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Small Town Ecstasy (2002)
Small Town Ecstasy (2002)
2002 | Documentary
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"In the ’90s and 2000s, HBO Docs and HBO Films were making some of the most incredible documentaries ever. Even while these weren’t being released in theaters, docs were having this crazy renaissance. I have no idea who was in charge or what was happening, but every month there would be some insane, amazing documentary coming out. This one is disturbing. They’re all disturbing, but in a way I find interesting. Maybe because that can make you feel better… I don’t know, but I am interested in this. I really like the backdrop, which is mid- to late-’90s small-town rave culture. This dad has an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter who are in the rave scene. He’s a preacher, a normal guy, married, has two kids. One day, for whatever reason, he’s like, “Fuck the life I built, I am going to go to the rave with my kids.” He takes ecstasy and becomes their peer: a gnarly, insane raver. He leaves his wife, he gets an apartment with his son, he’s taking ecstasy every night. It’s also funny and obviously more fucked up because it’s real. What I love about documentaries is that Hollywood would take that movie and turn it into a broad comedy and it would be, “Dad parties with his kids!” But to me it’s a drama, it gets into the complexities of what drives someone to do this, how it feels for their kids and for their ex-wife, what experiences led him to break."

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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Sharp Objects in TV

Nov 26, 2020  
Sharp Objects
Sharp Objects
2018 | Crime, Drama, Mystery
"𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘥..."

Decay in all its forms, *very* HBO - right down to the opening credits sequences - in the best ways. If I have one complaint it's that I wish this were an episode longer to really settle into its final moments before the jaw-dropping rug-pull ending (and maybe I wish it was a little more physically gross when it calls for it) - but I digress, this is phenomenal television all the same. Flynn is as complex a writer as ever and Jean-Marc Vallée is at some of his most fully engrossing. As someone living in a tawdry small town just like this it does a bangup job at showing how those types of areas prey upon their little boys and girls, and bears witness to the differing ways their subsequent rage manifests between each gender. You know yourself much less than everyone else *thinks* they know you, if you aren't peering directly into their eyes you aren't safe from disparaging remarks even from your supposed closest allies - the moment in episode 5 where the camera keeps switching POVs while somebody glares at someone else, who then glares at someone else, who then glares at someone else, etc., etc. does a good job at exemplifying this. Adams, Messina, and particularly Clarkson, Scanlen, Perkins, and Czerny are sublime as these haunted enigmas of people. Gives away some of its themes a touch too on-the-nose later in the game but nonetheless a grim, fragmented, trancelike nightmare of hatred. Magnetic as hell.