Gambling, Gods and LSD or I Want my 3 Hours Back

I just finished watching a 3 hour long documentary called "Gambling, Gods and LSD" that I had wanted to rent for a while after coming across it at the video store. The back of the DVD case described the film as an exploration of humankind's desire for transcendence or something like that. It made the movie out to be a journey though how different cultures search for meaning in their lives. It sounded really interesting. Man was I wrong. First of all, it was FAR too long. There was no need for it to be 3 hours. The film would have been MUCH better at 90 minutes. There was a lot of pointless and useless footage that had nothing to do with the central theme. Second of all, it wasn't really much of an exploration into anything as much as it was a travelogue of the filmmaker. It only had the occasional voice over, which was good because the ones that it did have were horrible. The filmmaker seemed to be attempting to get across what he was feeling and how it related to what the film was showing, but instead he came across as a pretentious poet-wannabee. There were so many times I felt like saying "dude, shut the hell up and let the film talk for you." In fact, I did say that... to who... well... no one I guess. Man, that movie made me mad because the theme had so much potential and it was wasted. If you want to see an infinitely better film on a similar subject, watch "Baraka." SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better. ARGH!