Another Day in Paradise (1998)

Very well executed

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Best movie ever!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Obviously this film was not advertised during its release. I didn't have much of an interest based on such a pedestrian film title. Little did I know it was going to be as compelling as it is. I have seen this film several times and even though I feel like I connected with it then, I feel somewhat connected to it differently now. I am drawn to the youthfulness of the young Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Bobbie. James Woods is magnetic as Mel. It's an absorbing tale. He and Melanie Griffith play an older criminal couple who take Kartheiser and his girlfriend underneath their wings. I like it a lot but I would not flat-out recommend it to a wide array of people. Before going in, you must know it is directed by Larry Clark. He has quite a reputation, at least for his films. If anything he has done catches your eye, I'd say give this one a go. One of the best scenes in this film comes near the end when Mel rages at Bobbie after a situation goes bad. Mel freaks out in the backseat of their car as he says to Bobbie, "You really f****d it up good this time didn't you, Bobbie?" and from there he goes into one of the best rants in movie history. Absolutely stunning this is.

James Woods is an intense Actor and Larry Clark is an intense Director. Here they combine their intensity into a Mainstream Story through an underground lens. Although Woods is the nucleus in this radiating Movie he is not without the support of the other three Leads spinning around His sometimes over exposed explosive Performance.The Director also flourishes here with some Artful restraint (as in the drug deal gone bad) as its realism connects with the Style of the Film. This is a slick looking Movie despite the Director's intentions. It also has a downbeat rhythm that is enticing in its exposure of low-life druggies and assorted other dregs.This is an underrated Film that holds up fine and is a disturbing but engrossing look-see at those other People that inhabit the underbelly of our Streets. It is a hard watch at times, but you asked for it and you get it with an uncompromising and Guilty Pleasure ambiance. After all, if Audiences weren't interested in this sort of uncomfortable, gritty, diversion, there wouldn't be so much of it.

It wasn't until quite awhile after I read the novel by Eddie Little that I realized there was a film adaptation. I'm usually skeptical of adaptations, but I'm glad I saw this movie. It takes an unflinching look at the lives of lowlife criminals, living only for the next big score. James Woods and Melanie Griffith are great as Mel and Sid, the unconventional and unintentional parent figures to lovers Bobbie and Rosie (played by Vincent Kartheiser and Natasha Gregson Wagner), and all of them are junkies. These four people come together to form a strange kind of family, but a family that is doomed to fall apart. A great film with an ending that is both hopeful and sad.

What a dark start. Then rougher even. Wagner is neat. Direction is tight, fast and colorful. MG in bed with kid even before Demi Moore did. Good for ugly flick night. No need to get wasted since this will get you there. Given that it didn't date itself, I suspect that over time this will wear even better. Meaning it will hold up. Critics might have ignored this given Woods and MG doing low life scene, but time will tell.