33/50: Requiem for a Dream

I have never really had the urge to try hardcore drugs, nor do I see the reason why anyone would ever want to. Besides the initial feeling you get from it, everything else about it just seems horrific. So what is it that makes people want to go down that path?

Anyway, if anyone is even considering taking hardcore drugs of any sort Requiem for a Dream should be appointment viewing. If they aren't scared off from doing drugs by watching this film then there was no real hope for them anyway.

The film follows four individuals, all linked in some way, that begin to go down that dark path of drug use. Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto) and Tyrone Love (Marlon Wayans) have decided that in order to always have their next fix they will begin to sell drugs. Also along for the ride is Harry's girlfriend Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly), who dreams of owning a clothing store - which Harry has agreed to fund with his drug money.

The weirdest story truly belongs to Harry's mother, Sara (Ellen Burstyn). She is a bit of a television addict and loves this infomercial guy, Tappy Tibbons (Christopher McDonald). One day she receives a letter informing her that she will be on television soon. So, she begins to try losing weight - when it becomes difficult she tries diet pills and becomes addicted.

The interesting stories belong to the younger three as we see just what they will do and how far they will go to make sure they have their drugs. All three take different paths, but the results basically end up the same.

I have to say, a very well done and disturbing film. Like I said, anyone who even has a thought about taking drugs should absolutely check this film out. Even though I had no plans to partake in any of these substances - I am definitely staying away forever now.

I haven't seen too many films with Leto, but I thought he did a great job in the role. Connelly continues to amaze me - she hasn't appeared to age in 20 years. And Wayans was great in a non-comedic performance.

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Superhero Movie

I had a small moment this weekend where I was able to toss in a movie. So I rummaged through the multitude of movies I have yet to watch and selected one out.

Sunday I tossed in Superhero Movie another spoof movie - there seems to be about three per year nowadays.

The recipe is pretty familiar, find a typical type of movie franchise - in this film it was obviously the superhero franchise - mix in your typical pop culture references, throw in random celebrities, and try to get the audience to laugh at the slap-stick humor.

In most cases, the film follows one film pretty closely. In this case, it was Spiderman. Teenager Rick Riker (Drake Bell) is your Peter Parker-type character. He longs for the girl he should never get, Jill Johnson (Sara Paxton), is a bit of a geek and totally gets picked on by the bullies, one of which is his crush's actual boyfriend.

Well, Riker happens to get bitten by a genetically altered dragonfly on a class trip - and, yup you guess it - starts to develop super powers - and becomes Dragonfly.

Riker lives with his aunt and uncle (Marion Ross and Leslie Nielson), who try to be infuential in his life after the loss of his parents - all very Spiderman-y.

The villain is known as Hourglass (Christopher McDonald), who has a disease where he needs to suck the life out of a human each day to survive. He develops a plan to suck in enough life at a single time to become immortal. And it's up to Dragonfly to save the day.

The movie wasn't horrible - a lot of different parts could have absolutely been removed from the film, like the X-Men parts, but then the movie would have been under an hour.

I am a fan of Drake Bell from his Drak & Josh days, and he did pretty well in the starring role. I also think Sara Paxton is a knockout - so she wasn't hard to look at as well.

Like all spoof movies, everything and anything was well over the top to try and make a laugh. And, I laughed a few times during the film.

I think that the Scary Movie franchise has done the world a diservice by continually marching out these films. The first one was done rather well, but they have to know where to draw the line.

But, for a quick 100 minutes or whatever, it wasn't a total waste of time.

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