Posts tagged Christian Bale
The Fighter – Movie Trailer
Dec 28th
Posted by Channel 1 Networks in Movie Trailers
Mark Wahlberg stars in Paramount Pictures’ inspirational docudrama exploring the remarkable rise of Massachusetts-born, junior welterweight title winner “Irish” Micky Ward. A determined pugilist whose career in the ring was shepherded by his loyal half-brother, Dicky (Christian Bale) — a hard-living boxer-turned-trainer whose own career in the ring was nearly sent down for the count due to drugs and crime — perennial underdog Irish Micky rebounded from a disheartening series of defeats to win both the WBU Intercontinental Lightweight title and the WBU Light Welterweight title thanks to a fierce combination of determination and hard work. David O. Russell directs from a script by 8 Mile’s Scott Silver and Paul Attanasio (The Bourne Ultimatum).
“Public Enemies” Not Number 1
Jul 9th
Posted by Channel 1 Networks in Hotshots Movie Reviews
Not Number 1
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
PUBLIC ENEMIES is a disappointment, but it just might get better over time as some movies do when their reputations grow.
However, it has so many problems that that probably won’t happen.
Johnny Depp stars as John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber in the Thirties whom the FBI classified as “Public Enemy Number 1” until he was gunned down on a Chicago street after coming out of a movie theater.
No, that isn’t a “spoiler alert.” It is a historical fact and one of the problems with the movie: You know how it is going to end, and so where is the suspense?
The film starts in 1933, and we are told that it is the fourth year of the Great Depression. Dillinger shows up at a prison where he had just been paroled eight weeks earlier after serving nine years there.
He leads an escape of some prisoners, and as they head off in a getaway car, he says, “Let’s go to Chicago and make some money!”
Now, he doesn’t mean for them to get jobs in the Windy City. He means for them to rob some banks, even though robbing banks is getting harder than it once was.
Meanwhile, we meet Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, the special agent in charge of the Chicago field office. He has just shot and killed Pretty Boy Floyd, another well-known gangster.
In the meantime, Dillinger has picked up a coat-check girl named Billie Frechette, played by Marion Cotillard. He tells her right away that he is John Dillinger and that he robs banks, and he impresses her enough that he manages to get her to quit her job and to leave with him.
Now, there isn’t much of a story arc and what little there is, is confusing.
Depp comes from the Marlon Brando School of Acting with his mumbling, scratching, and twitching, and sometimes you can’t understand what he says.
Also, there are so many characters with their own stories that you can’t tell who they are, and they all look so much alike that you have a hard time telling who got killed and who is still alive.
Some well-known actors, you might not even recognize.
PUBLIC ENEMIES is definitely not Number 1, but it still brings a tear to your eye at the end.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Public Enemies – Movie Trailer
Jul 1st
Posted by Channel 1 Networks in Movie Trailers
Based on author Bryan Burrough’s ambitious tome Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-43, director Michael Mann’s sprawling historical crime drama follows the efforts of top FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale ) in capturing notorious bank robber John Dillinger. A folk hero to the American public thanks to his penchant for robbing the banks that many people believed responsible for the Great Depression, charming bandit Dillinger (Johnny Depp) was virtually unstoppable at the height of his criminal career; no jail could hold him, and his exploits endeared him to the common people while making headlines across the country. J. Edgar Hoover’s (Billy Crudup) FBI was just coming into formation, and what better way for the ambitious lawman to transform his fledgling Bureau of Investigation into a national police force than to capture the gang that always gets away? Determined to bust Dillinger and his crew, which also included sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) and Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi), Hoover christened Dillinger the country’s very first Public Enemy Number One, and unleashed Purvis to take them down by whatever means necessary. But Purvis underestimated Dillinger’s ingenuity as a master criminal, and after embarking on a frantic series of chases and shoot-outs, the dashing agent humbly surmised that he was in over his head. Outwitted and outgunned, Purvis knew that his only hope for busting Dillinger’s gang was to baptize a crew of Western ex-lawmen as official agents, and orchestrate a series of betrayals so cunning that even America’s criminal mastermind wouldn’t know what hit him. Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum, and Stephen Dorff co-star.