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Requiem for a Dream

“I’m somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me."

Requiem for a Dream is a 2000 American psychological drama directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Aronofsky and Hubert Selby Jr., based on Selby’s 1978 novel. Ellen Burstyn stars as Sara Goldfarb, a widow in Brighton Beach whose loneliness becomes the engine of her addiction; Jared Leto plays her son Harry; Jennifer Connelly plays Marion Silver, Harry’s girlfriend; and Marlon Wayans plays Tyrone, Harry’s partner. Clint Mansell composed the score, performed with the Kronos Quartet. Distributed by Artisan Entertainment as an unrated film after Aronofsky refused to cut scenes to satisfy the MPAA, the film premiered out of competition at Cannes 2000. Andy Nelson and Pete Wright discuss the film on The Next Reel, a TruStory FM podcast now in its fifteenth season, as part of their Ellen Burstyn series.

The Film That Closes the Series

Phew. That is the word Andy and Pete reach for—not because the film exhausts you, but because it leaves you with somewhere to go. Andy walks out of it smiling every time, not with pleasure but with the particular satisfaction of watching a filmmaker use every tool at his disposal to say something true. Pete watched it in a metaphorical fetal position, also smiling. It landed at #5 on their combined Flickchart list out of 163 films—a ranking that ended up immortalized on the first Next Reel T-shirt. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we close out the Ellen Burstyn series with Requiem for a Dream.

Four Addictions, One Argument

The film is structured in three seasons—Summer, Fall, Winter—and Aronofsky uses Summer with deliberate cruelty. You genuinely believe, for a stretch, that all four characters are going to make it: Harry and Tyrone’s dealing looks manageable, Marion is designing clothes, Sara is losing weight, the TV appearance seems almost plausible. Pete identifies this aspirational peak as the film’s structural masterstroke—the fall is more devastating because the hope was real. The argument underneath all four stories, Andy argues, is the same regardless of substance. Sara’s addiction to television, to diet pills, to the fantasy of being somebody on a screen, is the same mechanism as Harry and Tyrone’s heroin addiction. The film is not about drugs. It is about what people reach for when they cannot face what they have.

Sara Goldfarb

Ellen Burstyn called this the most challenging role of her career, and Pete and Andy don’t argue with her. Sara Goldfarb is a widow alone in a Brighton Beach apartment, her son always leaving and always stealing her television on the way out. When a phone call suggests she might appear on her favorite game show, she sets about fitting into the red dress she wore at Harry’s graduation—and the diet pills a friend recommends seem casual, almost nothing. What Burstyn does with the arc from that moment to the film’s end is, both hosts argue, the best work of her career. Andy believes she should have won Best Actress outright over Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich. Pete says you could take her sequence alone, run it as a short film, and it would be devastating on its own. The film’s most quietly horrifying moment belongs to her: an overhead shot after the electroconvulsive therapy in which the VFX team at Amoeba Proteus subtly shrinks Sara’s facial features as she fades away—an effect most viewers never consciously register, but feel.

The Ensemble

Jared Leto, Andy argues, was delivering Oscar-caliber performances before Dallas Buyers Club made people pay attention—Harry Goldfarb is the evidence. Jennifer Connelly’s Marion traces the film’s most outwardly harrowing arc, and the final phone call between her and Harry—added at the suggestion of the Sundance Writers Group during development—is one of her best moments in the film. And then there is Marlon Wayans, whose Tyrone is the character both Pete and Andy find themselves rooting for most: the one who keeps all his limbs, ends up in prison rather than in shock treatment or an underground sex show, and carries the film’s faint thread of hope. Pete and Andy name it directly—in a film full of inverted expectations, the Black character is the one the audience walks away believing might make it—and they consider that deliberate, and admire it.

Aronofsky’s Visual Language

Aronofsky’s toolkit is extensive here—split screens, hip-hop montages, the Snorricam (a chest-mounted rig named after Icelandic filmmakers Einar Snorri and Eiður Snorri), rotoscoping, triple exposures, time-lapse, fisheye lenses, the vibrate cam—and Andy’s argument is that none of it is gratuitous. Every technique serves the film’s project of putting the audience inside addiction rather than observing it from outside. The pill-to-plate jump cuts tell you how quickly Sara ate breakfast. The Snorricam locks the camera to a character’s body so the world moves while they float through it. The split screens in the Harry and Marion bed conversation separate two people who are lying next to each other—establishing a distance that will only grow. Matthew Libatique executes all of it; Jay Rabinowitz’s editing drives the cross-cut climax—shock treatment, sex show, Tyrone stirring soup, Harry’s amputation—with a pulse that accelerates until everything crashes. Andy compares Aronofsky’s use of the camera to Edgar Wright‘s: both directors build a formal language specific to what they’re trying to say. The difference is register.

The Score

Clint Mansell has worked with Aronofsky since Pi, and here, with the Kronos Quartet, he builds something that functions as a second editing track—the staccato strings of the montages, the pulsing electronics of the climax, and Lux Aeterna, which has since been licensed so widely that Pete had to remind himself he was hearing it for the first time. Aronofsky described the manic mambo accompanying Sara’s TV hallucinations as “Bugs Bunny dancing on Elmer Fudd’s head”—and once you have that image, it is hard to unhear. Pete compares the score to Trent Reznor’s work on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: music that grinds and disturbs but is also, somehow, listenable on its own. Andy considers it a significant oversight that Mansell was not nominated for Best Original Score; Tan Dun won for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that year, which Pete defends as a strong winner, but Andy would still pick this one.

Key Discussion Points

  • The MPAA gave the film an NC-17; Aronofsky refused to cut anything, arguing it would dilute the message; Artisan released it unrated; most theater chains wouldn’t screen it, which directly explains the domestic underperformance relative to the international gross.
  • The only needle injection shown directly onscreen is the final one—into Harry’s gangrenous arm wound—a deliberate choice that makes the image maximally repulsive at the moment of maximum consequence.
  • Peter Maloney’s doctor was directed by Aronofsky to never make eye contact with Sara; Maloney said it was the hardest direction he’d ever been given, and Andy considers it critical to the character.
  • Christopher McDonald’s Tappy Tibbons—a Tony Robbins-esque TV host not in the original novel—literalizes Sara’s TV addiction and makes the hallucination sequences work.
  • The refrigerator monster is a practical effect; the flaming red interior, combined with the sound design, is one of the film’s most terrifying images, grounded entirely in Sara’s psychology.
  • Hubert Selby Jr. wrote the novel in 1978 and co-wrote the screenplay with Aronofsky; Andy says rewatching the film made him feel overdue to read both this and Last Exit to Brooklyn.
  • Requiem lands at #5 out of 163 on the combined Flickchart list; Pete says he would have passed out if it had gone any further down.

Before You Watch

What is the Ellen Burstyn series on The Next Reel?

The series traces a career defined by complex, woman-centered performances Burstyn fought to make. The original three episodes—Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Exorcist, Requiem for a Dream—ran in Season 4. The series continues in Season 15 with Resurrection.

What did Pete and Andy think of Requiem for a Dream?

It’s in their all-time top five. Andy calls it a film that leaves him smiling—not with pleasure but with craft awe. Pete watched it in a metaphorical fetal position, also smiling. Both think Burstyn should have won the Oscar, and both think the score should have been nominated.

Should I watch the rated or unrated version?

The unrated version—the only one available on disc or digital—is the one Aronofsky approved. The R-rated cut trims the climactic sex show sequence; both hosts consider the unrated version the only version worth watching.

Is Requiem for a Dream worth watching?

Yes, with clear eyes about what you’re signing up for. Andy’s position—that it should be required viewing for anyone old enough to understand what it is saying about addiction—reflects both hosts’ genuine view. It is a film made by someone who knows exactly what he is doing at every moment, and that craft is what carries you through it.

The original Ellen Burstyn series ends here—but the conversation continues. Resurrection, added in Season 15, brings Burstyn back to the series with a very different kind of film. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in. The Next Reel on TruStory FM—when the movie ends, our conversation begins!

Episode Resources

Watch & Discover

Film Sundries

  • Pan – Trailer — Joe Wright’s Peter Pan prequel was Andy’s trailer of the week. Andy has a well-documented Peter Pan aversion, the trailer does not cure it, and he is going to see it anyway because his kids are excited.
  • Minions – Trailer — Pete’s pick, and he watches it multiple times a day. Andy compares the Minions’ wordless slapstick to silent film comedy—Chaplin, Keaton—and Pete considers this the most generous and accurate thing anyone has said about his feelings for these creatures.

What to Listen to Next

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*This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.*

Andy Nelson:
What film or story would you say that you’ve you’ve seen or heard or read more than any other story that you really just don’t like at all? Is there one? Did you ever think about that? You go, I have seen this so many times, and, boy, I just don’t like it.

Pete Wright:
Well, there’s a trope. And this just came up, and I think we I think we talked about it maybe a little bit during your it’s, Cinderella is a is a is a big one for me. I I that’s ages poorly on me.

Andy Nelson:
Yes. Very true. Well, I was thinking about this, because, you know

Pete Wright:
Are are you talking about just one that you’re just fatigue? You’re just tired of it?

Andy Nelson:
No. And I just realized, I just don’t like it. Oh. I really don’t like it. It was it’s Peter Pan.

I have I have seen the play, you know, many times. I’ve taken the kids to it. I’ve seen it, like when friends have done it back in college or whatever. I’ve seen I’ve seen that play a lot. I’ve seen the Disney movie a lot.

I’ve seen iterations of it a lot. You know, people keep telling that story in in different ways and, you know, Steven Spielberg had his his version. And and, you know, everybody has these different versions of it. And as much as, I mean, there are elements to the very the various versions that people make, like the songs in the Disney one. Well, at least not the non racist songs, I’ll say, are can be a bit enjoyable.

And and there’s some fun to the idea of, you know, going off to Neverland flying and pirates and mermaids and all of that sort of thing. But, man, I am just done with that story. I really am done with it. It’s just it wears on me. And I

Pete Wright:
You’ve you’ve become the old man. You are you know who else said this? Robin Williams in Hook. You have become old Peter. Woah.

Woah. I’ll bet I’ll bet you can’t hear, the magic bell when it rings either as it comes by from, from Polar Express.

Andy Nelson:
Oddly enough, my daughter was shaking one in my ear earlier tonight. And lo and behold, I heard nothing. Yeah. Get off my lawn.

Pete Wright:
So we have been, the truth is we have been, backpedaling a little bit for a number of weeks. We’ve been stocking up on shows for a number of weeks, and it’s it’s it’s been exhausting. We’ve been recording and watching a lot of movies.

Andy Nelson:
A whole lot of movies.

Pete Wright:
Doing so many shows so fast because we have to we’ve we’ve had to accelerate our end of the year schedule by a couple of months, because Andy is going away. He’s being taken away, for a little while, and he needs gonna need a break.

Andy Nelson:
I am going to need a little bit of break.

Pete Wright:
You wanna alright. So where where, Andrew, are you going?

Andy Nelson:
Well, I have a buddy who has a kidney issue, and so I am actually going to willingly let a doctor slice me open, take perfectly good kidney, and then stitch me up and give this guy my kidney. So

Pete Wright:
And leave you in a bathtub full of ice.

Andy Nelson:
Yes. Yes. I didn’t I didn’t mention Mexico. I didn’t mention, you know, the $10,000 of shady money.

Pete Wright:
I don’t care anything about that. All I wanna say is Lucy too better be called Andy. Take the kidney. Replace it with some fantastic fantastic psychotropic future drug.

Andy Nelson:
Am I gonna be turned into a hard drive in the end?

Pete Wright:
USB, not a hard drive. Would have been a step up. Maybe I will be the You will be the hard drive. You are giving a kidney, and I joke about that because, I am so, I’m so impressed. And I don’t know how to handle, fear.

And so, I make fun of it, but it is, this a big deal, and it’s scary a thing. And I’m I’m as I’ve told you before, I am deeply honored to be in your orbit, man. I think it’s a big deal, that you are doing this for your friend, and he better be grateful. That’s all I’m saying.

Andy Nelson:
Right. That son of a bitch.

Pete Wright:
And so we are they’re gonna be I think only one film board just coming right up. You are you’re gonna be missing the film board, this coming week, which is really sad.

Andy Nelson:
Because I really am looking forward to it.

Pete Wright:
I know. You’re gonna miss opening weekend of The Hobbit.

Andy Nelson:
I know. I’m not gonna be able to get out of bed for a few weeks. I know. Be seeing it hopefully, before the end of the year. I am looking forward to listening to the episode once I finally get to see it.

Pete Wright:
It’ll be a treat for you. I know. You’ll never wanna do anything again till then we’ll leave the show at all because in our completely, demonstrably incapable hands. This so you’re gonna be taking pretty much the month of December off, and we will come back with with new shows, new and current shows that aren’t faked, in early January. That’s it.

2015.

Andy Nelson:
In our, Christmas episode, we’re going to be announcing the winner of the pony prize. Right?

Pete Wright:
Yes. That’s coming right up. We have we’ve been talking about the pony prize for years. We now have a stable, nay, stable of prizes

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm..

Pete Wright:
That we have corralled. And, we are very excited to, to start shipping. So make room in your house, winner.

Andy Nelson:
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. It’s pretty we got some so we got some good things coming together.

Pete Wright:
We’re never doing a contest again.

Andy Nelson:
This contest cost so much money.

Pete Wright:
But, you know, we’re very excited about the the some of the donations that we’ve been getting for this thing and of the in kind gifts, and so we’re very excited to be able to do this.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. We’ll talk about that more next week Yes. When we announce the winner.

Pete Wright:
Yes, indeed.

Andy Nelson:
Very exciting. Looking forward to it.

Pete Wright:
Welcome everybody to The Next Reel. I’m Pete Wright. That there is Andy Nelson. Hey. And we spoil movies.

We’re so glad you joined us for this, fantastic. This a talk about a family film. We are we’re talking about February Requiem for a Dream tonight, so get ready, to, pull out your popcorn and tissues and settle in for a good cry. Bring the kitties. Bring the kitties.

But first, you should, you should hang out with us at the website, TheNextReel.com. You can, learn all about us, about the past, past shows that we have done. You can join us for our film board episodes and, here, the monthly gang of thugs gather together for our, our new release episodes happen once a month. And, you can join us on all of the sundry, social networks, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Instagram. And while you’re there, you should partake in the, Instagram guest movie challenge.

That would be a good place to go. Hey. You know, usually here, we would be talking about how excited we are that, well, and I think, you know, judging by recent performance, how excited we are that one of our listeners has trumped us somehow in the pony prize. Right?

Andy Nelson:
Absolutely.

Pete Wright:
In our efforts to release the Kraken, I think that the our Kraken has gotten beaten more time than their Kraken.

Andy Nelson:
It’s not about beating people, Pete.

Pete Wright:
This a full on Pacific Rim kind of contest right here. Wow. But here’s what’s here’s what’s so exciting about this. This I’m very excited. This we have to talk about tonight our very first product.

Andy Nelson:
I know. It’s really

Pete Wright:
exciting. Are you excited about that?

Andy Nelson:
I am. I’m quivering with joy.

Pete Wright:
You could stop because now that’s gross. Why we’re excited about this because, you know, we had this idea long time ago that when we did the Pony Prize, we wanted to release a shirt of some sort. We really wanted to have a shirt, a custom shirt as part of this thing. And because we’re us, we didn’t get around to it for, like, eight months. And so we went ahead, and we finally we finally got around to it.

And you know what? The first thing that struck us was, you know, we’ve got this this guy, a friend of the show, and a really fantastic, artist, Joel Micah Harris. We’ve talked about him before when I discovered him when I saw his, a post on Twitter of these fantastic kind of mashups. Samurai. Yeah.

The samurai, superhero mashups that were just great. I’ve and I thought those were so much fun. So I reached out to Joel, and we and asked him, if what he would think about doing some custom artwork for us for a shirt. So we did. We commissioned Joel, to do some custom artwork, and the idea that we came I think this was your idea.

Right? This the concept was the top five films?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. We’re trying to figure out a way to incorporate maybe, like, you know, some some of our favorites, and why not go to the top five?

Pete Wright:
So we did. So we went to the top five. So we went to the top five of our films. We we gave those top our top five list to Joel, and he came back with this really cool, design. It it is a film reel.

This this a theater for the mind right now. So imagine close your eyes, everybody.

Andy Nelson:
Is it is it The Next Reel?

Pete Wright:
It is the next. It’s actually the next film reel. Mm-hmm.. And inside and kind of nestled comfortably inside each of five of the, what do they call them on the are those vent ventilation holes? What are those called?

The anatomy of a film reel. You should know you should know this.

Andy Nelson:
I should know that. What are they? There’s like spokes or like spokes. I don’t know.

Pete Wright:
Five giant holes on Right. The side of this film, this this film reel. And, Joel did some hand drawn animation, a cell animation of, of a an iconic frame from each of the five top films.

Andy Nelson:
Very cool.

Pete Wright:
It is very cool. It is really very, very cool. And, you know, I we’re gonna this, there’s a little bit of a spoiler. What are the top five films?

Andy Nelson:
Well, Network has been sitting pretty as our number one for, quite a while. Quite a while. And then, Raising Arizona kinda jumped up there. It kinda snuck its way into there, didn’t there?

Pete Wright:
It certainly did.

Andy Nelson:
And then, we’ve got, Jaws, which has been in there for a little while. Yep. Seven. And then, yeah, there’s a little bit of a spoiler here with, maybe tonight’s movie?

Pete Wright:
Tonight’s movie snuck right up to

Andy Nelson:
number five.

Pete Wright:
Amazing film in Requiem for a Dream. So this a really fun piece of artwork. And this you know, we’ve been doing this show. Have we, you know, we sang happy birthday to ourselves. Three years we’ve been doing this show, and never once have we have we had anything to offer to our listeners.

And so we’re very excited to have this shirt to be able to kind of celebrate three years of talking about movies. And really, I you know, our hope is that you all really like the shirt and you feel comfortable, spending your hard earned dough to support the show. We do make a little bit. We obviously commissioned the work from Joel. He’ll make a little bit.

But, you know, the show does come with some costs associated with it. And so we would very much love. As much as this a passion for us to be able to do the show, and be able to afford our time and, resources to do the show, and we love doing it. If you guys like the show, if you like listening to the show, we sure would appreciate it if you would help support the show by celebrating with us three years of talking about movies and, and wear this custom piece from Joel Mike Harris on your chest celebrating, where our top five sits as of now, the end of 2014. Does that cover it?

Andy Nelson:
I think that covers it. And then I suppose we should also mention that, you know, whoever it is who does end up winning our pony prize in the drawing next week is actually going to get one of these as a part of the pony prize.

Pete Wright:
We should. Actually, I’m really glad you said that because we’re gonna do the drawing next week. That means if you think you’re in the running, or you have, been playing a lot, the Instagram hashtag pony prize challenge, probably hold off on buying a shirt.

Andy Nelson:
Just in case.

Pete Wright:
Or else realize you’ll you’ll you may get another one.

Andy Nelson:
Right. Right. Exactly.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. So I should say buy as many as you want, and know you will get another one. How’s that?

Andy Nelson:
That’s there you go.

Pete Wright:
So if you think you’re interested in buying a shirt, which we hope you are, just head over to TheNextReel.com, and, there’s a little button right there on the top of the sidebar there. Right there at the very top, it’s got the shirt on it. So click on it, and it’ll take you over to the, the store where you can buy the shirt.

Andy Nelson:
I think it. Clicking right now. You

Pete Wright:
premature click. Premature click. Let’s do trailers.

Andy Nelson:
Okay. I’m gonna go first.

Pete Wright:
Okay. Just to get it out of the way.

Andy Nelson:
Just get it out of the way. And it fits with what I was talking about earlier.

Pete Wright:
I’m curious. If people will see this coming.

Andy Nelson:
I you know, I don’t think they will. I don’t think people have any clue that I’m gonna talk about Joe Wright’s Pan. It’s not coming out till next summer. The trailer hit a few weeks back, but it’s coming out next July. It’s it’s kind of the prequel to Peter Pan, I guess.

And speaking of all the various iterations of Peter Pan, here we go, giving a backstory to where Peter Pan came from. And I will say, it looks it looks pretty. There’s lots of pretty stuff going on here. There’s there’s an interesting element to developing this backstory for Peter Pan as this orphan kid who has this letter from his mother, and somehow that

Pete Wright:
I saw that movie once. It was called Annie.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Right. Exactly. And and he gets kidnapped by Blackbeard and his and his cronies. Blackbeard played interestingly by Peter Jackson.

Pete Wright:
Hugh Jack Hugh Jackman.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Peter Jackson.

Pete Wright:
I mean, either one of them would do probably a fine job.

Andy Nelson:
It’s it’s actually Peter Jackson, but he’s doing some amazing oh, this Weta. Let me tell you. Some amazing CG work. It blew me away. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Hugh Jackman, you know, Peter Jackson, almost the same guy. But oddly enough, he looks like Robert

Pete Wright:
Carlyle. So

Andy Nelson:
so explain that one to me. I am not anyway yeah. So Hugh Jackman I don’t know where Peter Jackson is.

Pete Wright:
That’s so weird. What a

Andy Nelson:
weird brain thing. Anyway, Blackbeard apparently is in this world and is kidnapping children to mine for him, I guess. And and Peter Pan meets Hook and befriends him. Hook is Garrett Hedlund, and they kind of team up. And somehow, the tribal peoples of Netherland Neverland are involved, but they look like I don’t know.

They look almost more like colorful circus performers. And Rooney Mara is playing Tiger Lily, and there’s been quite a bit of talk about, you know, casting a white girl, you know, the whole whitewashing thing, to play Tiger Lily, this native character. Although Neverland is a fictional land. You know, there’s all this nonsense about the casting of Tiger Lily and just everything going along with it. And I mean, to be honest, I I think that part of the film is is, never been one of my favorites anyway of the of the entire story.

So I don’t know. It looks very colorful, very interesting, but I just can’t again, I can’t say that I’m that excited about it. I mean, Joe Wright has done some great stuff. I love Pride and Prejudice. I really enjoy Hannah.

Atonement has a lot of great stuff going for it. You know, I I’ve I’ve skipped some of the stuff like the soloist Anna Karenina, but I don’t know. I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. I just I can’t get myself that excited. I felt obligated to talk about it just because I have this Peter Pan aversion.

But and the writer is, Jason Fuchs coming on board to write it. And, you know, other than ice age continental drift and a few TV projects, he hasn’t done much. So it’s just one of those interesting things that, here’s this guy doing this big Peter Pan prequel, and I don’t know. I have a feeling it’s something that my kids will really enjoy, and I will be sitting there going, another Peter Pan movie, Shaking my head.

Pete Wright:
I feel for you, man.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
This a this a movie that will probably be fined by a good director delivering quality work with, a solid cast about a in a topic area that never needed really to be made.

Andy Nelson:
Right. Exactly.

Pete Wright:
And I always think it’s a mistake to name the film the same thing as the likely critical reaction to it.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. That never works out very well. Oh, well, I guess it could go either way. You know?

Pete Wright:
Yeah. That’s the date. That’s the date. Danger. The other thing that I find interesting about this film is that it seems to be very much a a, at least from the early, kind of press material.

It’s very much a a, Peter Jackson film, a Hugh Jackman, film. I mean, we, it he’s getting an awful lot of press for his really great looking black beard. You gotta you gotta

Andy Nelson:
Oh, completely. You know? I agree. I agree.

Pete Wright:
So, and, so I, you know, I think it’s, it’s, visually, it it, it has a lot going for it. Interesting twists. And so if you’re not, old and withered up inside, this might be an interesting, interesting one to take in.

Andy Nelson:
I guarantee I’ll be seeing it because my kids are very excited.

Pete Wright:
Wow. Build is a comedy. Doesn’t strike me as that funny.

Andy Nelson:
Comedy adventure.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. No. Laugh a minute. Kids. Orphan kids in the mines.

Remember how funny? Speaking of real depth of cinema Mm-hmm.. My trailer is I may be more excited for my trailer. I am doing this has been out for a little while, but I watch it every day multiple times a day because it’s still fantastic. Minions coming 2015, the animated, story of Kevin Stewart and Bob.

It is a prequel to Despicable Me, about the, the beginnings of the minions who support Gru. You know, we could see how their their their lives, as they work to support the most evil creatures on the planet and have real trouble finding a good boss. And it looks hysterical. I’m sorry. I just love it.

I am weak willed for these little guys. I totally am. You know what it is? I have a theory. It’s not even a very good theory, but I think that one of the things that I think is so compelling about these creatures, I think when in the absence of language, it is it’s sort of universally slapstick.

Like, there’s no depth of there isn’t in so much depth of story that you end up losing the story and falling out of love with the characters. You know what I mean? But at the same time, they have done so much to bring character out of these little guys with such a strange language. And so I’m really it’s a it is a bizarre paradox, that I think we’re we’re stuck in. The film is directed by Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin.

And Pierre and Chris Renaud are the voices of all the minions, and they were actually the directors of Despicable Me and Despicable Me two. And so, you can totally I mean, I don’t know the story behind the minions, but you can totally just sort of feel how it happens. These two directors are probably voicing animatics, and everybody just falls in love with it, in the in the process. And so I am I’m very excited to see how this shakes out. What do you think?

Am I nuts?

Andy Nelson:
I no. I am excited too. I mean, I am right there with you as far as my love for the minions. And just the strangeness of them as characters and the, you know, this this creates an interesting addition to the just the scope of these characters and the fact that apparently, they live for a really, really long time, like forever.

Pete Wright:
Like forever. Yeah. There’s just no question. They live in space. They live everywhere.

Andy Nelson:
Right.

Pete Wright:
And they come from under the sea.

Andy Nelson:
And it’s just they live with dinosaurs? I mean, they’re it’s very interesting. And I do agree with you. There’s something about this this, nonsense language that they’ve created for these guys that is so much fun to just listen to and watch because you can totally understand what it is they’re saying and doing. And it does it actually takes me back to I don’t know if this a an apt comparison, but it takes me back to, like, Charlie Chaplin and the Yes.

And the Buster Keaton, and all that kind of slapstick short film sort of shenanigans that would go on, where you didn’t necessarily need the dialogue to carry the story. You would just see funny people doing funny things, and you would be able to tell what’s going on. And, know, I mean, my daughter’s in love with Charlie Chaplin because of that very reason, and she’s equally in love with the Minions. And I think that that’s what these guys have smartly, found.

Pete Wright:
I totally agree. And I think that is a great comparison because of that lack of language. You you know, the silent film, the silent film comedies are really I think that’s it it’s channeled in minions, and I think, I think that lends a sort of cultural depth to these weird little yellow creatures. I know I’m totally overthinking these weird little yellow creatures, but I do love them so much. Mine comes out 07/10/2015, so start your summers.

Andy Nelson:
Hey, Pete. Andrew. We got a winner. I said we got a winner. I like the way I feel.

Now when I get the sun, I smile. I’m gonna be on television.

Pete Wright:
I just

Andy Nelson:
wanted to be on the show. So don’t worry, Seymour. It’ll all work out. You’ll see already. In the end, it’s all night.

This

Pete Wright:
film is a pick me up.

Andy Nelson:
You know, I will say as as hard as this film is to watch, it leaves me in an amazing state of joy at the end.

Pete Wright:
Is that what that feeling is?

Andy Nelson:
And it’s because it’s because I’m watching a film by a filmmaker who does stuff in the process of making a film that truly just blows me away every time I watch

Pete Wright:
it. It really is a visually stunning film, and it becomes for me, and I haven’t read the book. Have you read

Andy Nelson:
the I haven’t.

Pete Wright:
Alright. So, it becomes for me like just candy. I it is it is just succulent, to watch this film. And you I for me, it doesn’t take very long before I’m not really paying as much attention to what is going on, and just letting it wash over me. It’s just fascinating Yeah.

How he puts these visuals together. It is just wonderful. Of course, we are talking about Requiem for a Dream 2000. Requiem for a Dream from the year 2000. It’s it’s a reboot.

The director, obviously, Darren Aronofsky, based on, the book and adaptation by, Hubert Selby Jr. Stars, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans. Wonderful performance by Marlon Wayans. And and, of course, the incredibly challenging, turn by the heroine of our series, Ellen Burstyn. Wow.

Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
This a film that when I first saw this, I was like, every school I mean, I it’s not really an appropriate film to show to kids, but I feel like every high school kid needs to watch this film to just understand the dangers of addiction.

Pete Wright:
This was a this movie had some trouble with the ratings.

Andy Nelson:
It did. Yes. It did.

Pete Wright:
Do wanna talk about that just real It’s

Andy Nelson:
it’s got dark stuff going on in it. And it’s I mean, it’s the sort of film that I mean, when you when you hit that third act, there’s stuff that is happening that is just really intense. And as intense as it is, it’s integral to the story. It’s incredibly important to have the elements that happen in those scenes, and the MPAA wanted to give it an NC 17. And, you know, the whole thing with the NC 17 rating and the MPAA, I mean, it’s just one of those things that is very contentious, and it always bothers me because this rating was meant to create a new rating past r that just is for strictly adult films.

And unfortunately, it it, you know, it immediately got labeled as, you know, pornography rating. All the at the time, the video stores said they wouldn’t carry NC 17, and they lost the whole point of what this rating was supposed to be. And yet, the MPAA still tries to give this rating out periodically. This was one of the films that did it. And, of course, all the theater chains say, well, we won’t show it because it’s NC 17.

And and so every filmmaker who goes up against this this rating by the MPAA really has to do this big battle against them and try to appeal it and try to do whatever they can. Aronofsky appealed the rating saying that if we if I cut anything out of it, it’s gonna dilute the message. And MPAA, of course, denied it. Luckily, Artisan Entertainment had come in. They had done distributed pie for him beforehand, and they wanted to release it unrated.

They believed in it and thought that they could do it. And there are still some theater chains who will still show unrated films out there, typically more of the arthouse theaters. And so it did get its release as an unrated film, the one that Darren Aronofsky had approved. And but because of that, it just didn’t get as wide a release as it could have and perhaps should have. They did end up cutting it down to an r rated version to reduce the sex scene at the end when they released it on video.

That’s really the only scene that they kind of cut down. But but, I mean and they also obviously have the unrated version out there, which I think is the only one that ever made it to DVD and Blu ray and all that sort of stuff.

Pete Wright:
But that’s what you can get on Direct to Digital too is the unrated director’s cut.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Right. Right.

Pete Wright:
It it know, obviously, the cast and Aronofsky came out and spoke very strongly about it, about this ratings issue, and, you know, their contention and is that, you know, it really underscores a misunderstanding and a misguided intent, a misguided understanding of what, you know, what youth knows about, and that there is a, an attempt to squash, sexuality in the face of really, you know, horrific violence in in other films. You know, films that that don’t get an r or NC 17 rating that are horribly violent, but don’t have any of the sex in them. You know, while while this film otherwise is not that violent, it does depict some uncomfortable sequences of drug use and but and that are difficult to watch certainly, but was really given that rating for for the sexual content. And and, you know, I the version I watched, you know, it’d been several years since I’ve seen the film, and the version I watched was this, the director’s cut, the unrated version. I don’t remember if I’d seen the unrated version, before, but, honestly, I hadn’t even recalled that this was controversy, about this particular film until after I watched it and started reading up on it.

It didn’t strike me as particularly shocking, obviously, with eyes that have seen more since. But, what was your take on it? Did it seem like it was worth it?

Andy Nelson:
Well, you mean the unrated nature of it? Yeah. I mean, it it’s it’s just one of those things where and, you know, I call it a sex scene. It’s really not a sex scene. I mean, there is something sexual happening in the scene, but not in the nature that’s in any way, shape, or form enjoyable Right.

For the viewer or Marion, the character that is participating in it. It’s it’s it’s a very uncomfortable scene to watch because we are watching this girl at the bottom of her place in this story where she has decided that the what she needs in order to be happy and kind of get back to where she wants to be is to be high. And the only way she can do that because she doesn’t have any money, she doesn’t have her boyfriend around, is to sell herself for sex. It’s in the really just the most horrifying way in this

Pete Wright:
Very public, very intense.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah, it’s this group, you know, this whole group of men watching, chanting is she and this other woman are are, you know, in the Performing. Yeah. Performing. Performing. Yeah.

Doing a show. And it’s it’s just it’s it’s sickening to watch. Yes. Just as sickening as the other three stories. You know.

It’s it’s very difficult to see. I mean, I guess Marlon Wayans’ story is not it’s it’s, you know, he’s in prison and spurring slop. Mean, it’s not

Pete Wright:
Compared, that guy got off easy.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. He’s the he’s the one who’s, like, well, maybe he can make it out of this.

Pete Wright:
He got a g rating. His his Stir that soup.

Andy Nelson:
NC 17 on that. Oh. Did you see

Pete Wright:
this? Yeah. Did you see the soup?

Andy Nelson:
And so, again, like you said, the MPAA is really misguided in their in their need to slap a rating arbitrarily on something just because of what happens to be on on screen without paying any attention to what the message is going on behind that. I mean, I would be more comfortable giving this an r rating so that more people could potentially see this, because it mean, it’s an it’s an uncomfortable thing to watch, and it really portrays the horrors of these addictions that these people fall into rather than some of the atrocious horror films that I always end up watching, like, know, like Hostel or things like that. That is just I mean, they it’s the torture porn sort of stuff. The fact that those films can get the r rating, and this film that is actually trying to say something cannot. I think that is the problem.

Pete Wright:
That’s that’s why I I wanted to hear your thoughts on that because that’s, you know, that Jared Leto came in one of his press, pressers was saying that, you know, this was this was one of those things that I he said, I’ve shown this to young people, people who can’t see this film in a theater, and they’re they changed the way they think about, you know, their lives as a result of it. This is, it it’s horrible. Nobody comes away thinking this at all aspirational. Nobody comes away saying they want to live this lifestyle when they see this film. They always come away thinking, oh my gosh.

There was nothing sexy about that sex. There was nothing I mean, it was all at the very lowest of these, as you say, of each of these characters’ arcs. And, and being able to have that conversation, I think, is is, it trumps ratings, I often. And and that’s, you know, I don’t know. I’m certainly not gonna show my 12 year old, Requiem for a Dream, but but at some point, we’re gonna have that conversation, and it’s gonna be you know, it’s it’s because it’s important, it it’s an it says an important thing.

Andy Nelson:
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It’s I mean, it is a film. I mean, I would would I just don’t know how, but I would love to have, youth watch this.

Maybe when they turn 17 Mm-hmm.. You know, this something that everybody watches, just to look at the horrors of addiction, whether it’s addiction to television, to kind of get through the day, or diet pills, or drugs, or anything to, that you can become addicted to kind of try to get your mind to whatever it is that you dream that you can achieve without actually focusing on the life that you’re actually in and trying to actually make it there in a realistic setting.

Pete Wright:
Right. And that is ultimately the message of the film. I’m glad you brought us around to that.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Because we could talk about this other stuff all day long.

Andy Nelson:
Right. Damn the MPAA.

Pete Wright:
Film is is, you know, told in some typical fantastically frenetic Aronofsky style, and it does explore the the, the way addiction, infects, four different characters, four characters in this film. And it’s one of the it’s tricky, the way the story is constructed because I think at its very, its very best, there is a a, a point in the film where you really believe that all of these people are gonna make it. Yeah. And it’s it’s fairly early in the film, and you think grandma’s gonna lose weight, and the kids are gonna open this the store, and the other guy’s gonna have he’s gonna be fine with his his girlfriend. They’re gonna be fine.

Their house is really getting put together, and everybody’s got work. And, and it’s it’s completely that point is, you know, you hit this sort of aspirational bit where where you see the payoff of the lure of the substances that they’re on. Mm-hmm.. That, you know what, you really can change your body with these these old drugs. You really can.

You can you can lose weight, and, you can put the cash away in order to open the store, and your girlfriend can start making making, clothes. You can do that. You can have everything you possibly want, And then one day, you’re running from your own refrigerator.

Andy Nelson:
Right. That happens to me. Mm-hmm.. Security for refrigerators. I I

Pete Wright:
think I think that twist ends up being really artful, and something that is and profound, because it’s not just a surface, it doesn’t really to me feel like, any sort of surface achievement. It feels very much like a like a substantive achievement of goals and dreams. It because they we’ve already seen that, particularly in Leto’s character, we’ve already seen him at his lowest. The film opens with him at a low stealing his his mother’s television set to Hockett again and again and again. And, you know, so it really feels like he’s climbing up out of this trough and figuring out how to use the life in order to, in order to make something of himself.

And then it all turns. And that for me is the highlight of the structure of this film.

Andy Nelson:
It’s it is a really interesting structure watching the kind of the ups and downs, and it’s interesting that it’s tied into seasons also, which I believe that’s also how the novel is structured, where you have these three seasons. Fittingly, summer is really kind of where you have the high point. Fall is aptly named as you start seeing the fall of each of these characters. Even though they still have some hope, they’re still trying to cling to those those last golden moments of summer and everything. And then, of course, winter when everything really falls apart.

And it’s it’s it really fits wonderfully structurally the way that builds and tells the story of all of these characters with their highs and lows and the things that they the paths they go on to get what they need. And it’s interesting how it can start so small for them, you know, in in all their cases. Sarah starts really just trying to do these diets because she wants to fit into this red dress again.

Pete Wright:
And go on television.

Andy Nelson:
Right. To go on television because she gets this this, you know, one of these, you know, random sales calls that says, oh, we’re gonna get you on the show. And of course, it’s it not isn’t necessarily a call to actually get on the show. You know, we never really find out that whole thing, but it just seems kinda like a scam perhaps. Regardless, it sets her off on getting into this red dress.

She tries dieting. One of her friends mentions these weight loss pills, and it just it seems very casual. It doesn’t seem like anything grand could potentially happen with this. Likewise with, Harry and Tyrone, they kind of start as, you know, hey, you know, I mean, yes, they’re already kind of in the life of drugs and crime and all of that. So they’re already in a place where they’re off to a bad start.

But at least it seems manageable, and they actually do have a goal which is distributors again, you know Right. Within their world, they’re doing well. They wanna be distributors, and they initially are like, okay. Well, hey, we just gotta test it, make sure that this stuff is good. And it seems like they’re keeping their wits about them as they move forward and do this, and things seem to be working.

But, you know, things happen, And, you keep seeing that progression as the, you know, oh, well, this diet pill is not working for anymore. Okay. Well, I’ll sneak a second one. And and, you know, they Tyrone is talking to the one of the dealers that ends up going bad, everyone gets killed. And you kind of see how these things slowly start turning and turning and turning, and the spiral begins.

These people just don’t have the control or the wherewithal to get themselves going the other direction.

Pete Wright:
Well, and it’s there is another part of that twist that I like so much is that is that it not only, you know, shows the fall as they start careening kind of off the cliff, but but it shows the importance for each of them of their escape mechanism. And Sarah’s is the most, I think, it’s kind of the most interesting for me because she in in her monologue, she has a beautiful scene, between her son Harry, you know, where she she says, I’ve I’ve got nothing. Right? I have nothing left. You are gone.

Your father is gone, and I am an old lady, and I’ve got nothing. And we see we have seen her and this sense of escape through the television that I think is it really is palpable. I mean, she’s alone, and Harry becomes the enabler of that. As his as his fortunes begin to turn and he has a little bit more money. He goes and buys her, you know, not, you know, a nice dinner out with him or some, you know, friends, some book club membership.

He he buys her a larger, more prominent television that takes up an even greater role in her escape. And so that escape for her leads directly to this drug addiction, to these diet pills that, you know, I think is interesting because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a neighborhood, grandma addict like this. Yeah. Right? This this this a to me, it’s shocking.

Not because of what she does, but because of who she is, and it makes what she does that much more palpable.

Andy Nelson:
It’s horrifying. It truly is horrifying because despite the the struggle in the relationship between Sarah and Harry, I mean, as you mentioned, he’s always going and stealing her television to go hawk it to get some money to buy drugs. She goes, buys it back. You’ve got this perpetual cycle going on. There’s clearly some some problems in the relationship and her as this enabler.

But she doesn’t have anything. And she has her friends, she sits out on the curb with them, and all that. And and but and Ellen Burstyn really created this character that is, despite her flaws, you feel the need to you’re drawn to her. You feel the need to kind of support her decisions because you she has this grandmotherly slash motherly presence that you want everything to go okay for. And and when she has those moments, like you said that monologue which is so touching, and it’s just, you know, how she has nothing and these pills, it’s a reason to get up in the morning.

And, you know, it really it breaks your heart and draws you into that character. And it gives you this this person that we like you said, we’ve never seen this before. And it makes it that much more powerful that Selby created her as really one of our kind of key protagonists of this story that we are attached to, drawn to, and then are forced to watch her fall.

Pete Wright:
Is she Ellen Burstyn says that this that she’s this perhaps her her most challenging role. This what she said in 2000, of her performance in this film. Being able to truck in a drug movie, like this it is disconcerting, disquieting.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm..

Pete Wright:
But she delivers, I think, the it’s the performance of her career in this film. I mean, it’s it is it is stunningly good.

Andy Nelson:
And, yeah, it’s I think it’s yeah. It blows me away every time I see her how good she is in this. And as much as I enjoy Erin Brockovich and Julia Roberts in it, Ellen Burstyn should have won the Oscar for this. You know, no questions asked. Even against the other ones, Juliette Binoche for Chocolat, Joan Allen for the contender, or Laura Linney for You Can Count on Me.

I think Ellen Burstyn, absolutely towered over all of those other, actresses this year and should have won. It’s just it was such a dark story. It’s not something the Academy voters want to vote for.

Pete Wright:
No. And that’s that’s the problem because, you know, I think probably what hurt her performance was being in a film that also had these other things, the degrading sex shows, the, you know, the controversy around ratings. I it just it just hurt because otherwise, her performance is it is transcendent. And as a short, you can imagine just taking her her sequence as a short and just just watching her for, you know, thirty minutes, go through that transformation and run from her appliances and and end, in in the very lowest of the low. Mean, she’s just, as she’s, you know, involuntarily committed to a psychiatric treatment and gets shock therapy.

I mean, is just, stunning. I could absolutely watch that soup to nuts without the rest of the film even. She is that good. She

Andy Nelson:
is that good. She brings the gravitas to the performance. She has I mean, they all really tap into the soul of the film. They all really carry a lot of weight as to that power of hope and loss that I think is so critical to this story. And, but hers, I think, for me, I always find it the most heartbreaking.

Pete Wright:
The most heartbreaking because it’s the one I can connect to the easiest. I mean, she might as well have been grandma Wanda. You know what I mean? Like, she’s she’s my grandmother. Yeah.

You know, capital m, my grandmother.

Andy Nelson:
She’s my mother. You know? It’s Right. Watch watching her, it’s like, gosh. She really I mean, I’m not saying my mother is in this place, but but it really you know, she just but just Ellen Burstyn, her look and everything reminds me of my mother.

And so when I watch her, I feel like in particular, just the way that she performs here, it just it really hits me. It’s like, oof.

Pete Wright:
That’s not to say that the other characters don’t have their own fantastically horrifying downward slide. We’ve already talked about Jennifer Connelly as Marion Silver and her journey into the underground sex trade. Jared Leto has some forearm problems.

Andy Nelson:
There are anyone who, you know, had questioned up to Dallas Buyers Club whether Jared Leto could pull off an Oscar worthy performance need only go back to this. Absolutely. I think he is just as brilliant here as he is in Dallas Buyers Club. He, I think, has always proven himself a rock solid actor even when it’s stuff like like watching Panic Room, which is a very fun kind of different type of film. But it’s it’s very it still works really well in context of the film that it is.

Here, he really taps into just kind of a just a darker place, and he plays that character who, again, has these dreams, but never quite is able to figure out how to actually make them happen. And I think he does that so well. And, man, that hole in his arm is disgusting.

Pete Wright:
No. That is his, particular demon. He, they He and his buddy, Tyrone, played obviously by Marlon Wayans, decide they need to go down to Florida to buy wholesale some of their product and get it back up so that they can make more money off of it. And, along the way, Tyrone discovers that what, Harry has been concealing is horrifically infected what do they even call it? Do they even call It’s almost like his track marks.

It’s his track marks. So this this how I it’s been a long time since I was on the street. And so it’s it is it’s really it’s grotesque. And it’s it’s so grotesque that Harry ends up moving being being arrested and losing his arm.

Andy Nelson:
Yep. No. Yeah. That is almost the most fitting and most horrifying climax to that incredibly intense finale we have in the third act. Just the climax of all four stories coming together and having that intense climax at the same time, Sarah getting her shock treatment, Marion doing the sex show, Damon stirring that soup, and then Jared getting his arm cut off.

And you just hear that saw start up and the way that it cuts in and the saw winds as it cuts through skin and bone is just almost like the most fitting conclusion to the horror of everything that we’ve seen.

Pete Wright:
And and you’re right. Talk a little bit about the visuals of that climax. I mean, the way they construct that sequence, the way Aronofsky constructs that sequence is particularly fitting. What can you describe it? The visual nature of it?

Andy Nelson:
Well, I think it ties into a lot of what the visual nature is, and we’ll talk about all the other visual tricks that Aronofsky is playing all through this, but he really uses a very it really is just his cutting style. He created this intense cutting style that ties in perfectly with the music, which we have to talk about, and just the action going on on the screen of just like this rapid fire cutting from one scene to the other that creates this beat that we keep seeing and feeling as we go from Sarah getting shocked to Marion in in the act to the doctors prepping his arm to the stirring of the soup, and just everything is just like creating this beat. And it really it’s it’s I think in this particular scene, it’s it’s mostly just kind of a master class in in using the editing as a tool to kind of create that that, the beat that continues to, to speed up. It’s almost like this heartbeat as we get faster and faster before it all kind of slows down and crashes. That I think is the is the thing that we see.

It almost creates this pulsating effect that you’re watching there that you can’t kinda slow down and you can’t look away.

Pete Wright:
The editing is done by the wonderfully talented Jay Rabinowitz. Have we talked about him? I can’t I don’t think we have. It’s been around a long well, since the late late eighties. Nineties.

Yeah. Early nineties. Yeah. Most recently, you know, edited Rosewater for, John Stewart. So he’s he’s kinda been on my mind a little bit.

But his you know, he has he very much has well, he’s he’s got kind of that he’s he’s got that Aronofsky, Terence Malik. He’s got sort of that he that he’s in that class of filmmaker. And, you know, I think he has an incredibly delicate touch, in in the film, just as you say, knowing exactly exactly where to cut, exactly how to position the frame, with the music is, is a particular gift. And and I think he has a wonderfully intuitive touch to this, to his work here.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Pete Wright:
The, okay. So do you wanna are we are we moving on from, from because I I’d also wanna talk about music, and that seems to be a nice place to go. What do wanna talk about first?

Andy Nelson:
Well, I just I I just I know we already mentioned Marlon Wayans, but I just have to say, having only seen Marlon Wayans in comedies ever, I had no idea that this was in him. Yeah. It really floored me to see him go to a place like this. And it I think it was a it was one of the I mean, this was the same year that he did Dungeons and Dragons and Scary Movie. Yeah.

So so just knowing that this was in there, I I had no idea. And it was very exciting for me to see that Marlon Wayans had it in him to pull a character like this out of himself and create something that had, again, all of these characters, I think, had to find this place of hope and loss.

And we have these flashbacks of him and his mother and kind of that connection that is created there, but then we also have the loss for him. And and he really is the only character I feel that there’s much hope for or any potential hope for, if if anyone. At least I like to think that there is. I feel like, okay. He’s in prison.

Maybe he might be able to find a way to get himself out of this whole thing. I don’t know, but I hope.

Pete Wright:
You know what? You know, that always, that always strikes me. Right? As a and and, again, I don’t know what the what the bent is on the book in terms of race in this film or in the in the story. But isn’t it interesting that I also have the most hope, and I think we’re set up as audience members to have the most hope for, Marlon Wayans character, and he’s the black guy.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm..

Pete Wright:
Like, all of the the, you know, the stereotypical, you know, all of the stereotypes are kind of turned on their ear in this film. And I think that’s one of the reasons that it’s so challenging is because race, yet one other stereotype that is turned on its ear, is you know, we’re left seeing how this character, Marlon Wayans character, is set to be rehabilitated. He keeps all his limbs. He’s not on he’s not getting electroshock therapy. He’s not performing in an underground sex show.

He’s the guy who gets into the track of rehabilitation at the end of this film. And and that’s the one I I walk away saying, gosh, thank goodness. That guy’s gonna make it. Yeah. Yeah.

Because it’s not it’s not what we would normally expect from a film like this.

Andy Nelson:
Right. Right. Exactly.

Pete Wright:
What a breath of fresh air.

Andy Nelson:
Here. Here.

Pete Wright:
Okay. So And then Where would you like to go from here?

Andy Nelson:
Well, I do also just want to mention Christopher McDonald.

Pete Wright:
I think Yes. Tappy Tibbons?

Andy Nelson:
Tappy Tibbons, we’ve got a winner, is a great character. It’s it’s a small role, and it’s not like a huge stretch or anything. But it’s a really fun character, and it is an absolutely critical character in this in the context of the story, creating this almost Tony Robbins esque sort of character that wasn’t in the original novel. That really is is, I think, a very good visual interpretation of this connection that Sarah has to TV. And in particular, it turns incredibly frightening when Red Sarah, the really freaky version of Sarah in her TV dreams, comes out of the TV along with Tappy Tibbons and brings like the whole crowd in, and they start doing this this mad mambo around Sarah sitting in her chair.

It’s it’s one of the most frightening things to watch. And, you know, Christopher McDonald is one of those actors who, you know, he’ll pop into things whether it’s a bit player or a bigger role. He always brings something to the table. I always have a great time watching him. I think one of my favorite performances of his Thelman Louise as Daryl.

I think he’s so so good in that role. I just love him. But in this, this just this really solid character that he created here that works really well in context of the story. And, yeah, I just wanted to make sure we mentioned him.

Pete Wright:
Well, and you know who else we didn’t mention is Doctor. Pill, Peter Maloney, Mm-hmm.. Who was who we talked briefly about in The Thing. He played George Bennings in The Thing, another smallish, interesting role here. He’s the you know, mom keeps going back for the drugs.

Right. For to doctor Pill, and I find he’s just sort of wandering in the frame and wandering back out. In in that case, not turning any particular stereotype, the medical community on its ear, but playing right into its warm and fuzzy hands. I particularly enjoyed seeing him pop up here.

Andy Nelson:
What what’s great about that role is he said that Aronofsky gave him some of the most challenging direction that he’s had, And that was when when he first comes into the room, when Sarah comes in to get the drugs for the first time. Mm-hmm.. Aronofsky told him, whatever you do, do not make eye contact with her. And so, he had a really hard time, but if you watch that, he never looks up at her. He’s looking down in his notebook the whole time.

He said it was one of the hardest bits of direction that he ever had been given, but it was I think it was critical to the part.

Pete Wright:
Well, it is critical to exactly to playing off that stereotype to because that’s well, of course, that’s what we think that doctors do. Right. Yeah. Very well played. They don’t pay attention.

That’s what we believe. Right. Sorry, doctors. All of them. All the doctors.

Andy Nelson:
All the doc except mine.

Pete Wright:
He’s really

Andy Nelson:
I know you listen.

Pete Wright:
Always listening. On to, the creators of the film. You know, we haven’t actually yet talked about Aronofsky. You wanna give me your film school pitch about why you love him so much?

Andy Nelson:
Well, he’s a director that, I think is always trying to do something interesting, even if I don’t always like his films. Pie, I mean, I thought it was a very interesting low budget indie film. It it did some interesting things. It was a hard film to watch, but I did find it really interesting. The Fountain, I also found very interesting to watch even if I didn’t connect with the story that much.

The wrestlers, Black Swan, I thought both of those were fantastic. Noah, I think he really did something very unique that a lot of people weren’t expecting. And I, you know, I think a lot of religious people ended up I well, I don’t know. I feel like a lot of religious people ended up finding it a failure on the part of telling the story of Noah as they see how it’s told in the Bible. But I found it incredibly interesting and kind of a just a beautiful look at that story.

He’s a filmmaker who is always doing something. I mean, maybe now we talk about some of the techniques that he throws in here because I think he is not a filmmaker who says, okay, well, let’s just put the camera here and have them say this, and then we’ll do this, and we’ll do this. He’s looking for ways to use the camera and use the tools presented in front of him to enhance the story and to tell the story in a way that is visual because it is such a visual medium. I think right out of the box, we jump into split screens, which is an amazing opportunity that we rarely see. I think there are some filmmakers who use them well, some filmmakers who use them sometimes well and sometimes not, Brian DeBalma.

I think Aronofsky uses it really well here. The way that he does these split screens split screens to give a kind of an interesting subjective look of both characters’ points of view at the same time, while also creating this world where these characters are together but separate. You know, you’ve got that split screen at the beginning between Sarah and Harry. I think one of the most powerful split screens for me is when you have Harry and Marion when they’re kind of laying in bed together having a conversation. And he could have just shot that as a wide shot seeing both of these two together, But what he does is he actually shoots it in split screen.

And and by doing that, separating these characters and creating this, you know, this this constant separation that fits what he’s trying to do with with the film. You know, aside from that, he’s got what he calls kind of these these hip hop montages that are just these kind of just these intense, you know, lot of cuts doing these really cool montages of, like, how they’re injecting when they get high. And you’ve got quick shot of the eye, the iris dilating. You’ve got a quick shot of the cotton ball in the spoon. Got, you know, the flame, all those different things.

The sound design, the way they play with that. He’s got this thing that they called the Snorricam. And that’s where you got the camera almost like on a harness on top of each actor. And you get that almost GoPro. We’re almost, it doesn’t phase us anymore because we get all these GoPro films all the time that we’re seeing now, which is essentially what he was doing back then, with a much more complicated rig, which he uses on three of the four characters.

He does a triple exposure at one point of Sarah Goldfarb as she’s kind of dancing around her her room. There’s rotoscoping. He’s got the vibrate cam shaky thing as they’re kind of screaming at the end and the camera’s shaking like it’s reacting to their sound waves. Lot of POV, great time lapse usage. There’s a, you know, flare at the end of slow motion, fast motion, fisheye lenses.

He plays with all of it. And and I think that’s what makes me so excited about watching this film and watching stuff that Darren Aronofsky does in his films is he’s looking for opportunities to use his tools to tell the most visual representation of the story that he has in script form.

Pete Wright:
I couldn’t agree more, and you just said all of the things, that I agree with. So I have nothing really to add, but I but I do wanna I you know, I the things I wrote down that, you know, particularly these montage, the jump cut jump cutting that he does to such great effect. And in this film, it it’s it’s to great effect because it you know, it’s a visual technique that specifically accelerates a story point, which is, you know, the cyclical nature of drug abuse. And and for all of these characters, we get a, at least one montage of them doing drugs again and again and again, or at least one repetition of them doing drugs again and again and again, and it cuts from all of these things. In Sarah’s case, cuts from pill to pill to pill.

Purple in the morning, bread to orange in the afternoon, whatever, whatever. And, or, you know, I’m eating an egg or a grapefruit. There’s a great great, little jump cut, where it’s talking about the egg and grapefruit and how upset she is that she has to go on this particular diet before she finds the pills, where we just have a shot of a plate with an egg and a plate with a bowl of an uneaten uneaten grapefruit cut in half, and then a jump cut to the egg shell and the empty husk of the grapefruit. And it’s just a wonderful it accelerates our emotional appeal for Sarah that we know that the diet is hard because she was able to eat that so quickly. It was that jump cut that told us how quickly that how that she was able to eat it.

It’s a wonderful visual technique. But the you know, when you talk about the the, you know, the shaky cam and the rotoscoping, I can’t help but but imagine that those techniques are are essentially, you know, breaking the fourth wall for us as an audience, as audience members, that these techniques give us the sense that the film itself is responding to what is going on in it. And that gives this piece in particular a sense of texture, a sense of involvement that, you know, there is a sequence where Wayans screams at the bars and everything starts to shake around us at the end, and it feels like your television is, is actually shaking around you. You know? I mean, it is a sense that you are involved and taking part, and that your world around you is responding, to what is going on.

I there aren’t very many movies that feel as encompassing as as sort of enveloping as Requiem for a Dream in that regard.

Andy Nelson:
Absolutely. It’s it’s storytelling in the world of film much like Edgar Wright does as we’ve talked about him and how he uses the camera to make his stories feel alive, but done in a way not just for fun. I mean, Edgar Wright is brilliant at it. Don’t get me wrong. It works so well for his stories to tell the types of stories that he’s telling.

But in Aronofsky’s hands, when he’s really putting forth a story that he’s really trying to say something, he uses the tools to help him say those things.

Pete Wright:
There’s a sense of violence to it that he’s reaching out and dragging you along with it, and that that’s what I can’t help, but it is so difficult to put this film down once you start it because it really feels like Aronofsky is reaching out and dragging you by the by the collar, along with these characters in this film. It it feels that, that real.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Pete Wright:
So we think highly of him then.

Andy Nelson:
Highly of him. And speaking of a lot of the stuff that we were talking about, just now, I think that, you know, we should also point out that his partner in crime on creating a lot of these shots in the look is Matthew Libatique.

Pete Wright:
Yes. Cinematography.

Andy Nelson:
Cinematography who I believe has worked with him on on everything that he’s done. Yeah. Since I mean, he had done some projects pre PIE, but yeah, PIE, Requiem, see if he did the fountain, black swan. I don’t think he did, the wrestler. I think that’s the one that he ended up not working on with him.

Pete Wright:
Talk about a guy who has his hands in a lot of things. Matthew Libatique. I mean, he, you know, he does these Aronofsky films. He’s does a ton of music videos for high profile artists, and, you know, the big budget, tentpole films, Iron Man, Iron Man two, Cowboys and Aliens. Yeah.

Not as bad as most people think.

Andy Nelson:
I still haven’t bothered trying to watch that one.

Pete Wright:
It it is not as bad as you will undoubtedly think. Oh, man. In any case, very talented, guy. And and you think about, you know, the multiple exposures, the, you know, those the what did you say it was? The the wide angle GoPro, the Snorricam?

Snorty. The Snorricam. Snorty cam. You know, those are those are, cinematographic techniques. Right?

Those are those are are, you know, being able to think about how and where to put the right technology in place to capture the story. It’s, it’s incredibly innovative.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The Snorri cam, it’s also it’s like a chest cam body mounted camera. S s o r r I.

Pete Wright:
I was

Andy Nelson:
trying to figure

Pete Wright:
out that. That’s really a Snorricam. What is that?

Andy Nelson:
A Snorricam. It’s it’s named after two Icelandic, photographers and directors, Einar Snorri and Ew Ew what? I’m not even sure how you pronounce that. Ewersnory? Ewersnory.

Ewersnory and Ewersnory.

Pete Wright:
Ein were snory and you’re snory?

Andy Nelson:
The snory brothers.

Pete Wright:
Let’s just call They’re not related. That’s very funny. I did not actually know this. Have you used a Snorricam yourself? I’m looking at the images of the Snorricam, and I can see, you know, it’s it’s a chest mounted Steadicam.

Right. Exactly. Steady.

Andy Nelson:
It’s not. The whole idea is that it really gives In fact,

Pete Wright:
not steady at all.

Andy Nelson:
Well, it gives the ultimate POV is really what it’s doing. It it puts you into the mindset because you’re almost locked into the viewpoint of whoever it is that’s carrying the camera.

Pete Wright:
Right. Yeah. Creepy. Yeah. Not light.

Andy Nelson:
I can’t imagine it is. It really depends on the type of camera you’re using. And I don’t know what they shot this film with. I don’t know if I’m just assuming it’s 35, so that means they’re you know? But for those scenes where they’re using a 16 millimeter camera and then, blow it up, I don’t know.

Just don’t know.

Pete Wright:
I’m looking at a picture here, thanks to Internet, of Jennifer Connelly wearing the Snorricam.

Andy Nelson:
Oh, well, there you go.

Pete Wright:
Yes. And it’s, it looks like, you know, you wouldn’t forget it’s there. Let’s just say that.

Andy Nelson:
Nice and big,

Pete Wright:
Yeah. You you would just you’d know. You’d know. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about music a little bit, shall we?

Andy Nelson:
Yes. We absolutely need to talk about the music of this film because it’s, it’s every bit as perfect for the film in context of what Aronofsky is doing with the visuals.

Pete Wright:
Clint Mansell is the is the composer. Why tell me tell me why it affects you so.

Andy Nelson:
It will Clint is another person that has kind of started with Aronofsky. Pye was his first film as composer, and he’s gone on to do, I think about think almost all the rest of his films except for oh, no. He did do Noah. For some reason, I was thinking he didn’t, but, yeah, he’s done all of his films. Really interesting composer.

Sometimes his stuff works better than others, but it’s always very interesting, I think. And he’s doing something really interesting here. He does just with bringing the Kronos Quartet in to bring a lot to the music, and their stuff is just the haunting strings that you get in done in really fascinating ways. Just the intense, like, staccato nature of some of it and the pulsating stuff. And he throws in some electronics, and he does all these samples.

Like, I heard that he’s got a sample in here of, you know, something like Bruce Lee punch sound effect or something like that he kind of throws in to blend with the music. And that’s it makes for an intense listen, but, you know, this was a film I just remember walking out of it the first time when I saw it in the theater, feeling like the music was there couldn’t be any other music for the film. It was the most perfect music for this film because it’s it’s it’s every bit as intense as the visuals that Aronofsky is presenting. And it it I mean, really, it almost like is the heartbeat your own heartbeat that you’re that is pulsing as you’re watching this this kind of horror show that it kind of devolves into. And it’s it’s just done in a way that I I don’t know.

It really gets under my skin, but in a way that I think is critical for the film and not in a way that I find annoying in any way.

Pete Wright:
I have the very same reaction. I couldn’t help but having the same reaction that I have to Trent Reznor’s score for Girl with Dragon Tattoo. Yeah. It it’s that same sort of grinding thing, you can’t Just when you feel like you can’t listen to it anymore, something incredibly dark and hauntingly beautiful comes in. Yeah.

And ends up you know, was funny. I mean, I it’s been long enough since I watched it on the main that sort of Lux Aeterna, which has been used in a number of places since then. Sounds so familiar to me that I’d forgotten that it was originally here. Right. It was originally from this score.

But it is it’s that sort of throbbing, haunting, and at the same time, just beautiful, music. And it really fits, but it’s it’s one of those scores that you can listen to. It’s good work music.

Andy Nelson:
I actually agree. I this not we’ve talked about some film scores that work really well in context of the film, but are hard to listen to outside of it. This one, I mean, I completely agree. I think this music is really listenable and I can I mean, yes, there’s definitely some intense parts to it? But there’s just some absolutely just crushingly beautiful pieces.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I absolutely agree. It really fits for for the film.

Andy Nelson:
Again, I feel like he unjustly was not nominated for best original score. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won. Tan Dun did, I think, great music for that film. The other nominees were Rachel Portman for Chocolat, Hans Zimmer for Gladiator, and Ennio Morricone for Malèna, and John Williams for The Patriot. I would pick this above any of them.

It’s I like other than maybe Gladiator, I I don’t know if I could actually anything from any of those films right now. Not that that’s saying that defines what’s gonna win, but this film, the music, I think, does what a score should. It it integrates perfectly into the film, enhances all of the, the emotions within the film. And, it’s I think it’s just it’s a really dark film. And again, people overlook a lot of things from this film because of that.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I agree with you. Although, I do think it was I think it’s a strong second in the race against Crouching Tiger. I love that score.

Andy Nelson:
It’s good. It’s good. I mean, it’s it yeah. I you’re right, but I’d still pick this one.

Pete Wright:
Alright. Well, I hear it. But, you know, it’s a grud pick. Right. I’ll talk about I know we sort of jumped around a bit a little bit.

You wanna talk about any visual effects?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. This was a I think Aronofsky brought in some of his people that he had worked with before I think they started working with each other around the time of this or maybe just before. But the company Amoeba Proteus, they did some really interesting effects in this film that, that work really well. Whether it’s kind of creating the interesting scenes that you needed some some rotoscoping, like where Sarah is walking down the street, and it’s almost like she’s walking in slow motion, but everyone’s moving fast motion around her, or the same thing happening to her in the doctor’s office. One of the most powerful moments for me, and it’s one of those moments that I don’t think people actually even realize what’s happening visual effects wise.

I think it’s just something that affects you psychologically as you watch the film. But the moment where they finish the shock treatment on Sarah Goldfarb, you’ve got this shot this this shot of her overhead looking down on her as as she’s just kind of laying there. And they actually went in and they left her head the way it is, but they took her features, her eyes, nose, and mouth, and they actually just they they slowly shrunk them just ever so slightly as she’s kind of fading away.

Pete Wright:
It’s really awful.

Andy Nelson:
It really

Pete Wright:
is. It’s just awful.

Andy Nelson:
It’s but

Pete Wright:
it’s so powerful. It’s so subtle. And, yes, it’s so powerful, and it’s horrible. Why do you do that to an audience?

Andy Nelson:
I don’t know.

Pete Wright:
But you’re right. It’s that it’s that it’s that visual impact of her fading away. We know she’s fading away. We know she’s gone, but we get to see it. Ugh.

Just Yeah. Gross.

Andy Nelson:
It’s it really is horrifying. Yeah. And then you’ve got the great, like, the effects that are done on set, like the fantastic frightening fridge monster.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Practical effects, like like bringing the appliances to life and, you know, the thing ends up, it looks pretty scary.

Andy Nelson:
Terrifying. I mean, aside from the wonderful sound design that goes along with that, which I think is, incredibly haunting. It’s it’s just intense. But man, when that thing finally rips open and, like, comes at her, and you’ve got that just, like, flaming red interior of the fridge. It’s, it’s pretty scary.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Nice, nice and, complementary of the in camera work, the visual effects on this film.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely. Just mentioning, Hubert Selby Jr., I think, as the, author of this book, that it’s based on. He wrote this back in 1978. He also wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn.

A writer who you know, it’s just interesting listening to him speak because he’s somebody who really kind of preaches the whole notion that talent is you can work to find the talent, that it’s not necessarily something that’s born within you. He says that he it took it takes him a long time to be able to write the quality stuff that he writes. He’s not a good writer, and he really struggles to make stuff good. And I think that’s really interesting. It’s a it’s a perspective you don’t hear from people all the time.

You always say, oh, talent is born, not made, or whatever. And and he really is kind of somebody who preaches you can make it. You just have to really put your mind to it, and you have to fight and struggle and do it every day, but you can make it happen.

Pete Wright:
You can make it happen. You just have to believe, Andy.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a you just have to believe. Are you pulling Peter Pan back in? Man.

I’m so glad you got that.

Pete Wright:
Everybody clap. Clap the p three e. Oh, Oh, man. Oh, man. That’s good.

I, you know, I haven’t read, I haven’t read any of his work. Have you read it? Did you read Last Exit to Brooklyn? He hasn’t he hasn’t written much.

Andy Nelson:
No. I haven’t read it. And, it’s, but, you know, I don’t know. Because of just rewatching this and they you know, I haven’t even seen Last Exit to Brooklyn. It’s one of those things that I feel a little bit of guilt after rewatching this.

The fact that when I first watched this, it didn’t inspire me to jump on it quicker and actually read some of the stuff. But now, looking at this again, I’m like, I really need to read Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream. I really wanna kind of put those under my belt because I think, you know, I love this film so much. As the creator of the original source material, I feel like I owe it to him.

Pete Wright:
You do. He’s keeping score. He’s passed away, but he’s keeping score.

Andy Nelson:
He is. Yes, indeed. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Alright. What are your other goodies? You always have goodies.

Andy Nelson:
Well, let me look at my goodies. I think that the one, little goodie that I wanted to throw your way is that somebody in the props department is named Peter Wright.

Pete Wright:
Oh, that was me.

Andy Nelson:
That was you.

Pete Wright:
I didn’t wanna tell you. I wanted to just let you have this kinda high. I know you like this movie, but I was there the whole time. You were there.

Andy Nelson:
You were there. Yeah. Just didn’t wanna

Pete Wright:
I was actually the fridge master. Fridge wrangler. I’m sorry. They called me.

Andy Nelson:
Right. Nice. Nice. Oh, So a couple last things. I think it’s very very fitting that the kind of that music style, that mambo music that Clint created for this.

Darren kind of describes that mad mambo as Bugs Bunny dancing on Elmer Fudd’s head, which I think is very fitting. That music does have that kind of manic Looney Tunes feel to it. And when they come when everybody from the TV comes and starts dancing around Sarah, it actually really feels that way. And I think that’s a great description of that. And just one of those things that I think is very it’s it’s almost like horrifying.

You throw that into it, and it’s, it seems funny, but then you kind of think about what’s happening. You’re like, oh, it’s really good. It’s just so shocking.

Pete Wright:
That’s right. You know, you think of this, hey. Did you see Requiem for a Dream? It makes me think of Bugs Bunny doing anything. You have a you know, you’ve probably, gone down the rabbit hole a little bit.

Andy Nelson:
Just a little bit.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Just a little bit.

Andy Nelson:
And then the last thing that I wanted to say is, the fact that the only time we actually see a needle injection is the and it’s it’s horrifying, but it’s it’s when

Pete Wright:
It’s in the volcano.

Andy Nelson:
It’s the last time we see him inject. And it’s, yeah, it’s the volcano. We see him inject into his horrifying arm wound, and it just furthers the whole idea that this not something you ever want done. You know? It’s just so gross.

So gross.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. That’s a do as I say, not as I do moment.

Andy Nelson:
Yes. Exactly.

Pete Wright:
Film was, was well received.

Andy Nelson:
Critically, it was well received. Yes. It was very well received critically. This was a film you know, it was his second film. It came out in 2000.

He did come up with 4,500 or sorry, dollars 4,500. Wow. Things you could do these days. $4,500,000. So, you know, a pretty decent budget for a second film.

I believe that he had done some developing of this film in the Sundance Sundance writers group and stuff like that. A great opportunity for filmmakers that are are kind of proving themselves and on on track to do some great stuff. And it helped him develop some of his his film. In fact, they actually helped him. They convinced him that at the end of the film, you need to have a last moment between Marion and Harry.

And that’s what, led him to add that moment of the phone call, which I think is a very touching moment between the two of them, especially Jennifer Connelly. It’s just an amazing performance in that scene.

Pete Wright:
Absolutely. I agree.

Andy Nelson:
But anyway, he did get 4,500,000, to make this film. I couldn’t find anything on prints and advertising. It again, releasing an unrated film, I don’t know how much Artisan ended up putting behind it, but it ended up domestically not grossing more than it cost, about $3,600,000 but internationally about a little more, 3,700,000. So it did make its money back. All told, adjusted profit per finished minute, it ended up making about $38,000 per finished minute.

So it’s not one of the highest ones on our list, but like you said, critically, the critics really, felt that there was an incredibly strong film here.

Pete Wright:
I you know, that’s a relief, a little bit. That it made its money back. It’s a great film, and it’s and it made its money back. At least somebody saw it. And it what is most interesting to me is that, you know, I think you get to see a little bit of the impact of, the ratings board, when you compare international tickets to international receipts to domestic in this case.

I think you’re probably right. They you know, we see, you know, we see a take suffering in The US, but, you know, abroad, particularly Europe, less restriction, if I recall, and particularly in 2000, around seeing films that are, you know, not suffering the the might of the ratings board.

Andy Nelson:
They don’t shy away from stuff, quite as much, and they and I don’t think They’re other

Pete Wright:
prude they’re prude about very different things.

Andy Nelson:
Right.

Pete Wright:
Every country has its prude. Let’s just get that out the way.

Andy Nelson:
That is true. But this one, I don’t think is one that they’re prudish about.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah. So I that’s interesting. That is interesting to me.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Very much so.

Pete Wright:
Let’s rank it.

Andy Nelson:
Let’s do it.

Pete Wright:
Head over to Flickchart.com/thenextreel, and you can catch up with all the films that we like, see if the films that we like match up with the films that you like. And then we could get our films to go out on a date. Maybe see maybe see a movie. Maybe get a nice bowl of soup.

Andy Nelson:
Is that weird? Film is going to see a film?

Pete Wright:
I don’t think it’s weird. I’m not. I’m not a filmist.

Andy Nelson:
Well,

Pete Wright:
good. Films can do whatever they want.

Andy Nelson:
It’s

Pete Wright:
2014 going on 2015. Film was to take in a film. It can do go ahead and do just that.

Andy Nelson:
What an old way of thinking I had. Thank you for straightening me out.

Pete Wright:
You just have to believe.

Andy Nelson:
Alright. You ready? Oh, I’m ready. Requiem for a dream. This gonna be hard because I hold Requiem in very high esteem, and higher than a lot of these films.

And I would probably put it pretty high on my list, but it also is a hard film to watch. So we’ll see where it lands. Requiem for a Dream or O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Pete Wright:
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Andy Nelson:
I and see, I would go Requiem.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I mean, I you know, in in terms of what the film does, but are we ranking it again? Are we ranking it because of which film we would put on first?

Andy Nelson:
I’m ranking it We’ve

Pete Wright:
only done this a 170,000 I

Andy Nelson:
know. I know. I’m ranking this on the grounds that I again, like I said at the beginning, when this film is over, I have a huge smile on my face because I I can tell that I just watched a master at work. And as tough as the story is to watch Mm-hmm.. I am blown away every time.

Pete Wright:
Okay. I agree with that. It’s bad. And I’m smiling, but I’m in the fetal position. Okay.

I’m I’ll give you that. On on those grounds, I I agree with you. Requiem for a dream.

Andy Nelson:
Requiem for a dream or city of god?

Pete Wright:
Requiem for a dream.

Andy Nelson:
I agree. Requiem for a dream. Requiem for a dream or the world’s end?

Pete Wright:
Requiem for a dream.

Andy Nelson:
I agree. Requiem for a dream or Brazil?

Pete Wright:
I would go, Requiem for a Dream on this one.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. In context of what I was just saying, I’m going to go Requiem for a Dream. Alright. Requiem for a Dream or Inception?

Pete Wright:
Requiem for a Dream.

Andy Nelson:
I agree. Requiem for a Dream or seven?

Pete Wright:
Seven.

Andy Nelson:
Master filmmakers at work. I will go the interestingly, two films that both Yeah. I I’m left with that same feeling at the end of both of these films. So, yes. Seven to that.

Pete Wright:
I know what’s in the box. So double win.

Andy Nelson:
There you go. Well, that puts Requiem at number five on our list.

Pete Wright:
Oh, I’m so glad it stopped there.

Andy Nelson:
Look at that number five.

Pete Wright:
I don’t gotta go any further. I would’ve just held my breath and passed out.

Andy Nelson:
That’s true. Yes. Right. But, yeah, number five out of one sixty three. It shot right up there.

Pete Wright:
Nice place to be. Indeed. Where so this was this was in our lovely Ellen Burstyn series. And where do we take it from here?

Andy Nelson:
That was, you know, kind of the end of our short Ellen Burstyn series, which was a great series. But now, Pete, it’s time to cheer things up. It’s time for the holidays. Let’s watch a holiday movie.

Pete Wright:
Oh, okay. Let’s let’s do that. What what Let’s watch Pray tell. Where would what holiday movie would we watch? Something does it involve miracles and numbered streets?

Perhaps.

Andy Nelson:
Actually, doesn’t.

Pete Wright:
Well It involves And does it involve a crafty pets that tell us a story of love, loss, but redemption?

Andy Nelson:
Unfortunately, no. Does it does it

Pete Wright:
okay. I give up, Andy. Tell me, what are we going to watch?

Andy Nelson:
We’re going to jump back to 1947. We’re gonna watch the Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven film, The Bishop’s

Pete Wright:
Wife. David Niven?

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm.. Directed by Henry Coster.

Pete Wright:
I’m looking forward to this movie.

Andy Nelson:
Am too. I’ve never seen it. I’ve never seen the remake, The Preacher’s Wife. So I’m I’m looking forward to this kind of a thing with our holiday movies.

Pete Wright:
We end

Andy Nelson:
up picking these things that we’ve never seen and I’m I’m quite looking forward to it.

Pete Wright:
I am too. This this gonna be a lot of fun and boy. And then we, well, let’s just say our holiday set, I think, is a it’s a pair of kings.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. I agree. I agree.

Pete Wright:
So the bishop’s live next week and, a happy, fine happy holidays to everybody. Go catch this one and hope it’s good because we don’t know.

Andy Nelson:
That’s right. We don’t know. We’re just just hoping. Fingers crossed.

Pete Wright:
And and I guess that’s it. I gotta go to bed.

Andy Nelson:
I’ve got a bagel and lox sitting on the counter that I think I’m gonna go eat and maybe some jelly doughnuts and some other things in my fridge.

Pete Wright:
Alright. I got one and it’s, it’s from, MMA fan. It’s a five star, and I never go five star. But it’s a five star because I see there is some, that we’ve got numerology at work. Because, you know, we just flick charted this, and it landed where?

Andy Nelson:
Number five.

Pete Wright:
Okay. And the first review that I pick up is from MMA fan. Nothing else like it. Five stars, he writes. Of the 200 DVDs I own, this my top five.

Wow. Also, MMA fan agrees with us. The movie is brutally truthfully shown in a fictitious story. That’s that’s true. If you ask anyone who has seen this movie what they felt like after, they will all say the same thing.

It leaves you sick and sad and makes it all worth talking about. Clint Mansell also does an outstanding job with the music. The soundtrack is amazing. I’ve never seen any movie that left me scared of what I could put my body slash life through. It opens your eyes and will leave you stunned at the ending.

You go, MMA fan. Amazon Your loves

Andy Nelson:
turn. Well, guest account doesn’t agree with MMA fan. Oh. Guest account gave it one star and said boring, pretentious, and moralizing. Aronofsky uses every gimmicky camera and editing move in the book in an attempt to jolt some life into this otherwise, Aladdin addiction movie.

It doesn’t work. Ellen Burstyn chews the scenery. Jared Leto commits an oral atrocity with his oral atrocity with his Brooklyn accent. And Jennifer Connelly just sits there. Every now and then, you catch her using one of the two expressions in her repertoire.

This movie is pointless.

Pete Wright:
Oh, I think they saw a different movie.

Andy Nelson:
And and guest account has some, you know, some serious, comments left on their review.

Pete Wright:
Do tell. Anything good?

Andy Nelson:
Just how wrong they are, really. It’s, you know, it’s the fact that guest account, you know, probably put in the name guest account because they didn’t want people to know that they

Pete Wright:
are

Andy Nelson:
an idiot.

The Next Reel. A show about movies and how they connect.