A running dialogue with Mark and Katie Andolina during the car ride home from The Dark Knight:
KATIE ANDOLINA: My only complaint is not enough Christian Bale.
ERIN: I agree. Did you all know that Christian Bale does a different accent for every movie he appears in?
BEN: He bothered to make up an accent for Reign of Fire?
KATIE: I’m not sure where I’d fit this one in the Christian Bale Pantheon though.
MARK ANDOLINA: Did you like this or Iron Man more?
KATIE: Hmmm. Tough call. But I think I’d go this one.
MARK: I might actually go with Iron Man, although this was great too.
BEN: What did Medved say about Dark Knight?
MARK: I’m a week behind. I might go straight to Friday’s show to hear it. I’m sure he loved it.
BEN: My only complaint is that I knew it was Chicago. Gotham’s supposed to be mysterious, not the corn cob towers in broad daylight.
KATIE: Or traffic jams on Wacker. That’s where we got our car towed, remember?
MARK: How could I forget.
ERIN: Were you all aware that Christian Bale was handpicked by Winona Ryder to play Laurie in Little Women?
KATIE: Did you know that he’s a devoted animal lover, has two dogs, and adopted three cats which were all strays he found?
BEN: Were you all aware that Mark could totally take Christian Bale any day of the week?
MARK: I could, and I have.
KATIE: That’s why I married you, Marko.
ERIN: How would you not want to die in that movie?
MARK: I don’t think I’d especially like a pencil to the skull.
BEN: I wouldn’t be a fan of having a bomb sewn into my stomach.
ERIN: I might have damaged my liver by waiting until after the movie to pee. I just didn’t want to miss anything.
MARK: Yglesias had a good line about how this was not a PG-13 film. It was something like, “If Christian Bale stubbed his toe and said the f-word a couple times, then it would’ve been an ‘R’ movie. But lots of violence and mature themes, PG-13.”
KATIE: Christian Bale never says the F-word.
ERIN: The girls in the bathroom afterwards said they wanted resolution with the Joker. Was he just left there hanging?
BEN: I guess so. I thought they were going to set Two-Face up for the next movie, but I guess that’s not happening.
KATIE: Andy Sweeney was right about it being dark. He said he came home and wanted to watch Mr. Bean to cheer up.
MARK: I think we should hug Piper when we get home.
ERIN: Speaking of Mr. Bean, were you aware that Christian Bale made his professional debut opposite Rowan Atkinson on the London West End stage?
BEN: Were you aware my jawline and his jawline fought in high school and mine totally kicked its ass?
MARK: Were you aware Christian Bale trained for ten weeks in dancing and martial arts for the dance sequences in Newsies and Swing Kids?
KATIE: Honey, how did you know that?
MARK: I listen when you tell me things. And I didn’t want to feel left out.
BEN: Were you aware Christian Bale wasted two hours of my life with Equilibrium?
ERIN: What do you guys have planned for the week?
MARK: Well, I could get the week off if someone gets motivated to have a baby.
KATIE: I’m working on it.
BEN: What’s the first date someone picked on your delivery date prediction calendar?
MARK: Yesterday. I picked today, so I lost.
ERIN: If someone picked a date in November, would you still be friends with them?
KATIE: No.
BEN: Erin and I like to play a little game after we see a movie in the theaters called, What Was Your Favorite Trailer?
KATIE and ERIN (in robotic unison): Terminator Salvation starring Christian Bale.
MARK: The Watchmen looked pretty interesting.
BEN: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a trailer for a movie that’s not releasing for two years.
KATIE and ERIN: Were you aware that Christian Bale has been in two versions of the John Smith/Pocahontas story? He provides the voice of Thomas in Pocahontas and plays John Rolfe in The New World.
BEN: Were you aware that the IMDB page for Christian Bale is burned into our monitor?
MARK: We have the same problem!
KATIE: Were you aware Christian Bale dropped an amazing 63 pounds for his role as the emaciated insomniac Trevor Reznik in The Machinist with only a single vitamin consultation with a nutritionist to guide him? For the most part, he only ate salads and apples, chewed gum, smoked cigarettes and drank nonfat lattes.
BEN: Were you aware that’s the only Christian Bale movie my wife won’t see?
ERIN: Were you aware that Andy Sweeney does a great Patrick Bateman impersonation? You should ask him to show you.
MARK: Christian Bale’s family crest is a picture of a barracuda eating Neil Armstrong.
KATIE: He orchestrated the merger between UNICEF and Smith & Wesson.
ERIN: I saw Christian Bale scissor-kick Angela Lansbury.
BEN: He once punched a hole in a cow to see who was coming up the road.
MARK: His poop is considered a currency in Argentina.
KATIE: He did all the makeup on the Planet of the Apes movies.
ERIN: If you drop a phonograph needle on Christian Bale’s nipple, it plays the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
BEN: One time I was with Christian in the back of a pickup truck, along with a live deer. He goes up to the deer and says, ‘I’m Christian Bale! SAY IT!’ Then he manipulates the deer’s lips in such a way as to make it say, ‘Christianbale’ … It wasn’t exactly like it, but it was pretty good for a deer!
MARK: Christian Bale had a four day heart attack…a day for each chamber. At the autopsy, they said his heart looked like a basketball filled with riccotta cheese.
KATIE: They found sixty dollars in change in his stomach.
ERIN: He once inhaled a seagull.
BEN: The Pope told him it was okay to have a mistress.
MARK: He has dandruff the size of mice.
KATIE: I read he was ranked 18th in the preseason NCAA Football polls.
ERIN: He drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.
BEN: He taught me how to make love to a woman, and how to scold a child.
EVERYONE: To Christian Bale!
(Everyone raises an imaginary stein of beer. Long silence.)
MARK: How long have we been parked here in our driveway?
KATIE: According to my watch, two hours.
ERIN: I need to pee again.
BEN: That’s our cue.
(With apologies to the writers of every Bill Brasky sketch ever.)
