Wringing Hands Productions Official Website

ROCK BOTTOM
Distributor:Vanessa Domico, Outcast Films
Producer/Director: Jay Corcoran

a film by Jay Corcoran
61 minutes, Color, USA, 2006

NEW YORK TIMES
Published: March 1, 2007

Addiction, Magnified
"You always miss it: that world and that escape, that kind of sex," observes Peter Staley in Jay Corcoran's riveting, X-ray-acute documentary "Rock Bottom." Mr. Staley, an articulate, gay, H.I.V.-positive recovering methamphetamine user, has gained notice in recent years for showering the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan with posters bluntly connecting the popularity of crystal meth with rising rates of H.I.V. infection. "Rock Bottom," filmed over two and a half years in digital video, is a ground-level examination of the crystal meth epidemic in gay New York. It follows seven men struggling with addiction, showing them high and sober. One dies of complications from drug use and diabetes. The difference in appearance between those under the drug's influence and the same men after a few months of sobriety is startling. Tweakers, as meth users are called, are cadaverous, pallid creatures with bad skin and phosphorescent eyes who chatter as if possessed; sober, the same men appear calm, healthy and optimistic. Although experts are consulted, "Rock Bottom" is not a finger-wagging jeremiad. A graphic study of sex and drug addiction, it goes way beyond the pieties of the recovery and therapy movements to confront deeper questions about the pursuit of sensation. The bravado that a jolt of speed gives to men with shaky self-esteem in a still homophobic culture is an element of its appeal. But as men describe the intensified and prolonged pleasure of sex with meth, you realize that it belongs to the same category of sensation-seeking as race-car driving, skydiving and gambling. A craving for delirious excitement may be hard-wired into the male psyche, and danger is a crucial component of whatever gratifies it. In a certain segment of gay society, sex is the competitive sport of choice. As with steroids in the athletic arena, for some players, gaining an edge is worth any risk, even if it kills you.
--By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Rock Bottom: Gay Men and Meth
Hourlong, down-and-dirty DV-shot docu "Rock Bottom" follows seven gay men in New York City over a two-year period as they struggle with crystal meth addiction, responsible for an alarming spike in the spread of HIV. Helmer Jay Corcoran examines the growing "crystal sex" phenomenon where it breeds -- the bathhouses, locker rooms, porn sets and bedrooms of those for whom sex is inseparable from meth use. Improbably opening theatrically at Gotham's Quad Cinema, this remarkably candid, X-ratable cautionary tale is amassing some positive critical buzz on its way to more video-friendly venues.
In no way judgmental, Corcoran allows his subjects to explain, with varying degrees of self-knowledge and denial, the peculiar allure of crystal meth, particularly to those who are HIV-positive and are dealing with the fastidious maintenance, limitations and anxieties occasioned by the virus. They describe the rush of empowerment and the liberation of libido that lets them enjoy sex without thought or precaution. The drug may also, as they ruefully admit, eventually make them incapable of sex, or take nine hours to reach orgasm, or ignore the blatant signs of gonorrhea (described by one user in ghoulish detail), or even secretly glory in the spread of AIDS.
All of the subjects showcased here are or have been endeavoring to get clean. Corcoran catches up with each of them at varying stages of addiction, sobriety and backsliding. Since sex is a trigger for crystal meth addicts, of all the men interviewed, only a playwright who has been clean for five years has been able to reintegrate sex back into his sober life. In earlier stages, others are forced to radically alter their behavior or abstain entirely for a year in order to kick the habit.
The interviewees prove fascinating in their diversity; Corcoran maintains an intimacy and even suspense within the men's wry confessionals. Blessedly brief interviews with health-care professionals ring hollow by comparison.
Docu succeeds surprisingly well in illuminating the fearsome grip of crystal meth, which, in giving users a false feeling of invincibility, is undoing years of careful HIV control.
Tech credits are suitably primitive in this zero-budget DV-shot expose, though the docu's sound quality is particularly rough in patches.
--By RONNIE SCHEIB
VARIETY

"Three stars."
--Time Out New York

"Three stars."
--TV Guide Online

"Following seven New York City gay men as they struggle with meth addiction during the course of two years, "Rock Bottom" is raw and unsettling in its depiction of the insidiousness of the drug into the addict's life." --Christopher Wallenberg, NY BLADE
Read the full review:
NY BLADE

"Cautionary...disturbing...remarkable candor. [director] Jay Corcoran has never shied away from...painful and politically touchy aspects of gay male sexuality."
---Stephen Holden, New York Times, 6/4/06
Download the full NEW YORK TIMES Review (press here)

"...a stunning and important documentary..."
---Gary Kramer, Palm Springs BottomLine

Read the interview with Jay Corcoran (producer,director of "Rock Bottom") by Gary Kramer on the Palm Springs BottomLine website.

This is, if not worse than AIDS, the same, declares a grave CJ. He is one of seven gay men shown wrestling with an addiction to crystal meth in Rock Bottom: Gay Men & Meth. This harrowing film was screened back-to-back with Meth at Montreal's LGBT film fest, Image+Nation. Until the release of these two racy docs, the drug remained gay men's dirty little secret in a way that eerily recalls how the AIDS crisis was once kept under wraps...'
'...Jay Corcoran's Rock Bottom, in contrast, is a well-executed effort that smacks less of made-for-TV tricks. It paints a far more rounded portrait of the situation New York gay men currently face. Corcoran makes fully-fledged characters of his subjects and gives a voice to the community's psychiatrists, doctors and activists, who contextualize the battles being fought by these men.
In the film's opening sequence, we are acquainted with ex-porn star CJ, strung out on crystal and, by his own admission, horny in the bathroom of an East Village sex club. He tells the filmmaker, I'm gonna suck a lot of dick, since I can't suck yours. What follows is a stirring documentary in which Corcoran follows his subjects as they struggle to live a drug-free existence. Over a two-year period, these men generously bare all to Corcoran in their personal spheres, which results in an infinitely more affecting film than the constraining, by-the-book interview-heavy format of Meth.'

---read the full article by Michael-Oliver Harding on MAISONNEUVE

Rock Bottom: Gay Men and Meth Jay Corcoran's film is an eye-opening and gut-wrenching documentary about various gay guys in New York battling their addictions to Crystal Meth. Watching these men engage in dangerous behavior;sexually, emotionally, and physically,is certainly depressing, but it shows viewers just how insidious this drug is. Corcoran's unflinching portrait of men addicted to meth is a brave testament to how difficult addiction and recovery is a message that obviously bears repeating. Even the men in this film who know what it means to struggle and survive remain on a slippery slope of recovery. Rock Bottom is quite revealing, and as painful as it is, it is also necessary viewing.
---Gary Kramer, Philadelphia Gay News

Raw, intimate and often deeply unsettling, ROCK BOTTOM offers more than just an exposé of the ongoing crystal meth crisis within gay communities in the US. Working closely with seven gay men who have been struggling with meth addiction in different ways, Jay Corcoran has produced a groundbreaking work that reveals the multiple and complex layers of personal and collective trauma which haunt contemporary gay male identity: loss, survival, guilt, fear, depression and addiction. This powerful documentary provokes many urgent and important questions about how to support and sustain gay men's health at the beginning of the 21st century. ROCK BOTTOM needs to be seen, but above it all, it demands to be discussed.
---Roger Hallas, Author of "Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness and the Queer Moving Image" (forthcoming).

reveals areas of the gay male psyche no caress can heal. A profoundly moving account of how queer people are still survivors, carrying memories and wounds we either barely know or barely acknowledge.
---Jonathan David Katz, Founding Director, Larry Kramer Initiative, Yale University

AND WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID:

Crystal meth abuse gets a gritty and frank expose. in Jay Corcoran's hour long documentary unvarnished and explicit personal testimonies give this film a visceral impact.
- Logan Hill, New York Magazine

amazing look at the travesty the drug is wreaking on a population still reeling from the AIDS crisis.
- Jerry Portwood, New York Press

A startling, sobering look at Crystal Meth addiction.
- The Advocate

A phenomenal documentary...unflinchingly honest
- The Orange County Blade

Startling, captures the vicious cycle of use, sobriety and relapse.
---Sean Bugg, Metroweekly, DC

Unflinchingly honest.. ---Stan Jenson, Orange County (CA) Blade

"Terrific" ---Bay Area Reporter

"Too alarming to be ignored" ---Philadelphia City Paper

"A testament to how difficult addiction and recovery is, a message that bears repeating" ---Philadelphia Gay News

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