MMM

I think it's kinda funny, if inevitable, that people are rushing to Christian Bale's defense after the release of the tape of him verbally abusing another coworker (if you haven't heard it yet, get yourself an internet). They all seem to be along the lines of this: 'It was a very important scene, which requires an intense amount of concentration, and the director of photography stepped on the scene for the second time, actors need to be in a special emotional place for scenes, etc.'

Really? Look, I'm all about being accommodating to performing artists. People often do not understand the emotion and concentration it takes to do successfully pull off a performance. But you know what is just as important as emotion and concentration? The ability to pull it back together when something goes wrong. Maybe I'm a little more familiar with this since I'm a horn player, and the deftness with which we recover from unexpected shit is one of our primary skills. But still, can you imagine De Niro losing it like this? Hell no, because he's a fucking professional. The most I've seen him lose it is when he directly defies the clown-ass director in this awesome video, and it's still classy.

No matter how integral the scene, how egregious the DOP's mistake was, how bad of a week Bale was having, whatever. It was an unprofessional Kinski-esque temper tantrum, and a more mature actor and person would have let it go after maybe a sharp word or two, rather than a four-minute pity party.

Or maybe I'm just bitter because Mell has a crush on him...

UPDATE:

This is unbelievably funny (and the best thing Steve Martin's done in like a decade):