Anyone seen this? I started it last night, but didn't finish it yet.


What is up with Christian Bale in this movie? He's sickly skinny. It's part of the storyline, but he's seriously disturbing to watch.

I find it hard to believe he could give a good performance when he's so unhealthy, but he does.
[Edited 10/3/07 16:56pm]
[Edited 10/3/07 16:56pm]

he makes a giant apple pie and eats the entire thing towards the end of the film

theres also a point when he orders carry-out pud-thai chicken

What was surprising to me was that they didn't show how skinny he really was except in one or two scenes. When an actor goes through the trouble of suffering and starving himself like that you'd expect them to at least exploit it properly for the sake of the movie, but instead they mainly just exploited it for the sake of the marketing of the movie. Such a waste, IMO.

I really liked this movie.

JustErin said:

I didn't like the ending. Sorry NDRU.

JustErin said:

I'm liking it, too

retina said:

Funny I never heard about it before last night. I was wondering if they used some CGI effects, though, on the full body shots.

It's hard to want to support that kind of thing. Seems wrong to encourage someone hurting themselves like that. To celebrate his commitment (in the form of anorexia) to his craft raises moral questions for me.

horatio said:

eww, pud-thai?

NDRU said:

Yeah well it's a small movie. But those who did hear about it usually heard about his weight loss before anything else like plot or story. The marketing relied pretty heavily on that, especially at the festival circuit.



I'm pretty sure they didn't. But if they did, then that would really make his sacrifice a total waste, lol.



I guess so. At least if they asked him to do it (which honestly, I don't think they did). I shouldn't speak against "suffering for one's art" though since I've done it myself many a time, and for much lesser end products.

loved it!! loved it!! and i loved the ending

it was pretty fucked up how emaciated he was though

I've seen it but won't tell you the ending .
I was shocked by his weight, but was even more shocked when I read he wanted to be thinner for the role.

From what I've read and watched him in interviews, he really got THAT skinny for the part. Gotta admire that, plus I like skinny guys (hello, I'm a P fan? ) I love Mr. Bale, he's the hotness... Reign Of Fire

i own this movie but have no clue where it is.
i should make little library cards to keep track of who has what

retina said:

Yeah I bet there was a lot of buzz in the acting world about it. Often you see actors with funny hair or moustache, and they say "I'm doing a role." Christian Bale nearly killed himself!

It is a fine line, because we do praise artists who suffer for their work. I don't really respect a performance artist who cuts himself for shock value. But I do respect an artist who faces painful truths for the sake of their art. There's enough natural suffering that we don't need to create it.

I thought CB was good in this movie (as always) so I want to respect it, but I don't know if it was necessary or just shocking.

emm said:

I own it too.

Actually, I bought a dvd player and there was a burned DVD in it with 6 movies on it - including this one. The player didn't work so I took it back but kept the disk.

This is one of the few movies disturbing enough that I have elevated to the elite club my wife and friend call Bible Study


Nest day at work I left a hangman post-it on her computer

ThirdandFinal said:

I used to have sunday movie movie church... we had one meeting and a viewing of Paper Moon, and then everyone started skipping movie church...

Christian Bale lost a lot of weight for the role, but makeup also hollowed him out further.

ufoclub said:

that's what I'm wondering. Movies are pretty touched up, and he could have had makeup shadows accentuating his ribs & spine, etc. Not to take away from what he did.

NDRU said:

agreed, but at just over 6 ft tall, i don't think he needed much lighting or makeup to make 120 lbs look bad. you will say supa is tall and skinny and doesn't look emaciated. but i think perhaps only eating 275 calories a day also played a roll in making him look terrible.

emm said:

yeah definitely. I'm 6 feet, and I got down to about 135 at one point. I looked pretty sick. But not quite starving. I was just beginning to have the kind of look that would actually worry people.

The scary thing is that some people get much thinner even than 120 pounds. All things considered Christian Bale didn't look that sick, just extremely thin. He probably was careful about it, unlike victims of starvation/anorexics.

So when are you going to finish the damn movie, so we can hear if you liked the ending?

retina said:

probably not tonight, I have to go out Maybe if I can stay up I'll finish it. I want to send it back to netflix!

I can't really remember the ending but I think I liked the movie all in all.

I finished it last night. If I hadn't seen the Sixth Sense, Fight Club, & Lost Highway, it probably would have been more of a revelation. But we knew that something along those lines was coming, didn't we?

I guess I thought it would have been more logical if he hung himself, or lived in a place where they still hang people for hit & run manslaughter. But the way they did it, the hangman note didn't totally make sense.

But I thought the movie was stylish and creepy. And I thought it had a lot of originality, good acting, and Jennifer Jason Leigh is still nude in every role she does, and looking great!

How about Marlon Brando II? There were a bunch of interesting character actors.

I'm a fan of the movie. Christian was frightening in it. They said he wanted to loose at least 20 more pounds but they put a stop to that.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

Sounds like he really got into it. The director said he planned to lose a few pounds, like maybe 30 at most, but then he just kept going. If he'd lost much more he might have had some real problems!