SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

framptonhollis During Werner Herzog's "My Best Fiend", I couldn't help but find myself utterly shocked, despite already having some knowledge of Klaus Kinski's infamous behavior and madness. Who wouldn't be shocked after hearing some of Herzog's stories about the man?"My Best Fiend" is a documentary about Herzog's complicated, love-hate relationship with actor Klaus Kinski, who acted in five of Herzog's films. No other filmmaker was able to work with Kinski more than once, but Herzog is not like many other filmmakers, and this documentary is not like many other documentaries. It's a very personal film, and most of it is Werner Herzog telling mind boggling stories about his relationship with Kinski. It explores both Kinski's frightening insanity, and his sweeter, lovable side. What was perhaps most shocking about Kinski was not his temper and madness, but his kindness.This film works as a brilliant character study of an infamous actor, and it also provides the viewer with a glimpse into one of the strangest actor-director friendships of all time. It's also enormously entertaining, bizarre, and, at times, somewhat comic.

museumofdave It is the collaborations that Herzog and his supposed nemesis Kinski shared that astound one, and this bit of artistic self-aggrandizement is certainly interesting, but not as fascination as Herzog's interview in Burden Of Dreams, an addition to the feature made just recently.Do we really need to see Kinski losing it, ranting injudiciously under the pressure of filming in the jungle to appreciate his major accomplishment as Fitzcarroldo? I think not--in it's own way, this is rather like a good Michael Jackson documentary--how much of the peeping Tom in ourselves do we want to admit? Hitchcock asked the same question when he made REAR WINDOW--are we looking for information or are we merely voyeurs? In order to fully appreciate the magnificent achievement of Fitzcarroldo, that mad vision of megalomania on the Amazon, is it really necessary to see a pair of pesky individuals tear one another apart for the cameras? My Best Fiend is certainly not a bad examination of two offbeat individuals in conflict--I think your judgement of the film depends a good deal on your tolerance for this kind of immersion in personal dysfunction.

ElijahCSkuggs A documentary of the tumultuous relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski may sound like a boring, foreign look into the past, for those unaware of such names, but nothing could be further from the truth.No the film is not exciting, nor is it eye-opening. The film doesn't bring to light what many of us all already know about Herzog or Kinski, but regardless of its shortcomings, My Best Fiend is still a great movie about a friendship that saw ups and plenty of downs.Director Herzog is a genius; actor Kinski is one as well. Their relationship is one of hate and love, respect and tolerance. The movies they made were acts of attrition, physically, emotionally, and occasionally financially.Through Herzog's delicate tracings of their career together, it was clear that behind the death threats, the yelling, the arguing, and the disdain, both men had an amazing affinity for one another.Kinski was the catalyst for such a partnership, as his mad style of acting and living seemed to make life dangerous and interesting all at the same time.I am amazed Kinski was never honored with a nomination for an Oscar. He must be one of the best character actors in history. Though I'm sure he believed himself to be the best, and would naturally scoff at any awards thrown his way.Great study on a pair of friends whose love/hate created some of cinema's finest works.

MisterWhiplash My Best Fiend, a take on the working relationship and history between filmmaker Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski (by Herzog himself), puts on the facade of a documentary as Herzog interviews some of the participants- actors and at least one crew member- in the productions of the films (Aguirre, Woyzek, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, and Cobra Verde, only the first and third seen by me). But it's less that than a kind of confessional from Herzog, a collection of anecdotes, horror stories, and in general psychologically breaking through the general perceptions regarding their collaborations as actor and director. Part of that perception, of course, is totally correct. Herzog, always a filmmaker wanting the utmost control of his stories about madmen obsessed with goals that seemed impossible or in subject matter that was marked as dark and disturbing as possible (without being too graphic), had to contend with his own kind of 'character' in the form of Kinski, who could be a little frightened being scared of a wasp one moment, and the next acting like someone killed his child when in reality the coffee was lukewarm.Kinski, in most of the footage that is put forth in this film- even the footage that is basically taken right out of the Herzog works themselves- add to the profile of what this man might be. It's alternately funny and unnerving to see the one big outburst of his anger at a production manager on the set of one of the films, when as Herzog says 'compared to his other outbursts this was mild'. Equally jarring is seeing him doing some kind of Jesus-play or a weird sermon at the start of My Best Fiend, where he comes off like he's half a rock-star and half certifiable. But at the same time a little of the footage, along with some of the anecdotes, also give him the light of something of a schizophrenic, who on the one hand could be extremely demanding and ultimately ego-maniacal if not at the center of attention, and on the other could be the most professional actor this side of a Howard Hawkes picture. Interesting too is seeing the two interviewees who have the best things to say about Kinski- his female co-stars from Woczek and Fitzcarraldo. Maybe there's something of Kinski being the prototypical male as opposed to just being an escaped anger management patient. He's described as being sweet and kind and very polite to his co-stars of the opposite sex. But with the male ones, who knows.The testimonials from Herzog build to something quite fascinating, not just as a subjective profile of an actor and a quasi-friend (err, fiend); it's also a movie about Herzog too, about how he sort of found out more about himself from having to tame the beast, so to speak. The near legendary story of Herzog threatening murder and suicide if Kinski walked off Aguirre, for example, perhaps showed to his star not exactly that his own director was as nuts as him, but that he took what he was doing just as seriously, if not more so, than he on a professional level. There's even an easy-going scene (the only one with both of the men speaking in English) where they seem most down to earth about why they work together so often. If there is anything that might be lacking from all of this it's that we get to see so much of certain sides of a few of their productions, while Nosferatu and Cobra Verde are either left out altogether or just mentioned in brief towards the end. There's also an unnecessary scene where Herzog is reminiscing over a gallery of photos of Kinski and himself. And the balance between telling one side or the other of the actor's persona seems to not always be shifted totally in proportion; by the end we almost want to see more and find out more than has been presented.But what is in My Best Fiend is pretty close to priceless for die-hard fans of the director and actor, and as one who's getting more into the filmmaker's career (and finding Kinski to be Germany's much more crazy answer to Al Pacino- an actor with the intensity and passion and skill of twenty actors all in the eyes and mannerisms), it's a very good work to also be seen by people who have not even seen one of the five films by the director and star. It's a very bizarre, very on-edge, but ultimately fruitful collaboration that now has made for a kind of mix of expose, memorial, and elongated denouement. And it also is very funny as well.