Has anyone seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ?

If YES, did you like it ?


Z

One of my favorite movies. Have you read anything by Hunter Thompson. What was your take on the movie?

Jonny Depp was a great choice as The lead. The movie was fab. I read it first in 1970 as we were into Zap, Bizarre, Crumb stuff, Bored of the rings with Dildo + frito bugger, Goddam and Sorehead. It was a great era for spaced out journalism.

A friend who matured in the 80's watched F.A.L.I.L.V with me, and he said "Now I understand you". It was a unique time in history. The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test was a non fiction version of this , and should be made into a movie. Kesey and the Pranksters. Real gonzo journalism.

Do you think Hunter was murdered?

There are people who think that Hunter was murdered because of his research on the 9/11 attacks. Paul W Roberts claims to have spoken to Mr.Thompson the night before and quotes him as saying "THEY'RE GONNA MAKE IT LOOK LIKE SUICIDE...I KNOW HOW THESE BASTARDS THINK". Roberts wrote the book "A War Against Truth:An intimate account of the war in Iraq", amongst others. I really can't say for certain, but I would not rule out murder. Given his lifestyle, personality, and his life works...it is difficult to come to a solid conclusion. What do you think??

Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro were making a movie called "The Rum Diary" based on one of his earlier books. Do you know if this movie is still in production? The book was a fun read and would make an excellent picture. These two actors have great chemistry and it would be dissapointing to say the least if this film was not completed.

I read that the movie is still a go. It will be out this year, no date set yet. Nick Nolte is in it too.

On radio someone said he was about to expose some heavy pedophelia reaching the top of the Whitehouse. This was one of the principle reasons that he was done in.

He reportedly stuck a .45 caliber handgun in his mouth and shot himself while his wife listened on the phone and his son and daughter-in-law were in another room of his house. His lawyer for the past 15 years told the Boston Globe that he wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be blown out of a cannon across his ranch.

This is what he said about Iraq- "It was a very advanced, progressive country, had, what, 90% literacy, health care for the whole entire population. They were doing well, prosperous, high literacy. Many more book stores per capita in Iraq than there are in this country. Many. No more. We bombed their children. We killed their husbands and wives and we bombed them, and we saw her, and we're going to do it again. Just random killing like that, mass killing to force a population to get rid of Saddam so we can move in and take over and control the oil, God damn it, if that's not evil, I don't know what would be. You know, Bush, he’s really the evil one in here. Well, more than just him. We're the Nazis in this game, and I don't like it. I'm embarrassed and I'm pissed off. Yeah. I mean to say something and I think a lot of people in this country agree with me. A lot more never say anything. We'll see what happens to me if I get my head cut off in the next week by -- it's always unknown Bush [inaudible] strangers who commit suicide right afterward. No witnesses. They have a new kind of crime."

He became one of the country's best known young journalists in the late 1960s and early 1970s while working for Rolling Stone where his drug-induced books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail were first serialized. Thompson once said, "I hate to advocate weird chemicals, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone ... but they've always worked for me." Thompson identified the death of the American Dream as his reporter's beat. He called his style of writing "gonzo" journalism. He said, "Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long." In 1994 he wrote an obituary for President Nixon in Rolling Stone and titled it "Notes on the Passing Of An American Monster." While covering Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign Thompson wrote, "It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise."

Strange things happen all the time. My son brought my attention to Fear & Loathing just last week. We threw it in the player and let it rip. It was a wonderful experience, the best movie I've seen in a long time. I had to watch it again the next day, and again the third day. That's how good the movie is. Before the news of his death came through I had never heard of Hunter. I know I'll miss him now.

Just wait till that bastard starts seeing the bats ! Z

It's one of those films that you discover something new everytime you view it.

Talking about it, I went out and rented a copy. Me and the Missus are Gonna get Absorbed in it tonight. Adrenalchrone for all!

I read somewhere that Benicio was off the project (The Rum Diary). Have you heard anything about this?

I've been searching for some "Pink Adrenaline" for some time. No luck.

How about a fresh adrenaline gland to chew on?

There's nothing like a man in the depths of an ether binge.

Benecio, is he the producer. They have a new one, Bruce Robinson, who wrote the screenplay.

In an interview with Benicio Del Toro in a hungarian cultural magazine, he said that there was so much trouble around the Rum Diary project that he gave up and backed out. The reason was that he planned to direct it himself and he wasn't satisfied with the script and was looking for a new writer, but the rest of the crew involved in making of the movie so far was on another point of view and planned to move on..

No, haven't read anything from Hunter yet, except excerpts from F&LinLV and parts of the movie script. I was blown away by what I did read. His style is unique to anything I've ever read - very refreshing and straight to the bone.

As I mentioned above, I've had to watch the movie over and over since we first threw it in....trying to understand WTF the man is saying. I noticed there are a few obvious messages in the script - all of them quite audible / not mumbled. Don't ask which as I didn't take notes. Maybe next time. I'm thinking about putting on a movie night - similar to the ones I remember attending back in the wilder days in Ozland - we'd watch catch-22 for example - with 20 or so people in the living room on a hot summer night - sparingly clad bodies all over the place - hukas fired up and pizzas in the oven - open end in-depth exchanges - not knowing whos house or party it was - not caring.

this is the part of the script that explains it all :

DUKE (V/O)
Strange memories on this nervous
night in Las Vegas.
(he gets up, pours
himself a drink)
Has it been five years? Six? It
seems like a lifetime -- the kind
of peak that never comes again.
San Francisco in the middle sixties
was a very special time and place
to be a part of. But no
explanation, no mix of words or
music or memories can touch that
sense of knowing that you were
there and alive in that corner of
time and the world. Whatever it
meant.

THERE WAS MADNESS IN ANY DIRECTION,
AT ANY HOUR... YOU COULD STRIKE
SPARKS ANYWHERE. THERE WAS A
FANTASTIC UNIVERSAL SENSE THAT
WHATEVER WE WERE DOING WAS RIGHT,
THAT WE WERE WINNING. AND THAT, I
THINK, WAS THE HANDLE -- THAT SENSE
OF INEVITABLE VICTORY OVER THE
FORCES OF OLD AND EVIL. NOT IN ANY
MEAN OR MILITARY SENSE; WE DIDN'T
NEED THAT. OUR ENERGY WOULD SIMPLY
prevail. We had all the momentum;
we were riding the crest of a high
and beautiful wave...

So now, less than five years later,
you can go up on a steep hill in
Las Vegas and look west, and with
the right kind of eyes you can
almost see the high water mark --
that place where the wave finally
broke and rolled back.

We are all wired into a survival
trip now. No more of the speed
that fueled that 60's. That was
the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip.
He crashed around America selling
"consciousness expansion" without
ever giving a thought to the grim
meat-hook realities that were lying
in wait for all the people who took
him seriously...

All those pathetically eager acid
freaks who thought they could buy
Peace and Understanding for three
bucks a hit. But their loss and
failure is ours too. What Leary
took down with him was the central
illusion of a whole life-style that
he helped create...

... a generation of permanent
cripples, failed seekers, who never
understood the essential old-mystic
fallacy of the Acid Culture: the
desperate assumption that somebody...
or at least some force -- is
tending the light at the end of the
tunnel.

complete script here

One hell of a movie. Ad I thought there weren't any good American writers in our time. I was wrong....dead wrong. J