Between Time and Timbuktu (1972)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Very well executed

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

As a Vonnegut fan, I loved the film. It was thrilling to see his character's come to life. I have issues about which of his stories were dramatized, but I will not nitpick about the film's interpretation, continuity, depth of character, etc. I am equally forgiving about "Slaughterhouse-Five", which did a good job in telling the jumbled story of Billy Pilgrim.I also enjoyed Bob and Ray's deadpan repetition of the phrase "Chrono-synclastic Infundibulum." It was another phrase which I happily memorized for the sheer joy of knowing it -- similar to "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!"

I saw this film one time and one time only, in a Sci-Fi Lit class in my senior year of high school in 1980. This made a big impression on me to this day. There were moments of joyful silliness (Walter Gesundheit is actually a double pun, if you are studying German, which I also was taking that year), and scenes of incredibly pure beauty. I found large parts of this movie promoted a philosophy of hope, which was very important to a (then) suicidal teenager. This film kept me out of the knife-room for MONTHS.I don't know where the teacher obtained the print, and if I could get a copy these days, I would without hesitation, even if I had to pay a lot. Quick, someone tell Mr. Vonnegut so it will be released.

If this movie was out on DVD, I would buy it today. My brother and I used to watch it every time it was on public television. I wish I could remember more of the plot. I remember it was funny, and poignant, and socially relevant. Please, somebody, release this movie for us fans!There was one "chapter" where the protagonist finds himself in a society where everyone is handicapped to the lowest level of ability, so no one will feel bad about not being good enough. Dancers wore big bags of sand, so they couldn't be more coordinated than their audience. The hero gets in trouble for insisting on letting people be who they really are. Maybe that's what I liked most about the movie, Vonnegut's insistence on the individual right to creatively express whatever they did best, at their best level of performance. It's not about perfectionism, but about expressing the gifts we are given.

My high school library had a copy of this video available on demand back in 1975. (We were pretty technologically advanced.) I'll bet I watched it 20 times. I can still hear Bob and Ray killing time on the air while they awaited news of Stony Stevenson's flight into the chrono-synclastic infundibulum. The echoes of Walter Cronkite were astounding.Stony's sudden arrival back on Earth in the middle of some unknown city and asking for a dime to make a phone call to report back in to NASA is one of the great comic bits I've ever seen. Is it satire of NASA or just a satirical joke by Kurt Vonnegut that man's exploration of space will take him to places he never expected? This made for TV production is certainly not really a 10 but it's not a 1 either and it should be made available at least for online downloading. In reality, it's probably a good 10 for Vonnegut fans and a 1 for everyone else.If anyone knows where to get it, I surely would appreciate hearing about it.