Sundance 2011 Review: MAGIC TRIP takes you on a Acid Trip through the 60's

Magic Trip is another one of those films that was getting a lot of buzz up here at the Sundance Film Fesitval. All I heard was that it was a documentary that takes place in the 1960’s, it was directed by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side), it revolved around Ken Kesey, the author of the classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and it involved dropping an ass-load of acid. That was enough for me to get me into the theater to see it. 

This documentary could end up being this year's Catfish or Exit Through the Gift Shop. The film takes place in 1964 and follows Ken Kesey and a group of friends who bought a school bus, gave it a crazy paint job, and took a cross country road trip to from California to New York to attend the World's Fair, dropping acid the whole time. Kesey took a couple cameras on the trip, and they documented the whole crazy, far-out experience. This documentary tells their story with footage from the trip and audio recordings from the people involved. That must have been not only one hell of a road trip, but a trip across the freakin’ universe. 

This is the best documentary and the best representation of what the 1960’s were like that I’ve ever seen. It goes through everything and hits every main point and issue that came from that era. It goes into the civil rights movement, free love, obviously, drugs, the art movement, politics, the government, fear, and a lot more stuff that I don’t think I’ve ever thought of before. 

The film also goes into the personal history of Kesey and tells of how he was introduced to LSD the first time by getting paid to do it through government experiments and how, from that moment forward, he was hooked. It talks about his book and the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the meaning behind it, how he got the idea from working at a mental institute, and what the story meant to him. Of course, he wrote it while tripping on acid. It was really interesting getting to know what this man was like.

I’ve obviously never experienced the 60’s first-hand, but Magic Trip took me on a ride through it that pretty much summed it all up for me. Gibney did a fantastic job putting this story together, and I loved the style and flare he added to the movie to give it that extra trippy feeling for the audience to experience. I really enjoyed this doc, and anyone interested in taking a road rip through the 60's should check it out.

Here's the official synopsis:

Ever wonder what it’s like to drop acid? Look no further. In 1964, Ken Kesey, celebrated author of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, took a mythic excursion across America from the West to the East Coast. Fueled by massive doses of LSD, Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters embarked on the ultimate road trip. Their destination: Tomorrowland at the New York World's Fair. Steered by Jack Kerouac's infamous companion, Neal Cassady, Kesey and company rigged their psychedelic bus with cameras and a sound system and set out to chronicle a journey that took them through space, time, and the boundless landscape of the imagination.