ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE (54)

Directed by: Larry Clark

Starring: James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, Natasha Gregson Warner

The Pitch: A middle-aged couple of junkie thieves take a rootless adolescent couple under their wing, making for a kind of improvised family.

Theo Sez: Larry Clark is so full of shit - and I say that with a certain affection, for there's much to enjoy in this deeply meretricious slice of junkie chic, what with Woods at his most furiously high-octane as a fast-talking Fagin and Griffith in photogenically-ravaged mode as his moll, bringing rueful warmth to her been-there-done-that teasing ("I lo-o-ove desperados") ; of all her roles, this may be the closest to how her tough-but-vulnerable nymphet in NIGHT MOVES might've turned out had she been allowed to grow up. She also shoots up in the neck, twice, Clark making such a big deal of it you'd think there was something real in that needle - or, indeed, that there was anything real in the whole flashy enterprise, despite (though of course because of) its grungy look and bluesy, wall-to-wall soundtrack (can you really plaster a moody ballad over your heroine's death and still make claims to gritty authenticity?). Good cheap fun nonetheless, with its gun-toting preachers and giggly-stoned teens holding cigarettes between their toes ; plus, when all else fails, it plays quite nicely as Dirty Old Man's masochistic rejection-fantasy, with Clark's camera leching desperately after juvenile delinquent Kartheiser, a tousled-haired teen with angelic features - who also happens to be a rabid faggot-hater.