Heh, well we’re bound to disagree on something. Requiem For A Dream suffers a little after repeat viewings as it’s strongest when seen with fresh eyes but yes, I liked it. A great film about addiction. The performances alone, especially Ellen Burstyn’s, make it stand out from the rest of the highly stylized films that came after it and I like when a director uses style to emphasize the themes unlike directors who use style for the sake of it “looking cool” (see: Zack Snyder). Aronofsky is one of my favorite directors working today and I pretty much loved everything from Pi to The Wrestler.
If you didn’t like it, would you at least agree that Marlon Wayans gives a good performance? Compared to his other stuff like the retarded Scary Movie films?
On the music: Agreed with Dutch Masta…blaming the original for that fact that it’s been over used by others is ridiculous. It’s like Clint Mansell should of been, ‘wait I shouldn’t make this music sound THAT good because it might mean that people will over use it…hmmm’.
That goes for the film as well…after RFAD, lots of people copied it but we can’t really blame the original for spawning pathetic copycats
[quote=“Dutch_Masta”]
You know, I bump into people like this every other Friday as I’m waiting for the “grindhouse” double feature to start at the local art house. They usually play a series of either Foreign or other independent features or short films before the double bill starts and on my in I run into beret wearing onion heads who are more than willing to sit there and tell you why QT, Aronofsky, PTA, Guy Ritchie, Luc Besson, RR, ect. all suck and aren’t worth 1 minute of their time. Sometimes I just want to watch Mean Streets and Resevoir dogs back to back on the big screen without even having to look at these people.
Req. for a dream is a pretty damn depressing flick. I remember watching that in theaters and just getting this feeling of dread the entire time. Say what you want about Aronofsky but he’s made some great films. I’m glad he got some shine with The Wrestler because it was a low budget movie.
Req. score is SHIT now because people jacked it directly from Requiem for a Dream. Lux Aeterna has become a track that other films scores lifted from in order to try to achieve the same kind of emotional effect Req. had. Why blame it ont he original? I don’t understand.
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People like what?
Paul Thomas Anderson is a thousand times better than Guy Ritchie and Luc Besson…
Aronofsky made a quiet, subtle film called The Wrestler and I’m glad he dropped the delusion of grandeur shit. It was pretentious and obnoxious and if you think Requiem for a Dream is emotional…you have the soul of a cricket.
[quote=“Lt. BioBasterd”]
It was a surrealistic experience, but it’s written in the lifes of drug addicts, these guys live to get high, in fact the whole film is about the direction that these people take and the end result is tragic. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. I prefer movies that aren’t too fancy with camera work, I like it when it’s character driven, directors like Joe Mankiewicz, Elia Kazan, Clarence Brown, PT Anderson - among those lines. But after seeing The Wrestler Darren proved he can be a great director without the fancy camera work. He’s a fine filmmaker and writer, let’s leave it at that.
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If you think that it is an accurate portrayal of avid drug users, you’ve clearly been smokin’ what Joe The Police Dog told you all those years ago in your school auditorium. This film isn’t ACCURATE. It’s over the top. It’s not even a good metaphor for what drug use is like. It’s just style-over-substance feature anti-drug ad. The only people whose lives it changed were those who’ve smoke some pot and seen some drug addicts. If you happen to be a drug user (which I doubt, you just seem naturally fucked in the head) then you must still be buzzin’ to even think this is a film that relates to your struggle.
Aronofsky’s new direction he’s taken is lightyears better than his previous work, which was just him scanning some books on philosophy and picking bits and pieces to turn into films without any deep understanding of it.
Mickey Rourke and Wood dancing in the empty warehouse is a perfect moment that QUIETLY reveals a relationship.
A bunch of time elapse through a fishbowl lense while that shitty Clint Mansell uses “dark ominous tones” (Sarah Marshall, bitch) as an excuse for music is not a perfect moment.
How anyone can like this shit and then COMPARE it to Paul Thomas Anderson is beyond me. Anderson uses melodrama on a level of Robert Altman and Douglas Sirk and knows how over the top it is. Aronofsky thinks he’s being quietly cool about the whole thing.
Paul Thomas Anderson is a thousand times better than Guy Ritchie and Luc Besson…
Aronofsky made a quiet, subtle film called The Wrestler and I’m glad he dropped the delusion of grandeur shit. It was pretentious and obnoxious and if you think Requiem for a Dream is emotional…you have the soul of a cricket.
[/quote]
That’s probably the best way I’ve heard The Wrestler be described. Doesn’t mean I like it, but it was a very subtle flick.
And who the fuck compared Guy Richie to Paul Thomas Anderson? (lazy I know, I could just look but I am so consumed by rage at the thought!)(excuses, excuses…)
[quote=“Dutch_Masta”]
You know, I bump into people like this every other Friday as I’m waiting for the “grindhouse” double feature to start at the local art house. They usually play a series of either Foreign or other independent features or short films before the double bill starts and on my in I run into beret wearing onion heads who are more than willing to sit there and tell you why QT, Aronofsky, PTA, Guy Ritchie, Luc Besson, RR, ect. all suck and aren’t worth 1 minute of their time. Sometimes I just want to watch Mean Streets and Resevoir dogs back to back on the big screen without even having to look at these people.
[/quote]
He put P.T. in the same line up as Guy Ritchie and Luc Besson…
P.T. Anderson is the best of all mentioned but Aronofsky is not far behind at all.
One has to remember that Requiem was a novel by Hubert Selby, a real life heroin drug addict who co-wrote the script as well. Calling it unrealistic or inaccurate is pushing it. Sounds like you’re just jaded F.W.
[quote=“Stiglitz”]
P.T. Anderson is the best of all mentioned but Aronofsky is not far behind at all.
One has to remember that Requiem was a novel by Hubert Selby, a real life heroin drug addict who co-wrote the script as well. Calling it unrealistic or inaccurate is pushing it. Sounds like you’re just jaded F.W.
[/quote]
The book may be realistic but does that mean it translated to film that way? No.
The Wire is realistic of the day-to-day life of drug addicts and dealers.
Requiem for a Dream was a hyperactive fantasy by someone who romanticizes drug use. I’m not jaded, I loved The Wrestler. I just have strong feelings about cinema. If everyone liked everything, we’d be a happy fucking world but that’d be pretty dull. We’d all be making naive films where all people do is smile at each other and shake hands. Happy, happy, happy. The best thing we can do is disagree on things, and with passion too, it reminds us of why we started liking cinema in the first place.
I love that I hate certain films and filmmakers.
I also love it (Not directly to you, Stiglitz) when people categorize me based on those opinions because it just shows how ignorant some people can be.
Fair enough, we agree to disagree on Requiem. I see the film’s hyper style as complimentary to the inner turmoils of its characters and far from romanticizing drug use (do you not remember that arm dude?!!?)
The Wire, on the other hand, is perhaps the best TV show ever made. The fact that you like it doesn’t surprise me in the least, and yes it’s way more realistic about the life of street drug dealers than Requiem.
If everyone agreed all the time life would be fucking boring as hell.
If you think that it is an accurate portrayal of avid drug users, you’ve clearly been smokin’ what Joe The Police Dog told you all those years ago in your school auditorium. This film isn’t ACCURATE. It’s over the top. It’s not even a good metaphor for what drug use is like. It’s just style-over-substance feature anti-drug ad. The only people whose lives it changed were those who’ve smoke some pot and seen some drug addicts. If you happen to be a drug user (which I doubt, you just seem naturally fucked in the head) then you must still be buzzin’ to even think this is a film that relates to your struggle.
Aronofsky’s new direction he’s taken is lightyears better than his previous work, which was just him scanning some books on philosophy and picking bits and pieces to turn into films without any deep understanding of it.
Mickey Rourke and Wood dancing in the empty warehouse is a perfect moment that QUIETLY reveals a relationship.
A bunch of time elapse through a fishbowl lense while that shitty Clint Mansell uses “dark ominous tones” (Sarah Marshall, bitch) as an excuse for music is not a perfect moment.
How anyone can like this shit and then COMPARE it to Paul Thomas Anderson is beyond me. Anderson uses melodrama on a level of Robert Altman and Douglas Sirk and knows how over the top it is. Aronofsky thinks he’s being quietly cool about the whole thing.
[/quote]
Who said anything about accuracy? I said what the film was about - and who it was about. I never look for accuracy in motion pictures, if you want an accurate portrayal of an Air Force jetfighter or a police detective, you can always watch the Discovery channel, don’t watch motion pictures.
[quote=“Lt. BioBasterd”]
Who said anything about accuracy? I said what the film was about - and who it was about. I never look for accuracy in motion pictures, if you want an accurate portrayal of an Air Force jetfighter or a police detective, you can always watch the Discovery channel, don’t watch motion pictures.
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What a lame thing to say.
Here’s a perfect example of how cinema can be accurate:
C’mon all films have a few inconsistencies, like in George Steven’s “Giant”. The oil gusher that makes Jett Rink a multi-billionaire. The technology at the time was apt to prevent gushers. Oil gushers are wasteful, and dangerous because it might ignite. But oil gushers are fun to see and that was used for the movie. You see how that makes a big difference. Movies should be bigger than life. Real life is boring - no one wants that.
C’mon all films have a few inconsistencies, like in George Steven’s “Giant”. The oil gusher that makes Jett Rink a multi-billionaire. The technology at the time was apt to prevent gushers. Oil gushers are wasteful, and dangerous because it might ignite. But oil gushers are fun to see and that was used for the movie. You see how that makes a big difference. Movies should be bigger than life. Real life is boring - no one wants that.
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You need to branch out.
Cinema wasn’t born nor will it die on the Hollywood lots.
I disagree. Hollywood from the very beginning has produced some of the finest films the world has ever seen. Very few independent films have had the same quality as say: Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, All About Eve, East Of Eden, and the vast list goes on and on like an ocean. There’s a whole ocean of great films to see, and not to mention the past actresses and actors that have become legendary figures. It all ends where it begins and that’s Hollywood. If it wasn’t for Hollywood there would be no Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and any other. I like bigger than life movies, not daily conversations that you shoot at your local McDonalds, which most indie filmmakers do. They record reality and give it a title. That ain’t a movie, that’s reality TV. You can get that for free.
[quote=“Lt. BioBasterd”]
I disagree. Hollywood from the very beginning has produced some of the finest films the world has ever seen. Very few independent films have had the same quality as say: Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, All About Eve, East Of Eden, and the vast list goes on and on like an ocean. There’s a whole ocean of great films to see, and not to mention the past actresses and actors that have become legendary figures. It all ends where it begins and that’s Hollywood. If it wasn’t for Hollywood there would be no Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and any other. I like bigger than life movies, not daily conversations that you shoot at your local McDonalds, which most indie filmmakers do. They record reality and give it a title. That ain’t a movie, that’s reality TV. You can get that for free.
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So you seem to think that there is Hollywood films and then every other film is an “indie” film? What the hell does that mean?
Russia film studios were huge, especially during the Cold War and they threw funding at some of the finest filmmakers in the world.
Cinema started in France when the Lumiere brothers started observing daily life through their invention of motion pictures. The simplest things such as a snowball fight and a bunch of people walking.
Reality T.V. is more scripted than your typical Hollywood film anyway, so no wonder you like that shit.
I can’t even argue with this dense amount of ignorance…
So you seem to think that there is Hollywood films and then every other film is an “indie” film? What the hell does that mean?
Russia film studios were huge, especially during the Cold War and they threw funding at some of the finest filmmakers in the world.
Cinema started in France when the Lumiere brothers started observing daily life through their invention of motion pictures. The simplest things such as a snowball fight and a bunch of people walking.
Reality T.V. is more scripted than your typical Hollywood film anyway, so no wonder you like that shit.
I can’t even argue with this dense amount of ignorance…
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I said most Indie films are like reality TV, I fucking hate television, I don’t even watch it anymore.
Lumiere Brothers were not filmmakers, they were scientists who saw the camera as only “a scientific curiosity”. It was here in the states, the same minds that were in Broadway who settled in Hollywood because of the perfect weather and lighting, the other choice was Florida but the hurricanes were going to be problematic. DW Griffith made the big movies, with structure and helped shaped cinema, and paved the way for the future directors who took it to different levels.
[quote=“Lt. BioBasterd”]
I said most Indie films are like reality TV, I fucking hate television, I don’t even watch it anymore.
Lumiere Brothers were not filmmakers, they were scientists who saw the camera as only “a scientific curiosity”. It was here in the states, the same minds that were in Broadway who settled in Hollywood because of the perfect weather and lighting, the other choice was Florida but the hurricanes were going to be problematic. DW Griffith made the big movies, with structure and helped shaped cinema, and paved the way for the future directors who took it to different levels.
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The Lumiere brothers made what I call "accidental art". Their films are very interesting on both scientific and artistic levels.
You're just so narrow minded. It's a miracle you can walk.
[quote=“Lt. BioBasterd”]
I said most Indie films are like reality TV, I fucking hate television, I don’t even watch it anymore.
Lumiere Brothers were not filmmakers, they were scientists who saw the camera as only “a scientific curiosity”. It was here in the states, the same minds that were in Broadway who settled in Hollywood because of the perfect weather and lighting, the other choice was Florida but the hurricanes were going to be problematic. DW Griffith made the big movies, with structure and helped shaped cinema, and paved the way for the future directors who took it to different levels.
[/quote]
The kings of silent cinema were in Europe, everyone knows this. From Dreyer to Murnau to Lang and they came over to the States when the Nazis took shit over. They introduced new styles of filmmaking to American filmmakers which then helped spawn the genre of Film Noir.
European styles and artists were the main influence on the “Golden Era” of Hollywood cinema. Stop being so jingoistic, you fool.
