Fantastic Fungi

I just watched this last night.  It has amazing visuals, and lots of interesting information.  Makes me want to know more about some of the things like varroa killer mycelium, etc that are being researched.

I just finished watching this.  Wow!  Those are some amazing and beautiful time lapse images!  Lots of good inspiring information.  It certainly helps support the idea that life on the planet can survive human folly if it needs to.  Though also that mycelium is a whole other realm we are only just beginning to explore and understand which we can work with to help ensure we do remain here.  

It does inspire me to start doing more with mushrooms.  I really need to try growing some of the edible varieties.  This year at the local farmers market there is one fellow who sells mushrooms, oyster, shitake, and a few others.  I often get there just as the market is closing do to how my schedule works that day.  I will buy some when I can, but so often he is completely sold out by the end of the market.  Not really a surprise since his prices are actually slightly less than most grocery stores and the quality is so much higher.  In the movie one of the people noted that fresh harvested mushrooms were so much better than what is usually found in stores.  I have to agree based on this experience with the farmers market.

Understanding how mycelium connects everything and helps share nutrients and information also reinforces why tilling soil can be so damaging.  It's not that the fungi won't recover and rebuild the connections.  It just takes time to do so.

Good movie.  I can think of a couple people I should share this with who would really enjoy and get something from it.

This film was a good watch - not much new info for me, as I've been trekking with Stamets for a while now.  Having Suzanne Simard anchor the forest stuff was an excellent choice. Her work is truly revolutionary and transformative. It was also great to see my dude William Padilla Brown on the silver screen next to Stamets and Pollan. I think in many ways, low-tech fungi cultivation R&D is the wave of the future (as you're aware, if you've seen my home-grown mycelium insulation panels thread.

I am an audio engineer with film experience, and this film is high quality enough that I want to go ahead and give it the proper technical critical analysis.
*My overall reaction is really positive - like others, it left me wanting to grow more mushrooms, and know my fungal community more intimately.  Mission accomplished - 9/10 there.
*As a piece of moving imagery - 8/10.  Really incredible and effective time-lapses.  Interview cinematography and other b-roll was just adequate.
*Graphics - 6/10.  Cool in places, but a bit overdone.  Usually heavy-handed approaches (like glowing representations of CO2) will wind up making a film feel dated relatively quickly.  A little too much old-school NOVA, and not enough Terrence Malick.  
*Audio editing, score, and mix - 4/10.  NUmerous audible blips in the voiceovers, levels were a bit inconsistent, and music left me wanting more.
*Script - 8/10.  Pretty clear and effective.  I like the 70-minute length.

My kiddos really liked it as well.  The time-lapses left them enraptured.  Granted, they know a lot of these mushroom species because, well, I'm their dad. They thought the primates eating poop mushrooms were hilarious.

Overall, a great introduction to these concepts in a package that can appeal to a very broad cross-section.

(Geeky side-note: I think it's kinda cool that the thread ID # for the film thread here on permies is 188888.  Kinda looks like 1 and a bunch of infinities, which kinda makes me think of the unity and neverendingness of the fungal kingdom.)

Enjoyed it.  It wasn’t new information for me, very nice to revisit.

When I talk about mycorehabilitation , I tell people that mushrooms have the ability to create enzymes appropriate to breaking down any carbon based molecule they encounter.  The film just breezed over that in a “nanosecond”.  I think they could have developed that theme, or elaborated on that a little more, to great effect.  Still, nice to see so many great people together in one place.

This was worth watching for the stunning time-lapse footage. An absolutely beautiful film.

I didn't learn anything new from it, though I believe general audiences would.

I think they missed the opportunity to tell people exactly what things other than mental health can be improved with improved knowledge of mushrooms. While the mental health benefits are obviously huge and could have a huge impact on society,  They didn't really talk about Paul Stament's cancer research, instead focusing on relieving anxiety in cancer patients--not relieving cancer.
And as Thekla said, the potential for cleaning up the nightmare waste we've created in the last 100 years.

But hopefully, this film will be seen by a lot of average joes and peak some of their interests and lead them to learn more.

Unfortunately (a robot working for) Louie Schwartzenberg sent me an email asking if I saw the therapy scene.

It is troubling to me that barest mention was given to mycoremediation and so much focus on psilocybin therapy, which is miraculous, but the anthropocentric valuing of psychedelic therapy for individuals should not be our whole or major focus.

I’m disappointed.

Wanted to watch this as an old Stamets fan, but I don't live in the U.S. and my IP is flagged as a consequence. Hmmm maybe it's time to set up that VPN.

We watched this several days ago, and absolutely loved it.  Some of it t was not new information to me, but I did learn quite a bit.   I had known for quite a while that trees could 'communicate' with each other, but I never knew the role that mycelium played in that.  Fascinating.  I experimented quite a bit with psylocibin in my college days, before it was illegal.   Nice to know that it's now being researched again.  I also never knew about 'poop mushrooms'!!

I also saw some very interestingly shaped mushrooms I hadn't known about before.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth it.  

Thanks for posting this - it's been on my list to watch

Thank you for posting this. I just watched it, enjoyed it. Really cool timelapses.

Looks like there's about 15 hours left to watch for free.

https://fungi.foodrevolution.org/?uid=13&oid=3&affid=405&sub1=ffmt

Marc Brun wrote:Wanted to watch this as an old Stamets fan, but I don't live in the U.S. and my IP is flagged as a consequence. Hmmm maybe it's time to set up that VPN.

I was worried about this happening as I live in Mexico, but it worked just fine without a VPN. Maybe it was North America specific.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I'd have loved more new-to-me information. There was new info, though. I knew about some of the therapy, but not all, and while I would have loved more on the global reclamation, the depth of the human therapy potential is astounding.
In fact, I bought it (not the whole package, just the movie), so I can watch it again, wait a week and watch again, and keep on until I've absorbed it all. Apparently, I'm a sucker for beautiful time-lapse photography. But, I also have enough family & friends with physical and emotional issues that could be greatly helped, by it.

I just watched it, Aug. 3, and it said 3 more days to watch it. So the time is not over. Wonder when or if it will end. I remembered watching it a couple of years ago after it started reeling.

I've seen it a few times already and throughly enjoyed it. So I figured I'd see if I could check the link so I can watch it with my neighbors after game night tonight and it seems to still work free for 3+ days if you submit your email or just pay $7 bucks if you don't want to give it your email.  So cool!!