Review of Breakfast with Hunter (2003) by Curtis W — 10 May 2010

Disjointed, unfocused look at Hunter S Thompson's later life, around the time he was facing a DUI trial in Aspen and when his book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, was being made into a movie.

Highlights include him spraying Jenn Wenner with a fire extinguisher during a visit to the Rolling Stone offices in New York.

He also erupts at Alex Cox during the director's visit to his "fortified compound", Owl Farm, when Cox was in talks to make Fear and Loathing (there was a lawsuit, details of which are covered in extras on the Criterion DVD of Fear and Loathing). Thompson is most upset by Cox's plan to animate Steadman's drawings, thinking he's being trivilised.

Ironically, a new director is brought in -- Terry Gilliam, a former animator. But by then, the producer knew how to handle Hunter, and probably making him a cartoon was never again mentioned.

To ensure Johnny Depp's place in the film, Hunter agrees to teach Johnny's mynah how to talk, a surreal scene, when the bird gets loose in Hunter's house.

Hunter also meets Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern at a 75th birthday bash for McGovern.

And, he attends the Fear and Loathing premiere with George Plimpton in tow. Sad, both these writers are now gone.