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366 UNDERGROUND: MY VEGAS EYES (2026)

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DIRECTED BY: Xavier Terhorst

FEATURING: Kevin Ludowitz, Justin Cutler, Alyssa Duarte, Pamela Pace, Michael Vaughn

PLOT: Left behind with the riff-raff after the Rapture, Emo Superstar attempts to leave Sin City behind.

Still from My Vegas Eyes (2026)

COMMENTS: “There she was: the only innocence let on Earth.” She is a naked woman, mouth pursed in anticipation, and limbs ready to accommodate any bend. Easy to hold, easy to lift, easy to caress, and easy to inflate. Amidst the dregs of humanity, a crude sex doll may be the apex of humanity after the better souls are wrenched from our sick plane. This rapture is shown simply: human silhouettes—dozens, hundreds of them—in still-form floating above the garbage remnants of Las Vegas where the rat-like survivors cling tenuously to an existence of violence and getting high. Emo Superstar (Kevin Ludowitz) wants something more, and with the reluctant acquiescence of his drug boss, Superstar attempts an impossible journey for salvation—or at the very least, something more than the mass damnation where he finds himself.

Early on, Emo Superstar remarks that “[l]ife became colorful when my parents died.” Xavier Terhorst is obviously working through some rough thoughts, and we ride alongside him over the course of My Vegas Eyes. Guerrilla filmmaking and exhaustive editing make for a visually compelling journey. Vegas has rarely looked so depressing, sparsely populated by made-up psychos clinging to a lust for kicks or hope in the Lord. A photorealistic face of a person fills the screen, its eyes carved out to reveal a flickering backdrop of trash and bright lights. Colors saturate and flip as Superstar navigates a dead city and an ominous tunnel guarded by the Trash Man. The protagonist’s thoughts play quietly from time to time, only for us to be jarred back into the harsh now with full-volume shouts from a psychotic matriarch or simpering Mormon preacher.

The experience is rough. Terhorst’s feature debut shows much promise, however, maintaining stylistic coherence and a just-followable-enough narrative, all despite the apparent restraints of him nearly being a one man band. Terhorst slots firmly into the informal collection of “curious what comes next” filmmakers. Putting that potential future aside, though, My Vegas Eyes is an interesting exploration of life after the apocalypse, and how we can still find value in life (or death?) at its worst.

You can buy My Vegas Eyes now on Blu-ray from the distributor; we’re informed it will show up streaming (free option available) on bloodstream.tv from September 20.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

No other critics quotes available at time of publication.

I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average

Capsules

CAPSULE: THIS IS NOT A MOVIE (2011)

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DIRECTED BY: Olallo Rubio

FEATURING: Edward Furlong,

PLOT: A man checks into a Las Vegas hotel room on the eve of the apocalypse to ponder the meaning of his fading existence.

Still from This Is Not a Movie (2011)
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s not good enough. Although it’s technically well-made considering its budget, it’s full of stoned, faux-profound ruminations and (often explicit) references to much better, more original movies.

COMMENTS: Peter Nelson is holed up in a suite at the Dante-themed Apocalypse Resort and Casino “…trying to solve a deep existential conflict before I drink myself to death. It’s a very ambitious and pretentious goal.” Writer/director Olallo Rubio is at least aware that his own movie is “ambitious and pretentious,” and tries to deflect criticism by making his movie self-aware of its own limitations. The gambit doesn’t work, but we do have to grudgingly admire his roundabout honesty and sincerity. The script plays like a series of incidents and revelations jotted down in notebooks by couple of sophomore English majors during an all-night bull/sensi-smoking session. This one room chamber piece made up mostly of a single actor conversing with different versions of his own split personality, tied together by a weathered metafictional conceit and interspersed with movie trailer parodies, is the kind of pitch any Hollywood producer would immediately nix unless  and Angelina Jolie were already attached. But that fact alone makes the movie interesting as a curiosity; pot-smoking humanities majors bursting with ideas their forebears already came up with years ago comprise a legitimate demographic, and their visions almost never reach the big screen. Pete Nelson worries about “the System,” a vaguely conceived capitalist conspiracy composed of politicians, corporate propaganda, and general American vulgarity (a spoofy propaganda film-inside-a-film suggests that the conspiracy encompasses the Catholic Church, the Beatles, Hitler, and Gene Simmons of KISS). He argues with his drunken cowboy alter-ego that the System is responsible for his memory loss, until a surfer dude version of himself pops up to supply a more metaphysical explanation for his dilemma. The first part of the movie is unpredictable (who saw the ghost coming?), which is its biggest strength. Unfortunately, a finale that is even talkier than the rest of the film lays all the cards on the table, with disappointing results. Visually, the movie is interesting, with large portions shot in arty black and white, liberal use of split screens, and psychedelic CGI; the soundtrack (by Slash) is also pro. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Leaving Las Vegas (mentioned by name), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars and The Holy Mountain (seen on TV), among other films, are all referenced either explicitly or implicitly: Rubio clearly has good taste in influences, but constantly reminding your audience of similar but vastly superior movies is seldom a good idea. I can see why many people hated This Is Not a Movie, and it’s hard to argue with them, except to aver that at least it achieves its badness by being infuriating rather than by being boring. Late in the movie, Rubio again anticipates his critics through dialogue, when Pete describes what he thinks a movie is (and isn’t): “…it’s a form of entertainment that enacts a story based on a dramatic arc. It has plots, subplots and storytelling devices to maintain the interest of the viewer. It needs a story, not just moments of conflict, witty talk, activity, and fucking symbols.” Characterized that way, This Is Not a Movie is not a movie; but Pete’s constricted definition is a challenge to the viewer to expand their own notion of “movie” to something beyond a mere carrier for a story. So, This Is Not a Movie is a movie—it’s just not a very good one, because its solipsistic conceits aren’t novel, fresh, or particularly clever. Still, This Is Not a Movie illustrates my pretentious movie theorem: an intellectually ambitious failure is more interesting than an unpretentious failure. I may not have been impressed by this film’s grandiose ideas, but I was happy to see it at least had some.

This Is Not a Movie (2011) should not be confused with This Is Not a Film (2011), the documentary shot by Iranian director Jafar Panahi while under house arrest for propaganda against the state, which was smuggled out of the theocracy on a flash drive hidden inside a birthday cake and screened at Cannes.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“To call This is Not a Movie weird is disingenuous. Rubio’s film is a simulacrum of weird, a copycat approximation of what the mass public perceives as being so… True visionary weirdness comes from creating original iconography and doing something no one else could ever conceive of. That’s what all the people Rubio is ripping off did.”–Jamie S. Rich, DVD Talk (DVD)

Capsules

CAPSULE: SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS (2009)

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DIRECTED BY:  Hue Rhodes

FEATURING: Steve Buscemi, Romany Malco, Sarah Silverman,

PLOT: An insurance fraud investigator with a secret gambling addiction is assigned to investigate a wheelchair-bound stripper’s accident claim in Las Vegas.

Still from Saint John of Las Vegas (2009)
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST:  Saint John lands the dreaded double whammy: it’s not very weird, and not that good.

COMMENTS:  In blackjack, a player sometimes gets a decent hand but pushes his luck, takes another hit and end up going bust.  Saint John of Las Vegas starts with good cards: quirky indie icon Steve Buscemi, a plot hook about fate leading a problem gambler to the worst place in the world for him, and good supporting performances by Sarah Silverman as the new girlfriend whose sunniness and clinginess besmirch her sexiness and Peter Dinklage as the smarmy, fast-talking boss.  There are a couple of nearly brilliant, ironically absurd individual ideas: a wheelchair lapdance and a carnival sideshow attraction trapped in a malfunctioning flame suit.  But every good scene is undone by at least two corresponding clunkers: sleepyheads un-comically freaking out when awakened by the glare from a nearby glass building, a sequence involving a clique of nude men in the desert that works too hard for its single joke, a slowly revealed recurring dream that explains nothing, and a nonsensical, bungled twist ending that explains even less.  Apprentice fraud investigator Buscemi hits the road with vet adjuster Malco, an unflappable, cocky black dude whose too-cool-for-school glare gets him past strip club bouncers without paying the cover.  The mismatched pair never develop a chemistry to drive the movie; though he’s just doing what the script tells him to, Malco remains more of a constant annoyance than a worthy antagonist for Buscemi.   The final card that makes the movie go bust, however, is the half-hearted attempt to base the story on Dante’s “Inferno.”  English majors’ ears will perk up when they hear that Buscemi’s guide to the City of Sin is named Virgil, but anyone hoping to pick out correspondences to the epic poem will be frustrated, and anyone not familiar with Dante will be confused by the digressions.  The script stretches for circles.  Lust works, but where’s gluttony, who are the naked guys supposed to represent, and is there a new mortal sin—nicotine addiction—sandwiched somewhere in between wrath and heresy?  Writer/director Rhodes prominently gives Dante Alighieri a “based on a story by” credit, which is borderline unethical; the guy’s been dead for almost 700 years, so he’s not likely to have his agent call to get his name taken off the credits.  Still, with all its script problems and its chronic lack of laughs, Buscemi’s shaggy charisma keeps the project from being a total waste.  The rat-faced actor was born to play strung-out losers seeking redemption; a middle-aged desk-slave addicted to scratch off lottery cards is a role he can’t completely whiff on.

First time feature writer/director Hue Rhodes, who made a mid-life career change from software engineer to filmmaker, obviously charmed a lot of people into believing in him.   Not only did he lure Buscemi on board, but Spike Lee and Stanley Tucci show up in the credits as executive producers.  Their confidence wasn’t completely misplaced, as Rhodes does prove competent: although Saint John‘s parts don’t fit together into a bigger picture, the individual pieces are technically polished, making for a salable trailer.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…Rhodes buries his would-be comic tale of desert losers in a welter of quirkiness and lousy surrealism, largely wasting an alluring cast brimming with humorous potential.”–David Noh, Film Journal International (contemporaneous)

Canonically Weird (The List)

69. FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998)

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This entry was originally published Nov. 3, 2010, but lost in a server accident. The version here was recreated from scratch and re-published on Oct. 24, 2012. Eric Young contributed to this article.

Recommended

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”–Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl”

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: ,

PLOT: Journalist Raoul Duke heads to Las Vegas with his attorney (“Dr. Gonzo”) and a suitcase full of exotic drugs to cover a motorcycle race. Somewhere around Barstow, the drugs start to take hold. The mission changes into a quest to find the secret of the American Dream, an excuse for an orgy of hallucinogenic hedonism and dangerously antisocial behavior as the pair tromp through the unreal neon wonderland of Sin City.

BACKGROUND:

  • ‘s novel “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream” was published in 1971 and became an instant counterculture classic. Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone each hoped to adapt the novel to film, but plans fell through.
  • The character of Dr. Gonzo, played by Benicio Del Toro in the film, was based on Hunter S. Thompson’s real-life friend Oscar Zeta Acosta, an attorney/activist. Acosta mysteriously disappeared three years after the publication of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” in 1974 while traveling through Mexico and has not been seen since.
  • The original script for the film was written by Alex Cox and his colleague Tod Davies, but differences between Cox and the producer Laila Nabulsi, as well as open disdain of his treatment by an unhappy Hunter S. Thompson, led to the script being dropped. This left only a few precious days for Terry Gilliam and screenwriter Tony Grisoni to write a new script to begin production with. Gilliam and Grisoni allegedly finished their script in only eight days, with two additional days for rewrites.
  • Featured heavily in the opening of the book, the Rolling Stones track “Sympathy for the Devil” was going to be the opening theme that set the tone for the rest of the film, but Allen Klein, former manager of The Rolling Stones and owner of a sizable chunk of their early library, demanded an exorbitant $300,000 for the song. As this would have devoured half of the soundtrack budget, so Terry Gilliam opted for the more fiscally reasonable “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” as the closing track.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: We’ll go with the scene where Duke, who is peaking on acid while checking into the Mint hotel and has already seen the carpet climbing up a cowboy’s leg and hotel clerk Katherine Helmond‘s face stretching like Silly Putty, suddenly sees the denizens of the hotel bar transformed into a tribe of literal lounge lizards.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Master fantasist Terry Gilliam brings Hunter S. Thompson’s semi-autobiographical satirical novel about a degenerate journalist and his equally debased attorney companion whose idea of a good time is to sniff ether and scarf mescaline before striding into the whirling carnival of the Bazooka Circus casino to howling life. Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo’s increasingly deranged pilgrimage to the Mecca of American venality turns into a grim and perverse endurance test for both them and the viewer, as the pair see how far they can push the limits of decency without losing their lives, freedom or sanity.


Original trailer for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

COMMENTS: When Terry Gilliam was promoting Fear and Loathing Continue reading 69. FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998) →