Omnibus (TV Series) Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision (1978) User Reviews

Ted's probably got some other reason

[j-vanloon · 7/10 · 2 August 2007]

for disliking Thompson, but disquised it by eloquence, and it makes me wonder.. what do you like Ted? what do you think is funny? or what is Art? It's not completing a crossword puzzle Ted,.. Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas ranks up there with Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and all other books rightly considered classic's in the English language. If you could write any one sentence that sparkles and shines like those in Fear and Loathing you would understand the value of the story, the movie, etc. that lame straight intellectual bs really tires me.. (pardon, for my bad English, it's my second language; Ted feel free to point out spelling and grammatical errors..)

Nice portrait of the legendary gonzo journalist

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 8 October 2021]

This 51-minute episode of the British TV series Omnibus follows both Hunter S. Thompson and his illustrator friend Ralph Steadman around as they revisit Las Vegas and take a trip to Hollywood. As this appropriately scrappy chronicle points out, the key subject of Thompson's work is the death of the American Dream, with violence and paranoia as key recurring motifs. Thompson admits that he specifically created the wildman persona of Raoul Duke as a means of being able to say things he otherwise would be unable to say and confesses that said persona has caused him more than a little trouble in his life. Naturally, Thompson has some choice harsh remarks to make about Nixon and has a good conversation with Nixon informant John Dean. It's also cool to see glimpses of Thompson's wife, kid, and pet ostrich on his ranch in Colorado, which provides a little insight into the average and grounded side of Thompson. In addition, there's also an eerily accurate prediction of Thompson's actual funeral. Recommended viewing for Thompson fans.

not just a rare glimpse of the good Doctor and Steadman, but also a well made quasi-doc

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 5 September 2005]

It would be enough for an avid fan to an admirer of (the late) Dr. Hunter S. Thomspon to watch this documentary (if you get the Fear & Loathin in Las Vegas DVD it's a given) to see inside his mind and manners first hand, if you haven't before. The film follows him from his Owl Ranch in Aspen (with even rarer glimpses of his wife and only child) to Las Vegas, and then to Hollywood to meet with screenwriters about the film Where the Buffalo Roam, not to mention hilarious political satire with two of the 'Murrays (Bill and Brian). But that the film is also fairly well made and experimental (in the good, sturdy 'Gonzo' tradition) is a nice bonus; the filmmakers edit together their footage of Thompson and Steadman on the road, and then into Hollywood (he also meets with John Dean, of all people, and its a fascinating interview by the way), with real clips of Nixon and audio clips of the 'Las Vegas' book. It's all like a great wash of Thompson-mania, with the BBC not getting in the way much at all (aside from being a buffer) with Thomson's brilliance and madness. But its the little points that also make the doc worthwhile; the way he treats his bird on Owl Farm; the attitudes he has as he and Steadman drive from Vegas to Hollywood (funny, but also nerve-wracking in the best possible way); Thompson's true little moments in interviews. Throughout the doc, the interviewers try to find the 'real' Doctor, but if you can't find it in his works, then you're likely to find it here. But in the end, Thompson is very real in front of the cameras (which he has a mild curious nature with), giving his thoughts on his feelings of politics (Nixon chiefly), drugs, his own career, and his own persona. At the least it should serve as a fine little look into the man on film (albeit with some chemicals in him during it). At the most for the fans, simply put, it's priceless.

Intermediate Madness

[tedg · 21 March 2006]

I suppose if you want to understand who you are, the bits you borrowed in assembling yourself, you won't escape the seventies which repackaged and invented myths of the sixties as nibbles of insight.

One of the worst commercializers of those societal yearnings was "Rolling Stone" which among its rock celebrity fawning gave us gonzo.

Its a rather embarrassing notion, actually, one that has in modern time made the blog possible. The idea is to reflect the journalist and what he (always he) sees equally. And to make it entertaining, you have to twist both away from the norm.

Ted's law applies. The difference in weirdness between us and the guy telling us the story is equal to the difference between him and the story. By his acting out, the bizarre nature of the story is made real. I call this folding.

And in the 70's we were prepared to believe that some stories were imperially bizarre. Nixon, the war, drugs, motorcycle gangs...

So along came this man of thin talent and great command of the self-promoting niche that the so-called counterculture afforded him.

This sort of documentary or profile is pretty good in an unplanned way. You get to see this fellow pretending to be insightful by being outrageous in all the performance modes available to him and his cartoonist buddy.

The odd thing is that while it is transparent -- this guy is as much a nitwit as your average rightwing radio nut -- it is also amazingly effective. (Well, also like the radio nuts.) We will remember Nixon, for instance, more through the eyes of this guy and similar than by either the president's men or those who seriously wrote about them.

That aside, if you cheer a similar twist in film-making, you may be rooting for the immensely flawed and gifted Terry Gilliam. If so, his only successful film is based on Thompson. See this and that together.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.