Spun (2003)
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund
Over the course of three days Ross, a college dropout addicted to crystal-meth, encounters a variety of oddball folks - including a stripper named Nikki and her boyfriend, the local meth producer, The Cook - but all he really wants to do is hook up with his old girlfriend, Amy.
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9 films that influenced Spun
What critics say influenced Spun
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.
Still, there's something endearing about Åkerlund and his cast's eagerness to appall, a quality that places Spun not so much in the tradition of druggie movies like Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream as Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey's Heat and Trash.
Mena Suvari, the flawless object of Kevin Spacey's desire in "American Beauty," finds herself in dirty pajamas, fur slippers, with rotten teeth and problem bowels.
Can anything compare in shock value to the moment where we get to see not only American Beauty Mena Suvari as her green-toothed crack ho strains on the toilet in an attempt to go to the bathroom, but also a close-up of the end result?
Or that a contingent of talented young performers who impressed in previous outings -- Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Brittany Murphy (8 Mile), Mena Suvari (American Beauty), John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge) -- are left to do what few actors young or old should be allowed to do: improvise self-indulgent dialogue for their navel-gazing characters.
"Spun" has a cool cast of hopped-up cats with crazy nicknames (Spider Mike, Cookie, Frisbee) well-played by the likes of Leguizamo, Mena Suvari ( "American Beauty" ) as Leguizamo's badly strung-out girlfriend, and Patrick Fugit ( "Almost Famous" ) as a pimple-encrusted teenage hanger-on at least as addicted to video games as he is to drugs.
Their world includes characters played by Jason Schwartzman (" Rushmore "), Mena Suvari (" American Beauty "), Patrick Fugit (" Almost Famous ") and Brittany Murphy (" 8 Mile " and " Just Married ").
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.
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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.”
It may not be a comeback on the order of John Travolta�s in Pulp Fiction, but Mickey Rourke�s turn as " The Cook " here is so sinister/ sympathetic, it may make viewers forgive his cinematic sins in the years after Body Heat and Diner.
It may not be a comeback on the order of John Travolta�s in Pulp Fiction, but Mickey Rourke�s turn as " The Cook " here is so sinister/ sympathetic, it may make viewers forgive his cinematic sins in the years after Body Heat and Diner.
The lack of narrative sobriety and the director's shallow stylistic copycatting (the result is a crude mixture of Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club and The Salton Sea) is the film's ultimate undoing.
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Only professional wrestling and reality Cops-style shows seem to show on the airwaves, and the freedom of speech afforded by the Constitution seems to have resulted mostly in a proliferation of porn shacks and sweeping speeches about sex that would make Cheech�s character in From Dusk Till Dawn blush.