I just saw a preview screening of “Requiem For A Dream.” Damn! It makes “Trainspotting” look like a Hallmark card. If it was meant to deter heroin use, then it was a successful movie. The audience was bobbing & weaving on their feet afterwards. My friend Rob described the movie as “effective.” I have to agree with that. But, even if it achieved what it set out to do, is it a good movie? It was intensely, viscerally unpleasant, especially in the last third. Everything was black and white, no shades of grey: drug addiction is hell, period. Aronofskly explained in a new preface to the novel that the ‘hero’ of the story is Drug Addiction. It’s the story of drug addiction triumphing over all. I guess knowing that helps me understand the film better. It’s fascinating, but so many sick things unfold. It’s certainly better than the ‘designer angst’ of something like “Fight Club” though. Aranofsky shows us the real thing: these are powerful, creative displays of emotions, but not pretty pictures. There’s no bare-chested, sweaty Brad Pitt on display. Intensely moralistic, not unlike a Brett Easton Ellis novel. It’s one of those films that can’t really have a satisfying ending. You see it coming. This isn’t for weak stomachs. Poor Ellen Burstyn is put through so much! And in the end, the film’s point is this (to quote Neil Young): every junkie’s like the setting sun.