El Guevo

Beautiful and objective review. I also love this album very much, but I don't agree with you on your judgment of Wings At The Speed Of The Sound.

One of the most beautiful reviews I've read on this site, a masterpiece just like the album. Right now I'm listening to another great album by Oldham, the gorgeous Superwolf, co-written with guitarist Sweeney.

Have you ever seen Thompson, what he’s like, how he looks, and how he talks? Well, first inform yourself and then you’ll tell me, and you’ll understand why I say that the film is surreal, but it’s also truthful.

I already replied with the example of Burroughs, it's both things, there’s no contradiction, no one is trying to lie to you. I repeat, it’s not a documentary, it’s a Gilliam film and thus it's cinematically truthful; I don’t think it’s a matter of polemics regarding what they actually did. No one says they took all those things; both in the book and in the film, they say they had all those things in the trunk, which seems a bit different to me. Cinema is beautiful because it allows you to dream, to unplug from reality, but with this mindset, I bet your favorite director is De Sica with his Ladri di Biciclette (which is still a great film).

It's exaggerated, but it's true because Thompson's story really happened; the film is inspired by something that actually took place, namely Thompson's journey with his lawyer in Texas, loaded with every drug... there’s no contradiction. Just as Burroughs' Naked Lunch is exaggerated, yet true, this doesn’t mean that if you shoot up morphine in Tangier, you’ll have the same visions, the same phobias as Bill. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll also see the belly dance of the cockroaches, because it’s an exaggeration that they perform a belly dance, but it’s not a falsehood, so it's true.

It's a Gilliam film... damn... it's not a documentary by Piero Angela, you get it?

It's clear that you know little to nothing about Gilliam, because when discussing his cinema, it doesn’t make much sense to talk about reality. Honestly, I think you've taken the wrong approach to watching this film; you didn't get it and misunderstood it. Probably, you don’t like the surreal and this type of dark humor that owes so much to the Monty Python, of which Gilliam was indeed a part.

Gilliam under the effects of acid is able to have coherent thoughts and even direct a film, Thompson managed to write beautiful books like the one from which this beautiful film was adapted, Burroughs has always written under the influence of drugs and so did Jerry Garcia… I completely agree with you, not everyone has the same "sensations" or the same "resistance," not everyone is the same and not everyone can be like them, you know?

who cares about yours? who are you? here we talk about thompson and gilliam and we talk about cinema.

The film is quite truthful, the effect of drugs is realistic, Gilliam was a heavy user of acid and other drugs mentioned in the film (let's say all of them are mentioned), anyone who says otherwise doesn't know Gilliam, doesn't know drugs, doesn't know Burroughs, doesn't know Thompson, doesn't know Monty Python, and doesn't know or appreciate the surreal... so I recommend, without any controversy, to all those who don't know these things to go and get a bit of film education by watching Bunuel's films.