The Rum Diary

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard: a battle with no winner

Bruce Robinson’s 2011 film The Rum Diary, an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel, was a critical and financial flop. It’s doubtful anyone would remember it a decade later were it not for one salient feature: it introduced its star Johnny Depp to the actress Amber Heard, leading to what was initially one of the most glamorous romantic pairings in Hollywood. Yet after their separation and divorce, the fallout from their relationship has been immense, waged through a series of ugly and very public court battles that have laid waste to their reputations. After a court defeat in London, in which Depp sued The Sun for defamation after the newspaper called him a wife beater, Depp has now moved onto another expensive and humiliating legal case.

Fifty years of Fear and Loathing

God bless Hunter S. Thompson’s editors. Imagine paying someone a handsome amount of money to cover an off-road race and getting thousands of words of rambling prose that have a great deal more to do with drugs than with cars. It was a good time to be a writer, I suppose. The manuscript that became Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas appeared in two installments in Rolling Stone in November 1971. (Sports Illustrated passed.) Somehow, this rabid work of “gonzo journalism” spawned a book, a film, a graphic novel and a host of imitators, catapulting Thompson to the higher realms of fame. He never recovered from his own success. Fear and Loathing is easily summarized. Raoul Duke (Thompson) and his friend Dr.

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