Did a Christian Bale double movie night last night.
American Hustle, took a while to get going but once it did, it was pretty fun. Not much interesting going on in terms of story, but the characters were great and the acting was even better. The four leads might've all gotten Oscar noms, the smaller roles were great as well, especially Jeremy Renner and Louis C.K. They could've trimmed some of the fat though to make the movie a bit slicker, besides the slow introduction there's a bunch of other parts where it slows down more than it needs to, but often enough there's a great scene following it to make up for it (such as Louis C.K.'s fishing anecdote, or Jennifer Lawrence's crazy wife antics). 3.5/5
Out Of The Furnace, speaking of slow moving movies, this one was even worse. In essence it's a very straight forward revenge story, but the director got it in his head that this should be some sort of 'epic'. It just feels dragged out and at no point does the movie do anything that warrants the subject matter to be sprawled out like that. There was literally only one standout scene and that's where Bale, after getting out of prison, visits Zoe Saldana, his girlfriend who left him for another while he was in. Great acting there, too bad it's stuck in such an uneventful movie. Also, it features the most arbitrary opening scene of all time. It's Woody Harrelson (who plays the bad guy) harrassing his date, then another guy interrupts and he beats him up. It does nothing for the story, it doesn't even do anything to set Woody apart as the villain, it was just so utterly pointless that I kinda figured the movie would never recover, and it didn't. 2.5/5
But, I guess that's what happens when you Disney-up 1940s gangster period
Or, does Boardwalk Empire have me spoiled
However, Ryan and Emma has great chemistry
And, was Penn wearing a prosthetic nose to portray Mickey Cohen
