Monday September 29, 2003
Michael Rechtshaffen


GO FURTHER
Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO - Having already tackled such wide-ranging topics as comic books, poetry, dance crazes and marijuana, Canada's leading counterculture chronicler, Ron Mann, decided to tag along with actor, eco activist and professed hemp-o-phile Woody Harrelson on his awareness building Simple Organic Living Tour.

The resulting "Go Further" is an agreeably goofy road movie of a documentary that chronicles the exploits of Harrelson (who narrated Mann's "Grass") and his similarly enlightened cohorts as they make their way down the Pacific Coast on a bio-fueled bus spreading the eco-gospel.

Aside from preaching the joys of a sustainable lifestyle and the dangers of processed foods - Harrelson warns of the blood and pus that can be found in the milk of hormonally altered cows - "Go Further" generally eschews the scare tactics of a Michael Moore documentary.

Instead, the film takes a mellow en route, with Woody and his colorful band of Merry Hempsters stopping along the way to visit with a guy who sells worm tea (a chemical free fertilizer) and hear a band that recruits members of the audience to power their instruments by riding stationary bicycles.

They also pay a visit to the late Ken Kesey, whose rusting psychedelic Merry Pranksters bus provided the inspiration for the trek, while the likes of Natalie Merchant, The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, Red Hot Chilli Pepper Anthony Kiedis and Dave Matthews are among those who pop by to perform some of environmentally friendly tunes.