Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher
Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher
| 24 April 2005 (USA)
Watch Free for 30 Days

Stream thousands of hit movies and TV shows

Start 30-day Free Trial
Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher Trailers

Lonnie Frisbee was a young hippie seeker fully immersed in the 1960s counter culture when he claimed to have experienced an encounter with God while on an acid trip. This event so transformed him that Lonnie became an itinerant Christian evangelist, something of a John the Baptist of Southern California who compelled thousands of fellow spiritual seekers to make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. During the 1970s Lonnie Frisbee became widely known as California's "hippie preacher," the quintessential "Jesus freak" whose pictures frequented such magazines as Time and Life as the media told the story of a burgeoning "Jesus movement." Lonnie Frisbee provided the charismatic spark that launched the Calvary Chapel church into a worldwide ministry and propelled many fledgling leaders into some of the most powerful movers and shakers of the evangelical movement.

Reviews
Laikals

The greatest movie ever made..!

Breakinger

A Brilliant Conflict

mraculeated

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

View More
Keeley Coleman

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

View More
jm10701

Others have described this unusual movie better than I can. I'll just add that the extras video on the DVD is essential. It's almost as long as the very short movie itself is. It actually contains a lot more information than the movie does because it leaves out the obscure, annoying and completely irrelevant songs that pepper the movie and eat up at least a third of its under-one-hour run time. The only sad thing about the extras video is that it adds an ugly, bitter, deluded side to his otherwise interesting and sympathetic wife Connie (I love her for being outraged at Chuck Smith's egregious smugness at Lonnie's funeral).I'll also add that I am myself a gay Christian (very emphatically and uncompromisingly both), a year older than Lonnie Frisbee. My life too has been entirely transformed by Jesus (who loves gay men, by the way) and informed and infused by the marvelous Holy Spirit, and I too passed through Calvary Chapel along the way. For some reason I survived the experience that fatally wounded him, but then I was never on the front lines in the same way he was, as Jesus was, and as surprisingly few others have been.I had never heard of Lonnie Frisbee (Smith and his disciples have very successfully purged him from their history), so I'm grateful to this movie for introducing us. I love and admire and thank Lonnie for all he did, and I'm eager to meet him face to face before too much longer. He's better off now than any of us are.

View More
coughlin-2

I originally liked this movie.I am a student of Christian revival, as I am praying and working for revival myself, and this movie filled in some missing information for me regarding one of the few movements in modern times that comes close to being a revival. I watched it three times, paying very close attention to what might be useful to me and others who have a heart for bringing people to Jesus.I was grateful for this documentary, until the same writer/director came out with his next documentary film, Fallen Angel: The Outlaw Larry Norman. This film cast doubt on the integrity of the filmmaker and consequently cast doubt (for me) on the credibility of his first film, Frisbee.You see, I was a close personal friend of Larry Norman and his family for the last 30 years of his life, and can personally attest to the character of David Di Sabatino's work. In his movie about Larry Norman he clearly had an agenda to convey a particular storyline about Larry and set out to manufacture support for his views. Not only did he not include diverging viewpoints (that is, anything that portrayed Larry in a favorable light), but he ignored contradictory evidence and eyewitness testimony when it was offered to him, and he even spliced together statements from those who appeared in the film to make them sound worse than they were. In short, it was a hit piece.I didn't know Lonny Frisbee, and was not around to see the historical events of that Calvary Chapel movement unfold. I am entirely dependent on the integrity of those who would tell what happened, that I might trust their words and their work. I have absolutely no confidence in this filmmaker to tell the truth. In fact, I have ample reason to think he uses his work to try to distort the truth for his personal agenda.

View More
David Hampton

Stunning and revealing! The struggle between the flesh and the spirit has been and will continue to be a powerful motif in film, art, and humanity. Johnny Cash, Martin Scorsese, the list goes on... And now Lonnie Frisbee. Literally erased from Christian revivalist history because he struggled with homosexuality. His story is truly powerful, and quite an inspiration to the mild and weak movement that Christianity has become in comparison to the movement Frisbee started among the counterculture of the 60s. Watch this film, whether you're a Christian or not...it speaks on all levels.

View More
jeff jefford

This movie challenged my preconceived ideas about the man GOD uses. A comparison can be made with the likes of John the Baptist and his fire for GOD to preach the gospel message & the lure of sin and the depths it can take you similar to the life of Samson. I would recommend anyone to see this film. Lonnie's influence affected the Christian world as we know it. Great 70's Christian Rock artists featuring the talents of Larry Norman , Randy Stonehill, Mark Heard, Agape & more! If you have not heard of these artists, you will enjoy discovering the talents of these hidden gems as it compliments the era of the film based in the 70's Jesus Movement. A must see!

View More