Hunger (2008) - McQueen's overrated feel-bad debut

♥

 

+ Most Overrated Movie of the Year  

 

Star Michael Fassbender lights a cigarette on this gloomy poster for Steve McQueen's Hunger

The Troubles, Northern Ireland, 1981: Over 2,100 Irishmen are killed in the course of battle. We follow the Irish inmates in one prison holding IRA terrorists. One of them begins a new hunger strike and dies, and they consequently have demands met. 

 

Hunger is written by Enda Walsh (Weightless (2017)) and English master filmmaker, debuting co-writer/director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave (2013)). It is based on the real-life 1981 Irish hunger strike and 'dirty protest' in the Maze Prison.

This could perhaps have been a good film, but what McQueen has made is a stubby, icy cold cornfield of a picture. The first half is rife with ridiculously disgusting scenes with piss and shit on the walls, food on the floor, maggots and cavemen-like prisoners, who are beaten to a pulp, almost entirely without dialog. This has the effect of leaving the viewer exhausted and totally apathetic as to every one involved, when they actually start talking together, which culminates in a grotesquely long conversation scene told in just two shots. SPOILER After this, Hunger's 'hero', Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger strike prisoner portrayed by Michael Fassbender (300 (2006)), starves himself to death.

Some call this uniquely negative experience film high art. - I call it a feel-bad turkey.

 

Related posts:

Steve McQueen: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

12 Years a Slave (2013) - The inhumanity of slavery portrayed forcefully in awesome film
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]    

Shame (2011) or, That Empty Sex 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: Estimated 1.5 mil. £, approximately 2.04 mil. $

Box office: 3.1 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.51 times its cost)

[Hunger premiered 15 May (Cannes Film Festival, out of competition) and runs 96 minutes. The film opened #95 to a 1k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, where it peaked at #61 and in 11 theaters, grossing 154k $ (5 % of the total gross). The film's biggest markets were the UK with 1.2 mil. $ (38.7 %), France with 834k $ (26.9 %) and Italy with 397k $ (12.8 %). It won 1/2 BAFTA nominations, 3/7 British Independent Film awards, 2 prizes in Cannes, 1/3 European Film award nominations, was nominated for an Independent Spirit award, among many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to 4 notches over this one. McQueen returned with 3 shorts prior to his theatrical return with Shame (2011). Fassbender returned in Eden Lake (2008); Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones (2012-19)) in Paris Noir (2008, short), Atlantic (2008, short) and theatrically in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008). Hunger is certified fresh at 90 % with a 7.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hunger?

A Hole in My Heart/Ett Hål i Mitt Hjärta (2004) or, A Hole in My Brain

[ZERO]

 

+ 3rd Worst Movie of the Decade

+ Worst Movie of the Year

A young woman seems to have passed out in some cereal or her own vomit on this poster for Lukas Moodysson's A Hole in My Heart

4 people are in a small, ugly apartment; 3 of them are making a porno flick. The fourth is an insufferably depressed emo-son of one of the pornographers.

A Hole in My Heart is a complete botch by Swedish master writer-director Lukas Moodysson (Lilya 4-Ever (2002)). It is a bit as if a white racist had made a film about blacks, this simply being the deeply prejudiced, one-sided and unwatchable pornography narrative conjured up by a pornography-hater. Few if any good films have ever sprung from hate, and A Hole in My Heart sure isn't one to change that.
The mix of nonsense is dreadfully related to us in off-putting digital photography. The least unsympathetic of the four is the exceedingly drab son, (played by Björn Almroth, who hasn't appeared in anything before or since), and this may constitute the movie's primary sin: It is unbearably dull throughout, as well as pretentious in the extreme.
I value some of Moodysson's other films tremendously, but I don't hesitate in calling A Hole in My Heart a mountain of plot-deprived bull. Trash.

 

Related post:

 

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

An interview with Moodysson in connection with his most recent film, We Are the Best!/Vi Är Bäst! (2013)

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (but likely a mega-flop)
[A Hole in My Heart premiered 10 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 98 minutes. Moodysson initially intended to shoot the film in the US and ask Christina Aguilera and Sylvester Stallone to star in it, but realized he couldn't do it. It was shot in 4 weeks in Trollhättan, Sweden in August 2003. At least one of the cast members, Thorsten Flinck, reportedly took morphine during shooting to cope with the troubling work.The film was released with a 'disturbing images'-warning on its posters in Sweden, which the censors there hadn't done since Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò (1976). It was shown in a few theaters, and 16,425 paid admission there in its first two weeks. In Denmark, who acted as co-producing country behind the film, just 1,402 paid admission to see it. The film was released in 1 theater in North America, where it played for two weeks at #112 and #131 and grossed 3,784 $. If the budget was a modest 5 mil. SEK (approximately 0.56 mil. $), the film looks like a mega-flop theatrically. It was, incredibly, nominated for the European Film Award and the Nordic Council Film Prize. A Hole in My Heart is rotten at 41 % with a 4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of A Hole in My Heart?

Daisy Diamond (2007) - Staho's feel-bad baby drama

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Feel-Bad Movie of the Year

The elegant and ominous poster for Simon Staho's Daisy Diamond

QUICK REVIEW:

Anna is a single mother with her baby girl Daisy. She attends auditions, but Daisy disrupts with her screams, and there is no one there to help Anna out.

Daisy Diamond is the 4th feature from Danish writer-director Simon Staho (The Miracle/Miraklet (2013)), co-written with Peter Asmussen (Bridgend (2015)). It is a relentlessly gloomy, unpleasant film, which plays with our perception of the narrative's reality more than once at Anna's auditions that mirror her personal misery.
It features an impressive ensemble of fine Danish actors headed by Swede Noomi Rapace (The Drop (2014)), who gives herself over to her part and Staho to an impressive degree.
The film is wild, daring and uncompromising. Everyone is a bastard, which also comes over a bit one-sided. - The colossal Weltschmerz that drives through Daisy Diamond is somewhat sophomoric, and its seemingly unending close-ups are at times vulgar. Also, the confessional scene with Dejan Cukic (Borgia (2011-14)) doesn't work.
Still, Daisy Diamond is an intensely nightmarish, subjectively realistic drama.

Related posts:

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a preview for the film with English subtitles here

Cost: Reportedly 1 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (but undoubtedly a mega-flop)
[Daisy Diamond was released November 23 and runs 99 minutes. It was shot in Brøndby Strand, Denmark. Only 2,337 bought admission to the film in its native country. It has been shown at 6 international film festivals, and Rapace won the two top actress honors in Denmark of the year, the Bodil and Robert awards, for her portrayal of Anna. Trine Dyrholm (The Celebration/Festen (1998)) was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress at both functions for her acting in the film. Controversy arose in Sweden due to possible abuse of the babies used as actors in the film, without any response given from Staho or Rapace. Daisy Diamond has been given a 6.1 rating by 829 IMDb-users.]

What do you think of Daisy Diamond?