Clean and Sober (1988)
February 5, 2025 3:19 PM - Subscribe
A hustling drug addict checks himself into rehabilitation to escape trouble with the law and realizes that it's exactly what he needs.
Sooner or later, a funnyman will seek a vehicle that lets him prove that he can actually act. This was Keaton’s. He’s quite good in it.
On the whole, one of the more convincing screen portrayals of recovery that I’ve seen.
Sooner or later, a funnyman will seek a vehicle that lets him prove that he can actually act. This was Keaton’s. He’s quite good in it.
On the whole, one of the more convincing screen portrayals of recovery that I’ve seen.
I’ve seen this movie many times, it’s a long-time low key favorite. I hadn’t been much of a Keaton fan but he really impressed me here, he’s so much like so many people I ran into in one of my early jobs and his performance felt really right to me.
I also was really impressed with the way the story had him transferring his addiction from drugs to a person—that was something my partner had told me a lot about at the time, he was a few years out from having done something like it himself. I hadn’t had any addiction experience in my family, and didn’t really know much about it when I saw the movie the first time, so I was often cringing about everything. But the more I learned, the more impressed with the movie I was.
The scenes with M. Emmet Walsh were amazing and Kathy Baker is, as always, incredible. It’s a really tight script. My main complaint is the one I have for so many 90s movies—god, everything looks so terrible. What was it about them that they have such grainy, grayed color palettes and look so bleak? Every time I return to my old favorites, I get so depressed just from their film quality. Even when they’re filmed in summer, they look like no one had ever heard about how to color grade film stock.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 6:35 PM on February 11 [1 favorite]
I also was really impressed with the way the story had him transferring his addiction from drugs to a person—that was something my partner had told me a lot about at the time, he was a few years out from having done something like it himself. I hadn’t had any addiction experience in my family, and didn’t really know much about it when I saw the movie the first time, so I was often cringing about everything. But the more I learned, the more impressed with the movie I was.
The scenes with M. Emmet Walsh were amazing and Kathy Baker is, as always, incredible. It’s a really tight script. My main complaint is the one I have for so many 90s movies—god, everything looks so terrible. What was it about them that they have such grainy, grayed color palettes and look so bleak? Every time I return to my old favorites, I get so depressed just from their film quality. Even when they’re filmed in summer, they look like no one had ever heard about how to color grade film stock.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 6:35 PM on February 11 [1 favorite]
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posted by Halloween Jack at 2:40 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]