LynneSin

I finally saw this movie on Sundance and I was mesmerized. There must be a million movies out there about drug addictions but this one just grabbed and pulled you into the world of these four people as they struggle with their addictions. The 3 twenty-somethings - Jared Leto, Jennifer Connolly and Marlon Wayans all struggle with their addiction to Herion. However, the most incredible role was Ellen Burstyn, the mother of Jared Leto and suffering through her own addiction to diet pills (speed).

Up until this point I though Julia Roberts did a good job with Erin Brockovict and winning the Oscar. But I realize now that the best actress award should have went to Ellen Burstyn from 'Requiem of a Dream'. Maybe the Academy felt that they had to give to a mainstream actress after indie actress Hillary Swank won last year, but I think that Ellen was robbed. She was incredible.

When Battlefield Earth was shown on HBO, I decided I'd attempt to watch this movie to see just how abd it really was. (no way I'd pay even a penny to watch this movie - sure HBO isnt free, but I get it for the Sopranos and Sex in the City)

Awesome, beyond awful. Anything I've ever posted before and critized as being bad can't even compare to how awful this was.

And it wasn't just the acting that was bad.

The special affects were cheap looking, the makeup and wardrobes was bad too, but you know, what really caught me was that there was no catchy score that helped move this movie along (a bull dozer couldn't move it).

It's just that bad of a movie. Really bad!

I probably would not have rented this movie many because of the string of stinker movies recently released with John Travolta. However, I was born and raised in Harrisburg and I remember the Lottery Scam. Plus my mother, who is not a movie buff like myself, was asking about the movie and whether she should watch it. After viewing it, I let her know this was the worse piece of trash that could ever be put out on movie.

First, maybe I was still kind of young (but it happened while I was in HS) and I just don't remember any kind of nudie bar involved in the movie. I'm not some sort of prude that needs to have all the nudity removed from their movie, but there was absolutely no need for this any nudity in this movie to move the plot along. Plus it's a major disappointment to see a good director like Nora Eprhron (Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry met Sally) to have to use such tactics in her movie. Sure, we wanted to make Tim Roth look like a bad guy from the seamy under-society of Harrisburg. However, there are many ways it could have been done without the nudity. Tim is such an excellent actor he could have ran a Florist Shop and still come off as the bad guy.

What really embarrassed me was just how bad this movie made Harrisburg look. I know Harrisburg isn't the first small city/town/location to have a bad movie associated with it, but the advertising made such a big deal that the movie was in Harrisburg. Heck Girl, Interrupted had major parts of the movie filmed in Harrisburg, it was a decent film but you didn't know it was filmed there by any of the ads. (Found out through IMDB).

It was just a weak plot, I'd hate to say it was bad acting because there were so many good actors associated with the movie. But as the old saying goes "Garbage In, Garbage Out"....doesn't matter how good the actor is if the script is horrible.

So please, if you watch this movie, please don't pass judgement on those of us from (or formly from) Harrisburg. No where is there any Denny's that has valet parking and preferred seating for it's weather folks, I think you have to drive to Reading to find the closest nudie bar and in general we're all pretty smart, well-educated folks.