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Reviews
&Me (2013)
They cried, I didn't
I would have loved to give this film more, but it is really at almost every level poor. First the script, I love meandering films about people who try to live their life and cope with it. But this is so utterly uninteresting: it never relates to anything deeply human, it is so very shallow. They talked a lot in the film, but I did not hear one interesting line: no good for a film about human emotions and interactions and no action movie. You did instead hear a lot of: "What do you mean?" or "What's the matter?" or "I love you", "Me too". Poor writing. Then the actors themselves. Quite bad casting or not knowing what to cast (I think the latter). And did the director tell the girl just one thing? To be stupid, naive and giggle all the time? Small part but also bad: her mother. So cliché, more cliché's by the way, for instance the opera with Maria Callas as an illustration for their mood (and not being from the street, the maker wants to tell us obviously). The German guy was OK, you saw him trying to make the best of it, but with such poor material he had no chance. The worst was the Dutch guy. He had to play someone who is gradually really understanding what was happening, to himself and the others, at least that's what I could make up from it, but failed heavily in the scenes he was supposed to act that out. The worst was their lack of chemistry. Not only among themselves they hadn't, but also I had not one moment of love or emotion for the characters, how hard the director tried, letting them cry on screen. They cried, I didn't.
Shame (2011)
Big disappointment, even making me angry
Sorry to say, but this has nothing to do with a true artistic film: for instance the frequent use of old Johann Sebastian Bach to emphasize emotion. Tacky, any decent artistic filmmaker would throw up only at the idea to use the old masters tunes in a realistic setting like this. Really really disappointed with the whole actually, it did not move me, it did not give an insight etc. Fortunately the actors are among the best this world has to offer, but even Fassbender fails in one of the last 'emotional' scenes in the rain (oh my god, in the pouring rain, how can the filmmaker come up with the idea?). Even though he is really a fine actor, his task was undo-able here. You can't believe him. You see the construction that poor Michael has to fill in. And he fails. You can't blame him though. It's the director. And what about the ending with the attempted suicide. The subway stops for a police control and oh yes, Fassbender remembers his sister was almost attempting suicide in the subway earlier and for some reason he senses he has to run home. And guess what: his premonition was right. He finds her covered with blood in a horribly out of the place almost aesthetic scene with the white clothes/tiles/hair and the red blood, tasteless, tasteless. But not just that, for what kind of bad story telling was this??? Any decent Hollywood movie would never let this happen. But this filmmaker gets away with all this crap in most of the 'good taste'-media.
People who like this are untrue and completely phony. I thought the filmmaker was not, but he is. Sorry to say. 'We are not bad people, but we come from a bad place'....how dare you use this shallow psychology in such a cheap manner, Mr. McQueen. I thought you were smart. I was wrong.