MAGIC TRIP: KEN KESEY'S SEARCH FOR A KOOL PLACE (2011) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Alison Ellwood, Alex Gibney
Postcards from the edge. There are few things more quintessentially American than a road trip, and it's safe to say there was never a road trip quite like the acid-fueled cross-country journey Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters took in 1964 in a psychedelic school bus, with Kesey orchestrating the fun and games and Neal Cassady speeding along behind the wheel. This documentary captures some of what went on back then, but it's a scattershot account and the effect is a little like watching an old home movie of somebody else's party. The magic of the moment can never be recreated, with film or anything else, and whatever cosmic insight these people thought they were pulling out of the smoke-filled air, their personal foibles and romantic entanglements are as mundane as anybody else's. Still, they did all manage to be on board for one of the more celebrated side trips of the 1960s. That must've been one hell of a bus ride.
