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This Arrow is the best blu-ray transfer of this film: 4K, though not a 4K disc. Sharper with nuanced contrast despite such vibrant colours. Beautiful. Those dutch angles really make you lean into them now.
So there are now TWO indispensable editions of F & L IN LAS Vegas: this blu-ray, and the old American Criterion double DVD with the great animated Menu design that blu-rays just don't do anymore.
(Why did the great tradition of DVD Menus animated in the spirit of the featured film stop with the introduction of blu-rays?)
The old Criterion double-DVD had unbeatable, prolific Extras, mostly supplemental to HST's writing career (including a HST audio commentary, if you can translate what he's mumbling - - not ported over to Arrow's release). Arrow's extras lean toward Steadman's half of the Faustian bargain.
Quite a few new Arrow Extras and some ported older ones here. All new Extras are worth watching more than once.
Benico Del Toro is so intelligent in his interview, I wish there were more footage, so insightful about HST's writing, with his own thoughts instead of the usual cliches, that I thought, 'My God, he should write a Book about the work of HST!' On Criterion's disc release, HST in commentary objected to the way Depp disdainfully treated a midget hotel waiter as something he would never do; HST liked the film but not that scene. That HST commentary isn't the one on Arrow's release. But in an Arrow extra, Benito Del Toro recalls asking HST about the Vegas book, 'Why were you so mean to the working classes?' Now that is a brilliant question no scholar has ever thought to ask, and you can find out what HST replied in this interview.
Terry Gilliam's new audio commentary is a hoot, of course, and well mediated by a moderator who keeps low key to feature Gilliam. Gilliam sounds older now; he's cogent, and recalls a lot, but one or two memory lapses have me worried.
The 2nd disc is the definitive documentary feature about Ralph Steadman, made with Steadman's extensive input, FOR NO GOOD REASON - - already available elsewhere on DVD but this Arrow release has an extra Extra, a short film adaptation of Steadman's work. Johnny Depp shows up a lot in the film and on the soundtrack and reads some HST writing - - always a good thing. Depp is to HST what Richard Burton was to Dylan Thomas: the best narrator of the author's writing on record.
The interview with producer Laila Nabulsi clues you in on what a major contribution she made to the film, and, likewise, the less-than-20-minutes could have been twice that and well worth the extra time.
Four rare interviews bundled together, with the costume designer and cinematographer and editor and production designer, add insight and history to the project that you will not have heard before.
The 2006 feature documentary BUY THE TICKET TAKE THE RIDE has been available on DVD for years, so it feels like no Extra at all on this disc if you already have it - - but if you don't, it's one of the additions that makes this release a genuine bargain even without a sales price.
The small book has some old writing that HST aficionados will already have in full, and some new writing that isn't worth reading - - par for the course as DVD booklets go. The art card photos are garish and as I see it worthless. The double-sided poster is nothing special. This release is all about the 2 discs, and there;s no good reason to pay extra for the paperwork if you can get the discs separately.
The film and the book are about an insurmountable culture clash between the radical underground and the Silent Majority, a generation gap between conservative Americana and youth dissenters: a double-edged Culture Shock where Thompson and his attorney were AT LEAST as appalled by regular people as they were of these creative post-Beat Generation highly creative acid heads.
One more thing. There are many reasons why HST's journalism is vital and his writing right out of the 20th century's top drawer,. HST aficionados have been starved of new writing BY HST ever since he died in 2006, which isn't as paradoxical as it sounds...
The project HST completed before he died, a last volume of collected letters, is still stalled in mysterious limbo all these years later, as if his own wishes and efforts to prepare that book counted for nothing as far as the HST Estate is concerned.
And HST's legendary 1968 20,000-word piece on his ambivalence about the NRA and gun ownership, written after the assassination of RFK has still to see print with no hope in sight - - though Johnny Depp says it's as good as anything HST ever wrote.
And excised chapters of F & L IN LAS VEGAS - - that Depp has read and rates as highly as the rest of the book - -have still never been published.
Which makes you wonder what the HST Estate thinks its function actually IS, other than collecting royalties on existing publications. As I see it, Doug Brinkley and HST's widow ought to have their heads banged together by the ghost of Hunter Thompson and their feet nailed to a perch until they get the job done. Either that, or kicked off the team to let someone else handle the estate who has more respect for HST's literary achievement than to delay important publications for So Long that HST's generation - - the folk who read his works hot off the press and can most deeply relate to his life and times - - are dying off without the opportunity of reading his last works.
Shame on the HST estate: No Excuse.
So we are tempted to grab at anything HST-related by even two-bit scholars who rehash what we already know just to channel the great writing. But this time the merchandise is worthwhile. It was a fabulous film in 1998 and it's a fabulous 4K transfer in 2019 with some very interesting new Extras.
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Alx
Gran libro y curiosamente una gran película... ojo con los chavitos...
Reviewed in Mexico on 8 September 2023