• Episodes

    Episode 078: Drugs are Bad, MMKay? Requiem for a Dream (2000) with Melissa Maffeo

    March 25, 2024 / 0 Comments

    Join Alex and guest host Dr. Melissa Maffeo as they delve into the seedy world of drug addiction in one of Darren Aronofsky’s earlier films Requiem for a Dream (2000). The film stars up-and-coming Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans, as well as Hollywood great Ellen Burstyn, as four folks who get caught up in their addictions, fueled by their dreams of better lives and fame. In true Aronofsky form, the visuals and filmmaking get you caught up in these addictions, how they manifest and how they actually destroy the dreams of our four main characters. This film isn’t for the faint of heart, but represents the dark qualities that wait around the corner of drug use and abuse — perfect for dissecting the models of addiction!…

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  • Episodes

    Episode 064: Sex, Drugs, and Psychoanalysis? A Dangerous Method (2011) with Sheila Thomas

    June 5, 2023 / 0 Comments

    Join Alex and guest host Dr. Sheila Thomas as they chat about the connection and the eventual schism of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud in David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller (?) A Dangerous Method, based on the book A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein, and the stage play The Talking Cure. The film stars Michael Fassbender as Jung and Viggo Mortensen as Freud, with Kiera Knightley as Sabina Spielrein. Spielrein enters Jung’s life as a woman with hysteria (not a real disorder), but that turns into an affair with Jung, as he grapples with expanding psychoanalysis into something bigger than what Freud says he wants (lol, to be “empirical” and a “science!”).…

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