Der Fluch der hungernden Klasse

This would've been a *great* silent film. The acting really is good, at least in a Look Ma, I'm Doing Really Big Acting! sort of way.

Everything is HUGE. Every line is PROFOUND! Every scene is SHATTERED BY HUMAN TRAGEDY!

Mostly, I felt like gagging. Yet, like any train wreck, I couldn't tear my eyes away. This dialogue might've worked on the stage, although I doubt it. On the screen, it was cluttered, haphazard, hackneyed and pretty much every other stereotypical negative adjective you can come up with to describe a really bad dramatic work.

If you enjoy your melodrama in huge, heaping doses, you *might* enjoy the movie. Be prepared to wait, however. For all that melodrama, this thing sure plods along at its own pace.

This script must've sounded a lot different when the actors involved were reading it to themselves. It simply doesn't work once they get around to delivering it in front of the camera.

IMDB does us a great disservice, at times, when it uses its goofy computer-controlled "weighted score". Curse of the Starving Class deserves less than a 1.

Character-driven fiction is great, but when you develop your characters by simply pushing them through hoops with no plausible explanation for their maturation or evolution, it isn't character development! Your characters must have a motivation. Being drunk for a while and waking up in a field is *not* character development. That's a plot contrivance.

Stay away from this movie. Or at the very least, watch it muted. Perhaps you'll get some amusement from all the arm-waving the characters do.

Oh, and word to the wise -- to prove that this is truly an artsy film, you see James Woods in all his dangly male "look-at-me, I'm-the-figurative-and-literal-representation-of-the-naked-vulnerability-of- man" glory.

Don't say you weren't warned.

You can't improve on the casting of the leads here, nor the dialogue. So earthy, and James Woods in the field during the thunder is incredible. Cinematography holds your admiration and attention. Can't beat Sam Shepherd in the first place; Beresford's name is familiar to me.... True as I read in another viewer's observation that it was slow, but when your focus is the craft, slow is a luxury. Beautifully understated complexities that hit home with few words. I did turn away during the graphic violence; I see men outnumber women in the enjoyment of this movie, and that's likely why. The role of the daughter was the only lackluster performance. For lovers of craft, I'd recommend this movie highly.

This movie just sort of drags on, and never does really turn around or make a true point. I felt bad for James Woods, Kathy Bates, and Henry Thomas, because they are such great actors, and they chose to do a piece a crap of a movie like this. I give this movie a 5 out of 10, only because the actors tried.

Curse of the Starving Class showcases the fantastic acting talents of Woods, Bates, Thomas, and most notably, Randy Quaid who fits the bill of the sleazy desert-realtor to a tee. James Woods' portrayal of an alcoholic father to a farm family way, waaay down on their luck makes for great acting, but not quite good enough to make this film MOVE. I kept waiting for this story to turn around and pay off somehow, but by the end I still felt dragged down into poverty.

I'm blown away by this piece. I read the play, saw the play...and this movie is spectacular! I'm usually not a big "Downer-Movie," supporter...I like happy endings, but, with that being said...

I felt that the story, the actors, the setting, the cinematography, everything about the movie was amazing.

I grew-up in central Texas and this movie depicted a lot of what I saw in the state.

And it looks like Barak Hussein Obama's driving us right back into the ground again.

I give this movie a 10 out of 10. The acting was the best I've seen in years.