Have you seen Dersu Uzala yet? That's one of my favorites, a very poignant examination of western civilization's relationship with indigenous civilizations. It takes the typical culture clash trope of "white man meets native man and learns stuff" but actually treats it thoughtfully and with a degree of sensitivity. After all, the movie is named after the native guy, not the Russian officer. It's one of Kurosawa's later movies though, so you won't get there for a while.

It's my fave. Made me cry for quite some time...

It's one I've been meaning to get to! Years ago (this is probably fifteen or so years ago now) I tried to watch as many as I could, but for some reason never got around to Dersu Uzala. Definitely one of the films I'm most looking forward to. Glad to hear it's worth waiting for

I live in East TX and I don't really have any interest in this movie. My mom liked it though.

No need to get hostile about it. I think his performances in American Psycho (especially), The Machinist, The Fighter, Equilibrium (kind of) are amazing.

Ya he was awesome in Machinist and The Fighter. I think dudes just hating on him because, he's obviously jealous that he isn't batman.

Christian Bale isn't the best actor ever but he's done some great movies like Razakel mentioned.

The last Terminator film was pretty decent too.

He was pretty good in it, but I thought the movie was a bit of a mess.

I thought both Terminator 4 and Equilibrium were really weak. American Psycho is where it's at for Bale...that and The Prestige, but he's better in American Psycho.

Darkeningday has not presented a clear justifiable reason for us to validate or even consider his hatred of Bale. I find it difficult to see his rant as anything more than childish spite against someone who works damn hard to make his characters believable and/or intense. The fact that he summarised all of his work as uninteresting proves to me that he's either a hater of any actor or actress who's popular or he has terrible taste in movies and very rarely wavers from the arthouse scene.

I think comparing his work is kind of silly, now if we were talking about the Batman films where he plays the same character, then comparing those roles is warranted because he is playing the same character. I think the director is mostly at fault if one of the above mentioned roles he has played is better than the others. For American Psycho, Mary Harron directed each scene many times so later on she could choose whether she wanted a more serious or more light-hearted portrayal. Some scenes consisted of at least three variations of emotion and some times she would splice all three together to get a fun/overblown performance. These might be some of the reasons American Psycho is looked upon as Bale's best work. With all this talk of his greats, how come no mention of Rescue Dawn, that film was terrific and was directed by Werner Herzog to boot.

It's the latter. He only likes artfag movies.

If you're gonna denominate me a 'hater', I'm gonna call you a fanboy--sweeping generalizations go both ways. I think he's a terrible actor because he shows absolutely no range, ever, in anything he's done, ever (from Empire of the Sun to Newsies to American Psycho to Equilibrium to The Machinist to Rescue Dawn to 3:10 to Yuma to teh batmanz). Now this can often happen outside an actor's control when s/he's pigeon-holed into character roles (think: Al Pacino or Kathy Bates, or pretty much anyone who works in comedy), but Patrick Bateman is fundamentally different from Dan Evans or John Connor, yet Bale gives the exact same stoic, slightly stoned third-year theater school dropout performance for all three. He is afforded every opportunity to show a different side to his acting, yet he never, ever deviates from his well-worn, totally uninspired routine. So what can I conclude from that? That he's a shit actor. And why do I care? Because his continued success and praise is both fundamentally unfair to the oceans of actually good actors (who are never shown the light of day cuz' they weren't born into the highly nepotistic film industry) and ultimately detrimental to mainstream cinema, since his popularity reinforces the flawed belief that appearance and birthright are to be prized above, yanno, talent and hard work.

That any clearer?

Michael Keaton was the best Batman. Period.

darkeningday isn't totally wrong about Bale's acting but hell, fuck it, I still stand by what I said. Bale has been in some top notch movies and while he's really not one of the greatest individual actors, I've never found him a deterrent to the films he's in either. He generally works fine and has a cool sort of charisma on screen despite not really varying it up that much. He's not perfect, and other actors could have feasibly worked in the movies he's been in (well, except American Psycho; that one had to be him) - but I really don't think saying that calling him a favorite is the ultimate calling card of bad movie taste that DD thinks it is.



Ha, you know what, I like your opinion.

Yeah, I really like the Nolan Batman movies, but I have to say Christian Bale isn't that good of a Batman. He's not awful or anything, he just doesn't inhabit the role the way Keaton did. Keaton seemed so natural doing all the ridiculous stuff Batman does, even sleeping upside-down like it was no big deal; it made him seem like much more of an eccentric nut (which is what Batman is, no way around it), while Bale plays it too straight. Part of that is the script and direction obviously, but it's the acting too. Also, just in terms of appearance, Bale is way too angular...his face his very sharp, whereas Bruce Wayne is always portrayed as very square-jawed and traditionally masculine-looking.

Nonsense. George Clooney.

...okay that was predictable. Sorry.

Clooney was a good Bruce Wayne but a terrible Batman.

I think Val Kilmer was the best Batman AND Bruce Wayne. He has the charisma and mystery to play Bruce and (he had) the shape and coolness to play Batman. Also, the movie was fucking great when I was 10 years old.

I watched a movie called Patrik Age 1.5 and it was absolutely charming. Sure, the end was predictable, but not everything has to be so grim. For the more homophobic of you, or those who just don't like seeing dudes kiss, you may not dig it. But overall it was a powerful little movie about what constitutes a family, and the odd mannerisms of the adoption agencies.

I always noticed that sort of in the back of my mind, and that combined with my knowledge of Bale's other roles always made it harder to really buy Bale as Bruce Wayne. As Batman he's awesome but as Wayne it just seemed like Christian Bale in a suit and a big mansion, so eh. Michael Keaton was a flawless Bruce Wayne and brought his own quirkiness to Batman, making the character his own. Great performance there.

Really? The dude's Patrick Bateman, it can't be that much of stretch to see him as Bruce Wayne. Tim Burton's Batman is very different to Nolan's. You see it from the vehicles to the villains, from the overall threats down to the dialogue, they are all things that could be in our world or are likely possibilities. Michael Keaton's Batman works perfectly in a quirky, dark comic book, Tim Burton manner while Bale's portrayal works very well in the realistic, chaotic and emotionally exhausting Gotham that Nolan created.

Just got Beetljuice and The Witches in the mail today. A couple oldie but goodies.

BEETLEJUICE!BEETLEJUICE!BEETLEJUICE!

*s

Michael Keaton was the best Beetlejuice ever. Period.

Is The Devils Double a good film?

Haha what? Aside from both inheriting massive wealth and being straight white American males, the characters couldn't be more different.

I just watched Aliens (1986) many years after I've first seen it. I used to think it was a good movie. It's considered a classic. But it sucked so much balls! Does anybody follow me on this?
I'd actually give it a 30% score- for the idea and the visuals- but everything else (acting, plot (more precisely the lack of its originality), conviction, editing and the list goes on) just fails miserably.
I'm really baffled as to why Sigourney Weaver kept getting jobs, even after Alien. If anybody, she should be playing the androids.

Actually I kinda agree, though not as strongly. I thought Sigourney Weaver was actually good, but nearly everyone else (except the android dude) were cartoons. I know it was meant to be a silly 80s action movie, not a spiritual successor to the 1979 movie, but it wasn't even a very good example of that. The intimidation of the aliens is nearly all hype; you're expecting something scary, but then you hardly see them and the vast majority get chewed up by the fucking turrets. Then there's the stupid bit with the evil corporate guy being evil - basically I thought everything except Ripley and the Queen Alien was stupid. Predator is a much better 80s sci-fi action flick, and Alien is a much better alien movie.

Yeah, Aliens sucks. Awesome special effects and general atmosphere (and Bishop!), and Sigourney Weaver's good (can't help but love Ripley's character overall), but yeah...pretty much everything else blows. Poorly acted, shittily written, caricaturish, emotionally hollow, shitty characters, lame action. Fuck you, James Cameron. Or should I say JimCam.

I used to really like Aliens back in the day but I've come to consider the first film as far superior.

Aliens doesn't suck, but it isn't really very good either, a pretty average action movie to be honest. There were too many characters that all sort of blended together and the whole thing was just sorta by the numbers. A big step down from the brilliance of the first one...

Just watched Killer Joe a while back at a little indie theater down here recently, Very intertaining dark comedy, though I will admit there were some parts that disturbed me much more than expected, Like the very uncomfortable Drumstick scene...I actually had to look away from the screen for a bit, not sure why that part got to me so much. Matthew Mcconaughey definitely impressed with his disturbingly creepy role.

Just saw Lawless. Man if that movie didn't have Nick Cave written all over it. It's slow, it's brooding, Tom Hardy is infinitely badass, and when there's violence, it's brutal. Full of really great performances from every actor (even Shia Leboeuf was okay, but I hate him.)

Ya it's pretty good. Very educational and exciting.

It wasn't bad. Certainly Lee Tamahori's least terrible movie. Though it never did seem to take off right, and the ending was simultaneously unambitious and preachy.

Sure was pretty to look at, though.

Obviously I was talking about their rich status and not their deeper character traits. There's clearly a semblance upon the surface.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that the guy who got picked up in drag for solicitation on Sunset Boulevard a few years ago?