standsomething2

Man, I haven't thought about this movie in a very long time. But I always thoroughly enjoyed Eight Legged Freaks when it came out. A friend and myself went to see it in theaters when we were in high school, and we always joked about it for years to come, because we both shared the same sense of humor, so we enjoyed quirky movies like this. It is by no means some masterfully made movie with a deep plot, or anything like that. But it is a really fun movie, that has many moments that incite laughter. Like I said though, it's not some masterpiece of comedy, or film making in general, and requires you to not read into the movie too much to where you start picking out things that don't make sense left and right. So if you are incapable of just turning off your brain for an hour and a half to simply enjoy a light hearted, quirky movie with some dumb humor, then Eight Legged Freaks is probably not for you lol. But if you enjoy movies with such elements, give it a shot if you have never done so in the last 20 years since it was released haha, because I bet you will enjoy it.

This movie is seriously under appreciated, and not nearly as well known as it deserves. Any time I have ever brought something from this movie up in the past around friends or something like that, no one has ever even heard of this movie, let alone actually having seen it lol. Which, in my opinion, is just such a shame, as it is a fantastic movie with an all-star cast. Like really, Chris Pratt, Oscar Isaacs, Channing Tatum, Justin Long, Anthony Mackie, Rosario Dawson, Scott Porter, Jenna Dewan, Kate Mara, Aubrey Plaza, Lynn Collins, Aaron Yoo, and a few others who aren't quite as well known. Its a really fun movie with plenty of laughs throughout. I was actually surprised that I had never heard of it a few years back when I just happened to stumble onto it while trying to find something new to watch. It really seems like this movie was never even really promoted prior to, or after it's release. Which is crazy to me. Like why the hell would you not promote a movie like this with so many great, well known actors in it? Makes no sense to me that's for sure. If you haven't seen it, do so, and you will not regret it.

So overall I think it's a great show, that does a fantastic job of showing/chronicling the opiate epidemic that exists in the US to this day. It pulls no punches in showing exactly how opioid painkillers directly ruined the lives of so many people, as well as directly led to the deaths of 500,000+ people in the years since Purdue Pharma released, and fraudulently marketed Oxycontin as a safe, non-addictive painkiller to doctors all over the country, caring only about how much money they made off of selling as much OxyContin as they possibly could. They did not care about ruined lives, or people who died as a direct result of their fraudulent marketing strategies. They cared only about how much money they could make, and as one of those people myself, who were duped by their lies, and got addicted to OxyContin after a car accident left me with debilitating back pain and it was prescribed to me by my doctor, this whole series really hits home for me. I can only be thankful that I was one of the lucky ones who were able to get off of that poison before I too just ended up as another statistic in the death column of those who lost their lives to opiates/opioids. Unfortunately I've had many friends that weren't so lucky, who did die because of them.

That being said, there was one aspect of the show that I did not like, and that is the way they chose to about telling the story. The story takes place of the course of many years, and instead of telling the story as a linear progression, like most shows and stories, they for some reason chose to have the story be told by bouncing around between years. For instance, showing scenes that happened in 1996, then jumping forward to 2006 for a few scenes, and then jumping back to the 90's again. And they do this in every single episode, to the point where sometimes it is very difficult to keep up with when in the story certain events are taking place. I found myself on more than a few occasions, having to rewind in order to check what year certain events were taking place because of how difficult it can be to keep track of dates due to the odd choice of portraying the story that way, instead of the normal, linear progression that is used in normal story telling. I really don't understand the point of chosing to do things the way that they did. Doesn't make much sense to me, and as I stated, can become really annoying and frustrating. But I'm not saying that it's not a good show, because it is, but it just can just be hard to follow in my opinion.