Search - Timothy Leary's Dead (Special Edition) on DVD

AS OUTRAGEOUS & MIND-BLOWING AS LEARY'S LIFE

Forrest J. Evans | Los Angeles, CA United States | 08/24/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Reviewers such as THE NEW YORK TIMES' Janet Maslin got it right when she called this doc "The right final vision of Leary and his times" - and so did the Toronto Sun which said "Somewhere over the rainbow Timothy Leary is laughing his head off, if he still has a head, that is." Anyone who takes all the scenes in this movie literally (like some of the reviwers below) ought to have his head examined, since the movie makes obvious leaps into psychedelic madness everywhere, including a scene filmed like a silent movie in which a frantic mother cautions her son not to eat Timothy Leary's brain, and another scene in which Leary's opinions about alien abduction are dramatized by an alien hopping into bed with a little ol' lady from Iowa. To those who think Leary's family was shocked by the film, they obviously are unaware that Leary's ex-wife Rosemary invited friends to a private screening in San Fran and gave the film her blessing by saying Tim would have loved it (he passed before its completion). For those who scream it's unauthorized, they should note that Leary not only signed a contract giving the producers permission to do exactly what they have done in the movie, but he cooperated every step of the way, leaving a big hint in the end credits about how to separate reality from the surreal in the film. For more clues, check out the Director's Commentary on the DVD, which deals with the controversy this film created. The bottom line: Any movie about Timothy Leary that doesn't blow your mind doesn't even begin to convey the real Leary, and this one delivers Big Time. Besides, the film wouldn't be doing its job if it didn't make some opinionated fans angry (as well as offend some of the stodgy webmasters of the official Leary website who have been in misery for years because their own effort at a Leary biopic was never released). However, by all means, avoid this film if your mind has fossilized, and you do not want your views about reality (or about who Leary was) to be challenged. Also avoid it if you think you need to believe everything you see in a documentary."

Boring documentary on an electric subject.

cary fritz | 05/14/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Not a very well-edited film. It's very worth-seeing though. The ending of it is pretty um.. shocking. The subject of the film is Tim Leary, and it's not too hard to make an interesting documentary of him. Still, there's a lot of good commentary by people other than Leary too. There's some funny stuff done with this film. I loved some of the scenes that were made up, like the one with the alien and the one with a kid about to eat Leary's brain. This film is pretty subversive and also pretty daring. I liked some of what the director did with Leary's audio and various pictures and videos of him. The soundtrack to this is all wrong. It could actually pass as a great documentary if it had some great music. My final complaint is that it didn't present things as big as they were. Like the fact that he escaped from prison. As Zach Leary said, that was pretty mythic. It was only brought up for about a minute of two here. It seemed small. So it's a very flawed film, but it's als very worth watching. It was cool, but it wasn't great. That's a shame. It had potential."

Timothy Leary revelation of a daring life.

Forrest J. Evans | 05/17/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Timothy Leary comes off as a man ahead of his time: fearless, sacreligious, funny, defiant, quick-witted, iconoclastic. No wonder Richard Nixon called him the most dangerous man alive, he was afraid of Leary's Irish wit...I would recommend the film to anyone who, "thinks for himself," or is curious about a man whose appetite for life was, arguably, as big as the sword-fighter-scientiest explorer's: Sir Richard Burton. I couldn't take my eyes off Leary."

Always a HEAD of his time.

H. Laurence Greenblatt | Philly | 07/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The best part of this for me was the interviews with Dr. Leary. I have been a fan of Leary's since my Tai Chi coach, legendary martial arts engineer Tom Updegrove, first lent me a copy of Timothy's Exo-Psychology over 23 years ago. Since then I have probably read 90% of his works. Apparently, no one who interviews him has read more than a few blurbs.

Once again, we are treated to having Tim answer some of the most idiotic questions from uniformed people. But being true to his character, he does his best to explain his stance on his past events and theories. Especially enlightening for me was his experiences in jail and the attitude toward the establishments and politics that put him there. Never bitter, Tim appears to take nothing personal, just business as usual for a society in development.

As a CISSP, I have made (and continue to make) a very lucrative career helping secure cyberspace. I owe much of my success to the teachings of Dr. Timothy Leary. One of his lessons that even the most ardent of Leary supporters, Robert Anton Wilson (my favorite living author), Terrence McKenna, Antero Alli, seem to mostly neglect, is what I consider his most inspiring theories, that is, evolution and particularly space migration. For me, Exo-Psychology (now Info-Psychology) remains his most prophetic work and the most accurate map of both past and future history I know of.

While this DVD isn't as good as maybe it could have been, it was a great buy and I recommend it to all Leary fans.

Larry Greenblatt
(...)"