Dead on DVD: the stash from Shout!

There is no such thing as too much Grateful Dead, apparently.

Adding to the mountain of Dead software that’s been released in the past 12 months, we have on the horizon the 14-DVD box set “All The Years Combine: The DVD Collection” from Shout! Factory.

The Dead box set drops April 17, just in time for workingman Dead fans to tap their tax refund checks for the $100.

Shout! as you may recall rereleased “The Grateful Dead Movie” in high definition Nov. 1. The movie (this time in standard def) anchors the upcoming DVD box set.

Second billed is “The Closing of Winterland,” a lengthy and well-regard Dead-only film that Rhino originally released to DVD in 2003. The double-DVD has about four hours of footage from the last night of Winterland on New Years Eve 1978.

Then there’s “Dead Ahead,” another existing DVD, with three hours of footage from Radio City Music Hall in October 1980. (The Shout! box retains the extra hour of bonus footage from the 2005 Monterey Video DVD.)

Making its DVD debut is “So Far,” a highly regarded title last seen on VHS in 1991 (Arista). Jerry Garcia gets a co-directing credit on this experimental 1987 movie, which highlights the Dead drummers and a swarm of trippy computer graphics. “We were after the idea of electronic mind-altering and consciousness-altering,” Garcia wrote of the hourlong film. “And on that level, I think it’s pretty successful.”

Other DVDs in the Shout! set include “Ticket to New Years” (Oakland, 1987), “Truckin’ Up to Buffalo” (1989), “Downhill From Here” (Wisconsin, 1989) and the four “View From The Vault” titles.

A bonus disc features Justin Kreutzmann’s video “Backstage Pass” (1992), an interview with archivist David Lemieux and a handful of bonus Dead performances.

Shout! also is selling “The Grateful Dead Bundle,” which throws in the fall 2011 “The Grateful Dead Movie” on Blu-ray for another $8.

A 40-page booklet includes liner notes by Deadhead journalist Blair Jackson, who wrote the book “Garcia: An American Life.”

The project is billed as “in collaboration with Rhino,” reconnecting the original Rhino people at Shout! with their old label, long owned by WEA.

More Dead content:
Grateful Dead exhibit at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Jerry Garcia documentary feature film
Dead brings to life Dave’s Pick CD series

‘Magic Trip’ film: journey through the past

The Merry Pranksters ride again, in the acid-drenched documentary feature “Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place.”

The Pranksters, of course, were the pack of bohemian youth who gathered around the hipster novelist Kesey. With beat generation icon Neal Cassady behind the wheel of an old school bus, they traveled across the country, in search of the New York World’s Fair and … Whatever.

The bus, carrying the destination sign of “Furthur,” was painted wildly, in tune with the soon-to-come psychedelic aesthetic. One Prankster called it a “traveling pleasure palace.”

Many historians point to this happening as the big bang that unleashed the psychedelic era. Kesey (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”) had taken part in government-sponsored LSD experiments five years earlier and was eager to spread the sparkly swirling vibes.

“We were too old to be beatniks and a little too young to be hippies,” one Prankster recalled.

And so, a half-century later, documentary filmmakers Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”) and Alison Ellwood found themselves with 40 hours of amateur home movies shot on the trip.

The resulting two-hour movie from Magnolia Pictures began its theatrical roll-out Aug. 5 in San Francisco (naturally) and New York. “Magic Trip” downloads also are available (iTunes link).

Reviews were mixed: The San Francisco Examiner reviewer found that while ” ‘Magic Trip’ failed “to adequately explore the significance of the journey involved, the film is a worthy document of the 1964 event and a loopily enjoyable visit to the inception of hippiedom.”

The New York Times’ Stephen Holden wrote that “the unbridgeable distance between the stoned and the sober is the problem with Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood’s documentary.” As in, taking acid is a lot involving than watching some shave-tail kid freak out.

The footage couldn’t be synched up with what remained of the recorded sound, so most of the movie’s audio focuses on the participants’ memories. Audio interviews with various Pranksters were made in the 1970s. “None of the storytellers could be described as transfixing yarn spinners,” Holden wrote. “Any philosophical afterthoughts are resoundingly banal.”

The Hollywood Reporter, however, found the older Pranksters’ tales fascinating: “They provide a vivid portrait of the journey previously profiled in Tom Wolfe’s book ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,’ ” reviewer Frank Scheck wrote.

He continued: “Much of the footage on display consists of the Pranksters behaving in generally silly, stoned, sloppy fashion, with the result that the proceedings come to resemble a rambling home movie that was clearly more fun to make than it is to watch.”

The band that would become the Grateful Dead, the Warlocks, make an appearance and, of course, “Truckin’” keys the soundtrack. The main Dead offshoot band is now called Furthur.

You can see for yourself via Magnolia’s on-demand (paid) distribution network, which includes iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, the DirecTV and Dish satellite systems and a swarm of cable providers.

Scorsese docu on Harrison nears completion

Martin Scorsese’s movie on George Harrison has made it into post-production, with a 2011 release expected for the rock documentary.

The famed film director promoted “Living in the Material World: George Harrison” at the Cannes film festival along with the musician’s widow, Olivia.

“Marty had a connection with George, they spent time together,” Olivia Harrison told the media. “He’s passionate about film and music as George was passionate about music and film.” She and Scorsese worked on the project for three years.

“I was interested in the journey that he took as an artist,” Scorsese said in Cannes. “The film is an exploration. … We’re just feeling our way through.” Harrison and Scorsese’s mutual interest in spirituality also drew the filmmaker to the project.

The key surviving people from Harrison’s Beatles days — Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and Yoko Ono — have done new interviews for the film. His pals Tom Petty and Eric Idle also are in the mix.

Olivia Harrison provided a wealth of archival images and audio from the late Beatle’s possessions, much of it new to the public. While revisiting the past was sometimes “excruciating,” she felt good about turning over the project to Scorsese and his team. “I feel really safe; I feel protected.”

The Harrison project calls on some of the key collaborators from Scorsese’s Bob Dylan documentary “No Direction Home”: cinematographer Robert Richardson, editor David Tedeschi, and producers Nigel Sinclair and Margaret Bodde.

Scorsese and Harrison are courting American distributors for the feature-length movie. Sinclair’s Exclusive Media Distribution is handling overseas theatrical.

Scorsese’s rock films are “The Last Waltz” (1978), “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan” (2005) and “Shine a Light” (Rolling Stones, 2008).” In addition to “Material World,” he’s prepping “Sinatra,” a biopic about the chairman.

He also helmed the musical drama “New York, New York” (1977). For Michael Jackson, he created the gang-related music video “Bad.” For the TV documentary “The Blues” (2003), he directed the “Feel Like Going Home” episode. In the late 1960s, he worked on the “Woodstock” movie.

Scorsese’s love of rock and pop shows has been evident throughout his film career, dating back to “Mean Streets.” Perhaps most famously, he used Clapton’s “Layla” in an extended death scene in “GoodFellas.” The song was written for Harrison’s ex-wife.