I review plenty of film adaptations of beloved books, and when I do, I generally try to ignore the book altogether and consider the film on its own merits — it just seems the best and fairest way to do it. However, that’s impossible for me here. The Rum Diary is just too alive in my mind for it not to color my entire viewing experience. (Just so you know where we stand).

The first thing you have to know about The Rum Diary is that it’s a much different book than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In Fear and Loathing, Hunter S. Thompson was writing a stylized account of himself as an established journalist on a clear mission (to find the American Dream). The Rum Diary is a novel Thompson wrote when he was 22 (though not published until much later) and still trying to figure out his path in life. Where Fear and Loathing was specific, Rum Diary is crafted from broad strokes. It isn’t particularly plot-driven, and succeeds largely on the strength of the themes and on Hunter’s prose. In fact, despite it being one of my favorite books, I don’t think I could’ve told you much about the plot or any of the characters going in. What had stayed with me was that it was about a 20-something year-old writer terrified of getting old and selling out, written by that same 20-something-year old writer, and read by me, when I was– well, I think you can fill in the rest. An equally scary prospect was selling out’s alternative, sticking to your principles only to have them make you nothing but poor and embittered.

“No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction – toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat.”

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From what we hear, the movie adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary has been finished for more than a year, just sitting around waiting for a release. It’s finally set to open October 28th, and now it has a trailer. And not a moment too soon. Johnny Depp was dangerously close to becoming permanently known as “that guy from the Bruckheimer movies with all the accessories.” Anyway, it’s nice to see him back drifting towards anarchy, poverty, and craziness, trying to live a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas goat and all that.

Directed by Bruce Robinson, the cast is pretty insane, starring Depp as the newbie ex-pat Puerto Rican journalist Kemp, Richard Jenkins as Lotterman, Aaron Eckhardt as Sanderson, Amber Heard as Sanderson’s fianceé, and Giovanni Ribisi as Moberg (a character who gets blackout drunk and the next morning locates his car by smell — a man after my own heart), who I hear steals the show. So, from what we know, a real movie with a real cast and a real story. It’s nice to see that someone finally got around to actually releasing it between movies about explosions, aliens, and the military. The book it’s based on is quite popular, and I’m told there’s even a climactic rape scene that they reenact every year at the Puerto Rican Day Parade. What? I kid, I kid.

BOOM. MOTHERF**KIN BEDAZZLED TORTOISE, SON!

The Johnny Depp-starring adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Rum Diary finished principal photography almost two years ago, and a film with huge star in it sitting on the shelf so long is usually a bad sign.  but I posted a reader’s review of in April of 2010, and it sounded pretty positive.  So when the hell do we actually get to see it?  The answer is soon, provided your idea of “soon” is in October.  Here’s the official press release via distributor FilmDistrict, who’s releasing their first two films, Insidious and Soul Surfer, this weekend and the following.

FilmDistrict will release “The Rum Diary,” based on the early Hunter S. Thompson novel that was ultimately published in 1998. It stars Johnny Depp and will be released on October 28, 2011. The film is directed by Bruce Robinson (“Withnail and I”) from his own screenplay and also stars Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins and Giovanni Ribisi. “The Rum Diary” is produced by Infinitum Nihil, the production company headed by Depp and Christi Dembrowski, along with Graham King and Tim Headington. Anthony Rhulen and Robert Kravis also produce.

“The Rum Diary” tells the increasingly unhinged story of itinerant journalist Paul Kemp (Depp). Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman (Jenkins). Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late ‘50s version of Hemingway’s “The Lost Generation,” Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman, Chenault (Heard) and her fiancée Sanderson (Eckhart), a businessman involved in shady property development deals. It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man. [CinemaBlend]

I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this damned movie, and I can’t believe I have to wait… SEVEN MORE MONTHS??!?!  My God, it’s an eternity.  But what if I’ve PUT AWAY childish things by then?

You know the film industry is screwed up when a finished, Johnny-Depp starring movie adaptation of Hunter Thompson’s The Rum Diary sits around waiting for a release date (we know it’s finished because it’s had test screenings), while the movie version of magic 8-ball and Must Love Queefs (starring Katherine Heigl) get fast tracked.  So far, all we know is that The Rum Diary will hit theaters sometime this year.  Nonetheless, it’s nice to know that movies we care about are actually out there.

These new pictures come from FilmTotaal (you can see bigger versions there) and they don’t really tell us much besides “OMG OMG, it’s Johnny Depp playing Hunter Thompson again!” (*throws wet panties at computer screen*).  The banner pic shows Johnny Depp as fictionalized Thompson protagonist Paul Kemp, Giovanni Ribisi as Moberg, the disgusting, drunken newspaper man, and the guy on the back of the motorcycle is Michael Rispoli, playing Bob Salas.  I’ve always said that Giovanni Ribisi is a highly underrated actor, but then again, f*ck him.  You think you’re better’n me?  I have a podcast.

Oh, and my blatant ploy for traffic tells me that it also stars Amber Heard. (*cough*) NAKED LESBIAN UPSKIRT NIPSLIP DOGSEX! (*cough, cough*)

Ah, it’s nice to be excited for a movie for a change.  Middle Men premiered at the Santa Barbara Film Festival where it was picked up for distribution by Paramount Vantage, and now it’s scheduled for an August theatrical run.  Written and directed by George Gallo, who wrote Midnight Run in 1988 and a bunch of random crap after that, Middle Men follows Giovanni Ribisi, James Caan, Gabriel Macht, and Luke Wilson playing a fictionalized version of Christopher Malick, the first guy to figure out how to charge credit cards for porn site access over the internet — a man who indirectly helped put food on my table for years.

Maybe I’m a little weird, but I’m fascinated by the internet porn phenomenon.  It’s barely 10 years old.  And about five years into it, I actually re-learned how to pleasure myself using my left hand (so that my right could control the mouse, commanding my virtual orgies like a Roman emperor).  I know, I know, too much information, but think about that:  How many eons of evolution were undone by the simple development of boobies on a computer screen?  So much so that a dumb primate like me could re-train itself to use its non-dominant hand for a daily activity?  That’d be like a shark one day deciding to swim backwards from now on because the water felt good on his butt hole.  Wouldn’t happen.  And that, my friends, is why we’re better than the sharks.

[HD available at Apple, hat tip: /Film]