this movie has no posts. I was amazed at the acting job Ben Stiller was able to pull off. I am an Owen Wilson fan, but after I saw this movie I am now a die hard Ben Stiller fan.
~"If I were Percodan where would I be?"~
great story, great writting, great actors, and the best performance of Ben Stillers career. It should at least have a 6.9, AT LEAST!
S.C.W.
"Match in the gas tank... boom boom!"
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compared to movies like Requiem for a Dream which I think, with all it's visual eye candy (which to me just glamorizes the true horror of the needle) pales in comparison to the pain expressed by the actor sans Visual effects, latex make-up, and double dildos.
This movie to me is much more successful at discouraging someone from the use of drugs than any other movie I've seen, except perhaps The Boost with James Woods.
Excellent point. Requiem is a bunch of camera tricks. I've thought that from day one.
I think Half Nelson is also a good depiction of addiction.
PS - I am a recovering heroin addict. 3 years sober.
Completely disagree with the notion that "Requiem For a Dream", a story written by somebody who has suffered the depths of anguish at the hands of heroin, glamourised the needles whatsoever. You actually watched the film, I assume? You witness the degradation the characters put themselves through, the pain, the loss and sorrow?
shareThis so much. God, if they think Requiem glamorises drug use, then their idea of glamor is a lot different to mine. That movie makes me feel sick. I've only watched it once and don't want to watch it again. It's a horror film. *gag* his rotting arm.
- Timothy Dalton should get an Oscar and beat Sean Connery over the head with it!
Every time in 'Requiem', where they rig up and their pupils dilate, it kills any sense of reality. Then, the talking refrigerator kills it, that's NOT what being spun is.
The bathroom Croc scene in 'Permanent Midnight' is the only thing that broke the flow for me, never getting to a 6K week but once or twice but with a decade of 'hard-drug' experience, (nonsense term by the way, totally political, when folk disparage 'hard-drugs' then go to the medicine cabinet to oxymorphone and alprazolam to mix with their Jack and Cokes.
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Yeah definately!! I really loved this movie!!
...What could I do for you
To make me okay in your eyes..-P!NK
"Requiuem was just an over the top after-school special with some cool effects thrown in."
Yeah, you're right. Requiem for a Dream is right on par with after school specials, you know, with it's amazing acting, plot and character depth, symbolism, editing, cinematography and phenomenal direction. I think that one Degrassi episode where Shane jumps off the bridge on LSD was much more effective, and really showed the effort put behind that show.
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F ucking idiot. Over the top? Let's see what would happen if you had a junk habit. Maybe you'll end up a hack writer like Jerry Stahl.
This has nothing to do with anything anyone was staying, but the writer (Jerry Stahl) used to write episodes for the show "Alf"
shareStahl currently writes for CSI, and is still writing books, as far as I know. I like all of the movies listed in these postings (Requiem, Trainspotting and Permanent Midnight), but I think they all pale in comparison to the books they're based on, especially the latter, which had me laughing and crying throughout the time I was reading it.
shareI am currently reading a book by Stahl called I, Fatty. I am only on page 30 and I'm hooked. It is about the life of Fatty Arbuckle told through Fatty's eyes. Not some boring biography. This guy is no "hack" writer. I wish you'd stop calling him that. Besides, I used to like Alf.
shareBought this film over Amazon, I purchased it on the strength of one scene, (I saw a clip on telly late one night) the one where Ben Stiller and Peter Green are high on crack and repeatedly running at the window on an abandoned floor of a sky scraper. a brilliant image summing up the characters self destruction/moth to a flame personality traits or as I saw it life in general. really enjoyed this film, put Stiller (an actor I have always had time for) even higher in my regard. as a side note I would like to say that I felt that this film was more about self loathing, the way Stiller’s character repeatedly sabotages him self, than it is about drugs, if you will heroin of cocaine is just the medium his character uses to pronounce his self hatred.
P.S. the bit with Alf screaming at him from behind the bathroom door...sublime, made my blood run cold.
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Methadone is used to treat opiate addiction, and the Green-characters will try to make the methadone patients use other types of illegal street drugs, usually methamphetamine, in order to disrupt the patient's treatment
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Methamphetamine is cheap and easily obtained. I know it's not an opiate, and not an opiate user's first drug-of-choice, but it's what's usually offered. They won't offer opiates (unless it's a pharmaceutical, like codeines or something), but they'll come at a patient with some type of drug, perhaps in hopes of causing that patient to give a dirty urinalysis and so get him kicked off of treatment.
A person going into methadone treatment is often-times confused and a bit hesitant about the new life he's entering, he's in a delicate state. The methadone is replacing a large number of his past friends and social past-times. A Green-type character's purpose for accosting a patient during this period could be for one or two reasons, like if it was found out that the patient had many past crimes (done to procure drugs, perhaps) that he had not been arrested for, or if the patient was an accused dealer, then the Green-person could weed this patient out of treatment.
NA people are terrible. The whole issue of dissuading persons from entering methadone treatment far surpasses the treatment itself, it enters "deniability." Once you've been on methadone (NA says), you can never say that you haven't used drugs, the methadone is proof of that itself. This is obviously wrong, as you don't even have to be currently using opiates to get on methadone maintenance, you just have to prove a drug history (like arrests). But they don't say that, they just spread their propaganda around town, propaganda that's aimed at you, as you're now branded as a drug addict forever. That's where the Green-characters come into play.
Personally, I believe that methadone treatment is vital to an addict's recovery. It removes that person from an unsafe environment immediately; once that person starts getting his dose, his need for his past drug acquaintances and drug lifestyle (dealing and crime) ends. No 12 Step NA garbage, no need to share past embarrassments, no need to continue an unsafe lifestyle, the methadone has taken care of that. It is really effective.
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Sorry to shift the subject of the thread, but it's only temporarily. I now realize I shouldn't have called Jerry Stahl a hack, as I was only familiar with the film Permanent Midnight and memories of Alf shows from my childhood. Now, however, I have read a few of his books, and I retract my previous statement. He's lived quite the life that man.
sharewell, I think that you are trying to say that "the green-dude" represent some conspiracy of some kind to get people to get kicked off of the methadone program, to spy for NA, or prehaps for some union?
lol, man, talk about paranoia my friend.....
the green character is simply a scam artist-drug dealer going after an easy target, the junky trying to quit, for no other purpose than having an instant lifelong customer. he offers a different drug than the one that the person's trying to kick [methodone clincs = opiate addicts] as it's easier for that junky to convince themselves that thier only problem is with thier drug of choice and that other drugs wouldn't be a problem for them...
but to assign such behavior to some conspiracy of the clinic, some union, or NA, which is what I think you are actually saying, really is a bit out there. sorry but no legal institutions as those would condone drug dealing of any kind by an "agent" of thiers or even consider such an illegal tactic as a vaild method. it's just not done, nor does it serve any concievable purpose...
now the police, they actually do use those tactics with Confidential Informants, they trade confiscated drugs for information and use busted drug dealers in that manner but they do it to make an arrest for a specific purpose and it's a highly illegal, it's not officially sanctioned, and corrupt practice but it does happen and in most cases a blind eye is turned by the police leadership as "part of the job", I've worked with many retired big city police officers and have heard all of the stories and tactics they used over the years here in philadelphia...
but to go and say that the clinic themselves, NA, or some company or union would ever go and use those practices is just so over the top due to the fact that there is simply no reasonable gain at all for them do so, especially with the massive risk involved to both reputation and criminal charges in employing such methods...
and even by some large leap of the imagination that even if prehaps one center, or NA chapter, or whatever did actually ever do this at some point in time, to then make the leap that it's a conspiracy on a national or international level of some sort is just pretty far gone.
in the movie, the "gus" character is just to show how hard it is to kick and how there are people who do prey on the junkies weakness and do the hard sell but it's to make money and a loyal customer, not some large orginised conspiracy
by "big clinic", "big NA", or "big union". and if it were some police C.I., it would be part of a larger drug investigation. what is depicted in the movie is simply not anything at all but a dealer getting a new easy-to-get customer..
I hope I didn't misread your meaning in your post, if so then disregard all of the above but if I didn't, seek a little help brother....
but then again, prehaps I work for them as that would be a way for the conspiracy to discredit and hide the "truth"...
lol, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...
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Riiiight, I don't know what's happening, lol...
true cry of the overly paranoid.
you should lay off the speed or crack man, it's really rotting your brain at this point.
pfft...I've been well around this world.
I've been in plenty of hard places and have seen all manners of fresh hells that this world can provide. I bit that apple a long time ago....
leave it to the paranoid junky [which I have personally been] to sit there and tell themselves that they know it all and that everyone else just doesn't "want to see the ugly truth" <said with appropriate melodrama> and then start rambling on about elves while pointing at the guy who talks about aliens and calls HIM crazy....
remember, if you think you are being followed and watched, pretend that they [they of the oh-so famous "them"'s] are just simply talent scouts looking to see if you are the next "it" person for your generation...
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beautiful film.
shareHow did Reqiuem for a Dream glamorize the needle? That was one of the most horrific movies I ever saw, a complete nightmare that I never want to see again. No one was left unscathed by their drug addictions, whether it was the needle or diet pills. Permanent Midnight, while it had its cringe-inducing moments (birth scene), it pales in comparison to Reqiuem.
To be fair, however, they set out to do two different things. Reqiuem wanted to be a nightmare of drug addiction, Permanent Midnight is some hack writer's unabashed autobiography chronicling his unstoppable dependence on cocaine. They both succeeded to do what they set out to, however, Permanent Midnight justs seems kind of unessecary. It's an 88 minute E! True Hollywood Story about a guy even E! wouldn't spend an hour documenting.
I'd put Trainspotting as the most discouraging, anti-drug message.
Save the music industry: Download KazaaLite!
Actually, Trainspotting makes me wanna do drugs.
sharehere here...
"I'm sorry... my Karma just ran over your Dogma..."
has owen wilson seen this film....
http://thepaulo.com
http://ronfez.net
Not sure about Owen Wilson, but one of the greatest "life imitating art" moments I have witnessed was going to the same croaker (a doctor who scripts opiates, without question, for the right price) as Peter Greene (Gus in the movie).
I was going for Buprenorphine treatment (a relativley new substitute for methadone), and part of the deal with going to this doctor was attending a Saturday "meeting" (not 12 Step - just sitting around in a park in West LA with some former junkie who was in league with the doctor). The best thing was after the meeting, the doc would pull up in his Mercedes, and all the junkies would run to his car for scripts (or even pills he just happened to have with him). He probably made hundred of dollars in the 20 minutes he was there at the park.
Greene was a big purchaser from the doctor (not sure what he was getting, but another guy in the group was getting Fentanyl patches, so that gives you an idea of the goodies you could obtain). The doctor was somewhat enamored with the Hollywood scene, so he would spend what seemed like an hour when Greene was in his office. I'm sure the doc was drooling over the Hollywood gossip (I remember he once rattled off the projects Greene was involved in to me when I went in right after Greene's "appointment"). Of course my office visits were 5 minutes tops - and I would get my pills on-site. It was a real smooth operation he ran.
Sorry for the long recounting, but the purpose was to show the irony in life, that Greene ended up more like the Stahl character, and was preyed upon by a Gus-like character (the doc). I know that it is a harsh comparison (for the doctor), but he really structured his business so that you were as dependent on him as you were on your former smack dealer. (for example, the Federal law regarding Buprenorphine treatment was that doctors could script a months supply per visit. But this guy would only give you a weeks worth at a time, so you had to pay his "consultation fee" each time). He may have been a doctor, but he was every bit as mercenary as Gus.
I personally thought that Peter Greene's character was a metaphor (and also a real person, perhaps not portrayed as 100% factual) for all the people that are out to derail you & take advantage of the fragile state a junkie trying to get clean.
Also: as a nursing student (currently out of school until Spring) & a person who has been involved with severe illness & injury (I've been chronically ill for years & had several traumatic injuries, and I have also helped to act as home "nurse" for several family members who were seriously ill or injured, Big Southern Families tend to take care of their own, especially when a loved one is terminally ill) I have seen doctors prescribe methadone for severe & chronic pain. I've only seen this done with my terminally ill family members, & my professor said that it would probably be considered unethical to prescribe it for pain in a non-terminal case, depending on the circumstances. So to say that someone who has taken Methadone has to be a drug addict is false. Doctors will do anything to ease the pain of a person dying of cancer, or the like.
About the NA & 12 step programs, they are good programs & they do work for some, but addiction is probably the most individual disease out there. For some addiction is only a symptom of greater problems like depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress, or the inability to deal with things that have happened in their lives. For these patients, they have to learn to deal with the underlying problem before they can learn to live sober. For others addiction is an escape & they have learned to be high for so long that they don't have the tools to live sober. There are any number of reasons why a person becomes an addict.
Addiction is different for everyone & I believe that no cookie cutter program will ever work 100% for every addict. AA, NA, & the 12 steps have worked for many, but these programs are designed to be malleable to change for every person. I believe the key to success for addiction is individualized treatment & an individual treatment plan. We need to invest more research & time into making individual programs for individuals, instead of "writing the same prescription" for all of them.
Addiction is like no other disease, and it is a serious problem! As society evolves & there is limitless access to knowledge (because of things like the Internet) people (mainly youths) are learning of new & easier ways to get high & with every substance there is a different addiction, which complicates the recovery process even more.
Bottom line is: this was a very interesting movie, that paints a very detailed picture of how addiction effected one person's life, thus effecting many people around him. When it comes down to it, there are so many more stories like this to be told. Movies like the aforementioned "Requiem" & "Trainspotting", as well as other movies like "Leaving Las Vegas" all have a different purpose & show a different side to addiction. They were all good movies in their own right, but to compare them only because they're all about drugs is in a way wrong. They were about different people, different lives, different personalities affected by substances, so of course the vision is going to be portrayed differently.
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ya, Ben Stiller best film by far, now he just does cheesy movies.
Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking