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duh 
"catpurrs"
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 Posted - 04/01/2008 : 19:17:13
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So...I'm getting caught up, a bit.
Requiem for a Dream
Hard to imagine that anyone would have paid money to go see this in the cinema. Not that it isn't a fine film--just that it doesn't strike me as popular entertainment. While watching the descensions of the addicts, I kept thinking, "Yeah, but isn't drug use common in Hollywood, and so why are we being given this cautionary tale by it?
Ellen Burstyn was fascinating and beautiful as usual, but I got the idea that her character was mentally ill before she ever took up diet pills. What was worse for her: the mental illness, the anorexia or the amphetmines?
The scene where Jennifer Connolley's character performs the anal sex scene at the orgy for drug money...I think it would have been more effective not to show everything and to leave it up to our imaginations. All I could think of was that the performance of that scene was demeaning to the actresses themselves and that I hoped Jennifer had a body double for it. One imagines the actresses who did the scene of women performing for drug money...were performing the scene for drug money.
Jared Leto's character, in contrast, lost only his left arm.
Marlon Wayans showed his serious dramatic skills that match or exceed his more often displayed comedy skills.
Overall, I was reminded of the song, "Mama Told Me Not Come."
Fierce People
Rich people are bad. Got that?
Quills
Fictional tale loosely based on the life of the Marquis DeSade. I thought this was the easily the best of these three films. It relates to the drive to create and how creative people will continue to create even when deprived of stuff to create with.
2 things come to mind: Stephen Hawking, who continues to be creative despite being helpless, and a science fiction story of the 60's that I read long ago. In that story, everyone gets trained for their jobs and careers by having their brains programmed electronically. One young man is told that he is uneducable and is sent to an institution for others of the same condition. He teaches himself to read and tries to be as productive as he can be. Ultimately, he learns that he and the others of the institution are gifted with the creative urge and are people who feel an imperative to create and be inventive.
ETA: This made me remember when I was young school child. The hellbitch who ran the lunchroom required everyone to eat everything on their lunch trays. If not, you had to remain in the lunch room until classes resumed and could not go out to play.
I was a finicky eater and sometimes ate nothing at all. So, day after day, I had to sit in the lunchroom, alone, while the janitor cleaned the room.
Actually, I was quite content to wait in the lunchroom. If I had gone out to the playground, I would have been mocked and tormented by mean girls who bullied me. Anyhow, while I sat there, I made toy horses and dolls out of paper napkins. |
Edited by - duh on 04/01/2008 19:41:57 |
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damalc 
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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Posted - 04/01/2008 : 23:50:49
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good observations on "Requiem," the only one of those three i've seen.
i've read that Connelly indeed had a body double.
i agree that the mother was already unbalanced. i think the phone call from the show that inspired her to lose weight was only in her mind.
Wayans was impressive and there are some funny scenes in the dvd extras of Wayans doing some of his lines as Jar Jar Binks. |
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3 films I watched last night (spoilers)
