Rating: Summary: Extremely Powerful Review: Simply put, this is the most impactful movie I've ever seen in my entire life. The imagery is ruthlessly brilliant in showing not only the effects of addiction, but in reminding us just how many of us are addicts. Coffee, gambling, dope, sex; just about every addiction is chronicled, and in a way that is both compelling and disturbing at the same time. It leads you along, in the comfort of your safe home and relatively addictionless mind, toward what I believe to be THE best conclusion I've ever seen in a film. It's one of those things that leaves you aghast and wondering "what the hell just happened?" An exquisite piece of work and highly recommended.On a side note, I would definitely recommend the unedited version, as I think the 'creepy' sex scene is a critical part of the finale, and removing this scene would greatly lessen the impact of this part.
Rating: Summary: Must see for everyone!! Review: This is one of the greatest moives that I have ever seen and every teen should see this and they will never use drugs! Anyone who does not see this movie is missing out big. This movie pulls you in from the start to the end and you will love it trust me!
Rating: Summary: Great movie but dont Buy the censored version Review: What is there to be censored? Drug use? We can see Heads decapitated in movies and people blown away in 30 different ways but you cant show what happens when your world unravels because of drugs? I dont get it. This movie should be required viewing in all High Schools. Excellent movie, yes depressing but very well done and I still think Ellen Burnstyn should have won the Oscar this year. There is no comparison between her and Roberts. Not even close
Rating: Summary: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM -the edited version?!! Review: Excellent movie but don't waste your time with this edited version. Why the hell would they want to lessen the impact of this intense movie. I am so dissapointed that censorship is raping this movie, and many people who are seeing it for the first time wont know..
Rating: Summary: Absolutely powerful Review: Ok, This movie blew me away. I saw it quite a while ago when it made the independant run in my city, and I just recently got the DVD. Not sure how, I just went into a store and saw it on the racks...it's not supposed to be out for 2 weeks. ANYWAYS...the movie is brilliant, and the DVD isn't a disapointment. The transfer is amazing, and the features are really great. The "Anatomy of a Scene" special from the Sundance Channel is really great. The commentary by Aronofsky (who is a film genious...Pi was one of the most brilliant movies ever made) is really great. I just love this movie, and the DVD was definately not a let-down. The "deleted Scenes" aren't much though. They are just different angled shots of scenes...and even though they weren't used in the movie, they really don't serve much purpose. BUT, it IS interesting to see a little more into Aronofsky's mind and how he wanted this movie to look. I feel that he made a perfect film here. Disturbed me more than any other movie I have EVER seen...I will never forget it.
Rating: Summary: A truly horrific masterpiece Review: "Requiem for a Dream," directed by Darren Aronofsky, affected me like few other films I've ever seen. "Requiem" tells the intertwined stories of Sara Goldfarb, a lonely widow (Ellen Burstyn), her son Harry (Jared Leto), Harry's girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly), and Harry's best friend (Marlon Wayans). As Sara sinks into a nightmare of prescription drug addiction, her son experiences a parallel hell of "street" drugs. Thus, the film explore two sides of drug addiction in the life of a single family. Aronofsky directs this film brilliantly, and his ensemble cast gives outstanding performances. Ellen Burstyn is heartbreaking in the starring role. In addition to the principal actors mentioned above, Christopher McDonald gives a creepy performance as a talk-show host with whom Sara is obsessed. This is an incredibly intense, upsetting film. Never before have I seen such graphic and relentless images shown in a theater. Aronofsky turns his cinematic eye on the extremes of human suffering, disorientation, and exploitation, and he never flinches. The images and sounds he presents were, to me, more upsetting than Holocaust video, Klan rally footage, or other real-life horrific material which I have seen over the years. And most conventional horror films will look like children's cartoons next to this movie. The final 20 or so minutes of the film are particularly intense; the unsettling musical score and sound effects blend perfectly with Aronofsky's visual symphony of pain. Despite the shocking images, I did not find "Requiem" to be exploitative. I believe this is because Aronofsky never loses sight of the humanity of these characters. Sara and the others are not just cinematic "cannon fodder"; they are characters with whom, despite their faults, we can empathize. "Requiem" is a technical tour-de-force. Be warned: the graphic scenes of sexual exploitation, cruelty, and suffering will, I believe, be simply too much for many viewers to bear. But the discriminating film lover may, like me, find "Requiem" to be a haunting masterpiece.
Rating: Summary: The best movie I have ever seen Review: ...I will say that it is the most brilliant movie I have ever seen. Not only is the plot deeply shocking and fascinating, the cinematography is spectacular, with rich colours and sparely (but effectively) used CGI to emphasise the drug hallucinations. However the thing I liked most about this movie that really "clicked" with me was its repetitive image sequences. It had a strangely hypnotic effect and also tied in SO well with the drug theme. Every time one of the characters hit up, so was the audience hit up with a visually interesting image sequence which repeated throughout the movie. One interesting point to note is from memory, a drug injection was only shown once in 'real life'. The rest of the times, the image sequence was shown. I liked this because although the movie did not avoid the unpleasantness of drugs (far from it), it did not gratuitously sicken the audience by directly showing the shooting up all the time.
Rating: Summary: "I like thinking about the red dress" Review: This film is wonderful...its almost unbearable to watch Sweet old Ellen Burstyn become an abomination of drugs... or Jennifer Connely change from an aspiring dreamer to a dark trashy whore... just to feed her addiction. Or Jared Leto changing from loving son to barely even human. You just want to jump into the sceen and smack Ellen and Jennifer (especially) around until they come to their senses. Needless to say this is not a happy ending... in fact the director slaps the reality of them losing ALL of their hopes and dreams FOREVER right into your face with no remorse. They're gone and they can NEVER get them back. Seeing Ellen's friends crying on the bench makes us cry too... seeing jennifer cry in her bed where even there the nightmare's torment her. Bottom line is... Reqiuem for a dream is a wonderfully crafted, acted, directed film. There ARE no flaws. Everyone should see this at least once... to throw it into a drug users face would be the great pleasure whether its to say "look how stupid you are?" or just to demonstrate what happens. This isn't a film about Drugs... its a film about losing all you hopes, dreams, family, friends, lovers, homes, and you life. And your never getting it back. These people had a chance, but they lost it. This is their story.
Rating: Summary: Something original in a hollywood world Review: This movie is an amazing movie. The actors in this movie all give great performances. This is made by the same guy who did Pi and if you havent seen that you should see it as well. He has a nack for making things interesting, for making what some might find boring and making it intense and real. Everything about this movie is great. It is fairly depressing but to me this movie is one of the greatest and most realistic movies about drugs that has ever been made. Traffic got all sorts of attention but in my oppinion it introduced nothing new, it showed you nothing of what the world of drug addiction can be like. This movie is shocking in many ways and if you want to watch a movie that is going to make you feel all happy when you get done watching it this is not the one for you, you might want to go rent disney or something. What this movie is is an intelligent and provacotive look at a world in which there is much hope to go around but that hope is never realized, it is a honest look at what it is like for some to live a life of drug addiction and it is also a wonderfull and shocking and entertaining movie.
Rating: Summary: Ripped off by a &^*##@# edited version Review: This IS one of the most brilliant movies I have ever seen. I am a filmmaker and Darren is, IMHO one of the monster directors of our time. That said, this version being palmed off to unsuspecting film fans is a travesty. To be clear, LOVED THIS MOVIE IN THE THEATER. I hate, hate, hate this abomination. Look for the NC-17 version if you want to see what the filmmaker wanted you to experience in this movie. This is an adult movie with very adult themes, why, why, why, gut it in the edit suite?? So you could eek out a few more sales to the kiddies??
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