I LOVE Christian Bale!!

Just putting it out there. Love him. LOVE HIM!

He just did a surprise phone-in with Kevin and Bean at KROQ and I love him even more.

"I'm trying not to swear."

Adorable, hot, talented. LOVE. Love. LOVE. Potty mouth, temper, and all.




ETA: Also, Liam Neeson, who was also on Kevin and Bean this morning, continues to have one of the sexiest voices ever in the history of the universe. Hands down.

Movie: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Except for the general idea of the story and a few bare bones details, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button bears no resemblance to the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. In my opinion that's not a bad thing. Although the short is quirky and original, the way that the movie has been extended provides a nuance and depth that more effectively explores the Mark Twain quote that inspired Fitzgerald: "Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen."

I found the movie to be funny, poignant and tragic. A lovely re-interpretation of the story with heart and depth. Brad Pitt was beautifully wistful as Benjamin, out of step even for the brief period when he and Daisy managed to "meet in the middle". ( You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go. )

Movie: Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

Lucy Liu makes a very attractive looking corpse. Unfortunately, her dainty, kick-ass hotness isn't enough to save Rise: Blood Hunter from its needlessly convoluted plot and holes in logic big enough to drive a bus through. The film is dark and gritty, everything washed in shadows and blues to remind us that we are now in no man's land where vampires are sadistic but not quite equipped to deal with their cravings, fangless as they are. The vampires make an appropriately bloody mess of their meals, leaving body parts strewn across crime scenes, aided by various accoutrement to make up for what nature failed to give them.

Rise: Blood Hunter remains faithful to vampire lore only moderately, which really isn't such a problem, but the fact that the movie is bloody boring to boot makes it par for the course in the reinvention of the genre that seems underway. Everyone wants to shake things up, but go too far or not far enough. Thus far the most interesting shift in the emo vampire trend, I found, was 30 Days of Night (released four months after Rise: Blood Hunter) which hearkens back to a more folkloric vampire.

( Here I thought bartenders were supposed to be like priests. )