Genre: (Melodrama) or Hyper-realistic-junkie-crime-gone-wrong
Director: Larry Clark
Screenwriter: Eddie Little (book); adapted by Christopher B. Landon and Stephen Chin
Main Actors: James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, Natasha Gregson Wagner
Year: 1998
Production Company: Chinese Bookie Pictures
City/Country of Origin: USA; filmed in Norwalk and LA, California; and Oklahoma.
Yeah. I made a pact with myself to stop watching junkie movies after I watched Requiem for a Dream by myself. Well, one of my friends (who is a film buff) told me that I had to check out Larry Clark. I'm not sure that Kids or Ken Park or Bully or Teenage Caveman would have been more cheery, but Another Day in Paradise is a depressing film. It portrays Eddie Little's "fictional" novel of crime and the drug trade in the 70s very realistically, and reaches a lot of expected conclusions. It's predictable, but that makes it a bit more real, to me. It doesn't have a feel-good ending, but it isn't the morass of moral decay that Requiem was.
I will admit that I like crime/caper movies and this film was all about the hustle. James Woods and Melanie Griffith give amazing performances, as well. Just make sure that you're in a stable or decent mood before you watch this one.
