Film Review : The Movie ' Oslo '

Chapter 3, “A Community of Addicted Bodies”, traces how physical and emotional dependence on heroin creates a social hierarchy within the

Movie Review of The Fisher King Jack, a cynical Manhattan disc jockey plunges into a suicidal depression when one of his outrageous comments inspires a crazed listener to shoot seven people in a fashionable nightspot. Redemption comes in the form of a derelict, ex-history professor named Parry whose wife was one of those killed by the sniper. Parry heads a gang of loony homeless people in the search for what he believes to be the Holy Grail. Jack helps Parry in his quest and in the process finds what he had been looking for, too.

The movie is an adaption of book written by Markus Zusak, who has won many awards and sold over a million copies of the book worldwide. Brian Percival’s movie adaptation did a wonderful job depicting the complex nature of the book and what it was like to live as a child during World War Two. What was interesting about the story was that Death was the narrator

The movie I am reviewing is called: Trainsplotting. This movie was based on Mark Renton and his friend abusing heroin. Heroin was a part of their everyday life for example; they called it better than having sex. Mark Renton also explained how choosing a life was harder and that doing heron was much simple. He loved the feeling it gave him and thinks it is a lot better than having an organism.

Chasing heroin is a documentary giving us insight information on the rapidly growing pandemic of addictions to drugs, notably heroin. The heroin epidemic is rising at an alarming

Jim, a high school all-star basketball player becomes addicted to heroin. He tries to hide his addiction, but it becomes quite prevalent when it begins to overtake his life entirely. To begin with, Jim reflects on his first experiences with heroin and refers to it as a “chippy” habit. He isn’t aware of the addictiveness of this potent drug, which shortly becomes habitual. His addiction leads to him being kicked off the basketball team, out of his own house, and then desperate on the streets of New York City alongside of his friends. This substantially progresses his addiction, resulting in him passing out in the snow one night. Thanks to Jim’s former basketball friend, Jim is forced to withstand from heroin. Jim become extremely agitated from withdrawal and escapes to look for some more. Jim later finds himself in a six-month rehab, which he notes “the

Drugs destroyed Nic. Before Nic became addicted to drugs he was a charming kid, a varsity athlete, and very nice to his family. But after drugs Nic was a new person. He lied, cheated, and lived on the streets. Nic’s father worried about his daily, wondering if he was okay. Finally it was too much. Even though Nic kept saying he would stop, he never did. Nic’s father trusted him but was getting close to losing it. Finally after Nic running away multiple times, breaking into houses, and stealing money, David decides to force Nic into rehab. For Nic, as well as many other addicts, rehab didn’t work. David would notice Nic was high yet it wouldn't’ stop him. David was giving up. He reached out to other addicts parents to see what they did. Then as someone recommended, Nic moved down to Los Angeles by his mom. They thought it was a much better environment where Nic could stay away from

After reading the memoir titled The Heroin Diaries, in which the author, Nikki Sixx, presents a first hand account of his battles with heroin addiction over the course of one year, we must incorporate certain concepts in order to better understand his condition. In this essay I will explore concepts such as empathy, self responsibility and personal identity as identified in Identity and Agency: Conceptual Lessons for the Psychiatric Ethics of Patient Care as well as the concepts of detached and affective blame brought forth by Hannah Pickard in Responsibility Without Blame: Philosophical Reflections on Clinical Practice. Through exploration of these concepts I will show how they apply to Nikki Sixx and his seemingly endless battles with addiction.

I talked to the man, who asked to go by “Richard”, after the meeting concluded. We sat outside the conference room and drank coffee while he told me about his lifelong battle with alcohol and drugs. I think what struck out the most to me was just how sad and regretful his tone of voice was as he told his story to me. He recalled how he first shot up with heroin at the age of fourteen, and how his life was a vicious cycle of drugs and depression afterwards. “Richard” told me that he was in and out of juvenile halls throughout his teenage years and how, when he was supposed to be in school, would skip classes to drink on the curb or inject himself with heroin in some dirty gas station bathroom. “I was in and out of prisons too, once I got old enough.” I remember him telling me. After two three year stints in prison on drug and alcohol related charges, the correctional

One of the only foreseeable “problems of truth” is the representation of the heroin epidemic as just that - an epidemic. Many people see heroin abuse as a choice - which it is, initially - and a crime that should be punished, not necessarily treated. Hopefully, conversations with law enforcement and medical professionals can provide objective, expert opinions that will balance with firsthand accounts that the audience can empathize with. This approach will seek to strike a balance between the personal and the professional to minimize that “problem of truth”. Supporting assertions with evidence and expert testimony will put objectivity at the forefront of the documentary.

The public rarely pays close attention to homeless people on the streets. There is one kind of homelessness that have dedicated their lives to heroin; these people call themselves “righteous dopefiends”. Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg became part of the daily lives of these homeless heroin injectors for a 10-year period in Edgewater Boulevard. Through various interviews with the addicts, we came to find out their shocking personal histories that led to their addiction and homelessness. These Edgewater homeless came from different ethnic backgrounds, however, they shared two common things; all of them were homeless and were addicted to heroin. They lived in dead-end alleyways, storage lots, vacant factories, defective cars, and highway embankments (4). The reason they labelled themselves as righteous dopefiends was because believed they were worthy in society, despite their actions. Going through ceaseless pain and anxiety of hunger, exposure, infectious diseases was reasonable to them because of their commitment to heroin (5). Throughout my paper, it will show that medication has an important implication in the lives of the homeless heroin injectors.

Before the addict ends up on the street, that is, he occupies (at times for years) a liminal space in the world, communicating with people from the other side of the wall, separated from human feeling by a sort of invisible film.” (Lee)

Trainspotting (1996) is a "depiction of the squalid depravities and exploitative self interest that characterises the everyday life of heroin addiction." (Petrie 90) Its' realistic style, use of language and unflinching portrayal of drug use was what first attracted me to look at it a bit closer. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, it tells the story of a group of working class unemployed drug addicts, focusing on their problems with heroin abuse, inability to get a job and family problems. Set in

In 1980’s Scotland, socioeconomic conditions and morale suffered due to the implementation of Thatcher policies, placing the lower class in a deplorable state of hopelessness. The film Trainspotting, directed by Danny Boyle, depicts the plights of young heroin junkies during the Thatcher Era in Edinburgh. The film’s focus is not heroin addiction, but rather, uses the silver screen as a platform to portray the depressing impact Thatcherism had on Scottish socioeconomic conditions as conveyed through the protagonist, heroin-addicted Mark Renton. Trainspotting illustrates that the social struggles of the Scottish lower class during the Thatcher Era are significant contributing factors to cause Renton to become a heroin user in order to escape the depressing and monotonous existence to which he is subjected.

As a result of the monstrosity of vampirism often are depicted from the sexual and violent behaviour that society generally considers abnormal, the source of the horror of monstrosity in vampire films usually comes from the monster itself. In contrast, Let the Right One In (2008), a social realism film written by John Ajvide Lindqvist and directed by Tomas Alfredson, presents an intertwined storyline of coming-of-age and vampire horror(Oskar and Eli respectively) in which during the course of the film not only we as the viewer will ambivalently sympathise with the monster(Eli) who lives off the blood of victims but also perceive the ending where a runaway child and thriving monster as a satisfying happy ending. And also how it wasn 't the gruesome blood shedding vampirism behaviour of the monster(Eli) that disgusted us, but the broken behaviours of the society like the unjustified bullying which had been inflicted on Oskar was. To achieve this, cinematography, sound, editing and narrative are used to highlight monstrosity from both storylines and to differentiate between them. In the end, despite Eli 's monstrous actions in between her and Oskar 's shared moments, we still wish their innocent pre-sexual relationship/friendship would remain unharmed from the monstrosities around them, and because we sympathise with Eli, our perception of monstrosity then becomes whether the monstrosity is justifiable.