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gregkero
Reviews
Psych-Out (1968)
A missed opportunity
If you look very closely, during the opening main-title sequence, you can spot local Haight-Ashbury residents, including Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, hanging out on Haight Street. It's too bad that Jack Nicholson's contribution to the script, and those of the screenwriters, didn't keep the story moving along at a better pace in a way that would have made the film an interesting, honest look at what the Haight was all about: people searching for peaceful, more spiritually rewarding lives, seeking media attention (to promote their message), while simultaneously shunning the commercialized "straight" world and the materialism of mainstream society. Dean Stockwell's characterization of Dave alludes to that, but the film is so rambling that it never quite gels into what should have been a really good time capsule in the way that Saturday Night Fever was and still remains.