Requiem for a Dream (2000)
We got a winner!
THE SUMMARY: A guy and his girlfriend and his friend do drugs and ruin their lives. Also his mom does drugs and ruins her life. It’s a depressing, pointless movie presented in repetitive, annoying montages, but it does have an excellent soundtrack.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER JACOB: A terrifying story of how addiction can ruin lives - the movie imposes a feeling of impending doom throughout. The haunting soundtrack will stick with you for years.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S AI FACESWAP ART:
Matt Wayans and Rebecca Leto.
If Blonde never became a mom and was instead a childless cat lady.
I look like a casting reject for Jesse Pinkman.
A clown nose would really complete the look.
THE BEST:
Great music: The movie’s main theme is as good as any I’ve heard - right up there with the GOAT, John Williams. It was composed by Clint Mansell, who apparently and strangely hasn’t done much of fame otherwise. He did some music for Black Swan, Sahara, and Noah, among other movies, and played in an alternative rock band called Pop Will Eat Itself for some time.
As for the song, it’s dramatic, it’s catchy, and it’s a simultaneously beautiful and painful sound reflective of the movie’s plot: watching loved ones fall apart. In that sense, I think the music is a decent fit for the story, even if it’s overused on scenes that aren’t actually all that interesting otherwise. But that’s the problem - the music vastly outperforms the show. It’s a waste of an amazing score. The music would work so much better in a war movie, or an epic adventure, or really anything more compelling than a bunch of junkies shooting up until they have to chop their arms off, or do ‘ass to ass’ with rando whores for some petty cash from spectators.
Case in point, the song was put to better use later - it was remade as ‘Requiem for a Tower’ for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer, and it fits exceptionally well.
Cool effect on the arm: Even though I don’t have much care or sympathy for the circumstance, the effect of Harry’s infected arm is great. It’s looks authentic and disgusting. You can feel the pain pulsing through it just looking at it. Well done.
A great song wasted on a crappy movie.
A good infection effect.
THE WORST:
So… what?: I don’t understand what value I’m supposed to find in this story. After all the dramatic music and seizure-inducing montages, it’s like if Wes Anderson remade Mr. Mackey: ‘drugs are bad, mmmkay,’ but retold with way more ‘artistic’ elements than necessary. I grant that not every story must have a happy ending, but for ‘downfall’ stories to work, the characters need to have a high point from which to fall. What’s the high point here? Harry and Marion are dating? Harry and Tyrone are friends? Harry’s mom might go on a game show some time?
If I don’t care about or even respect the characters in the first place, and the movie gives me no reason to, what tragedy am I supposed to find in their fall? Is there even a fall, if they were already pieces of crap to begin with? The story is just ‘scumbags get a little more scummy.’ Don’t care. If the story would be improved by everyone dying, it’s not a good story.
Please stop with all the visual… everything: I hated the visual presentation right away - the splitscreen is incredibly difficult to watch, and serves no actual purpose other than to be different from the usual way dialogue is edited, back and forth between speakers. The movie deploys that style throughout, and adds to the visual nuisance with constant montages about drug use. Take a hit, eyes dilate, bloodflow increases, we get it. This is just gourmet dressing on a crap salad. I don’t care how ‘artistic’ the presentation is if the story and characters are terrible.
I feel like I'm on drugs just watching it... but I guess that's the point.
THE RATING: 2/5 Wickies. I’ll remember the music, and that’s it.
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NEXT WEEK: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
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