Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Anonymous on August 31, 2007, 08:30:40 PM
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Self Medicated (R)
By Roger Ebert
The opening scene in Monty Lapica's "Self-Medicated" is a particularly chilling exercise in antisocial behavior. A car filled with out-of-control teenagers cruises the Strip in Las Vegas, shooting at tourists with paint guns. This is the sort of behavior, like using laser pointers illegally, that you hope doesn't leak out to numbskulls at large. One of the kids is Andrew (played by Lapica himself), who is usually high on street drugs, allegedly because he mourns the death of his beloved father.
As most drug counselors will advise you, drug abuse has to be seen separately from the "problems" that "inspire" it. The majority of drunks and druggies use today because they used yesterday, and that's why they will use again tomorrow. I remember a guy in O'Rourke's who said he was drinking "because it's Christmas." Informed that it he had missed the mark by three days, he said, "OK, then, I'm drinking because it isn't Christmas."
Whatever his reasons, Andrew is out of control. He has walked out of school, he hates his pill-addicted mom (Diane Venora), and she can't get it together to really talk to him, let alone help him. So she makes a call and attendants from a "treatment center" pounce on him in the middle of the night and haul him away. This is staging an intervention big time.
The film, said to be somewhat autobiographical, is critical both of Andrew and his treatment. Unlike portrayals you may have seen of the wise and useful Betty Ford or Hazelden centers, this (fictional) outfit in St. George, Utah, treats its patients as prisoners, adopts a good cop/bad cop counseling regime and apparently plans to send patients to American Samoa to complete their "recovery" as forced labor. I am not making this up; it's inspired, I understand, by an actual treatment center, since shut down, although not the one Lapica attended.
The facility is more realistically portrayed than the one depicted in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but this is a docudrama, not a fable. Andrew comes up against a counselor named Dan (Michael Bowen), who apparently loathes druggies and thinks his disgust will cure them. Another counselor, Keith (Greg Germann), has a kinder, gentler approach, but if Andrew hated school, it's nothing compared to how he feels about this place. As he checks in, he's already mentally escaping.
The title is a little misleading. Andrew and his mother are self-medicators, yes (her drugs are prescribed, but a middle-aged woman can often make that happen). But Andrew is also, in a way, self-treating. Alcoholics Anonymous, the most effective means of staying clean and sober, talks about "hitting bottom," and "Self-Medicated" plays like the story of Andrew throwing himself at the bottom, and sticking. Eventually, if he's not entirely around the bend, a light will dawn.
Helping him see the light is Gabe, a man who lives on the streets (William Stanford Davis). From the man who has been there, who has nothing and therefore nothing to lose, Andrew senses he is gaining insights without any motive or spin. The same strength sits at the center of an AA meeting, where everyone is in the same boat and there is no captain.
On the basis of this film, Monty Lapica, at 24, has a career ahead of him as a director, an actor or both. He also has a life ahead of him, which the film does a great deal to make clear.
http://tinyurl.com/2t53lz (http://tinyurl.com/2t53lz)
Overwrought 'Self-Medicated' a tad hard to swallow
By Bob Strauss
MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Launched: 08/31/2007 03:12:01 AM PDT
Monty Lapica's "Self-Medicated" has one really good thing going for it. The semi-autobiographical film in which the young writer-director also stars takes us inside a legally and medically questionable treatment facility for wayward youth and, in a persuasive but not too melodramatic way, exposes the abuses, absurdities and even some of the odd positive effects of such dubious institutions.
But that's about the only aspect of "Self-Medicated" that isn't overwrought. Or, for that matter, that's decently written and acted.
Andrew Eriksen, a bright, upper middle-class teenager, reacts to his father's death by partying too hard, letting his grades slip, getting into fistfights and randomly shooting pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip with (gasp) paintballs.
Played by writer-director Lapica, who is only a few years older than the character but looks at least a decade too old for the part, Andrew also constantly argues with his pill-popping mom, Louise (Diane Venora). Hypocrisy aside, she's genuinely worried about her only child's behavior and hires the friendly folks from Brightway to kidnap and "treat" him.
While he's fairly honest about what's wrong with Andrew and, sometimes, displays a wicked sense of humor, Lapica is also prone to portraying his alter ego as smarter and more cunning than anyone who tries to mess with him. Emotionalism -- there's a whole lot of crying and talking to God/Daddy's angel -- is also heavily indulged. And speaking of angels, do we really need another humble, magical African-American (William Stanford Davis plays a homeless spirit, named Gabe no less) to give the troubled white boy a good talking to?
Everyone can relate to losing a beloved parent and losing one's way, and "Self-Medicated" will surely move some viewers with the power of its premise alone. Heartfelt it clearly is. Disciplined and focused on what's truly intriguing about the story, not so much.
'self-medicated'
C
http://www.mercurynews.com/movies/ci_6768879 (http://www.mercurynews.com/movies/ci_6768879)
Passionate tale of rehabilitation hits home
By Janice Page, Globe Correspondent | August 31, 2007
Since debuting at the CineVegas Film Festival in 2005, "Self-Medicated" has collected top prizes at competitive showings from Memphis to Rome. It reportedly scored the most awards (39) of any independent film in 2006, so it has more than earned its current theatrical release. But the bar set by all those accolades might not have done this spunky little audience-charmer any real favors.
Loosely spun from the real-life bio of first-time writer, director, and star Monty Lapica, "Self-Medicated" is the kind of super-earnest emotional effort that tends to pull high marks when filmmaking expectations are low. The blond and handsomely chiseled Lapica is a commanding presence on-screen - even if he's not one of those underdeveloped 24-year-olds who can convincingly play 17 - and his story of grief and self-loathing hits home no matter how many clichés it incorporates.
The filmmaker's big-screen alter ego is Andrew, a brilliant young man who is already in the midst of self-destructing when we catch up with him and his friends as they drive along the Las Vegas Strip, stoned and shooting at pedestrians with a paintball gun. Andrew's larger-than-life father has recently died, leaving the teen adrift and very tightly wound, with only his prescription-drug-addicted mother (Diane Venora) to look to as a role model.
When Andrew goes down one too many wrong side streets, his overwhelmed surviving parent has him committed to the kind of rehab facility that comes to your house to get you in the middle of the night. What follows is the kind of intense psychological drama movies love, with repressed baddies overseeing the wards and patients blurting out their tragic pasts in group therapy session after group therapy session.
Lapica plays at satirizing the stereotypes, but his weak shots are almost as forced and obvious as the conventions they mock. Plus, not to make light of anyone's private hell but . . . it's hard to label this journey "harrowing" when the clinic's primary form of torture is essay writing.
Still, Lapica's debut impresses with its strong, clear voice and desire to tell a very personal story not just of substance abuse but of that abuse's painful root cause. It isn't a broad and gritty drug tale like "Requiem for a Dream," but it doesn't seem designed to be, either. "Self-Medicated" is basically an underage soap opera with a conscience and better-than-average style, the latter thanks in part to Denis Maloney's moody cinematography and Anthony Marinelli's sullen background music.
It's worth noting that the movie's spiritual underpinnings are sometimes fairly subtle and other times veer into "Touched by an Angel" territory. The third act is downright Bible-thumping. But even atheists stand to be moved by the sincerity of it, particularly for a film with so many curse words.
Janice Page can be reached at http://tinyurl.com/2vjbzt (http://tinyurl.com/2vjbzt)
The writer/director/star must have been out of his mind to make this
By BILL WHITE
SPECIAL TO THE P-I
While it is unfortunate that Monty Lapica had to live through the events portrayed in "Self Medicated," it is even more unfortunate that he felt compelled not only to write and direct a film based on those events but to star in it as well.
Suffering from depression in the wake of his father's death, Andrew Erikson (Lapica) develops an anti-social streak. After one too many incidents with school authorities and the police, his mother commits him to Brightway, a teen hospital that practices "coercive persuasion."
Even a credible 24-year-old actor would have difficulty playing a high school kid, and Lapica has zero credibility. He conveys anguish by closing his eyes and imagining himself as James Dean. For the more demonstrative scenes, he summons his emotive memory and throws a tantrum. He directs the rest of the cast as poorly as he directs himself. Even the venerable Diane Venora, as Andrew's pill-popping couch-potato mother, fails to turn in a decent performance.
Michael Bowen and Greg Germann play the Brightway counselors as smug and dangerous imbeciles, yet the script intermittently implies that Andrew could benefit from their treatment. The script's vacillation between a maudlin sympathy for the patients and a moral condemnation of their delinquent acts is one of the film's many problems.
Lapica's indictment of patient abuse at the Brightway Adolescent Hospital is weak, especially in view of charges brought against its real-life founder, Robert Lichfield. Punishments such as having to write essays of self-condemnation and being forced to stand for an hour in a small cell seem fairly trivial when compared with the allegations of psychic, physical and sexual abuse at Brightway.
Before the movie reaches its climax, it has created a mess that requires divine intervention. So Lapica calls in the angel Gabriel to deliver God's message to Andrew, the essence of which is to be kind to his mother. As the credits roll, you may wonder if you have just seen a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for sadistic Protestants or the most wholesome movie about juvenile delinquency since "The Cross and the Switchblade."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/32 ... lf31q.html (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/329690_self31q.html)
Drama ODs on its indie quirks
By James Verniere
Boston Herald Film Critic
Friday, August 31, 2007
While young writer-director Monty Lapica deserves full marks for getting this 2005 film made, “Self-Medicatedâ€
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Self-Medicated
by Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters Film and TV Editor
Types
Andrew (Monty Lapica) is in trouble. He first appears on screen riding around in a car with his buddies, raising hell on the streets of Vegas. The cameras are careening, the cuts chaotic, and the kids flush-faced with a sudden sense of power, as if they are, in fact, in control of the moment. The thrill is soon gone, of course, as sirens fill the air and cops pull them over. Cut to the next scene, as Drew’s mom Louise (Diane Venora) is awakened by a phone call—it’s the middle of the night and her night table is littered with pill bottles. More fatigued than alarmed, she sighs: “I know how to get there.â€
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Medicated without the sugar coating
Message film delivers on all levels
John Black, http://tinyurl.com/3427m8 (http://tinyurl.com/3427m8)
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Interesting stuff, but I won't read it because it requires a horizontal scroll. URL are too long.
Any objection to them being changed to tiny urls?
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I have no objection at all, if you are asking me.
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I have no objection at all, if you are asking me.
Grazie !!
Ah, Better for those who don't have mega monitors.
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I'll keep that in mind in the future.
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bump- worth the read.
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Roger Ebert's review seems the fairest and keeps in mind that Monty Lapica is very young and this is a tough subject for a debut.
Self Medicated can't be rented yet, I guess? My favorite local video store specializes in indie/foreign films, I'll ask if they would bring in a copy. I think it's important for the kids studying psychology (like my Freshman...unless she changes her mind, which is cool) to see Self Medicated and Over the GW.
Many of the kids I know who went through BM programs want to study psychology in college. It seemed odd to me at first, but these are the people who'll fix the mess from the inside if we can't do it through shaking the industry's cage.
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Some people think this industry only exists because of ignorance. They claim if only people knew what what end behind closed doors it would stop. This film maker very vividly had his chance to show people what goes on. Reading the reviews it is obvious only a few people believe what occurs is wrong. These reviews show that most people think what happens in these facilities are not abusive, and that the kids are spoiled brats who deserved what they got.
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Some people think this industry only exists because of ignorance. They claim if only people knew what what end behind closed doors it would stop. This film maker very vividly had his chance to show people what goes on. Reading the reviews it is obvious only a few people believe what occurs is wrong. These reviews show that most people think what happens in these facilities are not abusive, and that the kids are spoiled brats who deserved what they got.
I didn't get that impression from the negative reviews at all. My impression was that they fully believed what he went through, and that what he went through was fucked up, to the point that they felt he even sugar coated it compared to the charges that were brought against Lichfield. (If I read it correctly.) Their issues, for the most part, were filmic ones. That of story, editing, acting, and casting. And oh, good lord, I had no idea he had starred in it himself. Bad idea. Even if he *could* pass for 17.
For the most part, I hate critics, and never read any reviews before I have seen the movie myself, but one thing I do *strongly and completely* believe in, as an animator, artist, what-have-you, is that whatever story you want to tell... expose, autobiography, fiction, *has* to be a story told well.
I can't say for certain if this is the case with this film, because I have only read reviews, and like I said, I rarely follow them, because they can be wrong a lot of the times, or simply not jibe with my sensibilities.
the film is less an attempt to tear the lid off of those institutions than a brutal look at a young man completely unable to deal with his emotional trauma.
If this is indeed true, than it is a shame. If you want to tell your own story from your personal standpoint without contextualizing the industry, then go to an open-mic night and read it in the form of a poem or spoken word piece. (Which I am actually contemplating on doing, believe it or not.) But for the big screen, I'm afraid I have to put on my militant boots and say that there is something more important at stake than just talking about the demons you have transcended in your life. Although that can be a part of it, sure.
If I ever get this film started, regarding an expose on the industry as a whole, (as opposed to focusing on one school), I have made several stipulations with myself. One... I will only make the film as a co-director. I will choose a colleague who has never been to one of these places. I need that other side... i.e. the one with less bias. Not because I want them to sympathize with the facilities, but rather, he or she could be responsible for making sure that the piece isn't to self-serving or egocentric. Basically, they will help keep it on track if I get too emotional. Two... I will not interview myself, unless it is to explain my motivations for making the film overall (just to give it context), as opposed to speaking about my own experience in detail, which would be what the survivor testimony in the film would consist of. Three... any interviews conducted with people I knew while I was detained will be made by my partner, and not me. Four... the film will consist of testimony by survivors, parents, staff, and advocates such as Maia, footage touring the facilities, the history of the industry and its emergence from synanon, etc. It will not be a partially fictionalized autobiography.
If I were to make a film strictly about CEDU.... I would have someone else make it. I would be too close to the subject matter to portray it accurately, or get the story across in a believable or non-ham-handed manner. The last thing I want to be is Michael Moore.
Having said all this, the film most likely won't happen, because I am way too disorganized and irresponsible a person to get my shit together enough to do so. Plus, I am not a filmmaker. (I would probably be better as an editor or a storyboard artist.)
However, hopefully one day someone will make it, and I certainly am not planning on taking myself out of the running just yet. The world needs this film.
I think that writing/filming any autobiographical piece or memoir is extremely difficult, because of our unavoidable closeness to the subject matter. As such, it can sometimes compromise our ability to tell the story well. (Precisely why I will never tell one, but rather, deal with a subject that I have an investment in because of my own experience.)
I'm not saying my way is better. Just that I don't have the stuff to write or film autobio pieces. I just can't live through that crap again, and I know that I would make a really shitty movie if I did. (Especially if I acted in it, even if I weren't playing myself, which would be pretty fucking impossible anyway.)
So..... my point is, however ham-handed or cheesy Self-Medicated may or may not be, mad fucking props to Lapica for making it, especially at so young an age, and *especially* because he did it as an auteur. My only suggestion without seeing the film is that it probably wasn't a good idea to act in it himself. Gaglia (over the GW) had the advantage of some training and experience as an actor. I do acknowledge that there are indeed "naturals" out there (such as Jodi Foster) but they are rare.
I will say, the one review that really made me think was the one about it being a thinly disguised Jesus piece. hmmmmmm......
And as for Roger Ebert... Fuck him. He gave higher marks to Garfield than he did to The Incredibles. That man is certifiably insane.
Wow, this is the most art-snobby post I've ever put up in this forum, film-bitch that I am.
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Film bitch or Film Bastard?
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Film bitch or Film Bastard?
yes.
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I'm once again blissfully confused. No doubt the lack of sleep at 3.45 in the morning is helping me muddle along in my state of total confusion. Could be the jet lag, but who the heck knows?
Is this movie avaliable on DVD?
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I agree it would be great to see a movie that talks about the entire industry someday.
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Film bitch or Film Bastard?
yes.
::roflmao::