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While vastly superior to Larry Clark's other films, "Another Day in Paradise" shares with them a brazen directness which makes it uneasy viewing, particular the many scenes picturing graphic violence. However it's a powerful and moving film with some exceptional acting talent on display.

Clark's obsession with teenagers of the wilder variety is prevalent as always but is balanced by the older surrogate parent couple played by James Woods and Melanie Griffith. Woods once again brings his famed intensity in a well rounded portrayal in which he's not only called upon to play a hardened, ruthless criminal, but also to reveal the more human qualities albeit buried very deep within.

Melanie Griffith is surprisingly effective as Wood's partner in crime. Clark's interest in them as people first and then as criminals, places this movie in a category well above the usual criminals on the run fare.

The younger criminal counterparts are played excellently by Natasha Gregson Wagner and Vincent Kartheiser. There is an almost documentary sense of authenticity to their acting. Oddly enough neither seemed to have as yet progressed to roles of much importance. Kartheiser in particular is an actor to watch out for. (He was superb in the somewhat flawed "The Unsaid").

The complexity of the relationship between the older childless couple and the teenage couple, while not overtly examined, is explored with subtlety which allows the viewer to make his own evaluation.

With large doses of drugs and violence this is clearly not a movie for all tastes. It is however a work of distinction.

While Watching 'Another Day In Paradise', I was Stunned, Mesmerized & Awed by it's Lead Actor James Woods. Woods, One Of My All-Time Favorite Actors, Delivers an Outstanding Performance over-here. He actually left me Stunned, Mesmerized & Awed with his Performance. Woods, has had a thriving film-career, he has delivered remarkable performances all through his journey & 'Another Day In Paradise' is among his milestone works.

'Another Day in Paradise' Synopsis: In the hope of a big score, two junkie couples team up to commit various drug robberies which go disastrously wrong leading to dissent, violence and murder.

'As a film, 'Another Day In Paradise' appealed to me in parts, not in totality. The Screenplay is a bit erratic here, but at times, it's definitely arresting. The Characters, in particular, I thought, were nicely defined. Larry Clark Directs This Drama with command. Cinematography is perfect. Editing & Art Design are fair.

Performance-Wise: It's Woods All The Way. He's Outstanding in his portrayal of a junkie who wants to make it big. It's a pleasure to watch an actor perform with such precision & such style. Melanie Griffith does well. Vincent Kartheiser gives his best shot. Natasha Gregson Wagner is adequate, while James Otis is decent.

On the whole, 'Another Day In Paradise' works prominently due to Woods's performance. An Actor Par Excellence!

Read it here: http://squeerelist.blogspot.com/2013/06/another-day-in- paradise-1998.html

This Larry Clark drama dives you into the miserable life of junkie Bobbie. After a minor vending-machine robbery gone bad, Bobbie gets fixed up by the infamous thief Mel. The latter decides to hire the kid to nail one last deal that should set them up for life. Mel and his girlfriend Sid become the mentors of Bobbie and his girlfriend Rosie. Neither the characters nor the audience escape unhurt from this funky adventure. Another Day In Paradise is an ironic title for a movie fueled with violence, abuse, and misery. The frantic angles and camera movements used by Clark perfectly depict this atmosphere. The somewhat cheerful R'n'B soundtrack sweetens the painful road trip of our 'heroes' and contrasts with the pitiful path they've chosen. I follow those basket cases taking desperate measures with a certain sorrow but never do I root for them as they've buried themselves in this mess of a situation. This film is an efficient tale on how drugs can make you reach a point of no return and how everything from there is a downhill race to a filthy abyss. Another Day in Paradise seems so real, it makes me feel uneasy and almost sick. I would not recommend it if you don't feel alright because it will mess you up. Vincent Kartheiser in the lead role faultlessly pierces the screen with such a seedy and sore character. The sordid sexuality of our teenagers is only matched by the destructive relationship between James Woods (Mel) and Melanie Griffith (Sid). Woods as the manifest unstable and alcoholic crime king delivers an irreproachable interpretation. Another Day In Paradise is one of these movies that makes you feel glad your only drug consumption is your daily 3-cup-o'-joe intake and your occasional carbs overload.

1 reason to watch: it makes you feel good about yourself . It also makes you want to never do drugs. And never have sex again (this one might not be a valuable reason).

'Kids' director Larry Clark really comes up trumps with this fine story of crime, addiction and surrogate families. Relative unknown Vincent Kartheiser, and the up and coming Natasha Gregson Wagner ('Lost Highway', 'Two Girls and a Guy') are fine as the young wanna be thieves, but the real stars of the show are their mentors' played by James Woods and Melanie Griffith.

Griffith is often ridiculed for her flakiness, but should be applauded for taking riskier, more challenging material such as this and John Waters' 'Cecil B. DeMented'. Woods is a ridiculously underrated actor, and along with the equally underestimated James Caan, is rivaling the much more celebrated De Niro and Pacino as best American actors of their generation in my opinion. Woods is simply sensational as the motor mouth Mel, a complex and unpredictable character. His performance here ranks with 'Videodrome', 'Cop' and 'The Boost' as one of his most memorable.

Forget the spurious 'Kalifornia', 'Drugstore Cowboy' and 'True Romance' comparisons. They are all great movies, but this is no rehash or rip off. It's a fantastic movie in its own right. Don't miss this one!

Is that a young Leonardo DiCaprio? No! But clearly they wanted a kid with his vibe. Oh, it's the young man from Madmen, Vincent Kartheiser, years before he found success with that series. What a gnarly way to kick off your career...

This is certainly not a pleasant watch but it's definitely a peculiar one. It is a unique amalgamation of flammable parts. This was infamous director Larry Clark's follow-up to his wave-making depresso collaborative masterpiece with Harmony Korine, KIDS. I suppose after the success of that, he needed to join forces with another fireball of some sort, but this time in the form of a Hollywood actor who's been roped in for much longer, that being James Woods.

Oh, James Woods...utterly gnarly James. If cocaine took form as a human being, it would basically just be James Woods. I've heard rumors that he is a colossal hothead in reality. Is anyone shocked by that? You can feel the potential of his heinousness through every scene whenever he is on screen. And here, in this film, as is the case with many films, he plays an absolute monster. Of course, he produced this film, so he put the whole thing together so he could play a monster. I'm sure it comes very naturally for him!

What else do we add to the equation? Why, Melanie Griffith of course! The charming babe who had a hideously disturbing beginning as a teen actor in Hollywood, then broke through as an indie darling in the mid 80's, then found mainstream success at the end of the decade, only to be cast in endless stinkers throughout most of the rest of the 90's. It seems awfully fitting for James Woods to reach in and grab someone with an immensely abusive and traumatizing past to play his punching bag throughout this entire film! In one sense, it's nice to see Griffith returning to grittier films, but in another it's kind of dark when you hear so much about the reality of these actors.

The movie starts somewhat shockingly abrasively as our protagonist seems to nearly get beat to death within the first 5 minutes. It's extremely bloody, and I was very confused as to why it was so brutal, but I was very intrigued. As a big fan of Clark's two most celebrated films (Kids and Bully), I was quickly reminded why Larry Clark is a name no one ever forgets - he makes his movies bleak and heavy, as heavy as possible, and this one NEVER lets up. You get brief glimpses of relief and humanity, but it's mostly one brutal or depressing sequence after another, with a REALLY horrible and wholly unfitting soundtrack playing over the whole thing.

Of course, I did enjoy the Clarence Carter appearance as I am a big Clarence Carter fan, but the rest of the of the soundtrack was the worst part of the film, and really took away from the whole vibe of it in my opinion. The directing and cinematography is full-on typical Larry Clark, a lot of extended sequences of our young leads just lying around mostly nude, extremely high, fornicating, etc - but the horrible music I'm gonna assume was just picked by James Woods (LOL, it seems to fit his energy?), in an attempt to create some sort of Tarantino-ish juxtaposition, sporting "feel good rock and roll" songs over utterly bleak sequences, but it just never works. This isn't a dark comedy, so don't soundtrack it like one. If this film had a fittingly dark soundtrack or score, or at least a moodier or more unique one, I think the film would have been more highly regarded and hit people harder. At it's core this is a very, very heavy movie and all the ill-fitting soundtrack does is take away from the effectiveness of that.

I wouldn't recommend this to many people but if you are a Larry Clark fan (or a James Woods fan? LOL) you definitely should see it. Some of the gun fights are actually pretty top notch. Lots of blood, lots of drugs, and lots of horrible, horrible people, making horrible decisions. It's not perfect, but it does stand out as a bizarre installment in the filmography of everyone involved.

It's really not much of a story. Young small crooks meet older, slightly bigger crooks, they get into trouble, there's a lot of blood. But it grabbed me, through the performance of the actors. They made their characters come alive, to the point where I felt I could reach out and touch them - if I dared.

This is accomplished with a devoted way of acting, which can accurately be called naked. Vincent Kartheiser, playing the young crook, is indeed naked a lot in the film. With his slightly androgynous looks of, say, a Prince Valiant, nobody minds. But naked acting is more than that - and much more difficult than dropping one's pants.

James Woods repeatedly impresses me by participating in movies, which seem destined to devastate a movie star's career. He has a presence, a nerve, a rudeness free of compromises, making it impossible to separate the actor from the character - and that's exactly what naked acting is about.

The extremely gifted Melanie Griffith is doing the same, to at least the same degree. She has a nicer role to play in the movie, which is more difficult for an actor, and usually more boring, too. But she fills her character with so much, I feel like I've known her all my life. She can say her lines just right - and in between, her face, her eyes, say much more.

With his clothes on or off, Vincent Kartheiser has the same acting quality about him, although not as highly developed as with his seniors. Some scenes call for him to act out very basic emotions, and do it like a volcano. That's not easy, if doing it with more than heavy breathing and jumping about. He manages surprisingly well, even in a traumatic scene near the end of the movie, where he seems to be left to improvise, although there is so much turmoil inside his character, firm direction is really the only way out.

The director Larry Clark reassures us that he aims to stay in the borderland to what's taboo - maybe even cross it. I am glad. That's where art needs to be. Needs to.

Here, he sometimes uses a hand camera technique in half-chaotic shots, reminding of the Danish credo of film making called Dogma. It doesn't work that well here, though, because he has not stuck to it. The few scenes of Dogma style shooting, become little more than confusing.

On the other hand, he has told this story with compassion, with a commitment to the characters portrayed and a genuine care for their fate. In that way, he has also done his job naked.

He should be praised also, for daring to end the movie the way he did. I will not spoil it here, but I found the ending the only possible one - rising high above what conventional films of this kind would come up with.

Melanie Griffith does a bang up job in this raw Indy film about drug dealers and junkies. Seeing her shoot up gave me the jitters - I really didn't like that part.

Starring James Woods (Ghosts of Mississippi, Salvador) and Griffith (Working Girl), and supported by Vincent Kartheiser (Alaska) and Natasha Gregson Wagner (Vampires: Los Muertos), this film was enjoyable and captivating to see the two youngsters sucked into a world of pain.

James Otis is also featured as a creepy reverend, and Lou Diamond Phillips appears in an uncredited role.

Worth a watch.

I enjoyed this film although it is quite graphic and somewhat disjointed. The violence (and a lot of it) is believable and the situations realistic.

Mr. Woods turns in a rather passive, understated performance (yes, I was shocked but if you consider what Woods as played in the past). Melanie Griffith is excellent as his girlfriend. Natasha Wagner is also good as the lost teenager in the middle. Vincent Kartheiser as the wanna-be gangster is the shinning star in this film and I will look forward to future work.

This is one of the most disturbing, pessimistic, and overall depressing films I've ever seen -- naturally I loved it. It affected me powerfully. The camera work/artistic shot set-ups, along with the dark color quality set the tone for the whole movie. Not at all like the unappetizing "Kids," director Larry Clark's first feature, this movie is constantly shocking, but not just for the sake of shock value. It's unashamedly graphic in a way that most contemporary films avoid, making it cuttingly real. It also stands apart from most big heist movies, because it is character- rather than plot-driven.

James Woods is fantastic as always, and even Melanie Griffith (not one of my faves) is very well cast. The young Vincent Kartheiser, however, as a teen runaway turned junkie/petty criminal, steals the show. The camera loves him, and his adolescent volatility is painfully believable. I wasn't as much of a fan of Natasha Gregson Wagner, as Kartheiser's girlfriend, but even she surprised me with her dramatic final sequence.

WARNING: this movie is not for the faint of heart. I am personally a fan of anything that breaks new ground, or that defies convention. This film does both. But it is extremely graphic.

After seeing three of Larry Clark's movies,I've come to the conclusion that he just may be America's secret weapon against crime.I think the only reason he opens all his films with a couple of teen-agers getting laid is because he wants his target audience to think they're about to see another Hollywood film that glorifies sex and violence.But Mr. Clark has something else in mind entirely.Once he's got his audience ensnared he wastes no time in letting everybody know just how stupid and immoral criminal acts are.Everybody reaps what they sow in a Larry Clark film.Nobody gets away with anything.If this film has any fault with it at all,it's that it telegraphs what's going to happen to everyone,which is something the actors and the script itself can share equal blame for.Some of the camera work is a bit choppy,but that's to be expected in a film that uses as much steadi-cam footage as this one does.Whereas "Bonnie and Clyde" made robbing banks look like fun,this film's message is just the opposite.Robbing and killing isn't fun at all.It's stupid and ugly,and all that money won't buy you a ticket to Paradise.You won't even get close.

On the bright side, James Woods' performance steals the show, he's as awesome as he always is. The photography is also wonderful. But beautiful images and one great acting performance aren't enough to make a good movie. A good script is also needed, and this one feels like it's been written by a 19 years old bad boy-wannabe. From the story to the dialogues to the characters, everything feels cliché and stolen from another movie. This makes the movie twice as long as it should have been. Once more, I had the feeling Larry Clark is one of the most overrated directors the movie industry has ever produced.

I started watching this film rather late at night thinking I would unwind for a few minutes and then retire for the day. As I sat watching this film it's intensity began to build and draw me in. The story itself is nothing new. It was the performers that kept me involved. It was no surprise to me that James Woods would be his excellent self. The pleasant surprise was Melanie Griffith. She displayed some range I had'nt witnessed from her before. As the young street couple Vincent Kartheiser and Natasha Gregson Wagner show great promise as young actors.Kartheiser in particular. Execution is raw and at times it's hard to witness whats going on. Recommended. Give it a shot.

From the name of the movie to the not too ambiguous ending, we're in Hollywood. The premise is pretty familiar if you've ever seen more than 5 movies that are rated 'R'. It's a shoot-em-up (lots of heroin and guns) with the familiar sexy antihero couple roaming around the American southwest playing a high stakes game and dealing with character issues (though in this movie we get a new twist because there are two couples instead of one and one of them is old, so you can watch it with your parents).

That said, the cinematography is really easy on the eye and the acting is excellent. James Woods gives a great performance even though he plays the same character he plays in other movies he's been in (casino, once upon a time in America, the onion field).

Many of the reviews of this film include some comparison to Lary Clark's other big film, "kids". To me, it's hard to compare these movies because the intentions are so different. Which one you like better depends upon, well, what kind of movies you like (you probably would't like them both equally). I'm more of a 'kids' type of guy.

Over all, a pretty decent flick. There's a lot of art and subtlety to the acting and there are some pretty powerful scenes. It could have used to loose some of the stanky Hollywood chiche's (how many brains have you seen get blown out in the movies in your lifetime?), but they can be fun I suppose. Maybe VH1 should have a 'top 100 brains getting blown out scenes' show.

"Another Day in Paradise" is another pointless flick about crime, drugs, and people headed for the dumpster. The film offers solid performances, a good cast, and journeyman production which doesn't work in any genre save drama. An orgy of gratuitous and pointless wantonness, the only possible dramatic redemption comes from a thin story layer which tells of the quasi-family relationship materializing between the older and younger druggie couples. A good watch for those who enjoy flicks about violent loser-types. Others might want to pass on this one.

Larry Clark's (KIDS) second film, ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE features an explosive performance by James Woods as a "professional" thief/junkie, who along with his girlfriend (a well cast Melanie Griffith) adopt two young lovers (Vincent Kartheiser and Natasha Gregson Wagner) and hit the road in search of drugs and money. Mel (Woods) and Sid (Griffith), who see Rosie (Wagner) and Bobbie (Kartheiser) as younger versions of themselves, teach them the ropes of criminal life.

It is a familiar story, and there is no doubt the characters' vision of paradise shown in the beginning of the film, with its endless supply of drugs and feeling of family, is quickly going to deteriorate into violence and death. I am reminded of the superior DRUGSTORE COWBOY, which also follows a "family" of junkies who rob to pay for their habits, but fine performances by the four leads, especially Woods, make PARADISE worth a look.

Clark's cinema vérité style of direction (a la KIDS) supplies the feeling of uneasiness throughout the film and heightens the impact of the jarring violence. The soundtrack of great soul tunes effectively mirrors the contradictory feelings of despair and hope that plague the characters. The film is not without flaws but recommended to fans of the road/lovers on the lam movies like BADLANDS, TRUE ROMANCE etc.

I found this movie as great imagined through the eyes of the writer and badly made by the director.The story is great.Dialog,beginning,ending it's all great but i think that the director missed a style of making this movie.For first the camera sucked.It is really badly shooted movie.Fogy picture and shaking camera was supposed to give reality to this movie but it actually took it away.Director tried to do something like what Steven Soderbergh did in traffic but he failed.He also made a bad character development through the movie.James Wood's was great as Mel but his character didn't have much back story in it.At the beginning we see a guy that jump's to help a bunch of junkies,then he gives them drog's and then he becomes a complete moron who don't gives a damn about anybody.It may sound good when i write it but it wasn't.It all happened to suddenly.Even though James Wood's was great actor for this role but his character didn't deserve him in this movie. Melanie Griffith was great too.Except her character is the only one in this movie that i found complete.She was what she is through the whole movie and she still wasn't boaring. The actor's were all good actually but her character is the only one that don't misses a back up story.Through the movie you slowly find out what kind of person she is even though no one sais anything about her.

This film has a hard and realistic story and dialog so i would of recommended to anyone that loves good movies about how it is today.Even it was badly directed it still has a large amount of fun in it.And the lesson is good.Enjoy!

I looked forward to seeing this because it starred James Woods , an actor who`s as underrated as he is impressive ( Check out his performance in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA where he outshines De Niro , and this was when De Niro was still an acting god ) and who`s always been great at playing intense anti-heroes . I`d actually pay good money to see Woods read out his shopping list so when the satillite TV station issued a warning about " The following film contains scenes of violence " ( Warnings about violence is unprecedented at 1 am on a satillite TV station ) I thought I`d be seeing a real tour de force acting class by Woods but as the credits started the words " A film by Larry Clark " came up . I`ve never seen a film by Clark but knew of his reputation and ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE plays very much like how a Clark film is supposed to play : drug abuse , explicit teenage sex , drug dealing in a violent low concept plot with totally amoral characters on a fast track to hell . This is a really bleak , nihilistic , gritty film with some really cruel violence . It should be praised for showing how utterly pornographic violence is , but it`s also a film you won`t want to watch more than once no matter how much you love James Woods acting style

Somehow this movie reminded me of Pulp Fiction. At times it feels like an extremely low budget thriller. At other times it feels like a well crafted drama.

In any event, it entertains and draws you into the feelings of the main characters, which is the point of any movie. Good job.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

Another Day in Paradise (1998) is a drama movie written by Christopher Landon in what was his first screenplay and it was really good.

Positives for Another Day in Paradise (1998): The movie has a simple premise and it is executed very well. The movie has a good cast that includes James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Paul Hipp, Brent Briscoe and Branden Williams and all of them give good performances. The movie moves at a good enough pace. And finally, I liked the ending to this movie.

Negatives for Another Day in Paradise (1998): The movie didn't do anything to make an impact on my viewing experience, everything is done in the most basic and standard way possible.

Overall, Another Day in Paradise (1998) was a good movie for Christopher Landon to get his foot into Hollywood and I'm happy that he's now taking part in making movies.

Another film of the drug/gangster sub-genre, ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE is upper echelon material as far as these pictures go. It is also a sibling to DRUGSTORE COWBOY unintentionally. There are so many similarities because it is impossible to make this type of movie nowadays without being repetitive. No matter. Director Larry Clarke (KIDS, ew!) and main booster James Woods himself dive into that disgusting and sometimes frantically hilarious world of sex, drugs, and driving around. The film works because there are some good characterizations here and people who actually show some concern for each other throughout the haze of it all.

Melanie Griffith plays "Sid", James Woods' girlfriend in the story and delivers some of the finest moments of her career. Not since WORKING GIRL have I seen such a likeable and ballsy portrayal from Griffith, who is a junkie with a knack for mothering the 2 teen runaways and a potent trigger finger when one is needed. The runaways are the children Woods and Griffith parent vicariously through in the most unusual of ways. The kids (Vincent Kartheiser, Natasha Wagner) are a version of Bonnie and Clyde, while the adults resemble a warped Ozzie and Harriett. It all adds up to a group of 4 remembering DRUGSTORE COWBOY. This crew needs drugs and they get them by stealing from pharmacists just as Matt Dillon's crew did.

The setting is the early 1970's I guess, and the music reflects the period well. Funk and blues reign over the film's violent and illegal activities while adding a sense of romance to it. You get that feeling in your heart that it won't last (a la BONNIE AND CLYDE, DRUGSTORE COWBOY). Woods character starts out cynical and wise to the "life", but turns ugly as you figure him to do. The young kids who looked up to him throughout grow tired naturally, but his reluctance to grow old possesses him to keep them around. This is where Melanie Griffith is able to shine. She is a sweet, attractive woman who happens to stick needles in her neck. Nobody's perfect.

James Woods was born to play the creep. He has some great lines in ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. His stories are funny, his trademarks are constant (booyah!), and his fits are worth the price of admission. He is so good at coming across initially confident, eventually desperate and evil. Woods must have had much faith in director Clarke's abilities and the casting of Natalie Wood's daughter, Natasha is a nice, offbeat touch. This is low-budget, nasty fare, a descendant of the countless druggie flicks of the 70's, 80's and PULP FICTION. It is sometimes amazing to see how low actors will go to capture this wild world of fun and drugs in the dark.

RATING: ***

Larry Clark's follow-up to Kids combines the themes of a crime gone awry and the would-be father/son bonding with a style that is unquestionably "indie". Would it be too much to ponder over hand-held even when not entirely necessary? It's not an extreme annoyance, and it does serve some purposes of tense vibes when James Woods chides out his mentee or during one of the said gone-bad crime scenes. It's only when it doesn't serve a purpose that really suits the material that you want Clark and his DP to get back to the steady-cam and tracking shots- which he does do from time to time- as opposed to say, for example, the overlong jittery shots of Bobbie (Kartheiser) running through a field. In fact if there is any one glaring flaw on Another Day in Paraidse it's not knowing how to quite get a scene completely together properly, on the technical fronts. One of the scenes that should be the most powerful emotionally, involving the death of one of the principle characters, is shot and edited shabbily, as if an anything goes approach will be just fine, as a good but inappropriate blues song plays over the scene and then into the next small scene until it finishes. Scorsese Clark is definitely not when it comes to timing with the soundtrack.

On the other hand, it is what Clark does get right as a director that does make this violent and foul-mouthed effort a look some ten years later. The blues songs, for example, are mostly very good and placed in nicely in some scenes, specifically towards the beginning as Bobbie runs away from a botched robbery and during a hot and heavy sex scene (a live performance of "Looking for a Fox" also is 100 times better off of the cover done in Blues Brothers 2000). The casting of Woods, who also served as producer, was a sharp move as well, because it provides him ample time to go for small subtle moments of authority (the "what are you doing" bit in the diner), and really BIG scenes (emphasis on capitals) as he yells and kicks and screams and yells the F bomb every other word. It's not entirely a great performance, but it works for what his character is: a washed up old crook of a drug dealer who looks for scores when he cans but puts on an air of seeming to be in control and smart, which he isn't.

It's good to see someone like Griffith in the matriarch (or would-be one) role, and Gregson-Wagner, who maybe is the least effective of the lot of the actors, is still up to the challenge of playing the sort of tag-along of the four. They all go for realism, which works pretty well with all things considered; those being that the script veers into predictability after the first half hour, and the dialog, while about as sharp as can be under the circumstances (Clark is, more often than not, at his best when he has Harmony Korine writing for him), does go into the fold of not being as revelatory as potentially allowable as the characters go further into downward spiral territory. Save for some bits of pretension and a couple of botched techniques, it is a solid film, with one of the more shocking gun fights from the late 90s.

Can we please place a permanent injunction on improvisation in films? This movie, an incomprehensible hash of bored, "shocking" casual drugs-and-sex-and-violence and limp criminals-as-surrogate-family themes carelessly thrown Pollock-style across the screen, almost nudges "The Daytrippers" and (the worst offender) "Blue in the Face" as the most irritating example of shameful, self-indulgent cinematic improv. Keitel and De Niro's sublimely playful guy-banter in "Mean Streets" has given way to a steady stream of desperately babbling pretty faces trying to fill silences with big emotion. Of course, it isn't such a terrible problem if you have great actors, tight direction, and a strong story, which you don't here. Yes, James Woods is electric as always (though his mid-film transformation from role model to abusive "dad" is as annoying as it is baffling) and heck, I'll pay 8 bucks to look at natascha gregson wagner for 2 hours. But as a movie, it's a joke.

This one worked for me. The superb acting and fine camera work made this very believable. The scenes are some of the most realistic I've seen. Particularly noteworthy are the scenes involving extreme tension.

Throughout the picture I felt an urging to like these characters, sensing that they were, deep down, decent people who somehow got wrapped up in this type of life.

I'm not generally a fan of Griffith, but this role suits her well and her acting is top-notch. Woods is almost always exceptional, and his work here is no exception. The younger stars also perform quite well with this challenging, emotional material. And I thought the acting of the minor characters was excellent, suggesting the director had his act together on this one.

You have to acclimate to the language and level of tension early on or the movie will drive you nuts. But if you do, it begins to involve you deeply in the characters' situations and lives.

Another Day in Paradise is not the story of your life, it is not the story of my life.

It is the story of Bonnie and Clyde at their early forties…

They are junkies by now and they can't have children so they adopt a young fresh couple and they give them a place in their life.

They become family…

Things go wrong, of course...

I loved the moment when this Clyde / Mel guy punches his Bonnie / Sid in the face for a reason…

This film is an excellent choice for a rainy Sunday evening at home