Knight Ridder Newspapers

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) – Fans of Hunter S. Thompson will get an inside view of his elaborate memorial service in a film directed by Wayne Ewing.

“When I Die” will be shown Saturday at the Starz Denver International Film Festival. The hour-long movie depicts the creation of the 15-story tower that was used to blast Thompson’s ashes into the sky at a closed memorial service on his Woody Creek property in August.

Thompson shot himself in his kitchen on Feb. 20, apparently despondent over health problems. He was 67.

National and most local media were barred from the tribute to Thompson, who is credited, along with Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, with helping pioneer New Journalism – he dubbed his version “gonzo journalism” – in which the writer was an essential component of the story.

Ewing, who directed 2003’s “Breakfast With Hunter,” also shows the planning and governmental approvals that organizers needed in order to honor Thompson’s wishes for his send-off.

Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in 1998’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” paid the $2.6 million cost of the memorial.

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You can make fun of her fishwife Cleopatra or eight scattershot marriages all you want. Her latest book? The moving “My Love Affair With Jewelry.” But in our humble opinion, Elizabeth Taylor, our epitome of cinematic magnetism, can do no wrong.

Which is why we want to blow the newsprint trumpets to thank her for the opportunity to tell you that she made a wheelchair-bound appearance Friday, bedecked in just a few kilos of megawatt gems, to dedicate the new UCLA Clinical AIDS Research and Education Center.

In front of what the film capital might call an “intimate crowd” – including rocker Tom Petty and actress Carrie Fisher (Taylor was hitched to her dad, Eddie Fisher) – Taylor snipped a scarlet ribbon to signal the center’s opening and announce the Elizabeth Taylor Endowment Fund, which will support the center through grants and private donations.

Even if she hadn’t won an Academy Award or two (for “Butterfield 8” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”), Taylor would be famous for activism in the cause of AIDS.

Taylor helped to establish the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985 and created the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1991. They’ve raised $243 million to fund research and help people with HIV and AIDS.