Getting Around to Watching Some Flix

Hi there,
I'm the type of person who always has about seventy five things on the back burner that I never get to and about one or two things that I get done. This blog posting is one of those things that I finally feel ready about tackling. It's not anything huge, like some great epiphany about where my life is or me getting things off my chest. It's something much more mundane yet hopefully something I hope to make a regular feature here: movie reviews.

Recently and quite unintentionally I went on this big documentaries kick in terms of the movies I've been watching and I'd like to drop some thoughts and recommendations for you all. I'll try to do these over the course of the week and hopefully talk about a few of them on upcoming episodes of the Really Shitty Show.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
The first film in this post from director Alex Gibney, Gonzo as a film, serves a couple functions very well. In telling the story of the rise and fall of journalist/drug user extraordinaire Hunter S Thompson we do get the blow by blow accounts of the over 30 years of his influence in American politics and culture. We follow him throughout the years from riding with the Hells Angels to running for Sheriff in Aspen to his coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign. We do get an idea of the scope that his life was and the legacy he left in the counter culture for the last quarter of a century. In the second thing I feel the film succeeds at is that I'm not quite sure what to make of this legacy by the end of the movie. Sure there's sense that a voice like Thompson's is needed now more than ever, but the film doesn't try to shy away from the fact he also took the political counter culture a few steps back. I'm left feeling like Thompson is part of the reason people like Bill O'Reily calls young political minded people "stoned slackers". Through his popularity, we're given that stereotype and yes I do include myself in that group.



Yes there is an adoration all over this film for Thompson and his work, his worldview, and his overall craziness. Though, for all the praise, I still feel the cautionary tale in the movie and that's a good thing. For the celebratory tone of the film we still get a "but ..." and that's all I can ask for out of documentary that obviously has so much love of its subject.

To sum up, and for those who skipped the past two paragraphs just to get to the point. If your only exposure to Hunter S. Thompson is Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro running from lizards and bats in Nevada, and dig political history, go check out this film. If you have no idea what the hell I just said, docos bore you to tears and don't follow politics, maybe not so much. If your somewhere in between, and bald, gun crazy dudes doing lots of drugs seems like the kind of people you might want to hang with, feel free to learn some stuff.

Verdict : Bottom of the netflix cue (aka when you get around to it)