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Post by RhodoraO on Apr 2, 2017 14:50:01 GMT
A brief letter to the editor from 2000 in the NYTimes:
'AMERICAN PSYCHO'; A Matter of Trust April 23, 2000
To the Editor:
The bottom line is whether or not ''American Psycho'' is a good film. Does it have enough of a story -- beyond sex and violence -- to keep an audience interested? Are the characters compelling? And most important, do we trust the director enough to let her scare us out of our wits? If so, then she has nothing to apologize for. Who can forget Anthony Hopkins seducing Jodie Foster through the bars of his solitary cage? I certainly wouldn't want him living in my neighborhood, but he was fascinating to watch.
HILARY SLOIN
Westhampton, Mass.
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Post by RhodoraO on Apr 2, 2017 15:17:18 GMT
From an interesting article on our pop culture obsessions, by NYTimes' Stephen Holden: www.nytimes.com/2000/04/23/movies/film-admitting-to-our-other-obsessions.htmlFILM; Admitting To Our Other Obsessions By STEPHEN HOLDEN APRIL 23, 2000 Two of the best American movies released this year -- ''American Psycho'' and ''High Fidelity'' -- show a bone-deep understanding of how much of our emotional energy is invested in the consumption of popular culture. Both movies recognize that to have a well-chosen period pop soundtrack isn't enough anymore to lend a movie credibility. A surefire bridge to identification with the characters is to make them as opinionated about popular culture as real people.
''American Psycho,'' a sleek, surreal horror-comedy set in the late 1980's, wouldn't have the resonance it does without its serial-killing protagonist's hilarious double-edged speeches about the 80's hitmakers Phil Collins, Whitney Houston and, especially, Huey Lewis and the News. Because his fulsome lectures on these middle-of-the-road phenomena are preludes to murder, their music and iconic status are profoundly implicated in the crimes.
Discoursing on Mr. Lewis and his group's recording career, the movie's homicidal yuppie, Patrick Bateman, offers the sort of slick assessment you might read in a pop record consumer guide. ''Their early work was a little too New Wave for my taste,'' he sniffs while getting ready to whack one of his Wall Street cronies. ''But when 'Sports' came out in 1983, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that gives the songs a big boost.''
Patrick's lecture culminates in a gruesome ax murder during which ''Hip to Be Square,'' a song he has just proclaimed the group's ''undisputed masterpiece,'' becomes a heavily ironic theme. Christian Bale's supercilious delivery subtly mocks a debased, grandiose vocabulary of contemporary pop criticism (of movies and television as well as music) that tosses around words like ''masterpiece'' as though they were penny stocks.
Another implied joke is the ludicrous notion that a squeaky-clean pop anthem like ''Hip to Be Square'' could incite murder. The 1980's were the decade, if you recall, when the Christian Right frothed at the mouth about the supposed relationship between heavy-metal rock and satanic cults. The paranoia became so acute that some records were played backward to determine if they contained the cryptic ''backward masking'' of Satanic messages.
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Post by RhodoraO on Apr 10, 2017 14:32:36 GMT
The Village Voice's Angelica Jade Bastien provides an excellent and detailed analysis of how the female gaze is used to great effectiveness in the film. www.villagevoice.com/film/the-female-gaze-of-american-psycho-how-mary-harron-made-fantasy-into-timeless-satire-8707185A Bale mention (with a comparison to DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort): Of course, none of this would work without Bale being smart enough to understand the gaze he's operating within. Harron recounted in an interview with Black Book that Bale "had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and [saw that Cruise] had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy." Bale plays the character without exhibiting any need to be liked or understood, something it's hard to imagine a star like DiCaprio daring. DiCaprio takes a swing at this sort of toxic masculinity wrapped in a false power fantasy in Wolf of Wall Street, but he failed to go far enough in embracing the character's inherent unlikability. Bale's Bateman is alternatively a mad dog, a shallow con man, and a charismatic mask hiding existential unease whenever the film calls for it. American Psycho recognizes Bateman's physical beauty and how it can operate as a shield for him. The camera travels over his impressive body, emphasizing how this visage obscures the darkness underneath.
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Post by The Low Dweller on Sept 14, 2017 18:00:35 GMT
mary harron talks about american psycho/bale briefly at 20:24, then a bit more extensively at 26:05 and again briefly at 55:20.
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Post by The Low Dweller on Nov 3, 2017 14:34:57 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 11, 2019 23:31:43 GMT
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Post by The Low Dweller on Oct 5, 2019 21:34:42 GMT
director jim jarmusch says this is one of his favorite films:
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Post by RhodoraO on Jan 22, 2020 4:52:44 GMT
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Post by ripley on Apr 21, 2020 7:35:31 GMT
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Post by ripley on Apr 23, 2020 12:14:53 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Dec 17, 2020 15:52:49 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Dec 20, 2020 0:43:49 GMT
An extremely fun, witty commentary style review of the movie:
Enjoy!
EDIT: Wrong list posted before by mistake. Corrected.
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Post by RhodoraO on Dec 20, 2020 1:01:35 GMT
A retrospective interview and recall by Bill Sage (who played one of Bateman's friends) on a podcast.
It starts at around 40:45
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Post by RhodoraO on Dec 20, 2020 1:07:55 GMT
An on-set interview with Justin Theroux followed by a deleted scene from the movie.
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Post by RhodoraO on Dec 21, 2020 15:23:40 GMT
A short but real nice review of the movie back in time from Entertainment Weekly: ew.com/article/2000/12/22/christian-bale-stunning-performance/”Emporio Armani and Christian Bale Invite You to celebrate American Psycho.” This was either the most cluelessly ironic press release of the year or the most viciously self-mocking promotional event ever. The fax promised that a Madison Avenue store would be ”transformed into an ’80s decadent wonderland…. Armani-clad Patrick Bateman lives in a morally flat world in which clothes have more value than skin….”’ Capital! That stuff is creepy, and it creeps toward the point. As conjured by the novelist Bret Easton Ellis and reimagined by director Mary Harron, Bateman is greed, pride, lust, sloth, wrath, envy, and gluttony bundled up in a cashmere-blend coat, and Bale gives that Wall Street fiend his dark-comic due. Going over the top and landing at deadpan, he chops up bodies with soulless zeal and flattens his abs with insane zest. His voice, soothing as daytime TV, floats on in a peppy drone, parroting empty social bromides and rhapsodizing about the music of Huey Lewis. He puts an ideally nervous smirk on the satanically handsome face of consumerism. American Psycho slays, and it’s Bale’s party.
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