Today's Apocalypse Sign: Where The Buffalo Roam

This is mostly my all time favorite comedy movie. Has been for 35 years. And if you have never seen it, you must add it to your queue, collection, streaming line up, whatever. Make time to watch it at least twice.

I am talking about the fantastic portrayal of gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson by Bill Murray. Bill may have gained his fame from other movies but for me this is the epitome of Bill Murray. He actually got so into the Thompson character that when he returned to SNL it seemed he had adopted some of the mannerisms and traits as his personna. I absolutely love this flick!!

Here's the movie intro:



I watched this movie until my VHS tape broke. Then my wife finally got it for me on DVD. She is not the biggest fan but the humor in this movie may be an aquired taste for some. For me I was hooked 32 years ago at a midnight movie when I saw WTBR for the first time.

Since then I memorized most of the movie and quote it in a Rocky Horror kind of way when I watch it (we all do that, right?). This may be the main reason my wife is not a fan...she hates when I do that to any movie. Anyway...

This movie only made $6.6 million at the box office but most of those were repeat visits by hard core fans like myself I'm sure. Critically it was less than a success. Leonard Maltin stated: "Even Neil Young's music score can't save this dreadful comedy, which will baffle those who aren't familiar with Hunter S. Thompson's work and insult those who are."  Which I think is a bit harsh. While yes a little background knowledge of Thompson may be helpful I certainly didn't think it to be a requirement for enjoying the film. The snobby critics failed to grasp that the movie was not meant to be a documentary of Thompson's life or a monumental piece of cinema, it was meant to be entertainment delivered by Murray and cast.

Since Wikipedia summarized the plot about as well as I could this is it (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The film opens in the Rocky Mountains on the Colorado ranch of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, a journalist furiously trying to finish a story about his former attorney and friend, Carl Lazlo, Esq. Thompson then flashes back to a series of exploits involving the author and his attorney.

In 1968, Lazlo is fighting to stop a group of San Francisco youngsters from receiving harsh prison sentences for possession of marijuana. He convinces Thompson to write an article about it for Blast Magazine. Thompson's editor, Marty Lewis, reminds Thompson that he has 19 hours to deadline. The judge hands out stiff sentences to everyone, and the last client is a young man who was caught with a pound of marijuana and receives a five-year sentence. Lazlo reacts by attacking the prosecuting attorney and is then jailed for contempt of court.

The magazine story about the trial is a sensation, but Thompson does not hear from Lazlo until four years later, when Thompson is on assignment covering Super Bowl VI in Los Angeles.^[1] Lazlo appears at Thompson's hotel and convinces him to abandon the Super Bowl story and join his band of freedom fighters, which involves smuggling weapons to an unnamed Latin American country. Thompson goes along with Lazlo and the revolutionaries to a remote airstrip where a small airplane is to be loaded with weapons, but when a police helicopter finds them, Lazlo and his henchmen escape on the plane while Thompson refuses to follow.

Thompson's fame and fortune continues. He is a hit on the college lecture circuit and covers the 1972 presidential election campaign. After being thrown off the journalist plane by The Candidate's press secretary, Thompson takes the crew plane and gives straight-laced journalist Harris from the Post a strong hallucinogenic drug and steals his clothes and press credentials. At the next campaign stop, in the airport bathroom, Thompson is able to use his disguise to engage The Candidate in a conversation about the "Screwheads" and the "Doomed". The Candidate tells Thompson "fuck the doomed".

Thompson, still posing as Harris, returns to the journalist plane. Lazlo then appears, striding across the airport tarmac in a white suit. He boards the plane and tries to convince his old friend to join his socialist paradise somewhere in the desert. After causing a disturbance, Thompson and Lazlo are thrown off the plane and Lazlo's papers that describe the community are blown across the airport runway. Lazlo, presumably, is not heard from again.

The action then returns to Thompson's cabin, just as the writer puts the finishing touches on his story, explaining that he didn't go along with Lazlo because "it never got weird enough for me."

Bill Murray of course plays the role of Thompson, Bruno Kirby plays the Blast magazine editor, Peter Boyle plays Lazlo, a young Craig T Nelson plays a cop on the witness stand in a drug trial, Rene Auberjonois plays Harris a reporter from the Washington Post, and after he was Neidermeyer in Animal House, Mark Metcalf played Dooley, Nixon's press secretary.

My two favorite scenes are the courtroom trial hearings for Lazlo's drug clients that Thompson is reporting on... "why, you could cut off their feet, they'll never do it again", and the hotel scene where Thompson is staying for the Super Bowl coverage... "blitzing linebacker Rose, pick him up!"

Courtroom Scene (it's in English)



A really fun movie I have enjoyed in various states of mind over the last 30 years.

It has stood the test of my time because it still hasn't gotten weird enough for me!

Here's the youtube link to the movie: http://youtu.be/fmRHScTEHbY

Have you seen this movie? And if not, when the hell will you!?
X it stage left...............