Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
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What critics compared Requiem for a Dream to
Think "Trainspotting," think "Kids," think "Requiem for a Dream," only funny -- that is, if you think leaving naked women tied to the bedposts for days while a heavy metal CD skips at full volume is funny.
It only escalates from there into a frenzy of animated fantasies and fast forwarded footage that could challenge Requiem for a Dream in the kinetic cinematic assault department.
He made the clips for Prodigy's Smack my b*&^% up and Madonna's Ray of light, and is clearly a fan of earlier junkie movies like Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy, especially Darren Aronofsky's almost unbearable Requiem For A Dream.
An entertaining but hideous romp on the circus side of crystal meth addiction, "Spun" wants to be another "Trainspotting" and/or "Requiem for a Dream."
There is very little material covered here that has not already been pounded into the ground by Darren Aronofsky's “Requiem for a Dream,” Lili Zanuck's “Rush” and even Kubrick's “A Clockwork Orange.”
At least "Requiem for a Dream," which this film was obviously inspired by, had the good sense to take drugs seriously.
In that vein, it makes sense to lean on Showgirls and Brian de Palma's Carrie and Brian Yuzna's Society and even Cronenberg's The Fly, but the late-inning embrace of the imagery of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream feels slapdash, momentarily knocking The Substance off its axis.
Her cruelty towards Elisabeth, her ‘matrix,’ begins to transform the woman into an old crone, which suddenly makes The Substance begin to feel like, of all things, Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000).
…an overwhelming mishmash of styles that feels like if Gaspar Noé directed an episode of Tales from the Crypt and then David Cronenberg put it into the Brundlefly machine with the ‘80s cult classic From Beyond and those Ellen Burstyn scenes from Requiem for a Dream and it was then released by Adult Swim.
One could compare Requiem for a Dream to similarly-themed films like Panic in Needle Park and Trainspotting, but that would reduce Aronofsky's film to just another entry in the genre.
While it may be unfair to compare the tones of the opening sequences another film about drug addiction, “Trainspotting”, both films are trying to accomplish different goals, I believe that the opening sequences of “Requiem for a Dream” are undoubtedly more powerful.
"Drugstore Cowboy," "Sid and Nancy," "Trainspotting," "Permanent Midnight," and more recently "Jesus' Son" -- these films are almost as innocuous as "Alice in Wonderland" compared to "Requiem for a Dream."
The inevitable contextual comparison, however, is with Danny Boyle's similarly brazen 1995 drug film Trainspotting.
It plays like "Magnolia" by way of "Trainspotting" with a touch of Marquis de Sade.
Still, what's mostly satisfyingly unpleasant turns, in its last half hour, into one of the most disturbing pieces of film I've ever seen -- if Aronofsky set out to make Trainspotting look like Teletubbies, he succeeded.
When compared to something as brutal as Requiem For a Dream , Beautiful Boy appears hesitant to travel a similar path, despite hitting several similar narrative beats.
Regardless of what’s happening on screen, Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet are aching portraits of genuine suffering; minor faults aside Beautiful Boy is the best film chronicling drug addiction since Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece Requiem for a Dream.
But unlike knockout experiences, such as “Trainspotting” (1996) or “Requiem for a Dream” (2000), this feels like a two-hour PSA with an abrupt finish and preachy end credits.
From Trainspotting to The Panic in Needle Park to Requiem for a Dream , that vicious cycle that sucks users in to a living hell is given all kinds of depictions.
“The story of a middle-class Californian kid who gets addicted to crystal meth, then bounces between rehab, relapses and overdoses for the rest of the film” sounds like a wearisome, derivative experience — like Requiem for a Dream, but with better decor.
Beautiful Boy's fragmented narrative is not detrimental to the story, but if you are expecting the grit of Requiem for a Dream or Christiane F, don't.
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Morra’s out-of-body experiences have hints of “Fight Club” and “Requiem for a Dream,” but Burger’s camera work never entirely matches the coolness of the idea or his star.
Having not read the book it was based on, The Dark Fields, and gleaning on a mixed sense of what would occur in the film from trailers I wasn't sure if I was headed into something akin to a techno-thriller Requiem for a Dream or an drug covered The Fugitive.
Sketchy attempts at action?a chase through Central Park, a fight to the death in Eddie's high-rise condo?are interspersed between long sections that play like a wannabe " Wall Street " by way of "Requiem for a Dream" had that pitch-black Darren Aronofsky cautionary tale portrayed its drug-addled ensemble as getting by just fine hopped up on crack and diet pills, thank you very much.
It's like "Wall Street" crossed with "Rain Man" hopped up on "Requiem for a Dream".
His cutaways - flashes of blood droplets, the iris of an eye and the Busby Berkeley style dancers who morph into ghouls – are reminiscent of his work on "Requiem for a Dream.”
If you like Matthew Libatique’s cinematography, watch Requiem for a Dream or his very similar Black Swan.
The jettisoning between the highest of highs and lowest of lows is familiar if you’ve seen any addiction movie, like Mississippi Grind or Requiem for a Dream, but it’s surprising how well Sandler pulls this off, how much hope and desperation he imbues into a character who could have easily been a caricature.
Instead, the Safdies’ faux realism and boastful trashiness recall Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream , an approach that trivializes the Jewish Prince predicament rather than tacke it — as in the buoyant yet weighty Vampire Weekend song “Harmony Hall,” in which Ezra Koenig confesses, “A nervous heart that beats like a young pretender’s / beneath these velvet gloves I hide the shameful crooked hands of the moneylender / cuz I still remember.”
There are shades of Requiem For A Dream in some moments, where everything that can go wrong does go wrong to an almost absurdly overwrought degree.
There are moments in this ambitious film that evoke the wrenching dread of Aronofsky's addiction horror Requiem for a Dream, as it seems things can't get worse, and then they do.
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The pairing of her acting and Dominik’s movie is akin to Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-nominated role in Darren Aronosky’s Requiem for a Dream.
His previous films, including "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream," hinted at a flair for the hysterical that "Black Swan" fully embraces.
The latest film from maverick virtuoso director Darren Aronofsky (" The Wrestler ," " Requiem for a Dream ") choreographs some new moves for several familiar romantic-with-a-capital-"R" themes.
With the way in which he toys with viewer perceptions, the filmmaker references not only his blistering anti-drug effort, Requiem for a Dream , but also his feature debut, Pi .
Aronofsky’s past works (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler) have often dealt with many strains of obsession, and Black Swan has its fair share.
And in demonstrating how cruelty and tragedy can be the underside of beauty, Aronofsky, who previously explored forms of madness in "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream," follows the white swan / black swan template in turning what appears to be a nice little dance movie into a lurid exploitation film.
Of Aronofsky’s previous work, “Black Swan” has the most in common with the 2000 addiction saga “Requiem for a Dream,” although like “The Wrestler,” it’s about a protagonist choosing a particular field even though it’s very, very bad for them.