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Film Clips
JUNE 15, 1998:
 FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Hunter S. Thompson's semi-journalistic
novel of panic, drugs, and despair makes the leap to the big screen
in this good-intentioned adaptation by director Terry Gilliam.
Gilliam struggles to translate Thompson's stream-of-consciousness,
hallucinogen-addled prose into a series of coherent scenes with
some success. Special effects are nicely used to simulate acid
trips, and a loopy sense of time sends Duke (Johnny Depp) and
Dr. Gonzo (Benecio Del Toro) sliding along the already surreal
streets and casinos of old-time Vegas. Depp is pretty annoying
as the cigarette chomping Raoul Duke, and Benecio Del Toro steals
the show with his dark, menacing portrayal of a drug-crazed hippie
fiend. A rampant, insider's sense of nostalgia for the sixties
makes the story a little hard to "get" for those of
us who don't share in the longing for the Summer of Love, but
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is still an entertaining
ride that serves to remind us all that it's fun to watch people
on drugs. --Richter
THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. With genuine nostalgia edged with
spite, filmmaker Whit Stillman (Barcelona, Metropolitan)
chronicles the night life and loves of a group of budding Yuppies
in the early 1980s. Chloe Sevigny plays Alice, a straight-talking
innocent looking for fun. Kate Beckinsale is Charlotte, her conniving
roommate. Together they charm half a dozen young men at a Studio
54-like nightclub in New York, without ever actually having a
very good time. Whit Stillman's characters are funny, non-stop
talkers who recite clever dialogue and seem to be interchangeable.
They're entertaining, but they don't seem very authentic. They
all keep saying how much "fun" the nightclub is, but
it doesn't actually look like very much fun. The most notable
thing about it is that characters can sit around talking all night,
and they never have to shout over the music, and no one ever says
what? Perhaps the amazing thing about The Last Days
of Disco is that it does manage to evoke the spirit of the
time, and to portray a group dynamic among friends, despite all
the talking. --Richter
SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS. For our summer enjoyment,
Six Days, Seven Nights allows us to relive the dimmer aspects
of African Queen, and with pirates. Anne Heche plays a
fashionable magazine editor stranded on an island with a daddy-esque
Harrison Ford. She's a feisty talker; he's a tough man of action.
They hate each other, then they love each other, and it's all
shot in a lush vacation-porno setting. Anne Heche is adorable,
and you can see through most of her shirts. Harrison Ford is
a charming piece of aging beefcake, though if you remember what
he looked like in the Star Wars era, it's hard not to feel
like we're missing something. This is puréed entertainment,
easily digestible.
--Richter
WILD MAN BLUES. It's little surprise that Woody Allen,
who uses his films to confess every sordid aspect of his personality
(see Deconstructing Harry if you haven't figured this out
yet), would be happy to let a famous documentary filmmaker (Barbara
Kopple) into his private world--provided he had the right to OK
the final cut, of course. And it's little surprise that Kopple's
footage of Allen and his companion Soon-Yi Previn reveals a functional,
if sorely isolated by fame and notoriety, relationship. So why
bother to see this document of Woody's progress as his old-style
New Orleans jazz band tours Europe? Good question. Despite occasional
nuggets of amusement--like Woody's trademark kvetching or Soon-Yi's
blithe admission that she hasn't seen Annie Hall, thought
Interiors was "tedious," and best loves Manhattan
(the one in which Woody dates a teenage Mariel Hemingway)--there's
little to recommend this glorified home movie. Call it a portrait
of an artist if you wish, but at this point Woody's well past
his artistic prime, and his clarinet dilettantism, while sweetly
impressive, hardly merits a full-length motion picture. --Woodruff
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