The flick combines material filmed in Telluride with archival footage (clips from the 1963 Japanese movie Attack of the Mushroom People; an educational mushroom video from the 50s) and animation (trippy montages and fun facts about fungi accompanied by a cute lil shroom) and melds the visuals with a soundtrack by the Flaming Lips. The result is the strangest, funniest and, not so incidentally, most educational film about mushrooms youre ever likely to see.
And, yes, hippie: Know Your Mushrooms does feature several minutes on magic mushrooms (psilocybes and otherwise), including a fascinating and somewhat convincing diatribe crediting hallucinogenic shrooms with the evolution of human consciousness.
The stars of the film, visionary mycologists Gary Lincoff and Larry Evans, share top billing with the Telluride Mushroom Festival itself, including the cant-miss annual parade (where else can you see a bunch of grownups dressed in fairy and mushroom costumes?), mushroom forays and the healthy, mouth-watering dishes created from fresh-picked shrooms. Know Your Mushrooms opens for a week-long run at Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli on August 28, but you can catch a special preview screening there at 5 p.m. today with star Lincoff appearing in person! Tickets are $6 to $9.50; visit www.denverfilm.org or call 303-595-3456.
Sun., Aug. 23, 5 p.m., 2009