Why does Christian Bale get lead roles?

[iLOVENZB]

I'll take a look at The Fighter tomorrow when I got to the video store.

[KFlint]

...to the video store.

Is there such thing?

[mjmacky]

I'm hoping your "superior intellect" can come up with something more than, "I think he sucks". I'll wait for that "overly analytical" response.

That's assuming I'm trying to troll here, but I feel such an irritation when watching him play a role. It just makes we want to scream out, "do something that makes you seem like an interesting character!"
So I FINALLY checked out American Psycho, I've had too many people recommend it. It was a huge fucking waste of time. Not only was the movie bad, this supposed solid actor did nothing to sell the role to me. It was at about 42 minutes that I started to skip ahead and see the "twist" or "payoff" wasn't worth the 0.75 hours I put into this crap.

Christian Bale is a good, solid actor. In today's ocean of turd, that's quite something.

Disagree, as I am pretty picky about identifying talented actors, there are still plenty of canoes swatting there oars at a floating Bale. If I can think of some of my favorite male actors right now, it would be Neeson, Giamatti, DeFoe, Downey Jr., Bridges, Damon.

[IdolEyes787]

Umm first did you understand that the whole thing was meant to be a comedy or the that the character of Patrick Bateman was basically suppose to be nothing more that a pretty mask hiding emptiness underneath?

Bateman doesn't kill because he's evil ,he kills to combat that nothingness . I won't see how anyone is suppose to be both "nothing" and interesting.

[mjmacky]

Umm first did you understand that the whole thing was meant to be a comedy

Do you mean the scene where he does a Jim Carrey impression?
The movie on a whole had a feeling of being spoof genre, but none of it was funny or interesting. I didn't have enough evidence to even consider classifying it as a comedy.

I won't see how anyone is suppose to be both "nothing" and interesting.

I don't know, Dexter did a pretty good job at it

[megabyteme]

It wasn't necessarily a comedy, but more of a disgusted look at the culture of the 1980's. This from the author:

[Bateman] was crazy the same way [I was]. He did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. It initiated because my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. That is where the tension of "American Psycho" came from. It wasn't that I was going to make up this serial killer on Wall Street. High concept. Fantastic. It came from a much more personal place, and that's something that I've only been admitting in the last year or so. I was so on the defensive because of the reaction to that book that I wasn't able to talk about it on that level.

The very short concept quite literally examines the "killing" that was taking place on Wall Street during the Reagan years, and the fact that no one was willing to admit that any of it was happening. If you were on Wall Street, you could do anything you wanted.

Once again, macky, you fail to prove yourself to be anything but mediocre-at best. Stick around long enough, and you may just find that the whispers of "greatness" in your head were simply fairy tales spoken by a delusional/denial-based mother.

You can't even analyze a popular movie. Do you have any demonstrable talents you'd like to share with the class?

*EDIT- BTW, I'm still waiting for your "highly analytical" views on who would have given better performances in Bale's roles...

[IdolEyes787]

That's from the author not the director.

from rotten tomatoes

Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) and Guinevere Turner's (Go Fish) adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's controversial novel distills the critically maligned book down to its ironic, satirical core. Wisely situating most of the novel's grisly action off-screen, Harron employs violence as a metaphor for the spiritually vacant materialism and corporate machismo of the Reagan '80s. Christian Bale (Velvet Goldmine) delivers a shining performance as the status-obsessed, psychotic broker Patrick Bateman--self-proclaimed expert in "murders and executions." Traveling amongst narcissistic, misogynistic, barely discernable corporate clones, Patrick spends his workdays obsessing over tasteful business cards, designer suits, and prime reservations at trendy restaurants. After hours, he dismembers prostitutes, models, transients, and literally gives a co-worker the axe in a series of increasingly surreal episodes, all prefaced by demented lectures on the virtues of Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis. Chloe Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry) and Resse Witherspoon (Election), as Patrick's secretary and fiancée, turn in strong performances, and Andrzej Sekula's stylish cinematography lends the film a stark, über-modern aesthetic reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. While American Psycho does not venture deeply into the mind of its sick protagonist, it offers a sharp satire of the dark side of yuppie culture.

[megabyteme]

Satire doesn't necessarily need to be comedy, or funny- just look at SNL over the past 2 decades. Does anyone even laugh anymore?

From Merriam-Webster

Definition of SATIRE
1
: a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn
2
: trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly

Regardless, I got the joke(s), and American Psycho is one of a handful of purchased blu-rays in my collection.

[IdolEyes787]

Yeah but you're ghey.

So Doctor Strangelove is classic satire and therefore a mediation on Man's foibles and not for yuks?

[megabyteme]

Yeah but you're ghey.

So Doctor Strangelove is classic satire and therefore a mediation on Man's foibles and not for yuks?

Satire can be funny, and even be classic comedy; however, it doesn't have to be.