After watching the clip from Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson that Erik posted, I couldn't help but think of the fictionalized Hunter S. Thompson on the big screen. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is Johnny Depp's unforgettable performance in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. With Depp teamed with Benicio del Toro, it was darkly comedic gonzo heaven, like the clip above. I could watch the two of them get high and hallucinate all day.

But, we've got to remember that it's not the only Gonzo/Duke pairing out there. Before Johnny and Benicio, there was Peter Boyle and Bill Murray in Where the Buffalo Roam. It's a touch goofier, but it's cool to see Murray mimic someone else (and do a decent job at it), and it's always great to see Peter Boyle on the big screen. You can check out a clip from that flick after the jump.

Meanwhile, trivia time.

The Last Rewind Answer: Joey took over for Marky Mark in NKOTB.

"Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter." -- Revelations 1:19

Hunter S. Thompson said he always quoted the Bible in his writings -- the lengthy, disciplined-yet-crazy, meticulous-yet-mercurial, false-yet-true not-quite-journalism he crafted for Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone and others -- not because of its prose or principles but because it was the only book guaranteed to be available in the hotel rooms where Thompson would drink, dope and dictate the stories that made him famous in the '60s and '70s. That sort of limited access to information seems unimaginable in this day and age, when you can plug a CAT-5 cable in at almost any hotel and access the Web. And Thompson made his name in a very different world than the one we live in; at the same time, it's not that different. The United States was mired in a long and seemingly unwinnable war; civil liberties were being curtailed in the name of preserving freedom; political primary campaigns were less about issues than personalities. Those things were going on in the '60s and '70s, and some could suggest they're going on now, and our past is woven into our present; when I was looking for something appropriate from Revelations to start this review, I could have looked on the Web ... but I still found a Bible in the bedside table at my hotel.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is a new documentary about Thompson's life and legacy, written and directed by Alex Gibney. Gibney's previously looked at greed (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) and war's madness (Taxi to the Dark Side) in prior documentaries that combined journalistic integrity with artistic expression. Looking at the life and work of another journalist who gave what read like track reports for the four horsemen of the apocalypse must have seemed like a natural idea. And while Gonzo incorporates recreations and impressionistic re-stagings (the film opens with a bald, pallid obvious stand-in for Thompson stabbing single fingers at an electric typewriter, then recreates a famed photo of an armed Thompson drawing down on a keyboard in the snow), it also lets Thompson's own work and own voice speak for themselves.

Director Alex Gibney has tackled greed (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) and war (the Oscar-shortlisted Taxi to the Dark Side); with his new documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, he tackles a new set of sins and excesses -- from Thompson's then-radical new journalism blending of fact and fiction in the '60s, to Thompson's legendary appetite for self-destruction. Gibney's film includes interviews with a host of people who knew Thompson and his work -- from Hell's Angels leader Sonny Barger to ex-President Jimmy Carter; Thompson moved in eccentric circles, and Gibney's documentary captures Thompson's bizarre orbit though American letters and politics with extensive use of archival footage but also through recreations, animation and more. Asked if Thompson's legacy of mixing fact and fiction made it easy to make a less-than-conventional documentary, Gibney's answer is swift: "I think it made it mandatory; we had to go there. ..."


This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:

Goodbye, Captain Jack! It's time for some more drug-addled Thompson. After being in the works for a while now, The Rum Diary is finally gearing up with all of the main players in place. It's music to my ears, as I've been itching for the actor to return to something a bit meatier and more adult-fun. Johnny Depp will once again take on the life of Hunter S. Thompson, who he first wonderfully tackled in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. While Terry Gilliam isn't helming this one, I'm pretty psyched about who is -- Withnail & I writer/director Bruce Robinson, who will also adapt the novel. That sounds like perfect directorial pickin's to me. The director has a quirky style, and he's no stranger to autobiographical fiction. Between the Withnail anniversary and Rum, it's looking like a banner year for Robinson. Depp will produce alongside Graham King.

Depp will, of course, star as the fictionalized Thompson -- Paul Kemp. It's the 1950's, and he moves from New York to a small and rundown paper in Puerto Rico, where he is "surrounded by a bunch of lost souls bent on self-destruction." The book was written when Thompson was 22, but was not published until years later, in 1998. The famous gonzo journalist had gone to the island with the hope of working for a daily called the San Juan Star. He didn't get the gig, but befriended many of the staff, which gave him the context for the story.

With Sweeney Todd wrapped, Depp just has to film Mira Nair's Shantaram (which is being produced by Depp's under-the-radar prodco, Infinitum Nihil) and then the feature will head into production. While it sounds like a killer project, it is a bit bittersweet -- there's still no word about Don Quixote. If Gilliam has gotten the script back, the project is now another film away.