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hyped garbage

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Stephen Elliott (Franco) is upset and embarrassed when he reads excerpts from his latest novel when Neil Elliott (Harris) shows up to let everyone know they are being played as he is not dead as his son writes about him. The father and son duel goes on and we in the audience are not sure who to believe about things that happened in Stephen's life as each makes a lot of sense. The beginning of this movie seemed to indicate we were in for another druggie movie and I almost shut this down. Then the TV on screen shows a murder trial courtroom scene and this captures Stephen's interest. Ours too. The father, Hans Reiser (Christian Slater), is accused of killing his wife and claims he did no such thing and that he always acted on the behalf of his kids. Stephen realizes that his father always claimed the same thing. Stephen believes he can prove his father wrong and tell the world the truth and get his writing career back on track. He gets Lana (Amber Heard) to help him get paperwork proving he was all the things his father said was not true. Later we learn that Stephen takes Adderall among other drugs. We knew about the other drugs, but not Adderall until now. Hmmm……I must say this time James Franco has a role that works for him as he invested himself completely. Kudos. As for Ed Harris, well, he does steal all the scenes his in. He is just that good. But wait ….. there is another actor who seems to command scenes, too, and that is Jim Parrack (Who?) who plays Roger, Stephen's boyhood friend. I'm sure we will see more of him in other movies. Keep an eye. Yes, there is a twist later on and I think we all knew what it would be. The question is will this revelation actually help Stephen? Should the Director have spent more time talking about the effects of Adderall or did the movie do this for us? Inquiring minds want to know. (7/10)Violence: Yes. Sex: Yes. . Nudity: Yes. Language: Yes.

When I heard there was a movie about a struggling writer and a murder trial, I couldn't wait to have my pop corn ready and my DVD on. Oh how wrong I was. Being a movie lover, I NEVER stop a movie before it's over, no matter how bad it is. Well I stopped this one around 50 minutes into it (if it was going to get better it would've). Aside from the impersonal and bad improvising-like script, Amber Heard gave such an apathetic performance, through which all I could think about was GET YOUR DAMN HAIR OFF YOUR FACE. There was no attachment whatsoever to any of the characters, the "love story" between Heard and Franco was more of a porn/badly done 50 shades of gray bdsm relationship; I mean half an hour into the movie and more than 5 sex scenes and no interesting storyline yet. The abused/drug addict couple has been such a cliché that we honestly do not need new ones. All in all the story had such a potential that both the actors and the director failed to develop to make it interesting.The abused kid who transfers his hatred onto any case that seems identical to his past is TOO deja vu. My advice: don't bother watching. All you will end up seeing is a cascade of drug use, bad sex scenes and meaningless script (that's ironic for a movie about a writer).

This movie is journey about coming to terms with who you are and how you became that person. The enigmatic Franco plays a deeply troubled writer who is trying to come to terms with his traumatic past and the heartbreakingly tumultuous relationship he had with his father. Along the way, he meets the beautiful Amber Heard. This is why I did not give the movie more stars. If it was the writers intent to portray her as damaged as he was, it was an epic fail. She came across as strong and self-assured -almost cocky at times - not what you would expect from someone reeling from childhood trauma. It was no fault of Heard's - her character was just badly written. Ed Harris rocks the screen, as usual, as the domineering father who haunts his dreams and creates the clouds of his past that he can't see through.The mind is amazing - we can do all sorts of things to protect ourselves. The ability to alter our memories is only one tool of many. This one is worth your time.

"The Adderall Diaries" (2015 release; running time: 90 min.) brings the story of how Stephen Elliott (played by James Franco) deals with his distant past and also some current setbacks. As the movie opens, we see grainy video footage of a seemingly happy family. We then move to today, where Elliot gets the good news that Penguin has accepted a book proposal. In a parallel story, Elliot gets interested in a murder case (software engineer, played by Christian Slater, "disappears" his wife), and at the trial, Elliot makes the acquaintance of Lana, a NY Times reporter (played by Amber Heard. To tell you more might spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: this is the feature length debut of writer-director Pamela Romanowsky, who was handpicked by James Franco himself for this job. The movie is based on the Stephen Elliot book of the same name. I have not read the book so I cannot compare how closely (or not) the movie is to the book. I had high expectations going in for this movie. Oh boy, what a disappointment this turned out to be, and I'm being mild. It takes a little while to figure out what is going on, but when it finally start to male sense, I waited to get transfixed. I waited, and waited.... Meanwhile, we see poor James Franco playing the tormented writer, struggling with writers block, and his horrible past, and it all feels so... acted!. We watch, and it does nothing for us. Thankfully there is Amber Heard, always easy on the eyes (and reason I don't give the movie just one star). Ed Harris (as Elliott's dad) and Christian Slater do the best they can with the material they are given, meaning not a whole lot. PLEASE NOTE: the running time is listed here on IMDb, Amazon and other places as being 105 min., but I can categorically tell you that the version I saw today was at most 90 min. Maybe the 105 min. refers to what was shown as the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, where this movie premiered. Yes, a year ago. Also, it turns out that Stephen Elliott himself has disavowed the movie.The movie opened today out of the blue without any pre-release advertising or fanfare at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The early evening screening where I saw this at was not well attended, and I'm being mild (4 people, including myself). I can't imagine this will play in the theater more than a week. There is a reason this movie currently scores only 20 on Rotten Tomatoes: it's a pretty bad movie, in fact one of the worst I've seen in quite a while (and I see a lot of movies). Unless you are a die-hard fan of James Franco or Amber Heard, there is no reason at all to waste 90 or 105 min. on this. I'm sorry that I watched this movie, but that doesn't mean you have to.... Viewer beware!