There has been a lot of bad talk about this film but I have watched a lot of Herzog and I love this movie. It is an investigation primarily on mental illness, city life, and how people can get really messed up inside the "walls" of the city (and the little enclaves like families that exist within it). A very strong performance by Michael Shannon and I have to say this guy is really starting to hit his straps now after starting out in bit-part hoodlum roles etc., many years ago. He really has an intensity in this role that no-one else could have accessed, and I mean no-one. This was casting at its absolute best; his big physical presence and natural 1000 yard stare really added to the role. Again Herzog has gone out and made a movie that no-one else wanted to make. It has been a while since I saw it now, but I remember a moment of pure beauty at the end of the movie, I think with with a boy, a ball and a tree within the hugeness of the mega-city wasteland. These are moments where Herzog somehow gives us his inner feelings.

Another film from a director that is considered great. I personally think he's overrated but I managed to sit through his collaboration with David Lynch. I personally thought it was a decent movie and nothing more.Told mostly in flashback, this movie tries to bring together the reason why a man murdered his mother and holds 2 people hostage in his house. From his mental instabilities to his obsession over a Greek play this is what My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done asks.Where do I begin, firstly, if you are not interested in what drove the leading character to kill his mother then the chances are that you are not going to like this movie. I am just mentioning that just in case you feel like watching it.Aside from that everything else is good. The acting though is worth a mention. It is good acting, Michael Shannon does play a great crazy man. Everyone else is good but at the end of the day it is Shannon's show.So if you want to see this kind of movie then this is for you. If you are also a fan of Werner Herzog (or at least know what to expect from one of his movies) then this one is worth a look.

I wasn't entirely surprised to see the lacklustre rating IMDb had given this film, given its not the sort of movie that lets you 'enjoy' it in the conventional sense. None of the characters are particularly likable, the near entirety of the plot is revealed in the first few minutes, and the rest of the film is but giving you often surreal glimpses of how the characters came to this point. These, however, are not negative characteristics, or at least not where I'm concerned. The movie isn't 'pleasant', but its viscerally emotional; dark theatre that truly challenges the audience usually in subtle ways, but then at times quite directly, tearing down the fourth wall to do so.Willem Dafoe's role in the movie is understated, as are his scenes... he's something like the narrator as Detective Hank, and in the absence of the lead, his interactions seem strangely scripted, almost as if he's forgotten what an excellent actor he is. I get the impression this air of 'woodenness' around his scenes, especially his early scenes, is intentional... his scenes take place in the 'now' of the story, which seems a bland and almost plastic atmosphere... its when they track back to the 'past' that the Movie really begins to take shape as an almost anxious nightmare. Michael Shannon as Brad is spectacular. He's a grown man who seems trapped in the persona of a desperately sullen child, unstable and overwhelmed by the world around him. As we begin to empathize with Brad, he seems to make the very normal, modern, clean suburban world around him seem almost like a dystopia simply by his presence.The real star of this film in my mind was Grace Zabriskie, who played Brad's mother. She's always been an absolutely superb character actress, has given me the willies in more than one Lynch film, but never have I seen her shine so much than in this film as the submissively overbearing Ms. McCullum. She is a woman who seems to validate her own existence through the life of her disturbed son, and is incredibly desperate for appreciation. The most powerful bit of acting in the movie, in any movie I've seen in a long while in fact, involved her lingering in a doorway awaiting a thank-you from her son and his girlfriend. Her dwindling hope and mounting terror and despair with gradually dampening eyes as the moment stretched and stretched gripped like a fist behind my navel... such concentrated emotion is a testament to what a spectacular performer she is. The movie is excellent, but not for the impatient or those who can't appreciate artistic abstraction in film, nor for those who want a 'feel good' flick. This movie won't make you feel 'good', but it will make you feel, and think, a great deal.

The credits haven't finished rolling, and I find myself racing to my laptop to warn moviegoers to avoid this colossal ostrich egg.Werner Herzog, once my favourite director of all time, has for the last 20 years been slowly piling the dirt on his own grave. Let's face it, without Klaus Kinski's feverish madness to balance Herzog's drowsy nihilism, his films miss the mark by miles.MYMYWHYD is no exception. We begin with a compelling plot and a potentially riveting storyline with potentially profound themes: A woman is found dead, apparently run through by a sword wielded by her mentally unbalanced son. It is slowly revealed that the son had been suffering some sort of stage-based psychosis, fancying himself the center of a Greek tragedy. Reading the DVD box, I was thinking to myself, "How could this not be awesome?!"I'll tell you how. Despite its promising beginning, the film quickly devolves into one passionless ramble after another, punctuated inexplicably by Werner Herzog's vacation movies to South America. Apparently we are to surmise that something in South America drove the young man mad, but aside from that there is no substance. It's as if European/American audiences are supposed to be dazzled by the mountains, clouds and unfamiliar native faces into thinking something significant happened.Kinski would've been able to pull this off, and he certainly has. This is precisely the same recipe used in "Aguierre the Wrath of God" and "Fitzcarraldo", two of my top films. A man tangles with the crushing power of untamed nature and loses his mind. I repeat, Klaus Kinski was da man. But how long can Herzog try to milk this same formula with sub-par talent? It's like your favourite 70s rock band (Genesis, Foreigner, Journey, etc) having lost its passionate frontman and trying to carry on for 20+ years with some new weakling in the saddle every album. At some point you have to accept that the band is dead. Or at least they should move on to a new sound altogether (like Toto. Now that band has released some kickass stuff in recent years!).Enough of Klaus Kinski & classic rock. I was just trying to make a point that Herzog's latest efforts are falling flat due to his obsession with the old Kinskian themes that made him once great. Mr. Herzog should change the act altogether. Despite my utter disappointment in Herzog, I will continue to watch his films hoping one day he'll either find his new Kinski or move on. Just like I keep buying the new Genesis albums. Unless you're stupid like me, you should probably avoid both.