Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
The trailer for this movie... the one where it’s the cooking show hosted by Mickey Rourke... is one of my favorites currently playing. I hope the film is half that fun.
Just came back from seeing at midnight advance screening of the new Jonas Ackerlund movie “Spun” starring Jason Schwarzman, Mickey Rourke, John Leguizamo, Mena Suvari, Brittany Murphy... hell, they even wheeled out Eric Roberts for a few minutes, playing what seemed to be a young Rip Taylor...
The film is unrated and unless they do some serious cutting, (which they shouldn’t) like the scene of Leguizamo jacking-off into a sock and one of Mena Suvari’s shit logs plunking into a toilet…its gonna stay NC-17 or unrated...
This is a drug movie. Schwarzman is a speed addict and Mickey plays “cook”, a small time meth cooker...
The way Ackurlund shot and edited Spun will inevitably necessitate comparisons to another drug movie: the highly overrated piece of shit “Requiem for a Dream”. Including no shortage of the, now-tired, post-drug taking jump cuts of dilating pupils. Some of the “young ambitious film student with a big budget” trickery gets pulled off, like the animation sequences, but much of the fancy shenanigans get old fast. Ackurlund, a former video director, certainly assembles an eclectic cast... Billy Corgan, who provided the soundtrack and contributed a few original, appropriately haunting songs, shows up in one scene as a doctor. Rob Halford from Judas Priest plays a fey xxx video store clerk, etc. The tone of the film careens between near slapstick parody as in the scenes with Peter Stormare and his partner as bumbling narcs being trailed around by a "cops” like video crew…and other times it feels like it wants to be serious... net-net, it ultimately lacked the substance and real character studies of two, much better drug movies: the seminal Drugstore Cowboy, and the unfortunately underrated “Another Day in Paradise”.
The film is worth seeing for the cast assembly alone which even includes Blondie/Debbie Harry as a Bull dyke and the previously MIA Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) who, like Vincent Kartheiser from “Another Day in Paradise” should fire his agent because he isn’t working enough. Why are there no shortage of Brendan Fraser movies, but Fugit and Kartheiser can barely manage to make their S.A.G. dues payments?
Spun wont make much dough at the b.o. but enough people will see it for Ackurland to maintain his “soon to direct a major feature” path, and, more importantly, for some of the actors (most notably, Mickey, who only looked more endearingly ridiculous in Animal Factory) to revive some well deserved street-cred.
Dude, you should check out ANGEL, where Kartheiser has a recurring role right now. And thanks for the review.
"Moriarty" out.
