Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (93)

Content

Gareth von Kallenbach (971 KP) rated The Rum Diary (2011) in Movies

Aug 7, 2019

The Rum Diary (2011)

2011 | Comedy, Drama

6.0

(3 Ratings)

Movie Rating

For those unfamiliar with Hunter S. Thompson’s work (as I am), you may not recognize that this movie is based on his book of the same title, first published in 1998. Hunter S. Thompson is the same author who gave us the novel for which the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was based on.

The Rum Diary follows Paul Kemp (played by Johnny Depp), a failed novelist turn journalist, who finds himself at a critical turning point in his life. Having written two and a half novels that were never published, he was having trouble finding his voice, in that he needed to find a way to “write like him” as Paul put it himself. So he decides to do some freelance writing for a small publication located in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1960.

The movie opens with Kemp waking up in a hotel, and you can immediately, and clearly, see that he partakes in certain pleasures of life. After reporting to work at San Juan Star, Kemp meets Sala (played by Michael Rispoli), the photographer for the Star who quickly becomes his cohort. The editor-in-chief of the San Juan Star, Lotterman (played by Richard Jenkins) indicates to Kemp that the publication is only a few months away from being closed down, and that there really isn’t much to look forward to. He assigns Kemp to do some fluff pieces and the horoscope section of the paper.

Kemp is not content with this as he is looking at this experience as a way to put his career back on track. Over the next few days, during his adventures with Sala, he comes across a few different story ideas that are immediately shot down by Lotterman, as they emphasize the things that are wrong with San Juan, and Lotterman feels that the focus should be on the good things (like bowling alleys).

During one of his nights of boozing, he meets Chenault (played by Amber Heard). She’s aloof, mysterious, and of course… Kemp falls immediately in love with her. She just happens to be the girlfriend of Sanderson (played by Aaron Eckhart). Sanderson immediately recognizes the talents that Kemp has and begins recruiting him for a real estate scam. The idea is to get a foothold and build a new hotel on a private island that is used for United States military testing, but will soon be relinquished from that purpose. Sanderson and a group of investors want Kemp to put a brilliant positive spin on the hotel investment so that the public opinion, and that of those in a position to block the development, is a positive one.

Things begin to unravel as Kemp and Sala’s shenanigans keep getting them into trouble, culminating in a heated night where Kemp, Sala, Chenault and Sanderson end up at a bar during the St. Thomas Carnival.

The Rum Diary was highly entertaining with a great supporting cast. Giovani Ribisi provides an excellent distraction from some of the more serious events of the movie as he appears every now and then as Moburg, another reporter for the San Juan Star. The movie played like a great alcohol-induced, drug-fueled adventures of a journalist in the 1960s. Definitely some quirky moments, and you will find yourself laughing at many of Kemp and Sala’s exploits.

My only gripe with the movie is how it ended. The build up to Kemp printing the story and putting it out there leaves you wanting more. While I don’t think the film will reach the same cult-status that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas will, it is definitely entertaining (all the way until the end). It is a good nod to Thompson and fans of his books and movie adaptations are sure to enjoy.

Kudos

Kostas Bezos and the White Birds by Kostas Bezos and the White Birds

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Album Watch

music merch Kostas Bezos and the White Birds by Kostas Bezos and the White Birds Share /...

Cumberland (1142 KP) created a post in The Smashbomb Book Club

Jun 13, 2019

Here is a picture and description of all of the July book options. Please go to the poll, and vote for your favorite.

The Matchmaker By Elin Hilderbrand

48-year-old Nantucketer Dabney Kimball Beech has always had a gift for matchmaking. Some call her ability mystical, while others, her husband, celebrated economist John Boxmiller Beech, and her daughter, Agnes, who is clearly engaged to the wrong man, call it meddlesome. But there's no arguing with her results: With 42 happy couples to her credit and all of them still together, Dabney has never been wrong about romance.

Never, that is, except in the case of herself and Clendenin Hughes, the green-eyed boy who took her heart with him long ago when he left the island to pursue his dream of becoming a journalist. Now, after spending 27 years on the other side of the world, Clen is back on Nantucket, and Dabney has never felt so confused, or so alive.

But when tragedy threatens her own second chance, Dabney must face the choices she's made and share painful secrets with her family. Determined to make use of her gift before it's too late, she sets out to find perfect matches for those she loves most.

Same Beach, Next Year By Dorothea Benton Frank

One enchanted summer, two couples begin a friendship that will last more than twenty years and transform their lives.

A chance meeting on the Isle of Palms, one of Charleston’s most stunning barrier islands, brings former sweethearts, Adam Stanley and Eve Landers together again. Their respective spouses, Eliza and Carl, fight sparks of jealousy flaring from their imagined rekindling of old flames. As Adam and Eve get caught up on their lives, their partners strike up a deep friendship—and flirt with an unexpected attraction—of their own.

Year after year, Adam, Eliza, Eve, and Carl eagerly await their reunion at Wild Dunes, a condominium complex at the island’s tip end, where they grow closer with each passing day, building a friendship that will withstand financial catastrophe, family tragedy, and devastating heartbreak. The devotion and love they share will help them weather the vagaries of time and enrich their lives as circumstances change, their children grow up and leave home, and their twilight years approach.

The Kiss Quotient By Helen

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...

The Rest Of The Story By Sarah Dessen

Emma Saylor doesn’t remember a lot about her mother, who died when Emma was twelve. But she does remember the stories her mom told her about the big lake that went on forever, with cold, clear water and mossy trees at the edges.

Now it’s just Emma and her dad, and life is good, if a little predictable…until Emma is unexpectedly sent to spend the summer with her mother’s family that she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl.

When Emma arrives at North Lake, she realizes there are actually two very different communities there. Her mother grew up in working class North Lake, while her dad spent summers in the wealthier Lake North resort. The more time Emma spends there, the more it starts to feel like she is also divided into two people. To her father, she is Emma. But to her new family, she is Saylor, the name her mother always called her.

Then there’s Roo, the boy who was her very best friend when she was little. Roo holds the key to her family’s history, and slowly, he helps her put the pieces together about her past. It’s hard not to get caught up in the magic of North Lake—and Saylor finds herself falling under Roo’s spell as well.

For Saylor, it’s like a whole new world is opening up to her. But when it’s time to go back home, which side of her—Emma or Saylor—will win out?

Daisy Jones & The Six By Taylor Jenkins

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.