9. Jumpin' Jack Flash/Viva Las Vegas - Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)
We move from one Terry Gilliam masterpiece to the next with the twin attack of the Rolling Stones' Jumpin Jack Flash and the Dead Kennedys cover of Viva Las Vegas in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Based on the writings of famous gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas recounts his drug-addled trip to Las Vegas with his lawyer, Dr. Gonzo. The film, which stars Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, is utter insanity in only the type of way that Terry Gilliam could deliver and ends to the sounds of The Rolling Stones' energetic Jumpin' Jack Flash as Depp's Thompson finally leaves Vegas, surrounded by nothing but desert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1enywhs7vfk The optimistic, nonchalant bravado of the Stones' Jumpin Jack Flash is a fitting song to accompany Thompson's escape from the surreal hell of Vegas on psychotropic drugs, but the real reason this entry appears on this list is for the second song that plays out the credits: the Dead Kennedys covering Elvis' Viva Las Vegas. The Dead Kennedys' cover is played with a manic energy that is legitimately fun, but the lines are delivered in such an acerbically satirical manner as to be unmistakably the work of the politically charged Kennedys. The attitude of the film perfectly mirrors that of the Kennedys, and the circus like sound of the guitar's main riff recalls the best line of the film, which Depp's character delivers while trapped in a casino resembling Circus Circus, "Bazooko's Circus is what the whole world would being doing Saturday nights if the Nazi's had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich."
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
