Permanent Midnight (1998)

Ben Stiller plays Jerry Stahl the key player in this film. 90 days out of rehab Jerry meets this women in a motel for a fun time. Based on his poor performance they get to talking about their past lives and then moving from just sex to sex and heroin. Jerry tells his story that night in the hotel room to kitty about his past drug addiction. Jerry is a writer and a pretty good one at that and he does the normal walk of life but the only difference is he gets caught up in drugs.

I would have to say this movie was pretty disturbing. I know it was a drug movie in all but I felt it got right down to the cold hard facts of what being addicted to hard core drugs can actually look like and do to a man and his life. The movie didn’t start out that messed up. Its hard to tell what the first drug is that they are doing in the movie but by comparing them to the other drugs as the movie went on, Im guessing it was the gateway drug weed or maybe it was crack hard to tell.

At first it looks like Jerry is able to function and function pretty well on the heroin as he goes about his career and seems to get multiple opportunities for different gigs in his industry. He also becomes pretty good at hiding his drug use from his wife who I think is a little too forgiving of the fact that her husband as a heroin addict. His addiction to heroin really starts to become obvious when he has to shoot up whenever his last dose wears off or he becomes stressed. You get to see how he becomes more out of control and brain dead as his heroin addiction becomes worse. He can’t even carry on a conversation and half the people he knows or meets he either tries to score from in the most desperate ways.

Eventually Jerry switches one drug for another as he is pushed to get clean from the heroin to keep his new job. He checks himself in to rehab where the Doctor pretty much tells him how sick he is from his addiction. Jerry does not take his rehab that seriously since as soon as he walks out the doors of the clinic he is met by this god forsaken drug dealer who sells to people trying to get off drugs. This guy is real messed up as he get Jerry addicted to crack and pretty much sells him some all the time even though he wants to get off it knowing how jacked up the crack makes him. Some of the scenes with him on crack are pretty messed up as it show war this drug makes people do.

Most of the saddest parts of this movie involve Jerry running in to other people and how sick and disturbed Jerry looks to the outside world even though he can’t necessarily see it  himself being high all the time. But The people that he runs into just doing his normal life while on drugs would make a normal person feel so shameful and you really feel sorry that a guy like Jerry could drop so low. Toward the end Jerry eventually gets caught and sent to jail in the most sorrowful circumstance ever. Although your happy for the guy after seeing that he finally is going to get some help.

This movie was hard to finish seeing how messed up drugs actually are in the hand of an addict. Most the time this movie just gave me bad feeling and made me sad and depressed. It even took me a while to stop thinking about it after it was over and the way it effected me lingered. I will never watch this again, not because it was a bad movie, but just because I like watching stuff that makes me have good feeling and not nightmares. This Movie gets a Six out of Ten.

Rating: 6/10

War Dogs

This was actually a pretty good movie and one that I would want to see again as I felt I missed some of the finer details. I was watching this a couple nights ago and didn’t get to finish it but I had to finish it up since it was such a good movie. This movie is about David Packouz who is played by Miles Teller and Efraim Diveroli played by Jonah Hill. Although the story is mainly about Miles Teller and how he moves from a message therapist too a national guns dealer to help support his new baby and get away from his last job that he hated.

Efraim Diveroli is bad news for David as he swings into town and gets David to work for him. Efraim looks really impressive to David with all the money he is making and his take no crap, do what ever he wants life style. What David doesn’t relies is what kind of crazy work he is about to get into and also what kind of guy his boss really is. Efraim will do any thing to land a deal even if it puts him and David in harms way or doing something illegal. On top of this David doesn’t find out till later that even his best friend is willing to lie and screw him over.

Running guns is and exciting and risky business as you can see from what these guys do and how they do it. They also come up with some very innovative and clever ways to get some of their transaction accomplished, which might even motivate you to come up with your own business idea. Basically the whole idea of the business they are in and how they end up making so much money off it is really ingenious. Like he say’s in the movie, Its a gold mine.

This movie was really comparable to The Wolves of Wall Street although it was not as good. Something about this movie just had me drawn in, I guess it might have been how fast these guys were moving up in the latter of social class. There is just something about watching people succeed and make a bunch of money that just really gets you pumped.

My favorite part about this movie was Jonah Hill. I always think he does a great job in all the parts that he plays and he did a great job in this movie too. It’s a combination of the crap he says and the stuff he does that just really never fail to surprise me and make me laugh. One specific think about Jonah Hill in this movie that really was the icing on top of the cake was his laugh. It was so horrible in a funny way and just how many times he would make that laugh every time it was just so funny. I don’t know if that is his real laugh because I never noticed really in his other movies. but then as I think back I have heard it before, I just think in this movie he really exaggerates it and makes it a real fun part of this film.

The Movie ends decently but it was nothing really special. Im just real happy for David and how he ends up. He really was a good guy and only wanted the best for his family. If any thing I think the movie ended kind of fast and there probably could have been more of a story on how it ended. But overall I really liked War Dogs and would recommend it if you are a fan of Jonah Hill or just like movies about under dogs rising to the top of the economic chain. This movie deserves a Eight out of Ten.

Rating: 8/10

Mamma Mia! (2008)

This is a fun go happy movie, family friendly, and just whole hearted good fun. I chose to watch this movie because one, I needed a good pick me upper to raise my spirits. Two, what better than a fun happy musical with great 70s music set on an old villa beside the sea in Italy.

The movie starts out with Sophie played by Amanda Seyfried, who I truly think is a beautiful women and an amazing actor, finding her mothers journal. After reading this Journal she discovers her possible fathers and invites these three men to her wedding hoping to find out who her true father is. Sophie’s mother, Donna who is played by Meryl Streep, tries to wrestle with past emotions and feelings as she has to deal with her past lovers showing up at her door step all wanting to win back her heart.

The movie focuses both on the daughter and her struggle to find who her true father is and her mothers drama with these three men. Though I would have to say Meryl Streep really gets most of the attention here as most of the musical breaks in song are focused on her as well as most of the screen time. Even in the end of the film it goes back to the focus on what happens with Sophie’s mom and her potential fathers. The end of the movie sort of threw me off as I didn’t think it would end the way it did. which I appreciate who wants to predict the end of a movie, that takes the fun out of watching, doesn’t it.

The movie did a good job on balancing the amount of singing scenes with the amount of regular acting scenes. If there is to much singing and not enough dialogue then I can sure get annoyed with a musical, glad this was not so. another positive about this film is the old italian home setting, seeing the villa and the culture and the beauty of where they lived. One thing that didn’t make this movie amazing was the whole story and what that was about. It just wasn’t for me, I definitely think that many people would enjoy it though. Especially a bunch of teenage girls at a sleep over, dreaming about getting married and love and stuff.

I haven’t really rated to many musicals but since it was a musical I am going to compare it only to musicals. This film gets a Six out of Ten.

Rating: 6/10