Shame poster

Shame, the hot button fall festival favorite that earned 2011 MVP Michael Fassbender the Best Actor prize at this years Venice Film Festival.  There's a lot more of interest too, for it's the second feature from director Steve McQueen, after the harrowing but brilliantly put together 2008 feature Hunger (which also featured Fassbender.)  There's also the glowing early praise, the pairing of two of today's brightest young stars (Carey Mulligan co-stars), and the titillating premise of a man battling an addiction to sex, which is promising a boundary pushing, expected to be NC-17, full frontal showing drama.  All of which might pose a problem for it's newly aligned distributor, Fox Searchlight, or maybe not, rating and sexual controversy helped last year's Blue Valentine, then again this one may not be the type of film that makes a strong Academy showing either.  Either way, the teaser poster is sparse and artful, and does exactly what it should do...teases.