• interesting subject...inept film-making

  denmn2004-09-08

  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.

• Disappointing fan documentary

  auteurus2003-12-20

  It's possible for a low budget fan documentary to be good, even interesting. Ed Wood and Jack Nance fans have made low budget documentaries about their respective topics which, although flawed, still held my interest. The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick however, is not such a documentary as it fails on almost every level. There is no archival material of Dick and little biographical info. The director appears more obsessed with Dick's visions and drug use rather than his incredible talent. The only appearance of Dick himself is muffled audio over a typewriter animation. The annoying animation is repeated ad nauseum, quickly becomes very grating and had me reaching for the fast forward on the remote. Even a still photo of Dick with the voiceover would have been better than this pathetic attempt. The production quality is poor, with shaky camera work, bad sound and music that ranges from jarringly bad techno to lame piano. The interviews are the highlight of the film, but even they are repetitive and many border on pointless (e.g. the librarian giving a tour of the Phillip K Dick collection, which is basically a tour of a bookshelf). Would it have killed the film makers to identify who they are actually interviewing, and what their relationship to Dick was? Even hardcore Phillip K Dick fans would gain little from watching this. Most people would be hard pressed to watch it at all. The most disappointing aspect is that Dick is one of the seminal writers of his generation, and his legacy deserves much better than this weak effort. 2/10

• Disappointing documentary for fans

  funkyfry2002-10-11

  Poor documentary of this sci-fi great explores houses he used to live in here in the bay area (with the webmasters of PKD websites as guides) and other irrelevant details while failing to really explore what makes his writing unique. But then, if I wanted to know that, I guess I'd pick up one of his books (which I often like to do). This film is for people who are not Philip K. Dick fans, but might have seen "Total Recall" or "Blade Runner" or "Minority Report" (the worst one yet.... or wasn't there something with Gary Senise or whatever his name is? Hopefully that got shelved) and they want to know what this guy's about, but they don't know how to read. For those people and no one else, this film is recommended. Not recommended for fans of PKD: you won't find out anything you don't already know. p.s. just reading through my comments from years ago here in 2008 and wanted to point out that I did actually see "Imposter" with Gary Sinise and it was one of the more decent Philip Dick movies relatively speaking. At least Sinise isn't some kind of superman or supermodel, he looks like a "dickian" hero.