{"id":744,"date":"2009-10-01T20:48:54","date_gmt":"2009-10-02T03:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=744"},"modified":"2016-04-22T09:55:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T16:55:15","slug":"drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html","title":{"rendered":"Drive-By Movie Review:  The Machinist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a review of the 2004 movie <em>The Machinist<\/em> starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.movietome.com\/movie\/311098\/the-machinist\/index.html\"><strong>Plot Summary<\/strong><\/a>: <em>Trevor Reznik is a factory lathe worker who can barely tell whether he exists anymore. He hasn&#8217;t slept for a year and he is so thin he is practically disappearing.  After a horrific accident at his shop, and finding a series of cryptic notes in his apartment, he begins to believe he&#8217;s the center of an evil plot, and races to unravel the mystery.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Me:<\/strong> There are quite a few actors out there who severely altered their normal body weight in order to portray a particular character.   Robert DeNiro is probably the most famous instance of this, when he gained 60 pounds to portray boxer Jake La Motta in the 1980 Martin Scorsese classic <em>Raging Bull<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>I heard Matt Damon gained 30 pounds and let his body go flabby for his upcoming movie <em>The Informant.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Me:<\/strong> That&#8217;s true, Honeybee.  I recently read that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Entertainment_News\/2009\/09\/18\/Damon-consulted-De-Niro-about-weight-gain\/UPI-69121253285668\/\">Damon actually consulted with DeNiro<\/a> on the whole process.  Hey, how about Renee Zellweger, who gained quite a few pounds for <em>Bridget Jones&#8217;s Diary<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>That&#8217;s a good one!  And going the other direction, Tom Hanks got pretty thin for both <em>Castaway<\/em> and <em>Philadelphia<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me:<\/strong> Yes, but if the Academy gave Oscars for weight loss, Hanks would end up losing the award to Christian Bale, who was the lead actor in the low-budget thriller we saw last night, <em>The Machinist<\/em>.  That&#8217;s because Bale &#8211; who is probably best known for playing Batman in <em>The Dark Knight<\/em> &#8211; reportedly went on a starvation diet that resulted in him losing over 60 pounds for the role.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>Oh my God, he was <em>so<\/em> thin!  His appearance was eerily similar to people I&#8217;ve seen in Holocaust photos.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me: <\/strong>No doubt his appearance really added a visual jolt to this thriller.  In <em>The Machinist<\/em>, Bale plays Trevor Reznik, a guy who is suffering from acute insomnia so bad that he hasn&#8217;t slept in a year.  The chronic lack of sleep, having completely ravaged his body, soon begins to affect his brain and Reznik has trouble separating illusions from reality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>Reznik was a strange one, seemingly locked in an odd routine, constantly cleaning himself and his apartment floors with bleach, spending lots of time with a sympathetic hooker played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and late night runs for pie and coffee at a diner where he loved to chat up a pretty waitress who apparently had the hots for guys with the physique of a telephone pole.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me: <\/strong>Reznik&#8217;s life, though, soon begins to spin out of control after a coworker of his named Ivan, played to maximum-creepiness by John Sharian, distracts him during a shop maintenance procedure.  Unfortunately, Reznik&#8217;s resulting inattention ends up costing another coworker his arm in a nasty machine press accident.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee:<\/strong> That&#8217;s when Reznik goes off the deep end, thinking the whole world is out to get him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me: <\/strong>Clearly, he was confused and unaware of what was going on around him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>Well, I can totally sympathize with Reznik because I had absolutely no clue what was going on either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me: <\/strong>What?  I&#8217;m shocked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>Why are you shocked?  Nothing made sense to me until the very end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me: <\/strong>Reznik spends most of the movie trying to figure out who is responsible for his life going haywire.  Our readers will have to watch the movie because I don&#8217;t want to give anything away, but the big mystery really revolves more around <em>why<\/em> Reznik is being tormented, rather than <em>who<\/em> it is that&#8217;s out to get him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>Fine, but even after we found out what the big mystery was, there was no real satisfaction &#8211; at least not for me.   I guess I was expecting a big ending, but it never came &#8211; it&#8217;s kind of like I was watching this balloon growing bigger and bigger and then just before it was ready to pop, all the air just blurted out the end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me: <\/strong>So I guess you&#8217;re equating the movie to something similar to a big whoopee cushion?<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>That would have been fitting music for the closing credits.  How about you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me: <\/strong>Clever.  Actually, I thought this was a great movie.  I&#8217;m still kind of haunted by it &#8211; and Christian Bale&#8217;s performance was truly Oscar worthy in my opinion, although he was never nominated.  I say this movie is a definite &#8220;buy!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee: <\/strong>Well, I&#8217;m glad <em>you<\/em> liked it.  I think <em>The Machinist<\/em> stunk our living room up &#8211; nobody should listen to you.   I say &#8220;Sell,&#8221; ladies and gentlemen.  Sell, sell, sell!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me:<\/strong> Heck, you <em>never<\/em> listen to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Honeybee:<\/strong> I&#8217;m sorry, did you say something?<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Me:<\/strong> I think that was the dog. <strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Hey! If you liked this article, please be sure to <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/feeds2.feedburner.com\/LenPenzo\"><em>subscribe to my RSS feed<\/em><\/a><em>!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a review of the 2004 movie The Machinist starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh Plot Summary: Trevor Reznik is a factory lathe worker who can barely tell whether he exists anymore. He hasn&#8217;t slept for a year and he is so thin he is practically disappearing. After a horrific accident at his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","pmpro_default_level":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[476],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-movie-review","7":"pmpro-has-access","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.8 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is a review of the 2004 movie The Machinist starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh Plot Summary: Trevor Reznik is a factory lathe worker who can barely tell whether he exists anymore. He hasn&#8217;t slept for a year and he is so thin he is practically disappearing. After a horrific accident at his [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Len Penzo dot Com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LenPenzo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-02T03:48:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-04-22T16:55:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Len Penzo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@LenPenzo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@LenPenzo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Len Penzo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Len Penzo\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3968bb46693d14b2ae2ab4958aa41dfd\"},\"headline\":\"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-10-02T03:48:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-22T16:55:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html\"},\"wordCount\":818,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Movie Review\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html\",\"name\":\"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-10-02T03:48:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-22T16:55:15+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Len Penzo dot Com\",\"description\":\"The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Len Penzo dot Com\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/Block_L.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/Block_L.png\",\"width\":359,\"height\":360,\"caption\":\"Len Penzo dot Com\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/LenPenzo\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/LenPenzo\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lenpenzo.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3968bb46693d14b2ae2ab4958aa41dfd\",\"name\":\"Len Penzo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/779ff799a8fbdf9cd0cb6f9b1cd7ff58e9726e79c4df9213b22471192452c500?s=96&d=monsterid&r=r\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/779ff799a8fbdf9cd0cb6f9b1cd7ff58e9726e79c4df9213b22471192452c500?s=96&d=monsterid&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/779ff799a8fbdf9cd0cb6f9b1cd7ff58e9726e79c4df9213b22471192452c500?s=96&d=monsterid&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Len Penzo\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist","og_description":"This is a review of the 2004 movie The Machinist starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh Plot Summary: Trevor Reznik is a factory lathe worker who can barely tell whether he exists anymore. He hasn&#8217;t slept for a year and he is so thin he is practically disappearing. After a horrific accident at his [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html","og_site_name":"Len Penzo dot Com","article_publisher":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LenPenzo","article_published_time":"2009-10-02T03:48:54+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-04-22T16:55:15+00:00","author":"Len Penzo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@LenPenzo","twitter_site":"@LenPenzo","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Len Penzo","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html"},"author":{"name":"Len Penzo","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3968bb46693d14b2ae2ab4958aa41dfd"},"headline":"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist","datePublished":"2009-10-02T03:48:54+00:00","dateModified":"2016-04-22T16:55:15+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html"},"wordCount":818,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Movie Review"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html","url":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html","name":"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-10-02T03:48:54+00:00","dateModified":"2016-04-22T16:55:15+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id744-drive-by-movie-review-the-machinist.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Drive-By Movie Review: The Machinist"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/","name":"Len Penzo dot Com","description":"The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Len Penzo dot Com","url":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Block_L.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Block_L.png","width":359,"height":360,"caption":"Len Penzo dot Com"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LenPenzo","https:\/\/x.com\/LenPenzo"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3968bb46693d14b2ae2ab4958aa41dfd","name":"Len Penzo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/779ff799a8fbdf9cd0cb6f9b1cd7ff58e9726e79c4df9213b22471192452c500?s=96&d=monsterid&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/779ff799a8fbdf9cd0cb6f9b1cd7ff58e9726e79c4df9213b22471192452c500?s=96&d=monsterid&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/779ff799a8fbdf9cd0cb6f9b1cd7ff58e9726e79c4df9213b22471192452c500?s=96&d=monsterid&r=r","caption":"Len Penzo"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}