One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Instant Favorite.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This adaptation of Le Guin's best book tells the intriguing story of a man whos dreams change reality and a psychiatrist who uses that gift/curse for his own ends.It's not a slick production, being mainly 2 or 3 people having conversations and some dream sequences that attempt to tell large stories with small special effects, but it's still very effective. The cast is solid, with the dreamer harried and the shrink increasingly monstrous as a man whose belief in his greatness is constantly belied by his actions and statements.I really like the overarching and philosophical take on grand solutions as well as small things like the way the future contains a benevolent-yet-uncaring bureaucracy.The biggest issue with the movie is the big end scene. It's not in any way clear what's going on. I first watched this movie with my dad on its original broadcast, and the only reason I understand the scene is because he, having read the book several times (he taught a class in sci-fi literature), knew exactly what was going on. I just watched the movie with my girlfriend, and even though she'd read the book a few months ago she found the scene as perplexing as I had. It's an unfortunate flaw in what is otherwise a very solid and thoughtful sci-fi flick. Still worth watching.

The Chinese poet, Zhuangzi, once wrote: "I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" The whole movie is kind of like that, only much more grounded in the real stream of behavior. The protagonist, Bruce Davison, is having trouble sleeping. Every once in a while he has what he calls an "effective dream," after which he wakes up to find that what he's dreamed has become the reality.So -- I'm going to keep this as short as I can -- so he goes to an oneirologist, a psychiatrist who specializes in dreams, Kevin Conway. Curious, the scruffy and ill-clad Conway hypnotizes Davison and assumes the ability to have Davison experience effective dreams. It doesn't take long before Conway arrogates the right to determine what those effective dreams will be. In other words, he can order Davison to change history and reality.As a sort of test run, Conway has Davison establish a vast institute of which he, Conway, is the chief. Gone is the scruffy haircut and beard, the threadbare sweater, the dark and tiny office. Now Conway has an entire jumbo building, fully staffed, at this disposal. At first his order to Davison are benign. "End the population explosion," for instance. But something always queers the deal. A plague eliminates two thirds of the world's people or something.I don't think I'll go into the plot any further except to say that the ending was confusing as all get out. There is a suggestion that Davison is actually dying after a nuclear war and that he's simply dreaming this last adventure, but nothing is made of it.Davison is just about right for the role. I think we can all recognize that not unlikable face and reedy voice. He's the kid who was a wimp in high school, who didn't stand out, whose only achievement was a good grade in plain geometry. And Conway, no matter how they barber him and dust him off, always looks a little bit villainous -- him and his bulging eyes and coffee-grinder voice.The lack of a gargantuan budget shows. Good use is made of the Dallas locations but the paucity of extras is noticeable. The visual fx are okay, as far as it goes, except that in the climax they only add murk to the goings on. What is a volcano doing in the middle of somebody's dream of peace -- or whatever the dream is supposed to be about? And how did Davison and Conway manage to get together in a final conflict in the same dream? Maybe Ursula K. LeGuinn's novel answers some of these questions. I've never read it. I've read just about everything by her old man, Alfred Louis Kroeber. It was he who, in my dream, advised me to become an anthropologist, which I did, forsooth.

Would you want your dreams to come true, even your nightmares? Based on Leguin's novel of the same name. George Orr discovers that his dreams come true except George isn't dreaming the future, his dreams are changing the past to create the future he dreams. Once George wakens, he is the only person to remember the alternative past, that is until he visits a psychiatrist who realizes the potential of George's dreams and sets out to 'right' the world with fantastic consequences.This film is full of ambiguous metaphor and allegory so that everyone seems to see something a little different. I found the movie a bit overlong but then I can't imagine it being a minute shorter. Because the original print was lost the movie looks pretty crappy with ghosting and graininess, but powerful themes don't need pretty pictures and Lathe of Heaven above all else is cautionary about being unsatisfied and forcing drastic change on the others. Ultimately we learn that despite how bad things are, they could be worse, much worse.The film takes some pretty bizarre twists with aliens that just come out of nowhere, well they come from George's subconscious. Pondering this I am reminded how powerful science fiction really was to the 70's and while most people only remember it for Star Wars and assume that everything else was trying to cash in, the 70's were really a treasure trove of interesting sci-fi and when the UFO subculture really reached it's height. Project Blue Book was published in 1976, Brad Steiger, Stan Friedman and others ignited the public's imagination. Close Encounters and Alien preyed on our hopes and fears respectively; and Star Trek was resurrected from the dead. So all in all it really wasn't that bizarre for George to be thinking about aliens because even though the film is set in 1998, it's very much a product of the 70's.The copy I watched had an interview with the author, Leguin, who declined to interpret the book/movie as she wasn't entirely sure of all the meanings both might hold. What was most interesting was her conclusions about George and Dr. Huber, particularly George whom she sees as a strong man but many others see as something of a weakling.

This film was the first film contracted by PBS and it really shows, as the movie had a minuscule budget. If you adjust for inflation, the film literally cost about as much as an Ed Wood, Jr. film to make! At times this shows, such as some liberal use of stock footage, minimalistic sets and negligible special effects---yet, oddly enough, the film is a pretty good sci-fi film. And when I say SCI-FI, I mean very deep and cerebral sci-fi. If you are looking for Darth Vader and cute little androids, this film is not for you--instead, it's set in the very near future and concerns a simple man with an incredible talent. Bruce Davison dreams and what occurs in the dreams actually become reality--as if everything we know to exist is totally dependent on his thoughts. If he dreams, for example, that you no longer exist, then you never really did! Because of his unique problem, Bruce consults with a scientist adept at working on dreams. However, each time this scientist tries to use the dreams to effect positive world change, the dream somehow backfires. A good example--when he wanted his patient to end overpopulation, a plague broke out and wiped out most of the inhabitants! Again and again, these attempts only make things worse.The film is an interesting blend of philosophy, existentialism and sci-fi. While it won't appeal to everyone, I at least appreciated how unique it was and how those involved tried to make something different. A noble effort that sometimes succeeds and often time fails--mostly due to a low budget. I wonder what this MIGHT have been like with a bit more money to make the aliens and some of the other plot devices not to incredibly cheesy.