Tag Archives: Christian Bale

The Pale Blue Eye (2022) Movie Review

The Pale Blue Eye, Scott Cooper’s latest, sees a homicide detective (Christian Bale) teaming up with a young Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling) to solve a series of murders at West Point in 1830. Based on a novel by Louis Bayard, the film is something of a fictionalized origin story for Poe’s writing career while also serving as a gothic murder mystery in its own right.

Bayard’s Poe believes himself to be haunted by his mother’s ghost, and his pedantic nature sets him in opposition to other cadets at the military academy. His alienation relative to his peers eventually puts him in suspicion as the body count around the academy stacks up.

Melling’s performance as Poe is Continue reading The Pale Blue Eye (2022) Movie Review

Ford v Ferrari (2019) Movie Review

In Ford v Ferrari, director James Mangold, working from a script by Jez Butterworth; John-Henry Butterworth; and Jason Keller, aims to capture the euphoria found inside the dangerous world of racing. The opening voiceover from Matt Damon’s car-driver-turned-car-dealer Carroll Shelby expresses a longing for that moment when the car peaks at 7,000 revolutions per minutes. At this speed, the car becomes weightless, a non-existent entity, and the driver simply moves along the open air as if carried forth through pure adrenaline alone.

Mangold eventually gets to a place where his film can attempt to distill that euphoric, high-adrenaline feeling. Certainly, there is Continue reading Ford v Ferrari (2019) Movie Review

2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Actor

The Best Actor race is a tight one this year. You have fan favorites like A Star is Born. Crowd-pleasers like Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book. Transformative performances in Christian Bale and Rami Malek. And Willem Dafoe is in there, too. Because why not?

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The Nominees:

Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Actor

2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Actor

Like with Best Actress, the Oscar race for Best Actor comes in three tiers. There are the clear front-runners, sure-fire nominees. There are two or three likely nominees. And then there’s the rest, a handful of actors in the mix that could slip in last minute.

The hardest spot to predict is the last one. The fifth spot could be filled by a number of quality performances.

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The Nominees:

Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Actor

Vice (2018) Movie Review

Adam McKay likes to show. And show. And show.

As he moves further from straight comedy and more toward a dark comedy examination of political America, McKay’s showy style becomes more apparent. In a way, it is more permissible to have a broad comedy film be brash and in-your-face. While such a style is not destined to fail in a more dramatic setting, it is harder to grapple with tone in that setting.

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McKay’s The Big Short shows some signs of this tonal problem. Largely a depressing subject, the comedy flourishes in that retelling of the housing crisis don’t translate well. The non sequitur cutaways to celebrities are jarring and ineffective. What shines in that film are the performances, showing that the director understands the import of Continue reading Vice (2018) Movie Review

2016 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Supporting Actor

This is a tough category. Not the absolute toughest, but it’s tough.

The frontrunner appears to be Sylvester Stallone due to his recent Golden Globe win (and the fact that he got a significant amount of applause and cheers when they announced his nomination). He does turn a career-high performance in Creed, but there are other actors who could conceivably knock him down.

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Mark Ruffalo surprisingly Continue reading 2016 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Supporting Actor

Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right Now

 

It’s October, which means its time to watch some horror movies. Instead of combing the rather unhelpful Netflix website to find the best selections, head to the search bar and check out these gems.

 

Note: this list is in absolutely no particular order. I just picked and grabbed as I perused the films that are available on Netflix.

 

 

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

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I’ve talked extensively about this movie in previous posts, so I’ll be brief: this movie is horror art. If you want a scream-filled gore fest, this isn’t the movie for you. But if you want horror as high cinema, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a beauty.

Continue reading Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right Now

[Quickie] See This Movie: The Wolfpack (2015) Movie Review

 

Fascinating. A case study of isolation. And a case study of cinephilia that is utterly unparalleled. The power of cinema as a means of connection to the outside world and as a former of identity has never been exemplified on film in such a way as The Wolfpack presents it.

 

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With essentially nothing else to place the Angulo siblings into society and an alcoholic, domineering man as a father, the boys are Continue reading [Quickie] See This Movie: The Wolfpack (2015) Movie Review