Requiem for a Dream (Edited Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Shockingly overrated
Review: Aronofosky's style has no variety. Everything is shoved down your throat at 100 miles per hour. If the drog problem were this cut-and-dry, nobody would take drugs.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing short of amazing
Review: This film was recommended highly to me but I had no idea of it's content before seeing. For the first five minutes I thought, what is this junk about. Soon I was hooked and by the time the film ended I was totally floored. Literally. This film will take your breath away. Ellen Burstyn was robbed of an Oscar. If you doubt that before seeing the movie you will have no doubt afterwards. See this movie, experience it's power. You will be totally overwhelmed.

Rating:
Summary: No. She won't.
Review: "Requiem For a Dream makes Traffic look like an after-school 'Just Say No' video." I don't recall where I read it, and I'm just paraphrasing it, but that's about as good a review of both those films as any I've read.

Rating:
Summary: Children should be required by law to see this film.
Review: Aside from being a wonderfully disturbing and visually stimulating film, which was clearly about a billion times better than any of this year's best picture nominees; Requiem for a Dream thankfully undoes everything that Trainspotting did to glamorize heroin use. You want kids to say nope to dope, just plop your ten year old down and show em this flick....I think the part where the junkie's gangrenous arm is removed with some type of power saw will be especially effective.... All's well that ends well you know. As for Aronofsky's next film, a fifth installment of the popular Batman films which haven't been any good since Tim Burton split two movies ago, keepthe kids away from it. That kinda stuff could rot their brains.

Rating:
Summary: Whoa! Great Film!
Review: Requiem is a great film. There is beauty in its chaos, and horror in its truth. This is the most brilliant, mind shatteringly beautiful film focusing not only on drugs, but also on the people that use them. Darren Aronofsky is a brilliant director. Buy this movie...NOW!

Rating:
Summary: Briliant, powerful filmmaking.
Review: Darren Aronofsky's follow-up to his acclaimed indie debut 'Pi' is an expertly made nightmare, chronically the lives of four characters, woven together through addiction and tragedy. It does not sugar-coat it's subject matter. It is brutally frank in it's depiction of drug use and the ultimate physical, mental, and emotional deterioration that comes from losing control of one's own life to drugs. Ellen Burstyn plays Sara Goldfarb, a lonely woman whose husband has passed away and whose son, Harry (Jared Leto), only comes to visit when he needs to take her television set down to the pawn shop for drug money. She is addicted to television and sugar, eating chocolates while watching her game shows, day in and day out. She receives a junk phone call one day, a call that misleads her into thinking that she is going to be a contestent on one of these shows. She is ecstatic. She will wear her red dress, the one she wore to her son's high school graduation. The problem is, she no longer fits into it. So she tries a diet, but her need for sweets is too great and chooses diet pills instead. Harry spends his days with Tyrone (a straight and wonderful Marlon Wayans) who is the man with the connections, and his nights with Marion (Jennifer Connelly), his girlfriend. Each of these three characters is already addicted to drugs, not one in particular, rather anything to keep them feeling right. Harry and Tyrone devise a scheme by which they will become dealers, insuring the constant income of money and the possible score of something really, really good. Aronofsky's technique is brilliant, using every cinematic trick in the book to fully realize the effects of the drugs they're shooting, snorting, smoking, or swallowing. Over and under-saturated colors, quick jump cuts, overexaggerated sounds, slow motion, fast motion, steady cam, split screen... everything blazes by in a strange hallucinatory way when the characters are using. Everything seems skewed but yet right. When they come down, the film's look seems to slow down with them and the illusion fades. The world becomes dank again, becomes dull and hefty, the weight of normal life is felt. The film is not a happy story, the characters go from bad to very, very bad to beyond rescue by it's finale. Each character ends up where they should and not because we want them to. Each character is a tragedy, they are glimpses of lost dreams, abandoned hopes, failed promises, and needless depressions. By the film's end we feel sorry for them, not because they were addicted to drugs and suffered the consequences of them. But rather we for the fact that they even shot up in the first place. What a waste of life. 'Requiem For A Dream' is a masterpiece of cinematic direction and is a tough, unflinching film. It should be watched by parents with their teenage children. It's probably the best deterrent to drug use that exists right now. A cautionary tale that is both heartfelt and heart breaking. One of the best films of 2000.

Rating:
Summary: Amazingly beautiful film
Review: Requiem is the best film that I have ever seen. It is a film of such power, and of such amazing beauty that to watch it is the same as to have your heart ripped out. Darren Aronofsky is a brilliant director of incredible genius.

Rating:
Summary: warning!!!!
Review: warning amazon costumer!! do not buy this dvd. it is an edited, r-rated version of the original film, which is one of the gratest movies of 2000. the original cut features frequent drug use and a really creepy sex scene that freaked the mpaa out! if you are easily offended, you shouldn't be buying this movie anyway. if you liked the movie, or you didn't watch it but are in search of something totally new and original, buy the unrated version. this one is not good.

Rating:
Summary: easily the best movie i have ever seen
Review: "Requiem for a Dream" was a movie that grabs you from the very beginning and doesnt let you go for months. If you asked me what was better, the acting, the story, the directing, or the music, I honestly couldnt tell you, because they are all absolutly amazing. Ellen Burstyn gives an absolutly stellar performance as Sarah Goldfarb, a woman addicted not only to diet medication, but to the pursuit of the spotlight. Watching this film, I had to wonder if she was really acting, that is how great she was. Jared Leto plays her son, Harry, a small time addict who will do anything for a fix, and along with his friend, played magnificantly by Marlon Wayans, finds a way to make it for himself, along with his girlfriend, played by Jennifer Connely. The film then follows each of these characters in their own personal journey and subsequent decay to addiction and dependency. Darren Aronofsky, the director of "Pi" turns out a brilliant film worthy of mountains of praise and accolades. Unfourtunatly, because this film is not rated, and is far too deep to be understood by "society," it will never get the praise it deserves. Do not let my words fall on deaf ears, get this movie yourself.

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: even beyond the amazingly wonderful title this is a great movie. It is not for everyone especially people who only like fluff because this is anything but. This a movie about drugs with a great message, great acting and a amazing script. I don't want to rveal anymore but this is really great.I can't express how great that title is too.