Looking for a specific film review? CLICK BELOW

0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z / Trailers / DVD Store


May 20, 2010
The Machinist (2004)
Should I see it?
Yes.


Short Review: If you have the stomach to watch a starved man, this is a great film.


All of you with low constitutions please move on. Don’t even pick up the DVD box. This is a very harsh movie and it is not for everyone.

That disclaimer out of the way, I loved this movie. It is dark, intelligent and very well crafted. I believe it is one of the best films of 2004. It is a shame it has been mostly overlooked.

Director Brad Anderson (Transsiberian) and screenwriter Scott Kosar (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) work together brilliantly to tell the story of Trevor Reznik, a machinist who hasn’t slept in a year. His insomnia has taken its toll. Reznik is skeletal and has begun hallucinating visits from a strange co-worker.

At work and at home, terrible things begin to happen. Reznik worries that he is responsible for making these things happen. Through Resnik we are given a study in fear and guilt that will certainly stick with you long after the credits have rolled.
The handling of the brutal, dark subject matter is easy to overdo. Anderson approaches his subject matter delicately. Instead of going for easy sanguine thrills, he offers us just enough to deliver the point. In this age of torture porn, his restraint is something to note.


A pre-Batman Christian Bale provides what may the his best performance to date. His gravel-throat Batman may be laughable at times, but the man knows his craft. He is willing to put himself on the line for his work as well. For this production Bale starved himself to an obviously dangerous point. The scenes where he displays the level of his physical sacrifice are hard to watch. He is Holocaust victim skinny. It’s hard to even look at him, let alone watch him for an hour and a half. Seeing an emaciated man is never a pleasure, even if it is for fiction.

If you can handle a dark, unflinching film, I recommend this film.


Related Reviews:
Christian Bale Movies
Rescue Dawn (2006)
The Dark Knight (2008)


Other Critic's Reviews:
ReelViews
Beyond Hollywood




Click here to buy your copy of Scott Nehring Good News Film Reviews
You Are What You See and learn
to change the world from your couch





Labels: , , , ,


posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 8:00 AM



1 comment(s)


Share






December 6, 2009
Movie Trailer: Greenberg
Tired Looking Middle-Age Chick With Stringy Hair
Hey Greenberg, what are you been doing these days?

Middle-Age Half-Man Mope With Messy Hair
I've been in New York, but right now I'm really trying to do nothing for a while.

Tired Looking Middle-Age Chick With Stringy Hair
That's brave at our age.

I hate my generation. I hate it to pieces.

How about a hero who doesn't seem like he cries himself to sleep? How about one who would want to hang out with? How about one who doesn't, in the sharp vernacular of the trailer, "suck"?




Return to the movie trailers page


Screenwriter: Noah Baumbach (Fantastic Mr. Fox)
Director: Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale)
Actors: Ben Stiller (Zoolander), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Easy Money), Juno Temple (Year One) and Rhys Ifans (The Boat That Rocked)




Labels: , , ,


posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 9:00 AM



0 comment(s)


Share






November 8, 2008
Movie Trailer: The Machinist
Director Brad Anderson and screenwriter Scott Kosar work together brilliantly to tell the story of Trevor Reznik, a machinist who hasn’t slept in a year and fears he is going insane. Reznik, who is near skeletal in appearance, hallucinates a co-worker that isn’t there. As horrible things begin to happen in his life, Reznik worries that he’s making these things happen.


Visit the official site






Screenwriter: Scott Kosar (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
Director: Brad Anderson (Transsiberian)
Actors: Christian Bale (Batman Begins), Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Jacket) and Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers)

Labels: , , ,


posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 11:52 AM



0 comment(s)


Share






October 21, 2008
The Jacket (2005)
Should I see it?
No.


Short Review: This is a time-travel movie. After watching it, I wanted to travel back in time to when I decided to rent it and kick myself in the shins.

The Jacket

Being upset that this movie isn’t any good is like being upset after not winning the lottery. The odds were rather low from the onset.

All one needs to do is take a gander at the cast list: Adrian Brody (The Pianist, Summer of Sam, The Thin Red Line,) Jennifer Jason Leigh (In The Cut, eXistenZ, The Anniversary Party) and Minnesota native Kelly Lynch (Mr. Magoo, Joe Somebody, Virtousity.) Some actors seem compelled to align themselves with haughty, heady films that are so consumed with being important they wind up being meaningless. These three cover dozens of bad movies like it was specially their job to make these yawn fests.

Brody and Leigh are given respect in the industry as being great “independent” actors. Wha? These two play themselves in every role they touch. There’s no great acting going on here. Brody does his doe eyed, quiet guy thing and Leigh does her “I’m smart but horribly messed up” thing no matter the role. As actors they are neither compelling nor welcoming. Given their track records you’d think they’d have to prove their worth. As it is, after a while actors get a kind of tenure. It doesn’t matter how shoddy and unsuccessful their body of work actually is, it is imaginary aura of importance that gets them by. In my opinion, if you have made five empirically horrible movies, you should have to resign from making them altogether.

To actually talk about this movie directly, it is a boring mess. It has some interesting visual elements but so does my computer’s screen saver. It doesn’t mean I want to spend a hundred minutes staring at it? The storyline about a man who through isolation therapy he receives in a asylum sees his own death in a few days time, is surprisingly without tension or reason. There's some efforts to be creepy but these elements are so obtuse they distract from the floundering dialog and thin characters. Across the board, this movie wants to be more than what it is, a haphazard psychological thriller with no thrills.

I’m sure you haven’t even heard of this movie and you’re best off keeping it that way. If you’ve condemned yourself to seeing this waste of time take efforts to not pay full price, you’d only be hurting yourself.


Related Reviews:
Adrien Brody movies
King Kong (2005)
Hollywoodland (2006)


Other Critic's Reviews:
PopMatters
Chocking on Popcorn


Labels: , , , ,


posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 8:00 PM



0 comment(s)


Share