Tag Archive: Christian Bale


Decoding punctuation marks in movie titles

Filed under: Books, Fiction, Gender, Movies — Leave a comment
March 11, 2026

Two of the biggest movies around at the moment, both directed and starring strong-willed women, are “Wuthering Heights” (Emerald Fennell) and The Bride! (Maggie Gylennhaal) .

The first title comes with quotation marks, the second is rounded off with an exclamation point.

What can we deduce from these very deliberate uses of punctuation?

The scare quotes on the first comes as a warning that Emily Brontë’s 19th century tale of love and lust on the Yorkshire Moors is used only as a rough guide to the plot of film. There is no pretense that the original setting and storyline will be faithfully rendered. The boddice ripping frenzy captures the spirit of the novel but rides roughshod over the more nuanced details. Authenticity can go hang. 

Continue reading →
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

THE SCAMS AND STINGS OF AMERICAN HUSTLE

Filed under: Humour, Movies, Music — 1 Comment
April 5, 2014

AMERICAN HUSTLE directed by David O. Russell (USA, 2013)

Following on his superb Silver Linings Playback, David O.Russell makes use of some of the same actors for this highly enjoyable yarn inspired by a FBI operation that went pear-shaped in the late 1970s; hence the pre-credits caption: “Some of this actually happened”.

The sting of a sting of a sting tale left me floundering to follow all the twists and turns of the plot so it’s probably a movie that benefits from a second viewing (I’m only glad I didn’t see it dubbed into Italian!).

Having trimmed down and worked out for The Fighter, Christian Bale has flabbed up for his role as Irving Rosenfield and is all but unrecognisable. With his dodgy hair piece and very 70s fashion sense, he looks like he’s adopted Frank Booth’s smart man disguise from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.

As a slick con artist, his partner in crime is the seductive Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) who pretends to be an aristocratic English woman Lady Edith Greensly because this sucks in more victims – desperate men in search of loans. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

MALICK’S NEW WORLD

Filed under: Movies — Leave a comment
September 15, 2011

 I haven’t yet got to see the Tree Of Life but of all the Terrence Malick movies I have seen The New World is his weakest. It looks splendid and the editing of images with the soundtrack is a work of genius but the story plods along with a very wooden script.

Malick’s Days Of Heaven restored my faith in the voiceover but in The New World you have not just one, but three which seems to be over-egging it. These largely replace the need for dialogue and gives the movie a cold, detached quality.

Colin Farrell as Captain John Smith has the pissed off demeanour of a man who has stumbled into the wrong movie. He looks pumped up for some meaty action scenes but after some brief skirmishes with the savages (or ‘naturals’) these never materialise. There’s one unintentionally hilarious shot of him where one of the tribal leaders is talking to him in his native tongue. It’s not clear whether Farrell’s faraway look is meant to denote that he understands what the man is saying or whether he is thinking “what the fuck is this dude saying”?

On the subject of language, the speed with which Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher) learns English is astounding. One minute she’s asking for some basic vocabulary – sun/sky/eyes/lips, the next she’s chatting away fluently. I wish some of my students were as gifted as her.

Christian Bale as John Rolfe swans around trying to look deep and sensitive but he’s never been an actor who convinces me.

I recognise that Malick’s poetic cinema is on a higher plain than most directors, and arguments rage about which version of this movie is the definitive one but my first impressions (I watched the extended cut) were not positive.

Maybe my expectations were too great. M aybe I need to see it again. After all, there are many who regard it as a misunderstood masterpiece.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comment

THE FIGHTER IS NO KNOCKOUT

Filed under: Movies, Music — Leave a comment
February 25, 2011

Confession time.

I have never seen any of the Rocky movies!

This fact should immediately tell you that boxing movies are not my bag. The Fighter, directed by David O.Russell doesn’t persuade me that I’m missing anything by shunning this genre.

I rate Raging Bull but that’s as far as it goes.

Scorsese was once in the frame as the director of The Fighter but wisely turned it down. It’s a solid enough movie but far too predictable.

The only reason I watched it was to complete my mission of seeing all the Oscar best picture nominees. I left it till last as I didn’t expect to like it and in this sense  I wasn’t disappointed.

Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams play Micky, Dicky and Charlene respectively.  Micky is a big hitter but also a big softy at heart. Charlene is his girl and hated by his rabid family of foul-mouthed straw-haired sisters ( a family from hell).

Dicky is his half-brother who could have been a contender but ends up as a crackhead.

I quite liked Wahlberg’s understated performance but it only makes Bale’s over the top method acting seem all the more unhinged. Bale has never been a person or actor I admire and I find him very irritating here. The critical praise heaped on the movie centres on his grandstanding performance so if you like Bale you’ll like this movie. I don’t and didn’t.

The story is yet another true life triumph against all odds tale and I’m starting to think I want to see movies about failing with dignity – as Steely Dan sang on Deacon Blues: “they got a name for the winners in the world – I want a name when I lose“.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Comment