Hi, just wanted to drop by and say I saw the movie just tonight.
It was fabulous. I'm a huge fan of it now, though I'd never heard of it before. I love how it ties into the themes of Dostoyevsky and Kafka (whose works I have both read several of).  Everything struck me as something more than just a run-of-the-mill thriller/suspense.

And I like that.  Anyhow, I'll be around. This is one of my favourite movies now.

( Cast/Crew Project Update, and Reccommendations... In short, You should see The Prestige and Harsh Times! )

More Machinist related is this comment from Bale recently published in the Orlando Sentinel:

"My toughest piece of work, Machinist.... Maybe, now that I'm doing these bigger films, it will have a life and find an audience..."

And he says in another interview that he wishes he'd never answered any questions about his weightloss as it just sort of became "that skinny guy movie". Sad, really, because in a way it is true that the press have focused on his weightloss for the film, completely overlooking the brilliant performance, but it's too bad that fans haven't come out in force as they have with other films. That Newsies has a larger fanbase than this film confounds me. (Nothing against Newsies, mind you. *cough*)

I watched The Machinist again last night. It's probably been more than a year since I last saw it. Curiously enough, I am still finding little things I didn't notice on previous viewings! Or at least some ideas are coming together in ways they had not before, likely because I was looking too closely.

( Just a few things, possibly but hopefully not repeating myself... much. )

I have to say, too, that this film absolutely holds up. I still love watching it, and I still get tense as hell at all the right parts (especially Miller's accident!). And no matter how many times I see him, I am still unsettled just watching Trevor.

Also, not from the film but the extras, having seen Session 9 I wonder if the chair in the hallway used for Scott Kosar's interview was not an intentional nod to that film. Granted, Session 9 is Anderson's film not Kosar's, but the imagery is eerily similar.

Hello, I just found this community. I bought the movie when it came out, but I hadn't watched it in a long time before today. Anyway, I was looking for a particular screencap. I looked in the tags for the community, but I couldn't find it there. Does anyone have a screencap of the overhead shot of him kneeling down cleaning his bathroom floor?



That's in the movie, right? I've had A LOT of coffee today. I might be thinking of something else.

So, what does everyone think about the left and right forks in the road?

I seriously love the in-depth detail they went to with this movie.
Every single thing in the movie was for some reason.
Or meant for something else.

Just wanted to see what everyone else thought of that.

I watched Session 9 last weekend. Excellent in many ways, but I was a little disappointed in the ending, particularly since The Machinist had such a great ending. It was otherwise a very good film. Intensely creepy but without relying on all that new horror quick edits/shaky/scratchy/flashy nonsense. I really think that if I could have seen it without comparing it to The Machinist, it would have been even better.

( A bit more with SPOILERS. )

Have you seen the film? Any thoughts?

A few days ago I've lost everything from my pc *cries*. I'm looking for a fan video of The Machinist (I can't remember who made or where I've saved from) it's a wonderful video, the song used for the video was "It's been awhile" (Staind), pls, I'm desperated!!!..anybody out there has this video to share with me?? PLEASE!!

Thank you in advance!

( A pic )

tinymoonstar was kind enough to point out to me that IMDB recently had a poll on Film actor (male or female) who achieved the most dramatic body weight metamorphosis? Christian Bale came in first for The Machinist with 40.1% of the votes. ( Runners up? )

This is, of course, public opinion and not based on actual weight loss/gain, but I'm pretty sure he'd win that, too.

Notable cast and crew updates:

Brand Anderson is thought to be working on two films: The Edukators, "the story of three rebellious youths whose anti-capitalist politics leads them into a world of protest and crime" (a re-make of the German film of the same name), and a thriller called Trans-Siberian... ( more on Trans-Siberian )

Neither of these, however, have yet to appear on his IMDB page.

Christian Bale's a busy guy, but the only films yet announced to release this year are Harsh Times (finally!) on Sep 8, and The Prestige on Oct 27.

Just a few links to a few things of interest:

The Machinist now has its very own Wikipedia entry! But what is up with that poster? Seriously. (Bale has one, too! Check it out.)

Also, dgtall has posted a few icons to bale_daily:
Link to 15 Icons
Link to 5 icons and a WP
Link to 25 icons

And uh, that's about it, actually. :)

Just a headsup that Brad Anderson and Scott Kosar are teaming up again for a film titled The Crazies, a remake of Romero's 1973 flick of the same title.

"The military attempts to contain a killer man-made virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected."

Here's a bit more on the original, and a bit from Kosar on the re-make. The cast is yet to be announced.

I was thinking about what other films had the same kind of feeling as The Machinist, and two by Hitchcock came to mind.

Vertigo
James Stewart as John "Scottie" Ferguson, a retired San Francisco police detective who suffers from acrophobia and Kim Novak as the lady who leads him to high places. Gavin Elster, a wealthy shipbuilder who is an acquaintance from college days, approaches Scottie and asks him to follow his beautiful wife, Madeliene (Novak). He fears she is going insane, maybe even contemplating suicide, because she believes she is possessed by a dead ancestor. Scottie is skeptical, but agrees after he sees the beautiful Madeleine.

Spellbound
The head of the Green Manors mental asylum, Dr. Murchison, is retiring to be replaced by Dr. Edwards, a famous psychiatrist. Edwards arrives and is immediately attracted to the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance Petersen. However, it soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwards is in fact a paranoid amnesiac imposter. He goes on the run with Constance, who tries to help his condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the real Dr. Edwards.

Summaries found at www.imdb.com


The second one has some imagery clearly related to Salvador Dali's ideas about the subconscious and archetypal "nightmare symbols". Which makes me wonder what sort of art allusions there might be in The Machinist as well...

Just the kind of comm I had been looking for--didn't think to check for the license plate. Thanks for the heads-up, Rev.

I saw the film over the holidays and was just caught up in it. I put my initial thoughts on my LJ here in this post.

Now I'm convinced that it's absolutely class film-making. I hope to post more soon.

Here's a quick list of topics of particular interest:

Theories: about the film, the characters, the plot, motivations, the cast, the creators and more.

Observations: nifty things we've noticed.

Stills/screen caps: a lot of them.

Pics: other images from the film/production.

Icons: LJ user icons.

Fanart and Art

First time: first viewings or new member, often accompanied by a review.

Suggested reading (see also: books) and suggested everything else.

And the obligatory, though mostly painless, Admin posts.

Other tags:
alcohol, audio, bale, bleach, brothers, christopher, commentary, cowboy, dostoyevsky, drinking, foreshadowing, forgiveness, game, intro, ivan, Ivan's deat, justice, kafka, maria, miller,mother, nin, request, route 666, skinny, soundtrack, st. christopher, stickman, thiness, trent, video, white

Hi, I'm new on this community so I decided to drop some lines to introduce myself (the boring part..I know!..lol)..( Read more... )

First the "Hello," I guess? Hello. I'm Deidra, pretty new to the comm, lovely meeting you all. *waves*

I have searched everywhere, and am hoping that one of you very lovely persons would be willing to help me out: I would love an icon, but I'm terrible at them, and can't even find the cap I'm looking for to boot. I'd like an icon from the very first time we meet Ivan, leaning on the car window, with that creepy smile on his face. That particular shot is just spooky and I love it.

Doesn't have to be anything fancy. Would anyone (please) be willing to avatar that, or even provide a still or a base?

Thanks, and again - nice to meet you!

tiffachan asked for caps of the scene in the bathroom when Trevor does the skinny dance to freak out Stevie.

( Warning! Super Skinny Bale under the cut (It startled me... it's been so long. oO) )

So, okay, I've recently been introduced to the expletively magnificent awesomeness of Nine Inch Nails and for the past two weeks of almost total immersion in Trentworld, Trev's been circling and lurking in the back of my mind.

Mainly because of ofnaivete's excellent post about the thematic links tween Reznor and Reznik and fuelled by that interesting fact that NIN were hoped for inclusion on the soundtrack. Obviously Brad Anderson decided against that. Damn his eyes, I could have discovered Reznor so much earlier than I did! *cough*

And I've been thinking: how about we put together our own NIN soundtrack to the movie? Not to detract anything from the excellence of the theremin, but just as an interesting alternate. I know we've got enough knowledgeable fans in this very comm. What would you include? Particular songs for particular scenes? Closer for the Stevie scenes? I thoroughly agree with ofnaivete on the significance of The Becoming and am equally intrigued by the possibilities of Only. Mmm, where? When?

Fan fiction be damned, we make fan soundtracks! Hee.

I found a link to a machinist vid here:

http://www.noclockthing.de/other/thebalester/index.php?page=58

hope that goes through.

HI EVERYONE. I AM NEW. *WAVES*

I remember hearing about 'The Machinist' some time ago but I never got around to watching it in theatres. BUT I did check out the dvd from my local library and WOW it was wonderful so now it's on my shopping list. Sorry if I sound incoherent and slightly stupid but I'm rather bad at writing these sort of reviews. Did the movie remind anyone of 'Fight Club'? ANYHOW, 'The Machinist' was such a lovely movie. I really loved the grungy tinge to the whole movie; it made everything seem to mechanical and eerie. And all the symbolism involving his guilt and insanity *IS RENDERED SPEECHLESS* It also reminded me a lot of Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter with the whole internal-toxic-guilt eating away at him. Because it's just like a flesh wound. You can let it wallow, fester, and rot or you can address the problem and let it burn for all of 2 seconds from the hydrogen peroxide and then by jove you're on your way to healing.

Also, how does one go about taking screen captures? Do you have to have a special program? I've seen all the lovely ones that the_reverand has taken [I've used one for my icon as you can see. YAY.] but I'm looking for pictures that capture Trevor's thinness. Especially that one scene where he does that funky zombie-swivel after Stevie says "If you were any thinner you wouldn't exist". [...I hope people know what I'm talking about...] And does anyone know how long it took Christian Bale to lose all that weight? How long it took him to gain it back?

HAVE A NICE DAY.