Brandon recently bought me one of my favorite movies, Chopper, for my birthday. Thanks Brandon! I feel like this movie is significantly under-appreciated, so I thought I would post about it.

A few things:

1. If you have ever wondered where the hell Eric Bana came from, and why he was suddenly in a ton of high profile movies a few years ago... this movie is why. His performance as Mark "Chopper" Read, a semi-bumbling but chilling career criminal (turned best-selling author and media figure), is breathtaking. Seriously. He is incredible in this.

2. It was directed by Andrew Dominik, the same guy that directed The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, but this movie is much shorter and more fast-paced.

3. It's the suppossedly true story of one of the most infamous people in Australia, Chopper Read, a self-professed killer and criminal who wrote a series of tell-all books about his crimes... that are comedies. But many/most feel that he is either not as bad as he claims to be, or not as nice as he comes off as.

4. He is know as Chopper not because he cut people up, or because he rode a motorcycle, but because he had his ears cut off to force a prison to transfer him to a different cell block.

5. It's extremely well-made, original, creative... I can't recommend this movie enough. There are several scenes not like anything I have ever seen before, and by the end of the film you are completely in Read (and Dominik)'s world.

6. Go rent or buy this!