Christian Bale Archives

Movie Day: “The Big Short”

December 25, 2015

I didn’t read Michael Lewis’ bestseller about the credit and housing bubble collapse and subsequent bailout of the big banks, but I couldn’t wait to see the movie on which it was based. What a cast. What rave reviews. What a saga.

Financial terminology makes my eyes glaze over and I’m an idiot when it comes to math, so I didn’t expect to understand everything that was going on in the movie – and I didn’t. But I understood enough of the big picture to get that director Adam McKay, who’s better known for his Will Ferrell comedies, came up with an ingenious way to tell a true story that’s full of financial mumbo jumbo, doesn’t have any heroes, and certainly doesn’t have a happy ending.

Basically, Christian Bale plays Dr. Michael Burry, a socially inept genius who quit medicine to start Scion Capital, where he figured out that American housing was built on a bubble that was about to burst. His investments in subprime home mortgages gets the attention of a cocky, ambitious Wall Streeter named Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), who explains it all to fellow investments broker Mark Baum (Steve Carrell). Baum has a complicated relationship with his job and his life (he’s in group therapy to come to terms with his brother’s death), but follows Burry and Vennett’s strategy even as he knows it could bring the country to its knees. As I said, there are no winners here and it’s hard to care about any of the characters. But McKay presents them in a unique, fast-paced style that drew me. (He uses amusing cameos by Margot Robbie, Anthony Bordain and Selina Gomez to explain technical terms to the audience.) The result is that I was furious all over again about how corrupt our financial system is and how all those assholes took the country down and never went to jail for it.

As with most movies I see lately, “The Big Short” had several places where it could have ended (directors seem allergic to the word “cut”), and it dragged on too long for my taste. A bearded Brad Pitt, whose Plan B Productions produced the film as it did with “Moneyball,” has some cool scenes as the voice of reason, and it’s always good to see Marisa Tomei and Melissa Leo even in small roles. Overall, the movie was very entertaining, and some of the dialogue was laugh-out-loud funny. The first film to show us exactly how such a heinous chapter in America’s history happened, “The Big Short” is a must-see.

Movie Day: "American Hustle"

November 24, 2013

Today was a treat: the first “public” showing of the film, which won’t be released until mid-December. It’s full of the same high-octane energy that fueled director David O Russell’s last two movies, “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” and it features many of the same cast members: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro. But “American Hustle,” while also about flawed characters you come to care about and root for, is much more ambitious in its canvas. Very loosely based on the ABSCAM investigations of the late ’70s and early ’80s, it’s about a bunch of con artists and FBI officers who work together to bring down corrupt politicians and mob casino bosses, among others.

Brilliant con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) is married to his completely unpredictable wife Rosalind (Jennifer Lawrence) and is a loving father to their son in their Long Island home. At the same time, he’s madly in love with and in cahoots with with the equally cunning – and very sexy – Sydney (Amy Adams). They’re forced to work for a wild and crazy FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), who pushes them into a world of Jersey powerbrokers and mafia that’s as dangerous as it is alluring. From the opening scene, in which we meet the fat (you should see that gut!), balding (you should see that combover!) Irving, I kept thinking Is that really Christian Bale???? Talk about throwing himself into a role. He’s almost unrecognizable and so, so good. After watching him last weekend in “Out of the Furnace” and thinking back on his other performances, I’m really thinking he’s one of the greatest actors we have right now. He’s a total shape-shifter in this movie.

As I said above, the energy throughout is high and the cons just keep making your head spin, and it’s not always easy to keep up with who’s conning whom and why. But my biggest problem with the film, which I mostly liked, was its nonstop decibel level. And by that I mean that everybody’s always yelling. Like in almost every scene. About half way into the movie, I had sensory overload and the movie exhausted me. I would have loved a few scenes of quiet, of reflection, of toned down acting.

I still haven’t seen my “Best Movie of the Year.” I’ve seen a lot of good ones but not The One. I’m hoping it’s still out there.

Movie Day: "Out of the Furnace"

November 10, 2013

Scott Cooper’s first directorial effort was “Crazy Heart,” which won Jeff Bridges an Oscar. His sophomore project is “Out of the Furnace,” which Cinema Society screened for us today and which opens next month. It could have garnered a nomination for Christian Bale if the Best Actor field weren’t so crowded this year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Best Supporting nom for Casey Affleck though.

Set in the depressed (and depressing) steel mill town of Braddock, PA, the story focuses on two brothers. Russell, Bale’s character, works hard at the mill, knowing his days there are numbered since the mill will be closing and the jobs moved to China. Rodney (Affleck) has done numerous tours of duty in Iraq and is floundering. He doesn’t want to work at the mill, doesn’t seem to be able to stay out of trouble either. He gets lured into a truly demonic drugs-and-fighting ring led by Woody Harrelson in one of his crazy-guy roles. Woody’s gang is headquartered over the NJ border in the type of mountain area that’s straight out of “Deliverance” or “Winter’s Bone.” We’re talking about creeps and lowlifes here. The fight scenes are bloody and the violence overall pretty gruesome; some at the screening walked out of the theater. The story is dark and not terribly enlightening and the ending is yet another one of those ambiguous ones that left us scratching our heads, but I loved the acting (Sam Shepard, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker and Willem Dafoe round out the cast) and the sense that I was watching a throwback to films from the ’70s like “The Deer Hunter.”

The movie generated some buzz at the festivals earlier in the year, but I just don’t see it vaulting into the top tier of must-see films. Still, I recommend it for Bale and Affleck. Affleck, who came to the screening for a Q&A along with director Scott Cooper, continues to mature as an actor, and Bale is incapable of giving a bad performance; I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Movie Day: “The Big Short”

Movie Day: "American Hustle"

Movie Day: "Out of the Furnace"

Follow Me!

Get in touch!

About Jane Heller