Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride (Starz Inside)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Nick NolteBrand: STARZ/SPHE
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 77 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-09-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Movie Reviews of Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride (Starz Inside)
Movie Review: For what it is, it's decent
Summary: 3 Stars
As documentary tributes come, this one is pretty extravagant, considering that the iconic author-journalist-adventurer-madman was only depicted twice onscreen: in the uncomfortably literal and clumsy "Where the Buffalo Roam" and Terry Gilliam's phenomenal adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Still, Thompson's life and bibliography are provided brief but adequate mention herein, and while the subject matter is decidedly limited, it's compensated by a choice selection of photographs, archival footage and interviews with the man's literary contemporaries, numerous film stars, sheriff, illustrator and widow, all of whom knew him well from longstanding and involved friendships.
HST fans will learn little to nothing new about their hero here, but even the initiated should enjoy this well-produced (albeit rote) account of Thompson's uneasy and conflict-driven flirtation with celebrity. Narrated by a gravelly-voiced Nick Nolte and featuring titles illustrated by Ralph Steadman in his inimitable style, this is an impressively slick dedicatory overview of a man whose talent and behavior propelled him into the kind of fame that he was fundamentally averse to. Unfortunately, too few of his real-life exploits - which directly informed both his stories and their onscreen realizations - are discussed, and as a result, this is a bit limp. Thompson was equally petty and profound, cruel and compassionate. It's understandable that his friends wouldn't want to discuss this and that so little of his uglier side is evident from his public persona, but in barely mentioning this very significant aspect of Thompson as both a person and a writer, this documentary rarely strays from a one-dimensional evaluation of its subject. Still, it's hard not to be moved by the ancient and weathered Harry Dean Stanton as he reads a letter and sings "Danny Boy" to his late friend. Regardless of his many faults and vices, nobody can claim that Hunter Stockton Thompson was unable to inspire lovely sentiment in those who knew him.
Summary of Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride (Starz Inside)
Studio: Starz/sphe Release Date: 09/04/2007 Run time: 73 minutesIt won't come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with Hunter S. Thompson to learn that his life and work were inseparable, even indistinguishable, but that's the principal revelation in director Tom Thurman's Thompson documentary, Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride. In the 1960s and '70s, Thompson created what he called "gonzo journalism," mixing truth and fiction in a kind of superheated prose in which the writer, more often than not fueled by his copious intake of drugs and alcohol, not only reported stories but made himself an integral part of them. When he took his own life in 2005 at the age of 67, he left behind lots of bemused friends, peers, and collaborators, many of whom are on hand here. Johnny Depp, who portrayed Thompson in the film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his most famous work, describes him as a man "capable of a verbal menace. I've seen people reduced to mist in a matter of seconds." Actor John Cusack calls him "a deeply serious, deeply moral person. who loved orgies," and author Tom Wolfe says Thompson was "(the 20th) century's greatest comic writer in the English language." There are also clips from both Fear and Loathing and Where the Buffalo Roam (with Bill Murray as Thompson). But while Thompson himself appears in several interview bits (there are brief excerpts from his writings as well), little here is, well, gonzo enough to fully do the man justice--it would be nice if there were more odd moments like the one where conservative pundit William F. Buckley, Jr., of all people, recites Thompson's description of Richard Nixon as "a man with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad." The film is clumsily edited; even at just 77 minutes, it feels too long, and while the bits detailing his funeral and suicide note are interesting, the final parade of sentimental encomiums from the various talking heads is disappointingly pat. Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride is OK, but actually reading Thompson's work would be more revelatory. --Sam Graham
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