Movie Mondays (Season 2!): The Machinist

Let me tell you about the day that I saw this movie, because it was one of the best turn-around days ever. as in, it started out really crappy and then wound up being really great. It was summer, after I was back from greece, so... late july sometime. We had been planning a super duper awesome 4 person salt river trip (optimum salt river group is five, but four will do), but when we woke up balls early in the morning to go grocery shopping and start driving, one of our four (ahem, KRIS) pooned out and said he had to work. which is bs because his manager was one of the people going on the trip. and they live together. so it would have been fine. but anyways... i was very upset and made him feel very very bad about ruining our salt river trip. Since it's what we would have done on the river anyways, I told the 2 other people that now had a day off for no reason that we should just drink and watch movies and have a rainy day all day. SO, we bought a bottle of rumpleminze and a box of hot cocoa and got started. and this was the first movie we watched. and i loved it.

is that story relevant to the movie? no, not at all. but i decided to tell you anyways, because it's one of the days that sticks out in my mind from this summer.

I'm in love with psychological thrillers, guys. I just can't get enough of them. I loved shutter island- I saw it twice in theaters and wouldve seen it again if someone asked. I think I saw inception three times in theaters. I love Memento, and I show it to people who haven't seen it whenever I get the chance. And Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is always #1 or #2 on my favorite movies list. Maybe it's because my mom is a psychologist so I'm naturally interested in the human mind. Maybe I'm just crazy and love watching other people delve into their own crazy minds. I don't know, but I love it.

The Machinist is that kind of movie. The main character is totally dysfunctional. His world is austere, strange, and complicated. Did you ever hear about that movie where they made Christian Bale lose like a million pounds to look stick thin and totally unhealthy to play the part? This is that movie.

Trevor Reznik is your run of the mill blue collar worker- except for the fact that he hasn't been able to sleep in over a year. His intense insomnia has made him extremely, extremely thin, and his only company are a hooker named Stevie and an airport diner waitress named Marie. One day, he begins finding cryptic post-it notes around his apartment, most of which show an unfinished hang-man game. Not long after, he meets a fellow coworker he's never seen before- Ivan- that, according to his bosses and other coworkers, doesn't exist. Trevor spirals further and further into the depths of confusion and illusion as he tries to figure out who Ivan is, what the post-it notes mean, and why he hasn't been able to sleep in so long.

It's freaking awesome.

But I like crazy, melancholy, confusing, dark movies like that. If you do to, then great! You should so, so, so check it out. and even if you don't, it's worth a watch just for the way it tickles your brain and makes you think and question.

Here's a trailer:


so good. and by the way, it feels soooo good to get back to movie mondays! So refreshing :) Another one next week, and another post tomorrow!