MAN OF VENDETTA (2010)

After his daughter is kidnapped and all attempts at getting her back fail, a preacher believes that she's dead and renounces his faith. Eight years later he receives a call out of the blue and she's still alive!  Oh thank Jesus!  He's given one month to get together $400,000 or she will be killed.

As far as revenge movies go, MAN OF VENDETTA is pretty good. The pacing is nice, the camerawork is fresh, the kidnapper dude is fucking nuts and the acting commendable. But what's disappointing is the violence just isn't at the level the audience wants. I SAW THE DEVIL is a good example of what I'm talking about. The story in ISTD isn't anything amazing and the runtime is a little too long, but the violence is so raw and unpredictable that you can't peel your eyes from the screen! MOV has moments of excitement, but it's a little too predictable for my tastes. And at nearly two hours it overstayed it's welcome.

Worth a one time watch, but that's about it.

SHAME (2011)

Michael Fassbender lives in NYC. He has a high paying job, an swank apartment and a massive sexual addiction that's bordering on crippling. This dude is all about sex. He's nonstop surfing porn and jacking off, banging whores like it's going out of style and in the peaceful moments between all the stroking and pumping, he's eyeballing every woman that walks by. Of course, it helps that he's handsome as fuck and has a cush job. If he was some fucked up Ottis Toole-looking motherfucker it'd be a totally different story, but let's leave that to somebody else to direct. Because what director/co-writer Steve McQueen has captured here is a riveting glimpse of a outwardly normal man who is severely fucked up inside.  He's haunted by past demons. We're not told what they are, but it clearly has something to do with his childhood, so when his younger sister unexpectedly shows up it drives him to the edge...and maybe over? Well, you just have to see for yourself.

I cannot rave about SHAME enough. I enjoyed it from beginning to end.  The acting, the direction, the cinematography, hell even the lighting was awesome...and the original score! It was was perfect. No music in the world could have captured that moment on the subway better than it did. I literally watched that scene like six times times. I was in movie heaven. So how is it that a film that can transport a grouchy movie nerd like me to movie heaven be completely overlooked by the Academy Awards last year? I have no clue. There had to be some kind of weird disqualification or something. Because, in my opinion, SHAME should have had a number of nominations. Including a Best Actor award for Michael Fassbender. He was already robbed for FISH TANK, so they owe him.

In conclusion, if THE WAR ZONE and MYSTERIOUS SKIN were brother and sister and they were forced by their father, AMERICAN PSYCHO, to have sex and have a baby, the baby would be SHAME. Watch it and you'll see what I'm getting at.

I hate it when people spell cum "come". Stephen King does that and it makes me mental.