Some things I liked some I did not.

A Brilliant Conflict

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

They were called the Beatniks.The Source (1999) tells how Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac met at Columbia University in 1944, and started an era of the Beats then.Many others joined the group, like William S. Burroughs.Kerouac died in 1969, Ginsberg and Burroughs in 1997.There are three famous actors playing these three and speak the words of these geniuses.The legendary Dennis Hopper is Burroughs.The brilliant John Turturro is Ginsberg.And Johnny Depp, who's only the hottest actor today, is Kerouac.There are some great people talking about the Beat movement and seen in archive footage, like Steve Allen, Amiri Baraka, Lenny Bruce, Walter Cronkite, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Philip Glass, Billie Holiday, Bob Hope, Robert F. Kennedy, Ken Kesey, Martin Luther King, John Leguizamo, Norman Mailer, Steve Martin, Groucho Marx and Henry Rollins.There's a clip from Happy Days with Tom Bosley, Marion Ross and Ron Howard discussing about the whole Beat thing at the table.The Source is a fascinating documentary.It's also very educational telling you everything you ever wanted to know about the topic.So all of you that have some interest for the Beat, open your eyes and watch The Source.

This film is simply a love letter to the three writers Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs. The film offers no dissenting viewpoints, and provides very little evidence to back up its claims that these three men were somehow 'The Source' for all counter culture movements that followed them.This is a preposterous claim. The Beats were simply part of a long tradition of counter culture art that began in earnest in the mid 19th Century.Anyways, outside of some sloppy history, the film does at least seem to capture the spirit of who the Beats were. What it fails to do, however, is convince me that I should still actually care who they were. So, for a fan this film will be a joy ride, but for people, like me, who have always been somewhat ambivilant about the Beats, it doesn't do much convincing.

"The Source" is witty, intelligent and fun. This is a nostalgic romp through our Cultural History that will entertain and validate anyone who has felt alien in this culture. The directive is to enjoy.

Chuck Workman did a fantastic job recreating the beat generation, via old footage, and vignettes involving Johnny Depp as Jack Kerouac, and Dennis Hopper as William Burroughs. This is truly a "must see" little gem of a film.