Fear and loathing in Las vegas...

Pen0s

what a crazy film, but can anyone tell me whats the point(if there is one)

this is just one of those films to sit back an get blunted too, its too funy!

steveland?

It was originally a book by Hunter S. Thompson (who killed himself recently)... it's road trip story and he actually did all the things he describes...

Pen0s

steveland? wrote:

It was originally a book by Hunter S. Thompson (who killed himself recently)... it's road trip story and he actually did all the things he describes...

yes i have the book its pretty much the same as the film.... the drugs are insane, i had heard of only about half of them!

good watch though

mycroft

Pen0s wrote:

what a crazy film, but can anyone tell me whats the point(if there is one)

this is just one of those films to sit back an get blunted too, its too funy!

The book is a requim for the 60s, the postive and wild side, and the slow descent into unpleasant drug fueled nastiness. The true heart of the film is the speech depp makes while Bennito is passed on in the bath tub. The whole "with the right kind of eyes, and the right kind of light you can see the high watermark."

Juggalo

It's my favourite film ever. People can really put their own meaning on the movie, which is unique.

Zulu

He's a jourilist covering a desert race, while taking sh1t loads of drugs.
Great book. Great movie.

Steveire

Seems to me the point of it is to be pessimistic about that drug scene. See, he starts off on the road, and he just ends up right back on it bby the end. Very little has changed, and he has no idea what's been going on around him.

Armen Tanzarian

Welcome to the wonderful world of drugs

Crackin film, hilarious and it gives us something to aspire to

solo1

It's one of my favourite movies too (I've already made the 'Only Terry Gilliam could ... ' speech on another thread). You can look on the movie any way you like. You can see it as two complete retards on a wild weekend. Or you can see it as a chronicle of the birth of Gonzo journalism. Or you can take it at its own word - it's a "savage journey to the heart of the American dream".

There are some recurring themes in the movie, which don't really shed any light on the "point", but bear noticing.

Firstly, no matter how ****ed up they get on their crazy-pills, there is always some part of the real world that is even crazier: "no one should be asked to handle this trip".

Secondly, at no point does either of them question the effect the drugs are having on their social and mental coherence. They always find something or someone else to blame for their riotous behaviour: "why do they have to make that mescaline so ****ing pure".

Thirdly, there is an over-riding paranoia and fear of authority figures, but when Dr. Duke is actually forced to interact with "them", they are nothing but nice to him, sometimes going out of their way to help him: "I'm very lonely out here".

Fourthly, there is no character development whatsoever. I've never seen a movie with so little character development. It's great.

The main reason I like this movie is because almost every line is quotable. Again, apart from maybe Spinal Tap, I don't know of any movie that has so much quotable dialogue.

"Let's get down to brass tacks: how much for the monkey."

By the way, the DVD special edition has a commentary by Hunter S. Thomspon and a rather amusing 1978 BBC documentary following HST and Ralph Steadman trying to option a movie.

Boston

Maybe withnail and I for quote's and lack of a point. Loved the film, though my favourite bit is an outtake thats on the dvd, where they pretend to be cops and start talking about stoner crimes.

mycroft

Armen Tanzarian wrote:

Welcome to the wonderful world of drugs

Crackin film, hilarious and it gives us something to aspire to

actually read thompson's collected letters the original story was not covered by two drug alded loons, it was an attempt to capture the concept of two people trying to capture what was going and drawing on multipile drugs experiences.

It's one of my favourite movies too (I've already made the 'Only Terry Gilliam could ... ' speech on another thread). You can look on the movie any way you like. You can see it as two complete retards on a wild weekend. Or you can see it as a chronicle of the birth of Gonzo journalism. Or you can take it at its own word - it's a "savage journey to the heart of the American dream".

Actually Gilliam never did take acid. The first film version stared bill murray, and Alex Cox was the original director of Fear n Loathing. It's on my list of films I'll never get to see but would really like to do see, (see Richard Stanley's version of the Island of Dr Moreau. Welle's version of Don Quioxte, and Kevin Smith's SW episode 1)

ykt0di9url7bc3

The movie revovles around Thompson trying to make sense of what had happened on his drug filled road trip...

When you see Thompson trying to fix his tape-recorder at the end of the film before he gets out of town, now sober he doesnt know what was real... but he moves on anyway

A lot of the character developement is pushed quickly where thompson\Gonzo is sober but automatically resets itself once he's back on the drugs, and when he's out of his head it turns to a commentry of American life from his drugged\mashed perspective...

As any real point to the story

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

How far can you can these two guys push thier luck on a trip to Las Vegas
(imho)

My Fav Quote

Raoul Duke: But our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character. A gross physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country. But only for those with true grit.
[to hitchhiker]
Raoul Duke: And we are chock full of that, man

mycroft

Jett Tinkling Pinto wrote:

The movie revovles around Thompson trying to make sense of what had happened on his drug filled road trip...

And again. This trip never Happened. As Thompson described it. It's a hyperbole artistic realism version of events. To Quote "the man who shot liberty valance" if history doesn't fit, print the lie. Thompson admited that the story never happened as written. It could never have happened. It's not biography it's fiction. People who claim that it was real are more interested into the fiction of thompson rather than the truth. Some of the best press about thompson was written in the wake of his death.

"I'm in a hotel room in Chateau Marmond, I've done too much coke, and I'm anout to Interview Iggy Pop. FUUUUUUCCCKKKK. 8 hours later (c'mon 8 hours later unless you're od'ing you're grand) a couple of whiskey sours and some valuim I'm sitting by the pool waiting for iggy. Every wannabe punk n music/ and "wild" journalist wants to claim the mans mantel.

Did you know he used to sit infront of a typewriter and copy pages of faulkner, hemmingway and fitizgerald to get a sense of their prose. There's an attitude among some brand of asshole that they do enough drugs and spout some attitude they'll be like him. "when the going gets tough the weird got pro" The man roamed the jungles of south america before it was sane, never mind fashionable, he did his stint in time, and worked in the army, and spent months with the hells angels when they where seen as the fifth angel of the apocayplse, and then wrote fear n loathing, and then wrote his best work.He was more than drugs, and getting f*cked up with the boys, There was a point. He did some of the most profound and insightful political commentary in the US in his peek.

ykt0di9url7bc3

mycroft wrote:

And again. This trip never Happened. As Thompson described it. It's a hyperbole artistic realism version of events. To Quote "the man who shot liberty valance" if history doesn't fit, print the lie. Thompson admited that the story never happened as written. It could never have happened. It's not biography it's fiction.

It is a work of fiction and I know the trip never happened... Its thompsons unique expierences\insights that draw into the book and subsequently the film... but I point out as a story, the character thompson is trying to make sense of what had happened on his drug filled road trip...

Most people cling to the fashionable ideas of what events\points that this movie brings up (for example, the drug filled rampage of life on the wild side) but there are some amazing insights to ideas\ideals of American life\culture at the time....

I should have properly spilt my opinions basing them on the side of author or character...

Jett Tinkling Pinto wrote:

As any real point to the story

Oh wait I did :rolleyes:

Victor

It is a journey. Not all journeys go somewhere.

solo1 wrote:

Fourthly, there is no character development whatsoever. I've never seen a movie with so little character development. It's great.

Nine Songs :rolleyes:

solo1

And again. This trip never Happened.

Yeah it did. Sure, he exaggerated some parts of it, but the basic story is true. He was sent to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, he did wreck the hotel room, and his rental car, he did take his lawyer (whose real name was Oscar Acosta), and he was sent to the DA drugs conference too ... all the important bits are true. He just worked around it, exaggerating some parts. He is on record as saying that anyone who believes they took that many drugs must be insane.

But he also tells a story about how that picture of Oscar Acosta and himself got on the back of the first edition of the book ...

Gyck

I thought Johnny Depp did a great job, it must have been difficult to get into (or out of) the mind of someone like Thompson. He did a pretty good job in Ed Wood too.

Victor

http://www.doonesbury.com/

Read from 7 March 2005 on

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20050307

mycroft

Victor wrote:

http://www.doonesbury.com/

Read from 7 March 2005 on

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20050307

See I wasn't that impressed with the eulogy, it seemed half assed at best. I'd have liked him to have seen Mike take out the character. There was only one brown buffalo.

Though I did like

"I swear if putting wine in a soda can catch's on I swear I'll take out Michael Jackson myself."

mycroft

solo1 wrote:

Yeah it did. Sure, he exaggerated some parts of it, but the basic story is true. He was sent to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, he did wreck the hotel room, and his rental car, he did take his lawyer (whose real name was Oscar Acosta), and he was sent to the DA drugs conference too ... all the important bits are true. He just worked around it, exaggerating some parts. He is on record as saying that anyone who believes they took that many drugs must be insane.

But he also tells a story about how that picture of Oscar Acosta and himself got on the back of the first edition of the book ...

No it's not based on a true story, he took a kernal of truth and then worked it beyond the scope of exaggeration into a whole new concept of journalism.

I'm aware of whom Oscar Ascota is. And his legal demands that forced thompson to change him from his Mexican lawyer, to Samoan.

So while a trip happened this trip never happened.

GadgetFiend

Having read it about 5 times I feel its kind of a cross between Heart of Darkness- instead of darkest Africa he is going into Vegas, and instead of looking for Mr. Kurtz he is looking for the "American Dream"- and a parody of the mayhem going on at the same time in Vietnam.

The Vietnam thing is picked up well in the film.

solo1

No it's not based on a true story, he took a kernal of truth and then worked it beyond the scope of exaggeration into a whole new concept of journalism.

He had already done that with a piece called "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved". This was just another instalment in the Gonzo files.

I'm aware of whom Oscar Ascota is. And his legal demands that forced thompson to change him from his Mexican lawyer, to Samoan.

Er .. that was nothing to do with Oscar Acosta. He is widely reported as not giving a **** what happened. The publishers (and Thompson himself) insisted that the name be changed. It was only when HST tried to get Acosta to sign a release that he learned that Acosta refused to sign a release unless he was identified - by his real name - at some point in the book. HST refused to re-write the whole thing, so they compromised by putting his picture on the back cover.

So while a trip happened this trip never happened.

Yeah, more or less it kinda did.

sleepwalker

first time i watched it i didnt really like it

but after a summer of reading a huge amount of hunter s thompson i enjoyed it alot more on 2nd viewing

Pen0s

"one toke over the line...."

theres a great bit in the book ,which i was dissappointed that they left out, its after they walk out of the confrence they both end up talking to a cop from down south somewhere and they come up with some crazy drug refrences about what they had to do i was actually laughing reading it!

mycroft

solo1 wrote:

He had already done that with a piece called "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved". This was just another instalment in the Gonzo files.

Are we having a HST geek knowledge pissing contest?

See the description in thompson's letters and Steadman's description, leads me to believe that it was more pure gonzo, they really did get that drunk and f*cked up, and Fear and Loathing in Vegas was an attempt at a controlled re-creation.

Er .. that was nothing to do with Oscar Acosta. He is widely reported as not giving a **** what happened. The publishers (and Thompson himself) insisted that the name be changed. It was only when HST tried to get Acosta to sign a release that he learned that Acosta refused to sign a release unless he was identified - by his real name - at some point in the book. HST refused to re-write the whole thing, so they compromised by putting his picture on the back cover.

You're right sorry, but wasn't Acosta looking for cash as well?

Yeah, more or less it kinda did.

Kinda, and sorta are the best description we're ever going to get.

Ever read Mailer's description of Thompson in the fight. he really comes off like an clueless confused punk.