I finally caught a brilliant movie! Christ, it's been so long I have no idea what to really say.

Well . . . who, what, where, when, why, and how, and who's on first, right?

The movie is "The Machinist". What I can say will pale compared to an image. So, here ya go:



This, BTW, is Christian Bale, the new Batman.

Whatever you might think of this film, it takes balls for an actor to do anything like this! Every other actor who claims to be dedicated to their craft is a pretentious ass-licker next to Christian Bale.

The movie itself is pretty standard plot: insomniac thinks he killed someone. What makes the movie brilliant is its execution. It takes so many standard things and does them to an unparalleled level of excellence.

First off, the movie at times seems exactly like a Hitchcock film. No question if Hitchcock hadn't lived in times with such social moorings, he would have a made a movie just like The Machinist. Right down to the mother-whore complex, The Machinist is downright Hitchcock at his best.

Second, the timing and the drawn out sense of misery recall the very best of Dostoyevsky novels (indeed, there is a shout-out to Fyodor sitting on the machinist's coffee table).

Also, the movie has incredible comedic timing. You'll see this early on as the Bale tries to dispose of a body, and never really gets it done.

In some ways, this movie is the inverse of Memento. Where Memento had a great plot and a great way of telling the story, but was caked in bad acting and half the cast from the Matrix, The Machinist takes a very simple plot and lets the acting and photography do the rest.

Likewise, I'd compare this to another movie: Saw. Saw was sold as this ultra-distrubing thriller, but in fact was just another fucking movie where uninvested characters piss us off into wanting to see them die. The Machinist is disturbing because it dwells on a likeable loser who is slowly killing himself. It is disturbing on levels that Saw never even joked about reaching for. It is all the more disturbing, because the character is very commonplace -- just a guy who goes to work.

And, in case this movie weren't indie enough for you: it cost $5 million to make and only earned $900,000. That's right, baby: they lost four million dollars and damn near killed a rising actor just to make a movie that dwells on emaciation. You gotta respect that.

Also, in light of my recent complaint about Keira Knightley's 10-year-old boy breasts, let me be the first to note that the titties in The Machinist are all excellent. Jennifer Jason Leigh's titties are getting better with age (early fourties, and her boobs look much better than they did in the gag-me-and-cut-my-eyes-out Single White Female). Also, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón is simply gorgeous. And, she has nice handful boobies, too.

It's been an interesting week of movie watching. Obviously, The Machinist represents the other end of the spectrum from King Arthur. It was underpromoted and lost audience appeal because it doesn't have a hero, no one saves the girl(s), no fluffy animals under anthropomorphic self-actualizations, and the sex is as wooden as the chicken you cooked last Saturday.

It's dark, moody, and makes you feel like a horrible, stupid klutz whose life is sprialing out of control. It exists on very normal, very real level.

None of the characters are sports writers or movie producers. Somehow, the Ray Romano/ Chili Palmer model just wouldn't get it done in this plot.

So . . . beware on a level of this movie. If you're looking forward to next week's very special episode of Seventh Heaven, co-starring Hillary Duff and Lindsey Lohan as bickering sisters who never leave the church long enough to get tanned, you'll probably hate The Machinist.

On the other hand, if you liked Memento, you'll love this movie.