| | | "We Were Somewhere Around Barstow When the Drugs Began to Take Hold."
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Dolby, Dolby Digital (5.1), English
When a writing assignment lands journalist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and sidekick Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) in Las Vegas, they decide to make it the ultimate business trip. But before long, business is forgotten and trip has become the key word. Fueled by a suitcase full of mind-bending pharmaceuticals, Duke and Gonzo set off on a fast and furious ride through nonstop neon, surreal surroundings and a crew of the craziest characters ever (including cameo appearances by Cameron Diaz, Christina Ricci, Gary Busey and many others). But no matter wheremisadventure leads them, Duke and Gonzo discover that sometimes going too far is the only way to go.System Requirements:Running Time: 119 MinutesFormat: HD DVD
"...deeply satisfying...A cinematic masterpiece." Cintra Wilson, Salon.com
"Excruciatingly funny." J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
"...the look and feel of a picture that's destined for cult status." James Berardinelli's ReelViews
"...Depp who, as the story's antic, disgusting and seductive spirit guide, is impossible to look away from." Michael O'Sullivan, The Washington Post
"Does for psychedelics what "Boogie Nights" does for cocaine; displaying in graphical detail the ultimate failure of drugs as an escape route." Ron Wells, Film Threat
Editor's Note
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS is a whirlwind of a movie, a wacky, drug-laden story backed by a fist-pumping rock & roll soundtrack featuring everything from Wayne Newton and Tom Jones to Combustible Edison and Dead Kennedys. Journalist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) heads to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, bringing along his Samoan lawyer, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro), in this furious adaptation of the book by Hunter S. Thompson. It is 1971, and Duke and Gonzo are on their way to Sin City with a frightened hitchhiker (a nearly unrecognizable Tobey Maguire) and a trunkful of drugs, which they ingest nonstop. Depp is terrific as Duke, Thompson's alter ego, and Del Toro is a riot as the crazy lawyer. To perfect his Thompsonian performance, Depp spent a lot of time with the good doctor, and it paid off in a film that captures the frenetic pace of the counterculture novel. Director Terry Gilliam, a master of complex, bizarre visual imagery, has a field day interpreting the drug-hazed world in which Duke and Gonzo reside. An all-star cast chimes in with wonderfully offbeat bit parts, including Harry Dean Stanton, Gilliam regular Katherine Helmond, Flea, Cameron Diaz, Ellen Barkin, Christina Ricci, Gary Busey, Lyle Lovett, and others.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital TrueHD, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Audio: French, Spanish Dolby Digital Plus Stereo | | Deleted Scenes | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Featurette: Spotlight On Location | | Interactive Menus | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | This Is An HD-DVD Made For HD-DVD Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Technical Info
|
Release Information
| | Studio: Universal |
| Release Date: 9/26/2006 |
| Running Time: 119 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1998 | | Catalog ID: 31287 | | UPC: 00025193128720 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (1998) | | | Cannes Film Festival, Terry Gilliam, Golden Palm Award |
| Memorable Quotes| "I think I'm getting the fear."----Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) to Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) | | "There I am...uh, clearly I was a victim of the drug explosion."----Duke when he sees the real Hunter S. Thompson | | "Wait! We can't stop here! This is bat country!"----Duke to Dr. Gonzo |
|
| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...Fiendish intensity..." 06/25/1998 p.99Sight and Sound
"...FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS throws you straight into a demented cinematic 'acid test'..." 11/01/1998 p.48-9 Entertainment Weekly
"...A lucid hallucination. Depp again proves himself our most inventive actor....This movie isn't about drugs, it is drugs..." -- Rating: B 11/13/1998 p.82 New York Times
"...A fidelity to the author's hallucinatory imagery that until now seemed impossible to capture in a film. But here it is in all its splendiferous funhouse terror: the closest sensory approximation of an acid trip ever achieved by a mainstream movie..." 05/22/1998 p.E14 Total Film
"[A] shocking, funny and sad tale of idealism's demise en route." 07/01/2006 p.128 DVD Verdict 10 of 10
Many people complain that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a film that champions drug use and said substances' power to distort the main characters rather felonious reality into a rollicking frolic around Sin City...Sorry to say it, but Fear and Loathing fails to even properly champion narcotics. So ingrained in the PC Hollywood "just say no" mindset it sidesteps historical reality to sell a simple song, namely that drugs are only catalysts for catastrophe...Sure, it's funny to see Del Toro and Depp stumbling like a couple of inebriated jellyfish while in the throes of an ether high, but where are the moments when dope calms the nerves, removes the edge, and regains that free love hippie dippy dogma a whole generation had grooved on? Like a song by the Grateful Dead, this movie's depiction of drug use is one long, irritating jam session. Those who find Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a love letter to recreational pharmaceuticals need to get the prescription on their mental reading glasses readjusted. Each and every buzz here is severely harshed. - Bill Gibron
Eye Weekly 7 of 10
In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the 1971 account of his drug-addled trip to Vegas to cover a motorcycle race for Sports Illustrated, Hunter S. Thompson remarks that the '60s youth movement never solidified because the lower-class bikers and dopers couldn't help regarding the upper-middle-class antiwar activists as a bunch of chickenshit poseurs...Gilliam does stick fairly closely to the book, though even Thompson's gonzo prose seems curiously lifeless when broken down into small chunks and mumbled by Depp. The movie's chief strength, and saving grace, lies in Gilliam's acid-tinged, vaguely hallucinatory depictions of the aging Republican types crowding into the chintzy Vegas nightclubs and conference rooms. It's entertaining to watch, but sort of like settling for Tylenol #3 when mescaline had been promised. - Tom Lyons
|
| |
|
|
__USERID__
http://www.buy.com/prod/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-hd/q/loc/322/202808925.html
|
