I caught it last Wednesday at a sneak preview.

The story is sort of anticlimactic and really wouldn't be very marketable to mass audiences.

Hunter S. Thompson does not appeal to the masses, but I'm sure he'd want it that way.

How 'bout a Hunter S. Thompson movie that's rated PG-13 ?

You might as well do a Cheech and Chong Movie with a PG-13 rating.


/"Where the Buffalo Roam" needs more love

Grown ups gave up going to the theaters a long time ago.

How about because most Johnny Depp movies suck?

Jake Havechek: Hunter S. Thompson does not appeal to the masses, but I'm sure he'd want it that way.

And a good portion of HST's audience don't care about him unless it's about "totally doing acid in Las Vegas, brah!!"

I would venture it's because the Rum is gone.

/Why's the rum gone?

Since this is the first time I have heard of it, maybe it needed more promotion.

Because the average movie viewer is about as clueless as the average music listener?

Perhaps 'Shrek Diary in 3D' would have been a better move to make.

Jake Havechek: Hunter S. Thompson does not appeal to the masses, but I'm sure he'd want it that way.

That's not true at all. He was the biggest attention whore on planet Earth.

If he was in a room and the conversation drifted away from him for so much as a second he would start honking at the top of his lungs until attention was returned to him.

He lived to be beloved by the masses.

i saw the movie and didn't think much of it, and the book is one of my favorite Thompson books, behind hells angels. The problem, IMO, is that what makes HST's books so good is that you get to read his thoughts. Depp did an OK job portraying Thompson, but without the inner thoughts of Thompson, the movie took too much time establishing who the characters were and by the time each was known, the movie was half over and boring.

I thought The Rum Diary was a good book, and that's precisely why I'm not going to go see Johnny Depp's interpretation of it.

Kinek: I would venture it's because the Rum is gone.

/Why's the rum gone?



/hot like cannon fire

Has ANY movie based on a Hunter Thompson book or story ever been a huge box office hit?
I love Hunter but most people just don't get him.

timujin: I saw the commercials and wanted to see it, but had no idea it had actually opened yet. Guess I'll be part of their second weekend tally.

That ^.

mitchcumstein1: Amber Heard.

[www.atlantis7.nl image 400x600]

Hate to say it because she's very pretty, and I actually kind of like her, but she is box office poison.

[i386.photobucket.com image 419x279]

[i386.photobucket.com image 300x420]

I mean, people wouldn't even tune in to watch her dress like this for more than a couple weeks. That's insane.

People don't go see movies for hot girls, and definately don't watch television for them. Why should they? They aren't going to get naked, so all it amounts to is a giant cock tease if the surrounding movie/show isn't any good.

Everyone has the internet, and it isn't lacking for just as hot girls with no qualms about losing their clothes.

mltain: How about because most Johnny Depp movies suck?

Wait a minnit. Once upon a time in Mexico was pretty meaty I thought. Granted Depp was 2nd fiddle to Banderas but that was a pretty good 2.5 hr escape. I won't go into the Pirates franchise, because just no....it's tired.

T.M.S.: Jake Havechek: Hunter S. Thompson does not appeal to the masses, but I'm sure he'd want it that way.

That's not true at all. He was the biggest attention whore on planet Earth.

If he was in a room and the conversation drifted away from him for so much as a second he would start honking at the top of his lungs until attention was returned to him.

He lived to be beloved by the masses.

Which is quite odd considering what an anti social twat he was.

The older audience (which expects quality and actually probably knows something about Hunter S Thompson, so is more likely to be disappointed) didn't like it. Not surprising because it was only loosely based on Thompson himself.

The younger audience (which can find more enjoyment in sheer debauchery) kind of liked it.

The ads SUCKED for attracting the right audience. First, it needed to say explicitly "This is about Hunter S. Thompson" just to get that group in the door. Then it needed to make it much clearer that there was crazy drugs and sex involved (to get the young people in the door). Then they needed to actually have a story. Failed at all 3.

GimpyNip: T.M.S.: He lived to be beloved by the masses.

That behavior isn't very appealing.

/HST fan...but the trailer was terrible. I can see why it made no money

He was not a very appealing person. You could not help but love him but he behaved like a three year old.

A drunk three year old on cocaine and hash.

The movie is not part of a "franchise." It was a novel that Thompson worked on years before he wrote the Fear and Loathing books.

If Depp reprised his "Vegas" role as Thompson on a movie based on "Campaign Trail '72" I would have been there day one.

GimpyNip: brigid_fitch: Probably because the trailers made no sense

That. Really one of the worst trailers I've ever seen.

Uh... Did you folks see the same trailer I did? Waking up hung over in Puerto Rico, smartass boss watching TV from another building, sitting on another dude's lap to drive a busted car... The humor alone sold me.

I'm a huge HST fan and I had no idea this movie was even being made, let alone had been released.

Somehow I suspect I'm not the only one.

GimpyNip: T.M.S.: He lived to be beloved by the masses.

That behavior isn't very appealing.

/HST fan...but the trailer was terrible. I can see why it made no money

Hunter was not a very appealing person. You could not help but love the guy but he behaved like a three year old.

A drunk three year old on cocaine and hash.

The reason I'm staying away is it seems like they just didn't do any justice to the book.

I truly loved the book and was very disappointed when I heard Depp was doing it. I love Depp, think he's a phenomnonal actor and believe his love for the source material is sincere, but he's just wrong for the part. In fact, everyone in the cast seems at least 10 to 15 years too old for their parts. And as soon as I saw the trailers, I knew they got it wrong and changed it up significantly. Its a very slow burn of a book, not very exciting, and the "story" is really just a diary of a period of time with no big events. Paul changes, but more slowly and almost in spite of himself. It isn't some crazed Hunter S. Thompson bender story, which it looks like they tried to make it, but rather a loving sort of recollection to a slower, more meandering time in a young writer's life. It isn't very exciting, but if it gets its hooks into you like it did me, its a very fulfilling book. But it really doesn't go anywhere and has no real arc, it just "is". And that is a hard thing to capture on film. Like some people adore Catcher In The Rye and others think it is a plotless, pointless P.O.S., the Rum Diary can really seem like a lot of boring drunkeness with next to no point, but for some, its a really cool coming-of-age-as-a-writer tale in an somewhat exotic yet impoverished land. Instead, it looks like a kooky, alcohol=soaked romp with a crazy intrigue plot and an over the top love triangle that was more a one-way street filled with ennui triangle in the book.

And interestingly enough, the director is the guy who did "Withnail & I", which is VERY similar in dynamics to the novel The Rum Diary ... and that's why its strange and sad that it seems he didn't capture that from what I've heard.

So I'm bummed that although it actually got made, it seems like they twisted it into something it really isn't.

Should have had Bill Murray star in it. About 20 years ago.

psutters: The problem, IMO, is that what makes HST's books so good is that you get to read his thoughts.

That's why I wasn't much moved by the movie version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What made HST great was his writing style, particularly before he lost his fastball. Strip away the juxtaposition of the decaying American Dream provided by the prose,and the film was nothing but a bunch of goof offs doing drugs in Vegas. Hardly groundbreaking stuff.

I'll wait for the dvd release to see it (which will hopefully be unrated)

like fear and loathing i'm guessing it will be more of a cult film and that's where all the money comes in, they didn't know how to market this film either though drinking is a lot more acceptable than hedonistic drug use

I am to take it that Depp doesn't do the HST style monologue voice overs like in Gilliams version? Because that is what made fear and loathing the movie.

Anyways I always thought the rum diaries novel was kind of shiatty to begin with it is a second novel that was edited for decades by the author before it was released. Hunter got all excited when it was going to film because he had pulled out earlier stuff from the novel that would work better on screen than on paper. Maybe he was just bullshiatting?

I will be really surprised if a movie staring Jonny Depp reprising HST and directed by Bruce Robinson of Withnail and I fame dissapoints me.

cefm: The older audience (which expects quality and actually probably knows something about Hunter S Thompson, so is more likely to be disappointed) didn't like it. Not surprising because it was only loosely based on Thompson himself.

The younger audience (which can find more enjoyment in sheer debauchery) kind of liked it.

The ads SUCKED for attracting the right audience. First, it needed to say explicitly "This is about Hunter S. Thompson" just to get that group in the door. Then it needed to make it much clearer that there was crazy drugs and sex involved (to get the young people in the door). Then they needed to actually have a story. Failed at all 3.

I suppose the ads should have said that if they wanted to just get people in the theater and/or that was the movie they made, but those first two things aren't true about the book. Paul Kemp is obviously and clearly a stand in for Thompson, but he really isn't him. If you've read Thompson's earliest works (like his stuff for Ramparts , his letters, everything before The Kentucky Derby piece), his true personality is on display and I don't feel Kemp and Thompson are the exact same. That might be a minor distinction up for discussion, but Thompson always made a point of saying Kemp wasn't him, so its a bit disingenuous to say The Rum Diary is about Hunter S. Thompson.

As to you second point, The Rum Diary can in no WAY be accurately described as having crazy drugs and sex involved. Hell, it has more of a summer camp romance vibe than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Its about aimless young writers in a dead end and possibly dangerous job with a very uncertain career future with a few parties and drinking jags tossed in occasionally. A typical weekend at a college is more "crazy drug and sex" filled than the book.

Your third point I'll agree with, and will actually confess is very much part of the appeal of the book for me ... the "story" really isn't much of a story at all. Just the last meandering days of a dying English language newspaper in 1950's Puerto Rico. A few things happen, an arrest, some people get drunk and beat up, so infidelity and listlessness, a young guy ponders his bleak future, he sorta changes, the end. And I LOVE IT!

Maybe it was the shiatty trailers that left you with no concept as to what the hell the movie was about.

Lt. Cheese Weasel: mltain: How about because most Johnny Depp movies suck?

Wait a minnit. Once upon a time in Mexico was pretty meaty I thought. Granted Depp was 2nd fiddle to Banderas but that was a pretty good 2.5 hr escape. I won't go into the Pirates franchise, because just no....it's tired.

T.M.S.: Jake Havechek: Hunter S. Thompson does not appeal to the masses, but I'm sure he'd want it that way.

That's not true at all. He was the biggest attention whore on planet Earth.

If he was in a room and the conversation drifted away from him for so much as a second he would start honking at the top of his lungs until attention was returned to him.

He lived to be beloved by the masses.

Which is quite odd considering what an anti social twat he was.

Depends on how you define "social".

He was a supremely social person.

The man would not cross the street without an entourage. If he ordered take out Chinese food he would drive around Woody Creek untill he found someone to go pick it up with him.

InmanRoshi: Grown ups gave up going to the theaters a long time ago.

Maybe grown-ups aren't going to the theaters in your locale, but the local Maxi-Saver (admission $1 weekdays) attendance shows that some grown-ups just wait a few weeks or months to see what the hell everyone else is talking about. Or not.

Some grown-ups didn't give up going to see a film in a theatre, they just delay seeing the film on the big screen. For cheaper.

/you kids, off my lawn
//and outta my theatre with your throwin' your root beer barrels and everything

InmanRoshi: psutters: The problem, IMO, is that what makes HST's books so good is that you get to read his thoughts.

That's why I wasn't much moved by the movie version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What made HST great was his writing style, particularly before he lost his fastball. Strip away the juxtaposition of the decaying American Dream provided by the prose,and the film was nothing but a bunch of goof offs doing drugs in Vegas. Hardly groundbreaking stuff.

To be fair, the dialogue and text of the book and movie in fear and loathing are about as accurate as i've seen in any movie adaptation.

And Depp, at that age, played a great imitation of Thompson.

Rum Diary is not explicitly about Thompson and Depp is too old for the part.

/will probably see it

"Where the Buffalo Roam"

just saw it finally, great movie, Murray terrif