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For No Good Reason Reviews
Made real film enjoyers!
No good reason to dislike this movie. Its so damn good
Bery very entertaining and well informed. Recommended
Good to see Steadman's work again & to remember the last 60s with fondness. He is quite an artist. The film itself was boring.
Unusual doc but very well made and with a great subject
The film gives a very thorough look at the man's work and overall process, which I really enjoyed. The archival bits are fun, and the narration by Johnny Depp adds to things nicely, as he has been acquainted with both Steadman and his long time collaborator Hunter S. Thompson over the years. Recommended, and well worth a look.
A surface biobic of a very influential Artist tied together with short interviews of Thompson and 5 minutes of Burroughs.
This movie has been in the making for close to 20 years, and it is so very sad to see an honest exploration of a prolific artist like steadman end like this. I watched the film for research as well as enjoyment, and I have to say that whoever they hired to edit and stylize the film is severely lacking in any sort of good judgement. This movie holds a lot of important footage, that is shirked in favor of 'putting it on a hip moving background!" while a soundtrack plays that in no way matches the work on display. I was very disappointed to see that an artist like Steadman, whose process is very unique was featured rather than interviewed. The whole film seemed to me like a motion, rather than an honest exploration. Notably the scenes in which you watch steadman draw are lacking, because they don't focus on his use of materials, one of the fundamental aspects of his work. If you want to see a shiny, watered down version of what could have been genuinely engaging, featuring Johnny Depp (for honestly no other reason except for appearances, sad. I'm sure Depp has at least a little insight into Steadman through their relationships and work with Hunter S. Thompson). Overall I just think this movie should be re-edited. There is no way a movie with this much talent behind it just fell flat, someone must have made the decision to make the content 'hip' and 'fresh', and that person should have been fired. It is at best an attempt at proper documentary film making, and a little disrespectful to every high-level creative involved in the project.
Just couldn't get into this. The guy did some good art and some bad art but I'm not sure he'd be as big a name had it not been for Hunter S. Thompson. You'll catch my attention with more HST clips, but not this guy. At the start, I thought all his art was shit. Not for me to say what is good though, but I thought it painfully awkward as Jonny Depp had to pretend he enjoyed watching the process. But Steadman is very prolific and did have his fair share of some pretty neat art..just usually not the ones he makes when the camera is on. So maybe a more interesting dynamic would have been the dissension between he and HST...getting toward the end of the documentary, we see a little more of that and I paused from turning it off to watch that part. But overall, I just don't like this guy's process and wasn't interested to see Depp pretend he was interested just because he plays in all the HST movies.
Artful transitions, creative photography, and celebratory stock footage, taps both Steadman's and Thompson's artistic savage, spares average documentary minutiae, and is necessarily inspiring.
As Hunter S. Thompson's texts were iconic for the imagery created for them which was later transferred to Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, For No Good Reason sounded like an interesting chance to get a look at the meaning behind it all. I must say that For No Good Reason was a simply disappointing documentary. It was a film with so much potential and interesting people to be involved with, and yet it wasted it all on a film which tried to be a surreal experience. For No Good Reason covers a lot of ground in terms of the artworks created by Ralph Steadman with scenes depicting his technique and his vision for artwork very well. The film is packed with so many of his pieces flashing across the screen while narration quickly explains what the relevance of all them are. The problem is simply that it is overwhelming. Having so many images rush across the screen while music plays gives the feel of a music video which turns the film into an excessive rush which easily convolutes it's message. I walked away from For No Good Reason with no understanding of practically anything about Ralph Steadman and only a single piece of information more about Hunter S. Thompson, so it is a poor documentation of history. It seems as if Charlie Paul wanted to take an angle on the film which made it both innovative as a documentary and also a surreal visual experience along the lines of Ralph Steadman's artworks. In actual fact, it just made it overwhelming and limited the potential for insight. I really can't say I learned much from the film, and even though I enjoyed seeing a lot of the imagery and learning about small aspects of Ralph Steadman, it seems that the film is a self-fulfilling prophecy in that it was made for no good reason. For No Good Reason does make use of some interesting historical footage. Although it fails to explain it and it is further blurred partially by the way it is composed onto screen in an intended stylish manner, viewers get to see part of the history that contributed to making Charles Steadman who he is. Like I said, the film is shallow without much depth to it whatsoever, but the scenes depicting his interactions with Hunter S. Thompson and William S. Burroughs are intriguing. Of course most of the interesting scenes come from seeing his art pieces at work, as well as how it talks slightly about why he made them and just what his driving force was. The film is far from as good as it could have been, but Ralph Steadman is an interesting person with a fascinating artistic style. If Charlie Paul's intention was to convey that in his documentary then he succeeded. It is just a shame that he didn't succeed as much as he could have. For No Good Reason is so obsessed with being crammed full of imagery that it forgets to honestly examine the person it is chronicling. Ralph Steadman seems interesting, but Charlie Paul is not too interested in explaining why. He is too focused on the man as an artist to put any emphasis on him as a person. And the style of the documentary is not good enough to hide that. The style of the film is poor due to being overwhelming whereas the educational value of For No Good Reason is poor due to being drastically underwhelming. It only asks questions at a half-assed rate during the entirety of the film, and viewers are not likely to walk away from it having grasped too much. I mean, you miss things if you blink in the film yet the imagery is simply shoved down your throat with many artworks having been used repeatedly over the course of the feature. There is hardly a moment where the film slows down enough for viewers to appreciate the simple aspects of it, and so it rests mainly on the focus of what kinds of images they are instead of what they are. The nature of the imagery is repeatedly used, but the kind of impact that Ralph Steadman made on the art world with them is not explained well at all. There is clearly a story lying beneath all the images and convoluted structure in For No Good Reason, but I didn't walk away from the film with enough motivation to honestly ask any more questions myself. For No Good Reason made me give up on any interest I had in Ralph Steadman, and I get the feeling that was the last thing Charlie Paul would want his documentary to do. There is also a lack of involvement from Johnny Depp. If not for him then the film would not have been made, but considering the history of his relationship with Hunter S. Thompson as well as his influential legacy, it seems that there is a lot he could have had to say. Instead, he is simply used as a pretty face in the documentary. His role in the production of the film is different to the role he actually plays in it all, and the wisdom that he hints at during a scene where he discusses the death of Hunter S. Thompson suggests that he could have done a lot more for the film. Even Terry Gilliam who brought the imagery to life in his adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is given but a few seconds of screen time. His presence in the film is one of the primary reasons I wanted to see it, and the fact that he played such a diminutive part in it is thoroughly disappointing. So despite a lot of imagery, For No Good Reason gets obsessed with trying to be a surreal visual experience and a look at Ralph Steadman which ends up being its own undoing and finishes as a shallow and visually overwhelming documentary which finishes having made little ground.
This documentary is so concerned with fancy special effects, animation & the fact that it has Johnny Depp, that it complete forgets about its subject sometimes. It often even feels like a doc about Hunter S. Thompson, rather than Ralph Steadman. Anyway, lots of cool Steadman art on display (timelapses are especially nice), but overall quite a disappointment. SKIP IT
I didn't know Steadman was associated with Gonzo. Now I do and I still see him as a shadow of Gerald Scarfe. Not impressed.
For no good reason indeed
An overly pretentious look at one of the greats, pointlessly held together my Johnny Depp...for no good reason. Could have been a lot better we're Steadman's art discussed more than Steadman himself. Moments of artistic clarity bogged down by a slow pace and too much unnecessary filler.
What a cool artist...much more than just collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson.
This was not a film for me. I don't find Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, or Ralph Steadman's careers that fascinating. They all have an air of self-importance that seem to be a turn off for me.
Review: I really enjoyed this documentary about the extremely talented artist, Ralph Steadman, who has a very unique style of painting/drawing. A lot of people have seen his work on the Withnail & I and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas covers, but he hasn't really became an household name. After seeing his amazing work in this documentary, which shows Ralph Steadman being interviewed by Johnny Depp who was the main character in Fear & Loathing, you can't help thinking that he is extremely under rated which is probably due to his personal political views. This movie gives an in depth look about the thought process behind his work and the strange but wonderful relationship between Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson. I think that the director done a great job with this documentary, and for someone that had never heard of Steadman before, I will definitely look out for his previous and present work. Enjoyable! Round-Up: The way that the director was able to use Ralph Steadman's work to put it into mini cartoons, was brilliant and to see Steadman create a painting from just flicking the paintbrush onto a blank piece of paper, really does show how talented the man really is. The different techniques that he uses to come of with some amazing paintings, was an eye opener, but it's a shame that no one has really heard of him. In the art and movie world, he does seem to be well known and respected but I really didn't have a clue about his work before I saw this documentary. Anyway, it's worth watch if your interested in this type of thing, but I'm sure that some people would find it boring if they were looking for entertainment. Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $67,500 (Deserved more!) I recommend this movie to people who are into documentaries about art and who have seen some of Ralph Steadman's terrific work. 6/10