Movie reviews...
By pure chance, I ending up catching a couple so-called "drug movies" this past weekend: Spun (released in 2002, a film which many people accuse of being a rip-off of Requiem for a Dream) and Garden State (a 2004 movie that is really a bit of a pseudo-chick flick).
Spun covers the intertwined (and obviously messed up) lives of a crystal methamphetemines lab financier, a meth producer, a meth seller, a meth buyer, and a few of their associates. Despite all the comparisons to Requiem, I found this movie pretty good, almost kind of a cross between Requiem and Rushmore, but only because Jason Schwartzman is the star of both the latter and Spun--I'm just saying that maybe one could possibly imagine that it covers the life of Max Fischer after getting kicked out of Rushmore Academy (only joking). Critics have complained that "there is no point" to this movie, but I think that IS precisely the point of it--meth junkies can end up living rather meaningless lives...in fact, I would be kind of concerned if there were a point to this movie... I'd give this movie an "A" rating for sure.
As for Garden State, I would have to give it a "B." It deals with a character who has been prescribed so many different types of psychiatric drugs that he has essentially spent the entire previous decade doing nothing. He returns from Los Angeles to his home town in New Jersey after his mother's death, and meets a wild chick, Samantha. As you might guess, the lead character begins to realize the life he has been missing and decides the drugs have actually hindered his life, not helped it. This is a pretty good movie, but it has moments of flashes of a romantic-comedy, so I can't quite justify giving it an outright "A." I do like Nathalie Portman's Sam character though.
Spun covers the intertwined (and obviously messed up) lives of a crystal methamphetemines lab financier, a meth producer, a meth seller, a meth buyer, and a few of their associates. Despite all the comparisons to Requiem, I found this movie pretty good, almost kind of a cross between Requiem and Rushmore, but only because Jason Schwartzman is the star of both the latter and Spun--I'm just saying that maybe one could possibly imagine that it covers the life of Max Fischer after getting kicked out of Rushmore Academy (only joking). Critics have complained that "there is no point" to this movie, but I think that IS precisely the point of it--meth junkies can end up living rather meaningless lives...in fact, I would be kind of concerned if there were a point to this movie... I'd give this movie an "A" rating for sure.
As for Garden State, I would have to give it a "B." It deals with a character who has been prescribed so many different types of psychiatric drugs that he has essentially spent the entire previous decade doing nothing. He returns from Los Angeles to his home town in New Jersey after his mother's death, and meets a wild chick, Samantha. As you might guess, the lead character begins to realize the life he has been missing and decides the drugs have actually hindered his life, not helped it. This is a pretty good movie, but it has moments of flashes of a romantic-comedy, so I can't quite justify giving it an outright "A." I do like Nathalie Portman's Sam character though.