And I said that Christian looked better after he put on weight.

But it's a completely flawed parallel. Christian Bale changed his body for a role, went back to normal, and looks better. RZ changed her body for a role, went back to normal, and looks worse.

I don't think Bale looks better than he did before losing all that weight for The Machinist. The rapid weight loss sharpened up his features in a not-prettier way, kind of like what happened to Marsters with all the weight training in 2001-2002. I'd say the period from All the Little Animals to Laurel Canyon was his most appealing period, with the zenith during the latter film.

I don't think Bale looks better than he did before losing all that weight for The Machinist.

I do, but I suspect that's the suit talking to me...

they don't look good after packing on the pounds

Right -- what I was saying was that they didn't look good after packing on the pounds -- all three men had done the same thing to lessen their attractiveness. However, the key was body mods, not the method of said mods.

New Sin City trailer! Very cool.

Does anyone have a copy of The Tango Lesson that I may borrow? Or should I just go ahead and buy it from Amazon?

New Sin City trailer! Very cool.

Mommy! The anticipation hurts!

That looks amazing. Even if the adapation, acting, etc. suck, it's going to be beautiful to look at.

Sin City Looks very cool. I still need to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

I got my DVD of the 2004 hit Japanese movie Casshern last week.

I had an ordering snafu and ended up with an extra unreturnable copy.

Anyone who wants it and has a DVD player that can play all regions email me at candyb_three@yahoo.com

It's the official HK release, not a bootleg, still shrink-wrapped. All my asian movie friends have seen it or have it already or can't play all-regions.

Casshern made a huge splash when the super-exciting unsubtitled trailer and images hit the internet last year. It's based on some old anime show and was almost entirely shot on a "digital backlot" like Sky Captain and Sin City.

First film by Kazuaki Kiriya, a music video director and husband of J-Pop star Utada Hikaru.

I think its a pretty but frustrating movie with a gorgeous cast. Has interesting elaborate & cool visual design. Some effects could've been better but what was done with a hard to believe budget of just US$6 million is astounding. Thought the first half was good, second half gets messier and not so good, maybe even bad. Too long and completely humor-free. Also too ambitious and melodramatic with lots of trite & pretentious exposition anvils like: "war only perpetuates a never-ending cycle of violence and hatred" and "man only exists to annihilate each other". Kazuaki Kiriya has some WWII issues he had to make us all work through with him in this movie.

But I'd still go see it in the theater if Dreamworks ever gets around to releasing it in the US.

Why does the IMDb front page have "Passion of the Christ" under the 'opening this week' column? I didn't want to see it the first time. Yeesh.

Is it wrong the previews kind of make me want to watch the new Joan Allen/Kevin Costner rom-com? The one in which he's playing a retired ball player to boot, and she's got four perfect-looking blond daughters? (But I *like* Joan Allen, damnit.)

Under 'coming soon' column: "Oldboy" seems to be getting a limited release in US--I only know of this film because it was apparently a blockbuster in Korea and is supposed to be an incredibly intense psychological thriller. I actually have a DivX copy of the movie, courtesy of my brother who's more in tune with Asian cinema than I am, but I've heard it compared to Fincher's "Se7en", which makes me hesistant to watch it. I found Fincher's film incredibly hard to stomach. I don't suppose anyone around here has seen the film...