Review: The Machinist (2004)

Let me set the scene for you. It’s Friday afternoon in the office, we’re all eating far too many chocolate biscuits, whilst discussing diets, weight loss and squeezing into occasion dresses. Someone mentions Christian Bale and the extreme weight loss he went through for a movie, the movie that solidified his career, apparently. It’s called The Machinist. I’d never heard of it, and none of my colleagues could tell me anything about it. A quick Google search told me everything I needed to know that I had to watch this movie ASAP.

Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) is suffering badly from insomnia. He looks awful, he’s losing weight rapidly, and he hasn’t slept in a year. Well, I won’t complain about feeling tired anymore, that’s for sure. Trevor is, quite rightly, starting to question his sanity. Why? You’ll have to watch to find out…

The Machinist starts just as mysteriously as it means to go on. In the dead of night, a beaten-up Trevor attempts to dispose of what seems to be a dead body, wrapped up inside of a rug. Someone approaches him with a light, and asks, ‘who are you?’. From there, the movie moves at a relatively slow pace, but builds up a horrendously long list of questions that end up swimming around your brain.

I’m not familiar with the lineup of award nominees for that year, but they must have been amazing for Christian Bale not to have featured in them. His dedication to losing all that weight is worth noting alone, but this is the best I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve always enjoyed his performances. You can’t help bet feel desperately sorry for Trevor, but he gives off an unsettling feeling at the same time. How on earth he went from this state to bulking up for Batman I’ll never know!

I got right up to the point where my head wanted to burst open from all the unanswered questions, and then the movie started unravelling itself and everything fell into place, slowly at first, but the last twenty minutes or so were brilliant. It’s hard to say any more than that because I don’t want to give away spoilers, but I think a second viewing would be really helpful to see just where all the clues were. Some were given so early on I was kicking myself for not picking up on them. Then again, that’s why I love this genre so much. I get so sucked into the story I never see the reveal or the twist coming.

I’ve mentioned this movie to a few people now, and it’s a shame that it seems to be known as ‘the one where Christian Bale is really skinny’. It’s so much more than that! It doesn’t top Memento for me as my favourite Mystery/Thriller, but it certainly comes close.

Review: The Big Short (2016)

Surprise night out with one of my friends ended up in the cinema watching The Big Short, she tried to convince me she had planned it because she knew  I liked all the actors in it but i know the real reason.  She is currently working through her first year towards her MSc in Finance so I suspect she had an ulterior motive.

The Big Short follows three groups of people who all predicted the US housing crisis and set about betting against the housing market.  Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is the first to spot the blip and sets himself up to basically bet his entire hedge fund on the outcome.  Two further groups catch on Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) and his team of misfits and newbies Jamie (Finn Wittrock) and Charlie (John Magaro) who recruit seasoned trader, Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to help them jump on the band wagon.

Admitted that is probably the worst synopsis of a film...EVER.  Yeah, way to make a comedy sound boring Jenna! Also, it is fair to say it sounds like the most boring film and when it started and they used all this financial and banking lingo (Shola sat next to me looking all smug because she knows what they are talking about). I have a blank look on my face when all of a sudden a definition pops up on the screen to help me along, then Margot Robbie, in a bath tub appears and starts explaining something or other.  Basically, it's like the film takes mini breaks to explain things and clarify whats going on.  The first few times it happened it threw me off the story and it actually annoyed me but as it went on it actually helped understand what was going on and added humour to the proceedings.

I was feeling so lost and out of my depth until Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explained it all to me. Why couldn't my Finance Unit of my HNC in Business have been presented that way? I might have listened! I loved how different The Big Short is to anything else I've seen, it had that almost 'The Office' style to it but it broke the 4th wall constantly which cracked me up. 

Between the crazy way this film is presented and the comedy that runs through it I was really entertained and, contrary to my very boring synopsis, I wasn't bored at all (and I actually feel like I might have learnt something about the cause of the global recession). Even though I knew they outcome, that all the main characters were right about what was going to happen, I still spent the last half an hour on the edge of my seat while their companies floundered waiting for the inevitable.  The final piece of the puzzle for me was the emotion that was run through the latter half of the film, particularly with Steve Carrells character, obviously they wanted to succeed and make their investors money but if they did the global economy would collapse.  It was really a no win situation for all these guys and Carell really highlighted that struggle between the rock and the hard place.

Oh I agree! Steve Carrell just shone brighter and brighter as the movie went on. I thought Christian Bale was superb though too, he definitely deserves that Oscar nomination.

I just feel that despite how much I enjoyed the movie, I didn't have a clue what was going on. It did a better job at explaining the situation to idiots like me than The Wolf of Wall Street did, but about half way through I gave up trying to understand the financial lingo and just enjoyed it for what it was.

In the car on the way home, my fiance and I worked out between us what a Synthetic CDO was, but what I still can't get my head around is what these swaps are in the first place. How can you bet against the housing market? When the average Joe can't pay his mortgage, where is this money coming from?

This is me the day after watching The Big Short, reading up on CDO's!

I have really fluffed this review, anybody that reads it is probably not going to want to bother with the film but do watch it, you have to decide for yourself and I enjoyed it much more that my review suggests.

How true was that final statement on screen right before the credits rolled? I can't remember what the term was for it, but it basically said that this is all starting again, as of last year. Where can I buy some swaps?

Looking Forward to Seeing in the Cinema this Month...January 2016

You don’t understand how hard it is to pick just one movie for this post, guys. Here in the UK we’re normally at least a week behind the US, meaning a lot of the big winter releases fall into 2016 for us. I’m somehow meant to pick from Joy, The Revenant, The Hateful Eight...the list goes on.

I haven’t yet had the chance to look into all of the January releases, but there’s one that’s been on my mind for a while now, The Big Short. I know little about the plot or the housing market collapse that it focuses on, but I’m a sucker for a big cast, and well, this one sounds promising.

Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt (and Schmidt from New Girl!) I’m not sure where this movie can go wrong. Don’t let me down, guys! Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it yet. In fact, I’m watching it myself right now because it’s been at least a month since I saw it!

The Big Short will be released in UK cinemas on 22nd January, 2016.

I have been away from the blog for a short while over Christmas but I have been well into my movies, between DVD's, TV and the Cinema I have watched countless movies over the festive period and watched a lot of trailers...

Of all the trailers I have seen for movies this is the one that really got my attention, the one that may finally get Leo his well deserved Oscar nod!!

The Revenant is inspired by the true events of Hugh Glass and his story of survival and revenge and although it looks pretty dark in places I am really eager to see how it plays out. In case you haven't seen it, here is the dark trailer...

The Revenant will be released in UK cinemas on 7th January, 2016.

Review: The Prestige (2006)

You're all aware that Jenna & I are making our way through IMDB's Top 250 list, which The Prestige is on. I've also been recommended the film multiple times after watching The Usual Suspects. I tried to get the family to watch it with me but the youngest won the vote and so I had to watch this with the cats the other night instead!  I hadn't seen this film for years (and fortunately couldn't remember what happened) so poor Allie has had to sit with this review in drafts for ages until I could find the time to watch it again.

The Prestige opens with its ending, as we see Hugh Jackman's character Robert Angier die after a magic trick has gone tragically wrong. We then see Christian Bale's character Alfred Borden face a trial for his murder. Makes sense, right? I thought so too. Oh, how I was wrong. The rest of the film steps back in time as we see the story unfold whilst Robert and Alfred read each other's journals. At this point we aren't even sure how they obtained these, but that gets explained later on.  Easy peasy...No point lying this is probably the third time I've watched this film and having forgotten the plot I was completely and utterly confused from 20 minutes in onwards!!

Once I realised that we had simply gone back in time a little, my confusion vanished (ta-da!) and the rest of the film was much more enjoyable. Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale did a fantastic jobs at playing these two leads and the feud between them felt real.  I was lucky, as the film went on I remembered bits from watching it before and luckily I remembered the ending pretty sharpish because my Dad stumbled home (pretty drunk) and promptly announced "oh is this the one with *Insert spoiler here*" "Yes Dad, thanks for that!" Nice one haha!

I won't discuss the story in too much detail here because the film is a fantastic experience to watch for the first time, spoiler free. What was a shame for me was that I already knew that there was a huge twist, and so whilst I enjoyed the story immensely, I was also shouting across the room to my other half with my guesses for the twist. Admittedly, I worked it out, only right before the end though and even then I didn't work every detail out.  I can't remember if I worked this out the first time I watched it, I doubt I did, I think The Usual Suspects might have been a fluke!

The final 10 minutes were fantastic, and I would give a lot to view them again with a fresh pair of eyes. I couldn't believe how many subtle hints that I'd completely missed, just dotted throughout the rest of the film. 

This is a great film, the actors have so much chemistry and I even liked Scarlet Johannsen (I think she might actually be growing on me, yes I am shocked too!).  The good thing about watching this film again, is as Allie mentioned, you spot so much more, you notice things that are said and done that you wouldn't bother even thinking twice about the first time round.  Another factor for me was even when you know what is going to happen your loyalty for the characters shifts and changes throughout the whole film, one minute you love him and hate her, the next you like her but hate him, you are kept on your toes the whole time.

Firstly, I'd like to re-iterate how brilliant I thought The Prestige was. I would honestly recommend it to anyone, and I'm so gutted that I didn't see it when it first came out. You may not have praised it so highly then as it swiftly followed Batman Begins, which was such a high accolade for Nolan, could have made this one seem a little slow in comparison.  Secondly, I want to congratulate myself for reviewing this film without once referring to Batman, Alfred and Wolverine. You don't know how hard that was for me! (Oops!)

Amazing film, I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It is slow moving at times but keeps your interest throughout and the tension between the lead characters is so high you can't help but want to see how it turns out.

I can't fault this film, I love Nolan's work and this is some of his best.  Only makes me more eager to see Interstellar.