Rating: Summary: WARNING: Avoid Rated Version Review: I wanted to give this cool little film a better review, and I'm sure I will .... when I'm able to see it all.I rented this "rated" version from a local major video chain, and was just absolutely appalled ..... it should be called "the censored version". I loved the premise of the film, the visual style and the characters were a riot. But the bleeping (that's right, BLEEPING) of profanity and the blurring out of anatomical areas (including buttocks cleavage, of all things) made me feel like I was watching badly edited reality television. I couldn't even finish watching it; this approach to editing was much more offensive than any depicted subject matter could be. If I were the filmmaker, I would be outraged at this inept cinematic butchery. Maybe this was a subtle ploy to get people to buy the uncut version. What little I saw made it seem worth having ..... then will come the positive review. I mean, this is a movie about speed freaks, it's not meant to be a pretty thing! Why even attempt to water it down? Releasing movies in a manner like this is plain insulting to the discretion of the individual viewer. So two stars for what could have been a much better viewing experience. And leave this rated / mutilated mess on the shelf.
Rating: Summary: About as real as it gets!!! Review: This film is breathtaking and shocking!!! The cinimatography is in a league itself. The characters are truthfully, and unfortunately, very real. Spun will be a cult classic. Any viewer that can sit through and watch this true-to-life horror is brave. The movie is filled with graphic scenes of drug use (snorting, smoking, and injecting) and portrays what it would be like simultaneously when the iniitial rush hits. Also, it portrays realistically what it feels like and looks like when the characters are 'coming down', and subsequently attempting to come back up with continued use. Furthermore, the movie conveys parallel activities that go hand in hand with the characters alternative preferences: Including sexual deviations, perversions, and affinity for childish violence. The story in many ways is simple, however, it is very much what it can be like 'tweaking', and was like whether it is ten years ago, or even today. The part that is even interesting is the depiction of the characters development. Even though the movie covers a short 5 day span, amazingly it does a superb job of showing how some Characters change and others do not. Additionally, SPUN does an outstanding job in introducing several tangent characters which contribute short-meaningful parts to 'tweakers' day-to-day life. Finally, the actors and actresses were marvelous. Overall this movie is a must see for philiacs of the 'drug' genre, and also anyone else with the stomach to witness the insane life of a habitual meth user.
Rating: Summary: great Review: i was really harsh reviewing the unrated version. the movies actually pretty good. yes it glorifies drug use but the effect this movie had on me was that they are people trying to live the only way they know how.
Rating: Summary: Rated vs. Unrated Review: I really dug this tweaker infested version of bliss... Colorful charcters and I love the soundtrack... Word of advice for buyers there are two versions RATED and UNRATED the RATED version has cencorship of words and images... I was dissapointed when my firend and I got our Cencored copies... We had no idea that a rated R movie would be cencored... Word to the wise stick with the UnRated version when purchasing...
Rating: Summary: A Wakeup Call Review: A wide-awakeup call, in fact. About five days worth. That's the amount of 24 hour cycles, Ross, the central character spins through in this relentless movie. Yes, this film is derivative. Shades of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (the animation sequences, especially), David Lynch's Lost Highway (a repeated shot of the dark, empty highway ahead, illuminated only by the car's headlights), D.J. Caruso's The Salton Sea (also about tweakers, with Mickey Rourke here substituting for Vincent D'Onofrio as Mr. Space Cowboy, menace 2 society, honkeytonk hairtrigger), and Darren Aranofsky's cutting-edge, Requiem for a Dream (similar downward spiralling of characters and not too dissimilar an ending). So why the five stars, you ask? Because this film, while borrowing heavily from its sources, is still entirely original and innovative. Swedish born director, Jonas Akerlund has taken his music video sensibility and "tweaked" it to an extreme, combining visual and aural sensations in entirely novel ways. The camera work must be seen to be believed. Reviewers who denigrate the script are missing the point. This movie is about the camera. This is not herky-jerky, cinema verite, hand held camera work we're talking about here. This is carefully story-boarded, minutely crafted creativity at play. There are shots that could only have occured to a director who is either as crazy as his characters are (or as drug addled) or to someone possessing something along the lines of cinematic genius. Maybe it's a combination of all these. As this is Akerlund's first foray into feature films, I guess we'll just have to wait for his next movie (Lords of Dogtown, in pre-production) to decide. Don't worry yourselves about from whom, or from what, Akerlund is borrowing. Real artists worth their salt openly acknowledge that they're only building on the works of those who have come before them. I have a sneaking suspicion that Akerlund might be an artist to reckon with in the future. BEK
Rating: Summary: SPUN Review: SPUN is a dreary movie based on the lives of speed addicts. The movie uses glorfied images of sex and porongraphy without really developing a plot or meaning to the characters. It as well uses scene's for shock value rather than story development. For instance the pussy speach, and John Leguazmo beating off to debbie harry seems on the edge of poronogrpahy rather than an actual movie. not to forget the scene with Mena Sourvenio using the toilet..this is a Tom Green Caliber movie. Skip it.
Rating: Summary: Bipolar syndrome... Review: It is always refreshing to see a movie that has the ability to divide an audience. Judging from previous reviews Spun is such a movie. There are no two ways about it - you're gonna love this movie or you're gonna hate it. As you can tell from the 5 star rating, I loved it, however I also feel the need to justify why. The most common complaint about this movie seems to be the obvious influence of "Requiem for a Dream" (2000), and many reviewrers have compared the two unfavourably. I'm not sure such a comparison is justified. While both movies recount the stories of people who do drugs, they take completely different approaches. "Requiem..." is a strongly anti-drug movie. It is meant to be a realistic take on the evils of drug abuse and the slide into obsession and addiction. It rarely shows the addicts actually enjoying the drugs they are on, and as suchfails to justify why they use so heavily. "Spun", on the other hand, makes no judgements. Drugs are neither good nor bad, they simply are. Drugs exist, people use them, this is what happens. With this approach it ends up being a far more entertaining movie. The humour is dark and the characters are almost parodies of the kind of charicatures we've come to expect from other drug movies , except with their own distinctive twists. John Leguizamo, for example, the local drug dealer, turns out to be completely hapless at tasks such as keeping track of the drugs he intends to sell. The camera work stands out as exceptional, as the constant jump cuts and intelligent use of split-screen and fantasy sequences both recreate the experience of staying awake for 4 days while high on crystal meth, as well as giving some indication of why the users keep on using. This helps create empathy between the audience and viewer, helping us to identify with the characters. This identification though is quickly spat back at us, as the characters repeatedly make incredibly random and illogical choices, betraying the trust we've put in them and helping to make the movie even more engrossing. For example, when Ross the college drop-out and anti-hero of the piece gets a phone call and has to rush out at the end of a monster drug-fuelled sex session, he leaves the girl handcuffed to the bed. For four days. And this comes after we've begun to identify with him as being the "normal" character in the movie. The movie is full of unexpected twists and turns like that. The "Cops" style reality T.V. show, the green dog (which I would say is more a satire of the "dog culture" in this country than an release for Akerlund's personal anti-dog creed) and of course Mena Suvari, the hollywood sex symbol struggling to pass a bowel motion. This is clearly not "an example of the depths Hollywood has sunk to". I also doubt the "local conglomerate video store" will touch it, in fact the copy I saw was pirated from DVD by an independant store owner who rented it for free because he thought it was essential more people saw it. To call this movie "mysogenistic" is similarily misguided - the only true mysogenist in the movie ends up getting his just desserts not once but twice . Three particular highlights stand out for me. The first are the random sections of psychadelic animation that randomly crop up throughout the movie. Watch carefully for the one involving Ross, the stripper and three very dirty little pigs. The second highlight is the flamboyant old L.A. queer pimp who is Mickey Rourke's financial backer. He only appears for two scenes and is never explained, but he almost steals the entire movie. The final highlight is the ongoing relationship between Ross and his "girlfriend". Part "Swingers" Jon Favreau and part "Very Bad Things" Jon Favreau, this alone is worth renting the movie for. If more movies were this intelligent, this well written and this well shot the entertainment industry would be in much better shape. I can't wait to see what Akerlund comes up with next...
Rating: Summary: What a joke Review: A couple of warning signs should detract you from first off the movie stars Brittany Murphy. The other is that Jonas Akerlund directed the movie (Jonas' past experience with directing is with music videos.) If that isn't warning enough that you that this is a horrible movie the terrible story and the cartoonish characters (John Leguizamo apparently lives in a meth den, yet he manages to wear stylish gucci leather pants through out most of the flick) should be enough. There is also have the camera effects that Akerlund uses in this film in a similar fashion to those used by Aronofosky in Requiem For A Dream but only half as effective while being superficially glossed over. To sum it up it is just dumb, in the same fashion as most music videos are. There is little here to satisfy your head.
Rating: Summary: Not as good as requiem for a dream Review: the movie showed u how sad and trashy the lives are for some drug users. the people in this movie made me sick. the way they lived and looked and acted and stuff but i guess it's true for some people. i didnt get what the movie was about though. it didn't really have a plot. it was just like a big trip for a bunch of druggies. requiem was better cause it was more serious and the acting and story was better but they used the same kinda camera techniques.
Rating: Summary: even pressing fast forward and watching was... Review: ...almost as bad as watching with regular speed. although you didn't have to hera the stupid dialogue. don't watched or even buy it.
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