Thursday, July 09, 2009

Mushroom Movie

I noticed that a local theater, Ragtag, is showing a great mushroom hunting film this weekend. I have heard some good things about it and come on, it's not everyday that a documentary or movie about hunting mushrooms comes along, so you have to see them when you can. Here is the rundown from Ragtag's website.

Know Your Mushrooms

Know Your Mushrooms follows uber-myco visionaries Gary Lincoff and Larry Evans as they lead us on a hunt for the wild mushroom and the deeper cultural experiences attached to the mysterious fungi. Combining material filmed at the Telluride Mushroom Fest with animation and archival footage along with a neo-psychedelic soundtrack by the Flaming Lips, counterculture chronicler Ron Mann (Grass, Tales of the Rat Fink) explores how fungi might well guide humanity to a safer, saner place.
  • Director(s): Ron Mann
  • Year: 2008
  • Length: 74 min.

Showtimes

  • Friday, July 10: 4:45PM
  • Saturday, July 11: 4:30PM
  • Monday, July 13: 5:00PM
  • Tuesday, July 14: 5:00PM
For ticket and more information from Ragtag see their website.

4 comments:

Julianna Schroeder said...

Yes, I'll definitely have to go to this. Probably Monday or Tuesday. I'm hoping it's not all geared toward titilating us about hallucinogenic mushrooms (yawn!); but I love hearing good mushroom stories!

By the way, there's a prize-winning dog's-vomit slime mold next to our brugmansias. I'll have to take some pictures tonight!

Lisa said...

"there's a prize-winning dog's-vomit slime mold"

It fills my heart with joy, imagining the judging for this category at the county fair!

ahistory said...

Yeah Julie, I hear you. Since it was directed by Ron Mann, who has given us counter-culture documentaries like Grass, I am sure there will be some mention of the dark side of shrooms. In fact the only clip I have seen is of Lincoff talking about his first mushroom trip.

However, it is being bulled as highlighting how mushrooms can benefit society, so I am hoping it will be less of that and focus more on his environmental side and discuss mycoremediation and other ways that mushrooms can benefit man and his environment.

Julianna Schroeder said...

Well, we went to see the movie last night. I didn't learn much of anything new, but it certainly painted a "colorful" picture of those wacky mushroom freaks!

Ahistory, were "you" in that film anywhere? I sure wasn't.

What I disliked the most was that by focusing so intensely on the trippers and the hippies, the film almost completely overlooks all the OTHER people who like mushrooms. Folks like you and me.

There was the scene in the Chinese restaurant, where the Chinese appreciation for mushrooms is implied; same with the sketchy part about shiitakes and the Japanese researchers.

It could have been better. At any point, did they ever say (for instance) whether or not fungi are in their own kingdom? One of the elderly film clips called them "plants," and nothing corrected that. Sigh.