Tag: Jared Leto

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) movie review

1 Comment

Executive produced by the original director Ridley Scott, directed by Denis Villeneuve of last year’s hit Arrival, and written by the same screenwriter as the original, the new Blade Runner 2049 lives in the exact universe of the first film, 30 years in that future.A simple premise for those who haven’t seen the first movie: Blade Runners are hired hitmen detectives working with the police to annihilate rogue AI. The culture and ethic of the Blade Running game is called into question when it becomes personal. The Blade Runner stories are based on the novel by Philip K. Dick called “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”

Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, Jared Leto, and all of the other famous faces are perfectly cast in this follow-up film. I hesitate to call it a reboot, as it picks up the baton and runs at full pace as a stand-alone piece of work. Yet, if you missed the epic first, you will feel lost in the second. It’s all callback to the original, and a set of explanatory paragraphs on the first screen can never offer enough back story, enough power play between self-deifying creator and creation in these “replicant” stories, or enough of Harrison Ford’s character’s emotional connections to remind or prepare viewers fully for this visual bonanza.Both are art films. Futuristic, sci-fi, noir, almost neo-western, dramatic, art films. Unique. Slow pace builds in intensity to fierce action. The use of color and light, the silence then epic throwback music nodding to Vangelis’s original score, the heartbreaking potential future of relationships in a porn-addicted society that seeks fulfillment from devices before risking human contact. It could be seen as a sci-fi Her (2013).Blade Runner 2049 shows extremes. As the once emotionless regain their senses, the brutal continue to ravage without conscience. Blood and nudity, death and sensuality. The director is careful to hide much of what would be considered gore or blatant pornography just out of sight, but it’s ever-present in this dark future world. Both films were hard to watch in moments for the same reasons. Neither glamorize murder or sex. Rather they make both absolutely dark in this miserable, unlovely, lonely, future world.It’s hard to explain how these heavy films manage to show beauty, but somehow the emotions render as pure and honest, and the deserted radioactive wastelands of the films’ landscapes are simply breathtaking. The faces in the frame, often bloodstained, are flawless and offer so much insight with limited dialogue.Perfect storytelling from the start, we care about all that our main character cares about. We want answers, just as he does. We follow the same twists and turns in plot, living his existence with him, together hoping for meaning, purpose, truth, justice, and life.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) movie review

9 Comments

Infantile cravings, though innate, can overcome and potentially destroy if unrestrained by maturity and self-control. The hunger pangs of this film by Darren Aronofsky grow beyond craving to obsession. As with any drug, a lingering pleasure, a momentary satistfaction is reached. One exhales only to take in new air, new breath of disappointment in a high as yet again unfelt, unreached. Intake. In. Take. Take. Take. Take in.

Seizing. Seizing again. This film is a seizure-worthy kaleidoscoping journey through addiction and self-destruction.

Four stories intertwine, lifting and falling, hushed then screaming. They emote, but are guarded. They lie so constantly that they can’t decipher truth. Jared Leto, son front and center, dreams of a middle-to-upper class life and believes that selling drugs can get him there. It’s his get-rich-quick scheme. That’s all. His best friend can help him get there, as he’s well connected. His girlfriend, Jennifer Connolly, loves him dearly, but when push comes to shove, will offer her body in exchange for the drug she loves more. Leto’s mother, played by Ellen Burstyn , finds herself possessed with a vision of television fame, which claims her as she tries a simple prescription weight-loss drug to melt away the ever-present desire for food. She is always hungry, and her constant need to feed is quickly replaced with pills. If one works, more must work better. If one hit works, more must be better. Just try a little. But more is never better. Cravings replace longings and turn to obsession in each story. All four end as they came into the world: in fetal position clutching all that they have left and believing the lie that they are going to be okay.

If our lives are our personal requiems, we require many voices. The music crescendos with conflict and slows to harmonious tinkles when peace returns, if peace ever returns.

This film is one of dissonance and hunger. Death, the innevitable outcome. Methods in this case involve meth, heroine, loneliness, pride, and greed. See this film if you are ever tempted by drugs. You’ll hate the idea, the constant craving pains, the need on replay, the ache for more. This film exhausts, distresses. I can’t watch it again. I had to watch some of it in fast forward. No amount of love can replace the gutteral instinct to use. And this film makes drug use of every kind despicable with only one outcome: suffering. Beware: the journey is very real and disturbing. Violence, drug use, sex, nudity – all in the rating and possibly underplayed by the “R.”