In theaters May 29!
Harley loves Ilya. He gives her life purpose and sets her passion ablaze. So, when he asks her to prove her love by slitting her wrists, she obliges with only mild hesitation, perhaps because of her other all-consuming love: heroin.
Directed by celebrated filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie (LENNY COOKE, DADDY LONGLEGS), HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT blends fiction, formalism and raw vérité as it follows a young heroin addict (Arielle Holmes) who finds mad love in the streets of New York. The film—which world premiered at Venice (where it won the CICAE award) and subsequently played NYFF, Toronto and SXSW among other prestigious festivals—is based on Holmes' soon-to-be-published memoir Mad Love in New York City. Co-starring Caleb Landry-Jones (X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, BYZANTIUM), HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT also features street legend Buddy Duress and gore rap phenom Necro.
I wasn’t exactly feeling Josh and Ben Safdie's new indie drama Heaven Knows What, playing through today at The Belcourt. As much as it tried to get extremely up-close and personal into the lives of New York City junkies, I thought it was mostly dull. But not all movies about heroin addicts are. So I present to you 10 movies about heroin addicts that can be quite, well, addictive (c’mon, you saw that coming):
Here is a theatrical trailer with voice over for 1955's "The Man With the Golden Arm" starring Frank Sinatra in a best actor Oscar nominated role, playing a struggling heroin addict. He said that it was for this role that he should have earned an Academy award, even more so than for Angelo Maggio in "From Here to Eternity". Actors take note: director Otto Preminger planned to take a week to shoot the big scene here and Frank Sinatra walked in and did it in one day.
1. The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Otto Preminger’s noirish adaptation of Nelson Algren’s novel had Frank Sinatra as an ex-con/ex-junkie (named Frankie Machine, believe it or not) trying to stay clean on the mean streets of Chicago. You should see it just for the awesome, Saul Bass-designed poster alone.
The Panic in Needle Park (1971) Trailer
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067549/
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint, Richard Bright
2. The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
This movie’s influence is definitely all over Heaven. Jerry Schatzberg's grimy drama takes a naturalistic look at heroin addicts on the streets of New York, with Al Pacino’s fast-talking hustler roping Kitty Winn’s homesick gal into the dope-fiend way of life.
Movie Trailer for 'Sid & Nancy' - (1986)
Starring: Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb
3. Sid and Nancy (1986)
The John & Yoko of shooting up.
Mr.Burroughs in movie=Drugstore Cowboy(1989)
4. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
Gus Van Sant’s 1989 breakthrough is definitely one of the most recognizable drug-addict movies ever made, with Matt Dillon and his crew of druggies jacking for dope all over the Pacific Northwest. Hell, even William S. Burroughs shows up to give this film his seal of approval.
Trailer for Danny Boyle's film
5. Trainspotting (1996)
Be honest: For a brief moment, you thought about doing smack a bit after you saw this movie, didn’t ya?
Written and Directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall.
Original Music by Stewart Copeland.
Cast: Tupac Shakur, Tim Roth, Thandie Newton.
Year: 1997.
*Def Pictures.
*Dragon Pictures.
*Interscope Communications.
*Lighthouse Entertainment.
*Polygram Filmed Entertainment.
6. Gridlock’d (1997)
This grungy, underrated black comedy had Tupac Shakur (in one of his final film roles; the film was released four months after his murder) and Tim Roth as jazz-playing, needle-sharing buddies who spend a day trying to get clean after their girlfriend (Thandie Newton) ODs.
7. High Art (1998)
Another long-lost favorite of mine is this debut indie from Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right), where Radha Mitchell’s ambitious, young gal gets involved in a love triangle with Ally Sheedy’s photographer and Patricia Clarkson’s German actress, both riders of the white horse.
8. Permanent Midnight (1998)
Mere months after he became a comic leading man in There’s Something About Mary, Stiller showed off his dramatic chops by starring in this biopic based on the life of Jerry Stahl, a TV writer who spent his days shooting dope when he wasn’t writing jokes for ALF.
The film's hero, "FH" (Billy Crudup, ALMOST FAMOUS, WATCHMEN), is a rumpled, hapless young man in his twenties who bounces through his days with his dreams and hallucinations blurring and merging into reality. The shaky center of his universe is his beloved on- again, off-again girlfriend Michelle (Samantha Morton). Wandering from comical misadventures to other more challenging quests, "FH" is propelled through his chaotic life by a heartfelt desire to help the misfits around him (Jack Black, Dennis Hopper, Denis Leary and Holly Hunter).
9. Jesus’ Son (2000)
Canadian filmmaker Alison Maclean used her second feature to adapt the short stories of writer Denis Johnson, with Billy Crudup as ‘70s-era junkie/fuck-up who rambles his way through people’s lives (Samantha Morton, Jack Black, Holly Hunter and Dennis Hopper are a few of them).
Requiem for a Dream exposes four paralleled individuals and their menacing addiction to heroin, cocaine, and diet pills (speed). Taking place in Brooklyn amidst the waning Coney Island, the drugs are very easily obtained and keep each main character in its cycle of dependence. The protagonist Harry Goldfarb is your typical heroin junky with an ambitious plan of "Getting off hard knocks," with help from his cocaine crazed girlfriend Marion and his long time friend Tyrone. Meanwhile his widowed mother is obsessed with the glamor of television and eventually finds her way to a dietitian who pushes her into the cycle of drug induced enslavement.
10. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
True story: I thought Darren Aronofsky’s brutally graphic, damn-near-sickening view of heroin addicts, based on the novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., was so messed-up the first time I saw it, I immediately told my momma to go see it just ‘cuz. So share it with someone you love.
