An awesome bit of news for those fans of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Criterion release of the film is coming to Bluray on April 26th! The Terry Gilliam film stars Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, based off of Hunter S. Thompsons novel of the same name.
It is 1971, and journalist Raoul Duke barrels toward Las Vegas—accompanied by a trunkful of contraband and his unhinged Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo—to cover a motorcycle race. His cut-and-dried assignment quickly descends into a feverish psychedelic odyssey. Director Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits, Brazil) and an all-star cast headlined by Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands, Donnie Brasco) and Benicio Del Toro (The Usual Suspects, Che) show no mercy in adapting Hunter S. Thompson’s legendary dissection of the American way of life to the screen, creating a film both hilarious and savage.
Here is a run down of the special features:
Digital transfer,...
It is 1971, and journalist Raoul Duke barrels toward Las Vegas—accompanied by a trunkful of contraband and his unhinged Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo—to cover a motorcycle race. His cut-and-dried assignment quickly descends into a feverish psychedelic odyssey. Director Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits, Brazil) and an all-star cast headlined by Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands, Donnie Brasco) and Benicio Del Toro (The Usual Suspects, Che) show no mercy in adapting Hunter S. Thompson’s legendary dissection of the American way of life to the screen, creating a film both hilarious and savage.
Here is a run down of the special features:
Digital transfer,...
- 2/22/2011
- by Marcella Papandrea
- Killer Films
-- Empire Online isn't technically a blog, but they do put together some reaully fun features. Features like "The 50 Greatest Movie Sequels," which pretty much speaks for itself. "Shrek 2" closes out the list, but the number one pick? Beating out "Godfather Part II" at number two, "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" at number six (Blasphemy!!!!) is James Cameron's "Aliens." Cameron gets two in the top 5, with "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" coming in at number three. (Empire Online)
-- Cinematical launched a new regular feature, Shelf Life, which takes a look back at movies that are more than five years old to judge whether the good ones hold up and whether the bad ones got an unfair condemnation. Their first pick? Sensibly (what with "Avatar" on the way), James Cameron's "Titanic." The verdict? You'll have to read the writeup to find out. (Cinematical)
-- If...
-- Cinematical launched a new regular feature, Shelf Life, which takes a look back at movies that are more than five years old to judge whether the good ones hold up and whether the bad ones got an unfair condemnation. Their first pick? Sensibly (what with "Avatar" on the way), James Cameron's "Titanic." The verdict? You'll have to read the writeup to find out. (Cinematical)
-- If...
- 9/3/2009
- by Adam Rosenberg
- MTV Movies Blog
By Aaron Hillis
Doc filmmaker Alex Gibney ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") made indie film headlines this past week after instigating a seven-figure lawsuit against ThinkFilm, who he claims botched the theatrical release of his recent Oscar-winning feature "Taxi to the Dark Side." If it weren't such a severe case of feeling wronged, one might be inclined to think it was an outlandish opportunity to promote his new film about an equally outlandish personality, "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson." Appropriately narrated by Johnny Depp, Gibney's portrait of the late, great Thompson . the pioneering first-person journalist and drug-loving iconoclast who committed suicide in 2005 . covers mostly the peak period of his career, from his dangerous embedding with outlaw bikers (1965's "Hell's Angels") through his Rolling Stone coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign ("Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"). Gibney spoke with me about Thompson's intricacies,...
Doc filmmaker Alex Gibney ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") made indie film headlines this past week after instigating a seven-figure lawsuit against ThinkFilm, who he claims botched the theatrical release of his recent Oscar-winning feature "Taxi to the Dark Side." If it weren't such a severe case of feeling wronged, one might be inclined to think it was an outlandish opportunity to promote his new film about an equally outlandish personality, "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson." Appropriately narrated by Johnny Depp, Gibney's portrait of the late, great Thompson . the pioneering first-person journalist and drug-loving iconoclast who committed suicide in 2005 . covers mostly the peak period of his career, from his dangerous embedding with outlaw bikers (1965's "Hell's Angels") through his Rolling Stone coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign ("Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"). Gibney spoke with me about Thompson's intricacies,...
- 7/16/2008
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
An hour long film covering the memorial of cult author Hunter S. Thompson is to be screened at the Starz Denver International Film Festival in Colorado on Saturday. When I Die is directed by Wayne Ewing and follows the planning and attempts to secure local government approval to blast Thompson's ashes into the sky from a 15-storey tower, as well as the memorial service itself. The Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas writer shot himself in the kitchen of his Owl Farm home in Woody Creek, near Aspen, Colorado, on February 20. He was 67. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired from a 150 foot tower, topped by the his 'gonzo' journalism symbol of a red fist with two thumbs. Celebrity friends, including Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, Sean Penn, Lyle Lovett and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band joined Thompson's widow Anita and 250 others at the private memorial in August, and watched his ashes join fireworks in the sky.
- 11/9/2005
- WENN
Screened
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Screened
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
CineVegas Film Festival, Las Vegas
Eighteen years in the making, Wayne Ewing's "Breakfast With Hunter" is an intimate verite portrait that honors its subject with fierce affection and respect.
Eschewing a talking-heads bio approach, the film assumes knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson's work but nevertheless serves as an incisive intro for the uninitiated. Among a cavalcade of luminaries, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and John Cusack make notable, decidedly non-glam appearances, clearly thrilled to be hanging out with the inventor and eminence grise of gonzo journalism.
As a friend, neighbor and colleague of Thompson, Ewing, whose television helming and DP credits include "Bill Moyers' Journal", "Frontline" and "Homicide", was afforded remarkable access.
The film- and DV-shot documentary had its world premiere June 21 as the closing-night selection of the CineVegas festival (with Thompson in attendance). It deserves further fest exposure and is a natural for docu-themed cable slots. The right distributor could parlay the writer's iconoclastic appeal into limited theatrical play for art house and college crowds.
Ewing centers on 1996-97, when Thompson was busy on three fronts: battling what he considered a political arrest in Aspen, Colo., on bogus DUI charges; making appearances at 25th anniversary celebrations of his 1971 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"; and, in the film's most compelling sequence, confronting creative obstacles to big-screen plans for that book, in the form of a profoundly misguided director and screenwriter.
During the round of 25th-anniversary tributes, those offering praise cover the political spectrum from P.J. O'Rourke to George McGovern, and Thompson's son, Juan, delivers a moving appreciation of his integrity and his place in American letters.
Reading Thompson's work to audiences, an amused Cusack, the gum-chewing, deadpan Depp and an exultant Roxanne Pulitzer present ample evidence of the author's moral clarity and the caustic humor and diamond-sharp prose with which he's raged against hypocrisy for more than three decades.
Here the soundtrack to those decades is replete with songs by Warren Zevon and the clink of ice in a tall glass of Chivas. The film's title refers to the prodigious all-nighters the director and other valiant stony warriors shared with Thompson, especially at Owl Farm, his "heavily fortified," peacock-friendly ranch near Aspen. There's a revealing glimpse of the friendship between Thompson and longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman when the artist visits the compound with an offering of rare Scotches and a startling revisionist assessment of his role in the author's work.
But the incident Ewing rightly puts center stage is the astounding meeting between Thompson and the team initially assigned to the film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- scripter Tod Davies and helmer Alex Cox, whose outlaw sympathies ("Sid and Nancy", "Straight to Hell") might have made him seem the right choice for the project. (They both received screenwriting credit, along with others, on the Terry Gilliam-directed 1998 film.) The would-be collaboration implodes when the duo earnestly present a ham-fisted visual concept for a key section of the book, a passage that Thompson accurately calls "one of the best things I've ever written."
Second only to Cox and Davies' mind-boggling literalness is the obduracy with which they cling to their dumb idea in the face of Thompson's reasonable objections and rising anger. Their self-destruction is fascinating to behold; later, watching tape of the incident in Thompson's Chateau Marmont suite, Del Toro can only marvel at their unwillingness to bend, or at least shut up.
The scene that unfolds recalls another memorable cinema verite moment: Donovan's humiliation at Dylan's hands in "Don't Look Back". But this exchange draws its power not from any casually sadistic streak on Thompson's part but from his clearheaded defense of his work against clueless marauders. "Breakfast With Hunter" is a convincing exploration of why that work matters.
BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER
Wayne Ewing Films Inc and Gonzo International
Credits:
Director/writer/producer/director of photograpy/editor: Wayne Ewing
Executive producer: Andrew Ewing With: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, John Cusack, Ralph Steadman, Juan Thompson, Jann Wenner, George Plimpton, Alex Cox, Tod Davies, Laila Nabulsi, Warren Zevon, Roxanne Pulitzer, George McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz, Douglas Brinkley, PJ O'Rourke, Lyle Lovett, Matt Dillon
Running time -- 92 minutes
No MPAA rating...
The fifth annual Vegas.com Cinevegas International Film Festival lineup is highlighted this year by the world premieres of First Look Pictures' Octane, Blockbuster's Sylvester Stallone starrer Shade and the Hunter S. Thompson documentary Breakfast With Hunter. Running June 13-21, the Cinevegas festival will feature 85 films representing eight countries and including 12 world premieres. Opening night will feature the premiere of Octane, which stars Madeline Stowe as a mother who must save her daughter from a bloodthirsty cult. It was directed by Marcus Adams. Closing the festival will be the crime drama Shade, which stars Stallone, Melanie Griffith and Gabriel Byrne and is set in the world of underground poker games and martini bars in Los Angeles. It was written and directed by Damian Nieman. Also closing the festival will be the premiere of director Wayne Ewing's Breakfast With Hunter, which chronicles Thompson's career interwoven with his struggle to bring his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to life as a feature film. Complete festival details are available at www.cinevegas.com.
- 5/23/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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