Film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[eggman]

well said

 

[L2R]

imo, this film is a rare example where it is greater (for me) than the source material. i know i'm in the minority in saying this but it is truely how i feel.

predominantly my reasoning is that i have no frame of reference when it comes to the united states in the early 70's, which the writings take for granted. the film superbly fleshes the era out for me, an australian born several years after the story is set.
and i terry gilliam

 

[Rated E]

imo, this film is a rare example where it is greater (for me) than the source material. i know i'm in the minority in saying this but it is truely how i feel.

predominantly my reasoning is that i have no frame of reference when it comes to the united states in the early 70's, which the writings take for granted. the film superbly fleshes the era out for me, an australian born several years after the story is set.

This is a good point. Obviously it is this way because the book was actually written in the 70's, and so assumed that the reader was aware of the context. While the movie was made recently, and the context has been set for us.

 

[eggman]

^ a la American Psycho for similar reasons

setting and era

good point L2R

 

[clamjuice]

classic drug movie, but i mean i cant say its a classic or anything. Its good for drug lovers, but after a few watches you realize youd much rather do drugs than watch people pretend to be on drugs.

 

[Luchia]

I know a lot of people that watched this movie while tripping. Any thoughts about this movie.

Another great movie on acid is Joes Apartment. "Funkey towel, towels got the funk!"

 

[the_ketaman]

This movie is a classic for sure, might go rent it out now.

 

[Rated E]

Do et.

 

[lolitsjohn]

^ I disagree. So did the author (Thompson).

Thompson said "Yeah, I liked it. It's not my show, but I appreciated it. Depp did a hell of a job. His narration is what really held the film together, I think. If you hadn't had that, it would have just been a series of wild scenes."

Not exactly a rave review of Loathing (although he said better of it than the critics ever did).

I think the movie is just a series of wild scenes. That's OK in terms of the book because Thompson's language strung together an otherwise (at times) erratic plot. The film did have a couple hilarious scenes (i.e. The flooded hotel room).

On a somewhat unrelated note, my favorite line from the book had nothing to do with drugs at all. It went "The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war." For me, Thompson's book was a better exploration of inventive literary technique than it was of drugs usage. Kerouac, though, was a better writer in my opinion.

 

[cornollio]

yeah its an artistic rendition of the book for sure, it has a lot more subtleties than most people really even understand..and draws parallels to the book in a more metaphorical way. it leaves almost too much to vagueness to be understood without knowing the real story

 

[Rated E]

Thompson said "Yeah, I liked it. It's not my show, but I appreciated it. Depp did a hell of a job. His narration is what really held the film together, I think. If you hadn't had that, it would have just been a series of wild scenes."

Not exactly a rave review of Loathing (although he said better of it than the critics ever did).

I was working with a source that had Thompson's opinion of the movie to be a very different one to that. Of course my source was from 1998, so it may have been in his best interest to speak favourably of the film.

Have you got a link to anywhere that he was quoted saying that by the way?

 

[EmuBitter]

i would give this movie 100 stars if i could.

limes what limes?
i know they dont grow out here in the dessert.

 

[EmuBitter]

i would also recommend the book.

 

[noone1]

So what did everyone think of the authors commentary on the criterion collection? I found it incredibly insightful, but painful. No wonder Thompson killed himself the drugs where really catching up to him, he could barely string together sentences. Most of it I guess was being old but he was only in his 60's he sounded/looked like 80.

I'm not really so sure about the messages and all that but at least Thompson lived life to the fullest. His message about Leary was dead on though, Leary was an asshole. But so was Thompson, at least he admitted it and never tried to steer anyone into a cult or a cult of personality. Which is why many people still worship him irregardless.

Damn writers strike putting the rum diaries back... wonder if it will ever get made at all. I'd like to see a booze fueled movie rather than a drug fueled one because we've already got fear and loathing for that.

 

[Callmesupathato]

Hunter Thompson was a brilliant writer, with a strong unique prose style. unfortunetely most people only associate him with using drugs and Fear and Loathing.


"buy the ticket, take the ride"

 

[TheodoreRoosevelt]

I thought this was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. Right on par with Jacob's Ladder in how bad it was.

Truly a crappy movie, it's only hyped because it has two great actors (Depp, which in my opinion is okay, but Benicio Del Torro always is great) and the subject matter.

Any movie that tries to simulate a drug trip is horrible, and just a product of inept writers. It's the same as doing a dream sequence in a movie - writers do it because they have no clue how to end the movie or make it meaningful, so they turn it into a dream/trip sequence.

 

[Rated E]

Any movie that tries to simulate a drug trip is horrible, and just a product of inept writers.

It is?

It's the same as doing a dream sequence in a movie - writers do it because they have no clue how to end the movie or make it meaningful, so they turn it into a dream/trip sequence.

That's a major generalisation.

Fear and Loathing is a drug movie, representation of drug trips happen throughout. I doubt that they are used because the writers didn't know how to end the movie, or because they didn't know how to make it meaningful, or even because they were "inept".

I'd like to know why a movie can't be about drugs? Does there have to be something more? Drugs seem like a plenty expansive enough topic to cover.

As I see it, the meaning of Fear and Loathing is chaos. The meaning is that there is no meaning. But Raoul is on a constant search to find it. A couple of lines stood out in regards to this:

Raoul Duke: 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.

Raoul Duke: 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.

Notice how the movie gets more and more incoherent, and makes less and less sense as it progresses. Finally peaking right near the end of the movie when Raoul is in the hotel room, having flashbacks, which are presented in a way that conveys nonsense and a building sense of impending chaos (eg. it starts with a conversation in a bar about purchasing an ape, and after a few more progressively more intense flash backs, suddenly he is running into the same bar while it seems to be collapsing screaming "where's the ape?".)

To say that 'drug trips were just used because the writers didn't know how to put meaning into the story', is kinda either missing the point of the movie, or getting it in an odd sort of way.

 

[ego_loss]

I thought this was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. Right on par with Jacob's Ladder in how bad it was.

To say that two big budget movies made by accomplished, respected people are two of the worst movies you have ever seen suggests to me that you have only ever seen five or six movies in your life.

That or you have really shitty taste in movies.

Either way, your points of view don't hold much water.

ANY movie that tries to simulate a drug trip is horrible? A product of inept writers? I agree that there are a lot of movies that get the whole experience way wrong, but you need to learn a thing or two about the basic concepts of film before you go around labeling ANY movie that tries to convey something as intangible as a drug trip through traditional visual and audio methods. Sometimes it is done with a shitload of heavy symbolism. Sometimes it's the cliched psychedelic imagery. Sometimes it's done with clever camera work and editing.

No one way is the "right" way, and declaring that anyone who tries is inept displays your ignorance on the subject, not to mention a complete lack of respect for the art of film making.

 

[cravNbeets]

classic drug movie, but i mean i cant say its a classic or anything.

ummm didnt you just say it?

 

[ChemicalBeauty]

lol