Posts Tagged ‘Christian Bale’
Wednesday, November 4th, 2026
“THE BRIDE!” (quotation marks co-sign the exclamation point’s insistence that this is not the same as THE BRIDE starring Sting) is a wild and incoherent movie, both for good and bad, and not really in the ways I expected. The trailers suggested a stylized rock musical sort of approach, but they did that by emphasizing the occasional stylistic diversions (a dance fantasy, a James Whale homage). For the most part the world of the movie is more normal and literal than that, grounding the absurd premise “What if the monster and bride of Frankenstein were alive in the thirties and sort of turned into Bonnie and Clyde?” So you got these two heightened monster characters interacting with mobsters and getting chased by cops and regular stuff like that.
In the opening seconds we learn that it’s way more convoluted than the trailer conveyed, with a concept I’m not sure even the full movie gets across with clarity. You see, Academy Award winner Jessie Buckley (MEN) plays Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, famed author of Kenneth Branagh’s version of Frankenstein. Her soul is trapped in some sort of purgatory where she says she’s been for centuries (though the movie is set in 1936, which is 85 years after Shelley’s death). She says that Frankenstein “wasn’t the half of it. What I wanted to write…what I needed to say, I couldn’t.” Whatever great story she had in mind she never got to put on paper because of a brain tumor, so she possesses a lady in Chicago named Ida (Jessie Buckley, JUDY), sometimes but not most of the time speaks through her, and… somehow causes her to live out her life as that unwritten story? Pretty ballsy of writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal (THE LOST DAUGHTER) to write a story and have Mary Shelley declare it better than Frankenstein. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Annette Bening, Christian Bale, Frankenstein, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jessie Buckley, John Magaro, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary Shelley, Matthew Maher, Penelope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Zlatko Buric
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Horror, Monster, Romance | 15 Comments »
Thursday, June 19th, 2025
June 15, 2005
If there’s a universally agreed-upon absolute banger of a summer blockbuster type movie from 2005, it’s gotta be Christopher Nolan’s BATMAN BEGINS, right? I’ve watched it many more times over the years, it holds up completely, and also seems historically significant as, among other things, a transition point between the ‘90s era of comic book movies and the seemingly endless one we’re in now. It kind of blows my mind that I reviewed it early for The Ain’t It Cool News and here I am two decades later writing more thoughtfully about it for a much smaller (but better) audience. Like a memory cloth cape tailored to fit a rigid skeleton when a current is put through it, time flies.
I haven’t experienced an era when people weren’t complaining about there being too many sequels and remakes, but I do remember a time before people complained about reboots, because it wasn’t until this movie that I ever heard that term. Nolan’s co-writer David S. Goyer (KICKBOXER 2) used it to explain that they were completely starting the series over. Not a sequel, or a sort of sequel with the same actors playing Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, but a do-over, a totally different take on Batman. I wish that definition had stuck – it’s useless now that it can mean that or a sequel or a remake.
Nolan’s successful turning on and off of the bat-computer seemed revolutionary in part because his notion of a stripped down, quasi-realistic Batman was so unexpected for the character. The expressionistic movies of former animator Tim Burton had birthed the mega-garish ones by former costume designer Joel Schumacher – the series was synonymous with lavish artifice. BATMAN & ROBIN made money in 1997, but it became so widely hated that many believed it would be the end of Batman movies, and maybe even super hero movies as a whole. Luckily that gave Warner Bros. an opening to consider acclaimed indie directors with drastically different approaches. They tried developing one with Darren Aronofsky (who had only done PI and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) before they settled on the guy who did FOLLOWING, MEMENTO and (at the recommendation of Steven Soderbergh) INSOMNIA. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, David S. Goyer, Gary Oldman, Hans Zimmer, Katie Holmes, Ken Watanabe, Keysi Fighting Method, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, ninjas, Richard Brake, Roger Yuan, Rutger Hauer
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes | 45 Comments »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2025
June 10, 2005
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE is the ninth film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. He’s only done three more in the twenty years since, so I guess it counts as late Miyazaki. When I saw it back then I went to a subtitled screening, so this time I tried it with English dialogue, and that worked well too.
It’s a story about Sophie (Emily Mortimer, THE 51st STATE), a young woman who makes hats in a shop founded by her late father. When her sister Lettie (Jena Malone, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME), a baker, encourages her to find something she loves rather than staying shackled to the family business she swears she’s content doing this.
Then one night after close this terribly rude rich lady (Lauren Bacall, THE BIG SLEEP) comes into the shop and starts saying the hats are tacky. To quote THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE, “we’re a business with posted hours,” so get the fuck out. But this lady is actually the Witch of the Waste, who has come not to look for headwear, but to curse Sophie by turning her 90 years old. Then she’s out of there in a palanquin carried by her henchmen, oily black blob people with nice coats and masquerade masks. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Crystal, Blythe Danner, Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Hayao Miyazaki, Jean Simmons, Jena Malone, Josh Hutcherson, Lauren Bacall, Studio Ghibli
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit, Fantasy/Swords | 8 Comments »
Thursday, August 11th, 2022
I’m very late to this one, but I have finally seen and written down words about Thor picture #4, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, directed by the suddenly controversial Taika Waititi. I see most of the Marvel movies right away, but various other happenings conspired to make me wait until three weeks later on this one, and honestly it was kind of nice to miss most of the conversation and see it after the storm had passed. I’m curious to see if this review will still generates anything close to a new release level of discussion, or if the interest in such topics dissipates with exposure to oxygen. I honestly don’t know the answer.
It was also good to see later because I was aware that the response had been much more widely negative than for most MCU movies, and especially than the in-my-experience-universally-popular THOR: RAGNAROK from the same director and general attitude. Before that I had taken for granted that it would be one of the better Marvel movies. I concede that it’s the opposite. But maybe the lowered expectations contributed to me still being entertained and not hating it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, Kieron L. Dyer, Marvel Comics, Natalie Portman, Russell Crowe, Taika Waititi, Tessa Thompson
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 46 Comments »
Wednesday, January 29th, 2020
FORD v FERRARI: VROOM OF JUSTICE is a perfectly enjoyable, kind of square and obvious, know-it-all-car-guy underdog racing picture. It has been widely described as a “dad movie,” and sure enough a one-day awards season engagement drew a different crowd than I usually see at the Cinerama, with a higher contingent of gray-haired men. Everyone applauded and cackled at the sticking of it to the man, and in recognition of all the lines from the trailer. A good time was had by all.
It’s the story of Caroll Shelby (Matt Damon, TITAN A.E.), one of the only Americans to ever win the 24-hour-Le-Mans, now retired from driving due to a heart condition, making his living building and selling cars and sponsoring a racing team. Then one day he’s approached by Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal, THE ACCOUNTANT), who has convinced Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts, who also played the grouchy boss in LITTLE WOMEN and maybe other best picture nominees) that the way to make his grandpa’s car company into Not Your Grandpa’s Car Company is to build a car that beats Ferrari in Le Mans. It’s a tall order, but Shelby agrees to give it a shot and recruits his friend Ken Miles (Christian Bale, POCAHONTAS), a “difficult” automotive genius, to help develop and drive the car. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: cars, Christian Bale, James Mangold, Jason Keller, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, Jon Bernthal, Josh Lucas, Matt Damon, racing, Tracy Letts
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 26 Comments »
Wednesday, February 13th, 2019
Scott Cooper is an actor-turned-writer/director who seems slightly under the radar to me. He made a splash with CRAZY HEART ten years ago, a movie that somehow seems overshadowed by Jeff Bridge’s Oscar-winning performance in it (and that I thought of a few times watching A STAR IS BORN). His followup, the gloomy crime drama OUT OF THE FURNACE (2013), teamed him with Christian Bale (POCAHONTAS) for the first time, and I have to admit that I have not seen his poorly reviewed BLACK MASS (2015). But he didn’t write that one. I only watch the ones he directs and writes, obviously.
2017’s HOSTILES (based on a manuscript written by Donald E. Stewart [JACKSON COUNTY JAIL, DEATHSPORT, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, PATRIOT GAMES, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER] in the ’80s) reteamed him with Bale for what might be categorized as a Real Serious Western – the kind where the director is hesitant to call it a western (“I don’t think in terms of genre… If anything it’s a psychological western in the vein of Anthony Mann…I don’t think it’s a western, it has more in common with Joseph Conrad or Larry McMurtry or Louis L’Amour” he told Moviemaker) and you want to grab them and tell them “all right cool it buddy, just admit you made a really good western.” (See also THE REVENANT.)
But I guess I sort of get it. A completely traditional western is not very marketable in this day and age. Most people don’t really want the genre without a little bit of a new spin on it, and HOSTILES has one. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Beach, Ben Foster, Christian Bale, Donald E. Stewart, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, Rosamund Pike, Scott Cooper, Scott Wilson, Stephen Lang, Timothee Chalamet, Wes Studi
Posted in Reviews, Western | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2019
When I heard writer/director Adam McKay was doing a movie with Christian Bale (TERMINATOR SALVATION) playing Dick Cheney, I couldn’t picture what that would be, but I assumed I would love it. The former Saturday Night Live writer has much more experience in beloved Will Ferrell comedies than in Serious Important Movies, but I enjoyed THE BIG SHORT‘s novel and audacious attempt to make entertainment out of explaining the early 2000s housing bubble. Many worship ANCHORMAN or STEP BROTHERS, but for me it’s TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY that makes me laugh no matter which part I rewatch for the one-thousandth time on cable. Maybe people don’t think of it this, way, but to me it’s the best pop culture portrait of what was going on in our country during the Bush years. So I figured McKay had good instincts about this stuff. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam McKay, Amy Adams, best picture nominees, Christian Bale, Dick Cheney, Jesse Plemons, movies that are not as good as The Fast and the Furious, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, Tyler Perry
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 35 Comments »
Monday, February 22nd, 2016
Do you remember the Will Ferrell movie THE OTHER GUYS, how the end credits were a big animated info graphic about the banking crisis? It connected to the scheme by the villains in the movie but seemed jarringly serious at the end of a cop movie parody from the director of ANCHORMAN where Ferrell carries a wooden gun, has an evil pimp alter ego and has a chief played by Michael Keaton who quotes TLC all the time and works a second job at Bed Bath & Beyond. That’s why it’s not completely out of the blue that its director Adam McKay has made his first non-comedy, THE BIG SHORT, which has been nominated for many awards including Oscars for best picture, director and adapted screenplay. This is not the classic funny-man-yearning-for-respectability-with-corny-Oscar-bait-movie gambit. This is a rage that’s been fighting to get out.
Based on the non-fiction book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Moneyball author Michael Lewis, the movie tells the stories of several small-timers and outsiders in the financial world who had the foresight to see that the housing market was built on fraud and was destined to collapse. They figured out a way to basically bet against the banks, who gladly accepted the offers because they believed their own lies. They thought these people were crazy and giving them free money. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam McKay, Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, financial crisis, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro, Michael Lewis, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carrell
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 21 Comments »
Monday, March 10th, 2014
One movie that came and went during the “summer is over, time for some actor-y shit” period of 2013 was OUT OF THE FURNACE. This is the second movie directed by Scott Cooper, who also rewrote from a script by Brad Ingelsby (writer of the gratuitous American remake of THE RAID that apparently is still happening). Cooper previously directed CRAZY HEART, which was known as the Jeff Bridges Oscar movie, but it was also a good movie in its own right, so it was intriguing that he was doing one with Christian Bale next.
I feel like after we got used to him being Batman we kind of forgot how great Christian Bale is. It’s a relief to see him being funny again in AMERICAN HUSTLE, but I also still like watching Earnest Christian Bale. And in this case Rugged Christian Bale. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: butt dial, Casey Affleck, Christian Bale, Forest Whitaker, Midnight Meat Train, Sam Shepard, Scott Cooper, underground fighting, Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, January 7th, 2014
David O. Russell’s latest is a fictionalized take on a true 1970s incident when the FBI worked with conmen to entrap politicians to take bribes from a fake Sheik. The movie opens in the thick of it, right before a big attempted sting, with a long, quiet, unbroken take of Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) gluing on his toupee and carefully combing his remnants of real hair over it. It’s pretty representative of the movie: silly almost to the point of Will Ferrell cartoonishness, but you have to stare at it and contemplate it long enough that it’s on the verge of becoming more sad than funny.
Who does this guy think he’s fooling? Why is he so vain? Won’t somebody tell him how terrible he looks? So when FBI Agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) angrily grabs the toupee and makes it stick straight up, and Irving just stands there angrily, I already feel for him. It’s a funny sight gag, but also it says something about human vulnerability. We can be so hung up on a phony image that we fool ourselves. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, David O. Russell, Jennifer Lawrence, Louis C.K.
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 37 Comments »
