Wednesday Movie Night: Hunger (2008)

 After watching Shame and 12 Years a Slave I figured it was time to go ahead and round out the Steve McQueen movies with Hunger. A dark and powerful look at a real life happening of prisoners who were also captive soldiers protested by not wearing civilian clothes, not eating, and putting their poop on walls. You heard it right, there is feces on the walls! With Steve McQueen teaming up with Michael Fassbender to make him the lead you get a very riveting and memorable look into the idea of protesting in prison.

Summary: Bobby Sands is a prisoner in Maze Prison in 1981. He is also the leader of a protest that includes not bathing and not wearing clothes in order to gain better statues for the prisoners who are of republican status. What Sands says will be their next act will be their next even if it means starving to gain what they believe they should have. This makes life not only brutal for the prisoners, but also the prison guards who are resorting to forcing the prisoners to bath and maintain their appearance.

Movie Review: 12 Years a Slave (2013)

Steve McQueen has only directed three movies, and all three are some of the best movies released in the past decade. To follow up all the talk, acclaim, and controversy that surrounded Shame, McQueen tackles the true story of Solomon Northup. With McQueen you can expect that he won't lightly tackle the real horrors that happened to Northup. The true accounts are rare of what Northup experience along with many other slaves considering that most who lived through slavery couldn't read or write.

Summary: Solomon Northup is a free man living in the north playing the violin, and living with his wife and two children. He's offered a job playing in Washington and takes the job. He travels with the two white men to D.C., but after arriving there he wakes up to find himself chained. He's been kidnapped and is being taken to be sold back into slavery. Now Solomon is preparing to be sold to a slave owner while his family is back in the north unaware of his whereabouts. Even as he he sold back into slavery though he is hopeful he can somehow return home.