Finally! Trailer for "Radio Free Albemuth"

[Radix]

getting closer!

Trailer debut: Philip K. Dick's RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH

 

[Fried Egg]

I didn't know anything about this, or even the book that it is based on. Is it any good?

 

[Radix]

I didn't know anything about this, or even the book that it is based on. Is it any good?

I like it~

In Radio Free Albemuth, his last novel, Philip K. Dick morphed and recombined themes that had informed his fiction from A Scanner Darkly to VALIS and produced a wild, impassioned work that reads like a visionary alternate history of the United States. Agonizingly suspenseful, darkly hilarious, and filled with enough conspiracy theories to thrill the most hardened paranoid, Radio Free Albemuth is proof of Dick's stature as our century's greatest prankster-prophet.

 

[gully_foyle]

I didn't know anything about this, or even the book that it is based on. Is it any good?

The book is great. I think it was one of his last, and possibly published posthumously. The trailer doesn't really do it for me, but I will happily see the film when (and if) it comes out over here.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Hm...looks a little low budget...

 

[PrinceAshitaka]

Wow!
VALIS is the most amazing book I have ever read.. It totally blew my mind. From what I've gathered, RFA is similar - it's basically Dick's first draft of VALIS, which he expanded on quite substantially to get to VALIS, but RFA was the starting point of the VALIS trilogy..
Anyway am really looking forward to this!!

 

[Luc Valentine]

Radio Free Albemuth is considered by most to be the third book in Phil Dick's V.A.L.I.S. trilogy, Divine Invasion being the second. He wrote Radio Free Albemuth long before V.A.L.I.S., though, and I'm not sure it wasn't sort of just added on as it was published after it. Though a trilogy, Divine Invasion lacks unity of character, time, and setting with both V.A.L.I.S. and Radio Free Albemuth.

I don't think Dick intended these to work as a trilogy. Rather than Radio Free Albemuth, his The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, based partly on his friendship with Bishop Pike (who is the source of his knowledge on the as of then untranslated Nag Hammadi Library, the ancient Gnostic texts rediscovered in 1945 and a basis of Dick's philosophy) works much better as the third volume of a V.A.L.I.S. trilogy.

Yes, the film version of Albemuth has a modest budget, but from the trailer and other accounts, seems to be well done, and exceptionally faithful to the master's original novel. A very rare exception in Dick's filmography, faithfulness to the original.

It has actually already been released and has made the rounds of film festivals. For some reason, it's having distribution problems, but I'm hoping that the success of The Adjustment Bureau will create more demand for a wider audience.

 

[PrinceAshitaka]

Radio Free Albemuth is considered by most to be the third book in Phil Dick's V.A.L.I.S. trilogy, Divine Invasion being the second. He wrote Radio Free Albemuth long before V.A.L.I.S., though, and I'm not sure it wasn't sort of just added on as it was published after it. Though a trilogy, Divine Invasion lacks unity of character, time, and setting with both V.A.L.I.S. and Radio Free Albemuth.

I don't think Dick intended these to work as a trilogy. Rather than Radio Free Albemuth, his The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, based partly on his friendship with Bishop Pike (who is the source of his knowledge on the as of then untranslated Nag Hammadi Library, the ancient Gnostic texts rediscovered in 1945 and a basis of Dick's philosophy) works much better as the third volume of a V.A.L.I.S. trilogy.

Yes, the film version of Albemuth has a modest budget, but from the trailer and other accounts, seems to be well done, and exceptionally faithful to the master's original novel. A very rare exception in Dick's filmography, faithfulness to the original.

It has actually already been released and has made the rounds of film festivals. For some reason, it's having distribution problems, but I'm hoping that the success of The Adjustment Bureau will create more demand for a wider audience.

I'm not sure where you got your information from, but the VALIS Trilogy has always been
VALIS, The Divine Invasion, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.
RFA doesn't even come into it. As you say Dick wrote RFA before VALIS, though the publishers never agreed to publish RFA so he gave up on it, and turned the ideas from that into VALIS.
Radio Free Albemuth was only published after his death to keep the royalties rolling in for his family. If you have to put RFA in the VALIS trilogy somewhere - put it first, so it goes Radio Free Albemuth, VALIS, The Divine Invasion, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

 

[Luc Valentine]

...closer and closer. Queue it up on NefFlix, and if you're in Seattle, there's a showing on June 24. Read writer/director John Alan Simon's comment in my article on Radio Free Albemuth at The Palm Tree Garden here:

http://www.palmtreegarden.org/2011/06/radio-free-albemuth/

And look for a review on PTG later this month. Happily, one of our contributors lives in Seattle and has tickets for June 24. This is the most faithful adaptation of a Phil Dick novel ever from one of the books his fans have been begging to be made for the big screen.

 

[scriptproducer]

Hey PKD fans,

As a close friend of the Producer (Chip Rosenbloom) and the writer/director (John Allen Simon) of Radio Free Albemuth, I've seen the film and Daily Variety already gave it a great review. They called it "the most faithful PKD adaptation of any film". I'm not sure if they have made a formal announcement, but it will be released in the next few months.

You should also check out John's Q/A and review from the London Sci-Fi Film Festival.

Both Chip and John own the rights to "VALIS" and "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said". John has already completed the screenplays, and rest assured, they are in good hands! These guys are not Hollywood sellouts -- they really care about PKD!

Regards,
Steven Bratter

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0105581/

 

[scriptproducer]

Hey PKD fans,

I read John's scripts for VALIS and "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said". John's a genius (a Harvard graduate) and his partner on the PKD projects is one of my best friends, and has more integrity than anyone I know in Hollywood! PKD couldn't be in better hands!

 

[biodroid]

Looks like a made for TV movie

 

[scarymonster]

Hey PKD fans,

I read John's scripts for VALIS and "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said". John's a genius (a Harvard graduate) and his partner on the PKD projects is one of my best friends, and has more integrity than anyone I know in Hollywood! PKD couldn't be in better hands!

Thanks for the information and please keep us updated.