Quint gives an exhaustive look at the Criterion DVD of FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS

Ahoy squirts. The insanely crusty seaman, Quint, here with a rather in-depth look at Criterion's treatment of one of my personal favorite films, Terry Gilliam's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Let's begin, shall we?  

COVER ART  

Let's start on the outside and work our way in. The 2 DVD set comes in a clear plastic slipcase with bats and the title FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS printed on it, both obviously modeled after Ralph Steadman's artwork and printing. Underneath the clear plastic slipcase is the famous Steadman illustration of "heroes" Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo driving into Las Vegas from the pages of the original run of Hunter S. Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS stories from Rolling Stone magazine. The slipcase and cover art overlap creating a really neat combined cover.  

INSERTS  

Cracking open the first disk you find a thick 24 page booklet filled with excerpts of Hunter Thompson articles, various Ralph Steadman drawings, an essay on FEAR AND LOATHING written by J. Hoberman and rare pictures. You also get a 2002/2003 insert of Criterion titles including street dates, what's still in print and what's out of print.  

DISC 1 - The Film, Deleted scenes, 3 commentary tracks featuring Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, (producer) Laila Nabulsi and Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.  

Disc 1 of FEAR AND LOATHING has Depp's Duke printed on the face of the DVD. It opens up with one of my now all time favorite DVD menus, that of Ralph Steadman himself writing out the words FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Seeing him create the various ink splotches and crazy lettering all to various unrelated sound effects pulled from the movie... it's very cool.  

The transfer of the film is beautiful, up to Criterion standard. There are 2 new audio tracks created for the disc, Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 which sound great.  

DELETED SCENES  

We see why these scenes were deleted. It is interesting to watch, though. There's a conversation with one of the pigs at the DA convention that's funny, but feels like it lasts 10 minutes. There's a strange bit where Duke pulls into a gas station to get a beer on his way back to LA at the end of the movie. He accuses the owner of being a pederast. Kinda funny, but not really needed. There's also an extended scene during the Mint 400 race which is boring and pointless. A good cut. All scenes have Gilliam commentary. I think all the above deleted scenes were on the first bare bones disc Universal put out a few years ago, so this isn't really anything new.  

COMMENTARY 1 - TERRY GILLIAM  

Ah, now we get into the commentaries. These commentary tracks really make this package stand out. The first track is recorded by director Terry Gilliam. Gilliam is no stranger to Criterion commentary tracks, thank God. Here goes all over the map, talking about the dumbing down of cinema and cinema audiences, how he tries to strike that fine balance between having enough money to make a movie and still retain creative control ("We wanted to be able to say this is a cheap film, it'll make it's money back. Now fuck off and leave us alone."), Ralph Steadman's inspiration, Johnny Depp's obsession with clean underwear, his one eyed Director of Photography, Verne Troyer's early work in the film, FEAR AND LOATHING's similarities to ALICE IN WONDERLAND and on and on.  

My favorite bit is when he goes on about how people view the film. "In a sense it's a very arrogant piece. It just says 'This is what it is. If you don't like it, if you don't get it, that's your problem.'" You hear that, you pessimistic nay-saying talkback assholes?  

Gilliam's commentary is entertaining, not very dry at all. His rant on Las Vegas towards the end of the commentary is hilarious and not too off the mark. He also talks about the onset love triangle between him, Johnny Depp and a monkey named Jethro. But more on that below...  

COMMENTARY 2 - JOHNNY DEPP, BENICIO DEL TORO AND (producer) LAILA NABULSI  

This is my least favorite commentary track on the disc, which came as a surprise to me because the actor commentaries are usually my favorites, the most fun. That having been said, it's definitely worth the time to watch. It's just too dry to want to watch more than once. The problem is for whatever reason Criterion couldn't get Depp and del Toro in the same room at the same time to record this commentary, so none of the 3 speakers are talking together. It really takes away some of the fun when these tracks have to be recorded like that, but I would rather have them a little dry than not have them at all.  

Laila Nabulsi has been with this project for a very long time. In fact she once lived with Hunter Thompson. She talks about originally trying to get this off the ground in the early '80s with Jack Nicholson as Raoul Duke and Marlon Brando as Gonzo... What a crazy fucking pair they would have made! There was also a point when it was going to be Dan Ackroyd as Duke and John Belushi as Gonzo. Nabulsi also talks about Gilliam's obsession with dwarves and keeps pointing them out. Being a fan of midgets and monkeys in films, I was surprised to see that Gilliam had sneaked a few midgets by even my ever watchful eye, far in the background. That sneaky devil.  

Depp's best stories come from the time he spent with Thompson. He recalls one of his first meetings with Thompson at his ranch in Colorado. They both appreciate firearms and Thompson was showing off his nickel-plated shotgun. He asked Depp if he wanted to go out back and shoot it. Depp said sure and was instructed by Thompson to pick up these little squares the size of match boxes. Depp did so nonchalantly and asked what was in them. "Nitroglycerine," said Thompson. All of a sudden, Depp freezes, carefully puts out the cigarette he had been smoking and tiptoes the boxes of delicate explosives out into the wild expanse of Thompson's backyard. Thompson told Depp to set up one of the boxes of Nitro on a stump, back off and take a shot at it with the shotgun. Depp did and was rewarded with a 60 foot fireball.  

Wasn't that a fun story? Depp has many more like it, including how Jethro, the monkey in the movie, fell in love with him much to the chagrin of Terry Gilliam who thought the monkey should love him more.  

Del Toro keeps his commentary pretty serious, talking about working with Depp and Gilliam and his role as an actor. He did an amazing job in the film. He should be proud.  

COMMENTARY 3 - DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON  

This is by far my favorite commentary track on the disc. Thompson is a nutball, bless him, but a very entertaining and intelligent one. This commentary is hilarious and if it wasn't for Matt Stone and Trey Parker's brilliant drunken commentary on CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL, then this would be my favorite commentary of all time. Thompson has to have 2 people there to make sure he stays on track. His tangents that he goes on are priceless, like obsessing on Tobey Maguire's cameo as the hitchhiker ("Look at that freak! He looks like a wax doll!") or calling Gilliam a prancing faggot that likes to create homosexual undertones in the film that weren't in the original novel. Of course he's being tongue-in-cheek about it all... well, maybe not the stuff he says about Maguire, but the Gilliam stuff comes off like ribbing a friend.  

When asked about his role in the production of the film, Dr. Thompson replies, "My role was to whip these fuckers into line and get paid!" He also randomly and without any warning whatsoever screams and makes high pitched noises throughout the track.  And, of course, he also talks about the background of the book, why he and Oscar Zeta Acosta (Gonzo in the book and movie) went to Vegas together in the first place and how the book impacted his life and the life of Acosta.  

When asked to say something about the movie, Hunter comes up with: "This is a bitch of a movie! I'd buy this for my personal tape library. I'd buy 2 copies! If you're really gonzo, you'll get 3! Give one to your sweetheart... or your mama. Whatever. Or your obese parole officer."  

During the commentary, Dr. Thompson calls both Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. He gets Depp's answering machine, which is the "Know your dope fiend" speech from the movie. He then calls Benicio del Toro, gets his voicemail and leaves this message: "You jackass bastard! I've been hearing a lot about you and not all of it is satisfactory and the fact that you won't answer your phone is making me a bit edgy. Well what the fuck? Who cares about you! You yellow belly..." At this point Laila, the producer breaks in and screams over Thompson, "Hunter! Be nice! Hi Benicio! It's Laila here, too..." Thompson quickly takes over again and finishes off his message. "You jackass! You fuckin' Nazi pig! Well, see you later man. OK."  

Thompson also goes on a rant about Tim Leary that's too good to spoil here, but I'll give you folks a tiny taste. "(Leary's a) treacherous sold out fraud. An atrocious asshole."  

DISC 2 - Breaks down into two areas: THE FILM (Johnny Depp/Hunter S. Thompson Correspondence, Hunter Goes to Hollywood, "Not the Screenplay," A Study In Marketing, Storyboards and Stills Gallery) and THE SOURCE (Oscar Zeta Acosta, Dr. Gonzo, Ralph Steadman Art Gallery, Breakdown on Paradise Blvd and Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood)   

Part 1: THE FILM   

JOHNNY DEPP/HUNTER S. THOMPSON CORRESPONDENCE  

This is one of my favorite extras on the disk. It's Johnny Depp in London, I believe, reading for the camera a few faxes and letters he and Thompson sent back and forth right before the film, during the film and afterwards. I won't quote any of the passages from this part to keep it surprising, but just keep an ear out for the Cannes stuff. Hilarious.  

HUNTER GOES TO HOLLYWOOD  

This is a short documentary shot when Dr. Thompson visited the set of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. It's part of a larger documentary that's being put together on Hunter Thompson that'll be finished some time this year. It's very entertaining. Seeing Thompson yell "FUCK YOU" from his limo at a passing car honking made my ribs hurt. His talking while watching a take and having to get shushed by one of the producers is great, too. Not bad, but for documentaries it doesn't get any better than FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE ROAD TO HOLLYWOOD, which is featured in the THE SOURCE section. I'll get to that one in a minute.  

"NOT THE SCREENPLAY"  

This is a neat little area. The background is Terry Gilliam gleefully burning his WGA (Writers Guild of America) card and we find out why soon. Apparently the WGA almost screwed Gilliam and Toni Grisoni out of their screenplay by credit. It looked like they weren't getting any credit at all for a while, so Gilliam shot a short black and white sequence that he was going to put on the beginning of the film which proclaims that it's the first film to be shot without a script, but that Gilliam and Grisoni were responsible for the "dress pattern." It's kinda funky, but everything worked out in the end. This section has a nice Audio feature where you can hear Gilliam and Grisoni talk about the whole ordeal from beginning to end and features the short black and white segment Gilliam shot.  

A STUDY IN MARKETING  

This is where all the trailers and TV spots are. Terrible, terrible TV spots. Collected all in one place it's easy to see just how badly Universal fumbled the marketing of this film. Hell, Gilliam even has a commentary over THE TRAILER for the film to say how much the marketing sucked. You get a handful of TV spots and the theatrical trailer here.  

STORYBOARDS/STILLS GALLERY  

Good stuff. Pretty standard. Not my favorite DVD extras, but for you folks out there who dig on that kind of stuff, know that there's no shortage of storyboards and production stills on this DVD.  

Part 2: THE SOURCE  

OSCAR ZETA ACOSTA, DR. GONZO  

The second part of Disk 2 starts off with this section all about the real Dr. Gonzo, Chicano lawyer and activist Oscar Zeta Acosta. There are three subsections:  

-Biographical Photo Essay  

This has a history of the life of Oscar Acosta, with passages written by his son, Marco Acosta. Very intriguing, lots of great information on the man behind the myth. Some great photos, too, including one taken with Thompson at Caesar's Palace during the crazy weekend that turned into Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  

-Revolt of the Cockroach People  

Actual video footage of Acosta reading a chapter out of his book REVOLT OF THE COCKROACH PEOPLE. This is rather long, runs about 25-30 minutes, but it gives you a real sense of this man's humor, his passion and his soul.  

-Thompson on Acosta  

This is an audio feature of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson reading the forward he wrote for the '89 re-issue of Acosta's novel REVOLT OF THE COCKROACH PEOPLE. It's where the whole "One of God's own prototypes. Too weird to let live, yet too rare to kill" speech from the movie comes from. Very touching.  

RALPH STEADMAN ART GALLERY  

This section has all of Steadman's artwork published alongside Thompson's stories in Rolling Stone, plus some extras. Very weird stuff, but insanely interesting.  

BREAKDOWN ON PARADISE BLVD.  

This is an odd extra. It's a chapter from FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS from an audio performance issued on CD in '96. It has Jim Jarmusch as Duke, Maury Chaykin as Gonzo and is narrated by Harry Dean Stanton. It's a scene that never made it from the book to the script where Duke and Gonzo stop at a Taco Stand. It's odd, but interesting.  

FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE ROAD TO HOLLYWOOD  

Now the final extra turns out to be my favorite extra on Disc 2. FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE ROAD TO HOLLYWOOD is a 50 some-odd minute documentary on Hunter Thompson shot by the BBC in 1978. It follows Thompson and Ralph Steadman as they go from Thompson's home in Colorado to Las Vegas then on to LA where they have a business meeting regarding a possible film version of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS.  

This documentary is fantastic, exactly the kind of obscure yet amazing special I'd expect Criterion to throw at me. We see Thompson's family. We see his druggy side (we see him snort coke, smoke grass and also see the after-effects of some kind of wild freaky drug). It's a great "week in the life" kind of documentary.  

You see, folks, Criterion went all out on this one. This disc comes out next Tuesday, the 18th and will probably run you about $40. Kinda pricey, but you get a lot of bang for your buck. For us die hard fans of the film it's more than a bargain. It's a steal.  

That's it from me on this one, folks. Keep your eyes peeled, though. I should have some interesting interviews up in the next day or two. I'll also be sneaking around LA next week. Drop me an email below if you want to say hi. 'Til then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.  

-Quint

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