The things they say....Hunger

http://www.thevastpictureshow.com/2010/01/films-of-decade.html

Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)
Michael Fassbender is unforgettable as Bobby Sands. A work of stunning originality and dazzling cinematic expression. A visceral thump to the senses.

http://themovie-fanatic.com/index.php/annual_review/david-top-ten-movies-of-2009

McQueen’s eye for detail and Fassbender’s willingness to succumb himself to such a deplorable state expands the entire film’s scope. The two work at such masterful levels that they are able to create soul and vitality to the inanimate. In Fassbender’s case he’s able to give Sands a heart that wants to pursue a goal when all others in his position sit and watch the world of politics swallow them whole.

http://www.bigthoughtsfromasmallmind.blogspot.com/2010/01/best-films-of-2009.html

Michael Fassbender was merely good in Inglourious Basterds, but he is simply brilliant here.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/new-release-dates-dvd-blu-ray/25281-dvd-releases-february-16-a.html

Featuring an intense performance by Michael Fassbender

http://cliched-monologues.blogspot.com/2010/02/hunger-2008.html

The movie, which doesn’t really have any plot per se, received a shot in the arm thanks to an absolutely terrific performance by Michael Fassbender (in the role of Sands),

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2010/02/02/best-of-2009-movies/

Hunger tells the tale of Bobby Sands (played by a superb Michael Fassbender) and the 1981 IRA hunger strike he led at Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison.

http://magna-toontown.blogspot.com/2010/02/karens-picks.html

1. Hunger
Harrowing and brilliant, the English video artist Steve McQueen’s feature-film debut uses the lens of Bobby Sands’ historic IRA hunger strike in a notoriously abusive British prison to show you everything you’ll ever need to know about the ineradicable human urge for lethal conflict. Michael Fassbender's performance is never less than astonishing.

http://projectmoonshine.blogspot.com/2010/02/top-twenty-of-decade-0-false-18-pt-18.html

Some of the strongest acting to come out of a film in a long time from lead actor Michael Fassbender.

http://wildlines.blogspot.com/2010/02/best-scenes-of-2009-final-thoughts.html

The sequence, a very long conversation between IRA prisoner Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender, who had a hell of a year) and a visiting priest (Liam Cunningham), operates beautifully both in and out of context. Which is to say, it's both essential to the film's architecture and wholly successful as a standalone piece—two superb actors, one room and, for the lion's share of its marathon runtime, one static shot.

Regardless, this single scene, a debate about the morality of a hunger strike, does a pretty stellar job investing the movie around it with questions. It's also the best bit of acting I saw all year.

http://kdrv.com/page/161575

We see it for ourselves. Fassbender went on a crash diet for this role. From the footage, I can't even begin to imagine what that entailed. For his sake, I hope the makeup artists were just that good.

http://7x7.com/blogs/screen-shots/home-movies-hunger-steven-soderberghs-che-get-criterion-makeovers

As Sands, Fassbender (Fish Tank) was required to lose an astonishing 40 pounds off his already gaunt frame. He captures well the righteous rage of a man married to his convictions, one who believes a life without dignity is no life at all. The performance is blistering, but watching a man disintegrate before our eyes – McQueen includes a passage graphically explaining the ravaging effects of starvation – is perhaps the movie’s most harrowing contribution.

http://secretcinema1-accidentalbeauty.blogspot.com/2010/02/last-five-films-youve-seen.html

Hunger: Steve McQueen's brilliant, intense, original Bobby Sands movie. In which I discovered Michael Fassbender. I may never recover.

http://best-buying.com/hunger/

Featuring an intense performance by Michael Fassbender, Hunger is an unflinching, transcendent depiction of what a human being is willing to endure to be heard.

Guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) serves as a guide into the hell of Belfast’s Maze Prison, circa 1981, where Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender in a remarkable performance) and his IRA brethren hunker down in blankets, since they refuse to don uniforms and can’t wear their own clothes.

Michael Fassbender does an excellent job at playing Sands. He seems to really get into the role and towards the end, because of how much he starves himself, he really looks frighteningly skinny. If anything, the movie is worth watching for him alone. The whole time he’s on screen, he’s hard to look at because of how thin he is.

Fassbender: Makes the movie

In spite of the care and patient control with which this powerful film is shot and edited, “Hunger” is a deeply visceral and moving film, featuring a brilliant performance by Michael Fassbender in the lead role.

http://www.dvdtown.com/review/hunger-the-criterion-collection/dvd/7808

Michael Fassbender, most recently seen as the heroic film critic in "Inglourious Basterds," put the finishing touch on a physically committed performance by spending ten weeks on a stringent diet, transforming his already trim body into a skeletal frame.

McQueen won the Camera d´Or at Cannes (given to the best feature debut) and pulled in dozens of critical awards across the globe. Fassbender was similarly feted.

http://livingincinema.com/2010/02/09/new-on-dvd-hunger-revanche-coco-before-chanel/

Rising star Michael Fassbender gives a fully committed performance as Sands. The best scene is a long, single-shot conversation between Fassbender and Liam Cunningham as a priest. It doesn’t sound like fireworks, but it really is.

http://turnoffyourcellphone.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/ok-i-suppose-ill-finally-do-a-top-10-of-2009/

Looking back at Michael Fassbender’s performance (as well as experiencing his very nuanced turn in this year’s Fish Tank) has made him one of my current acting favs – he’s goanna blow up into a big leading man in the next year or so – just you wait!

http://resident-theology.blogspot.com/2010/02/top-10-films-of-2009.html

The year of 2009 was the year of Michael Fassbender,

http://wildsidecinema.blogspot.com/2010/02/hunger-theatrical-2008.html

Michael Fassbender alone is reason enough to see this movie, his horrifying transformation throughout the titular strike is truly sickening. Witnessing his frail, bed-sore covered body deteriorate into nothing is going to be looked back on as THE display of onscreen method-masochism for years to come.

http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/9948/blu-ray-review-galvanizing-hunger-paints-unforgettable-portrait-of-revolt

Fassbender is no stranger to physically demanding roles, having survived “300,” “Inglourious Basterds,” and the especially grisly “Eden Lake.” His performance here is electrifying not merely because of the dramatic weight loss, but because Fassbender captures the impassioned spirit of a man determined to send a message to the world, even if it means fading from it.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/holliston/fun/entertainment/x1025060329/Movie-Man-In-the-Loop-driven-by-double-talk

“Hunger”: Before he played a film-critic-turned-soldier in “Inglourious Basterds,” actor Michael Fassbender lost a whole lot of weight for this powerful movie about a hunger strike.

http://www.premiumhollywood.com/2010/02/13/hunger/

After his short but memorable role as undercover operative Lt. Archie Hicox in the WWII epic, “Inglourious Basterds,” Michael Fassbender shot to the top of my actors to watch list. Quentin Tarantino’s film may have put him on the map, but even before its release, Fassbender was earning strong reviews for his performance in artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen’s directorial debut, “Hunger.” As Bobby Sands, the real-life IRA member who went on a hunger strike in protest of the British government’s refusal to recognize him and his fellow Maze inmates as political prisoners, Fassbender completely immerses himself in the role with Christian Bale-like dedication. It’s a pity he doesn’t actually show up until the second act, because it only makes those first 30 minutes seem that much less significant. While a lot of that time is spent setting the mood within the prison (from the poor living environment to the brutality handed down by the guards), “Hunger” doesn’t really get going until Fassbender makes his grand entrance – and even then not a whole lot really happens. In fact, with the exception of a 16-minute, single-shot conversation between Sands and an Irish priest (Liam Cunningham), the movie is pretty forgettable due to an overall lack of character development. It’s still worth checking out for Fassbender’s committed performance, but it’s not quite the modern masterpiece that Criterion would have you believe.

http://blogcritics.org/video/article/blu-ray-review-hunger-2008-the/

In the middle of it is Bobby Sands, played with unwavering intensity by Michael Fassbender. Sands was the first of 10 prisoners who would starve themselves to death before the strike was called off.

Then, not long after Sands is thrust into the forefront, he stops everything for a nearly 20-minute-long stationary two-shot of Sands discussing his plan to starve himself with a priest, Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham). The sheer length of the shot is enough to establish it as a tentpole in a film that traffics often in fleeting images, but the strength of the writing by Enda Walsh and McQueen and Fassbender and Cunningham’s banter make it so much more than just a formalist exercise.

http://juntajuleil.blogspot.com/2010/02/film-review-hunger-2008-steve-mcqueen.html

Michael Fassbender's performance is brilliant, dangerously committed, and shockingly honest. His suffering is ours. But we're only entreated to Bobby's motivations, politics, moral quandaries, and notorious sense of humor in one (lengthy) scene, which, in my opinion- contrary to those who call it the centerpiece- seems to have been added nearly as an afterthought. Said scene is exceptionally well-acted by Fassbender and a priestly Liam Cunningham

But Michael Fassbender is certainly committed, and the brutalization he endures for this film may well become the stuff of legend.

http://omgfridge.blogspot.com/2010/02/top-50-of-past-decade.html

Michael Fassbender sets a new epitome for commitment to an actors role in film. Brutal to watch but you'll leave feeling like you have gorged on something wonderful."

http://www.blu-raydefinition.com/reviews/hunger-the-criterion-collection-blu-ray-review.html

Fassbender lost over 40-pounds to portray Sands in this emaciated state, and this portion of the film is intense and riveting work. Fassbender proves his dedication to the role, looking more than believably on the brink of death.