Just saw American Psycho...Liked it a lot

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by WHitese, Mar 22, 2009.

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  1. WHitese

    WHitese Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    North Bergen, NJ
    Christian Bale is terrific...now, I guess he didnt do any of those things..
     
  2. Dennis Metz

    Dennis Metz Born In A Motor City south of Detroit

    Location:
    Fonthill, Ontario
    Love that film!:cheers:
     
  3. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    I bought the book the day it was released as i read a preview review in the times and knew it would strike controversey. It did.

    I was 22 when I read the book and to be honest I didnt get it. other then the very graphic scenes (and believe me the book goes light years past the sex/violence levels seen in the film) I thought it a very boring book.

    Then I saw a film was being made and I thought well thats a waste of time as 50% of it they wont be able to use.

    I then saw the film on TV and I really enjoyed it. In fact it made something click about the book that I didnt understand as a 22 year old but now noticed a dozen years later.

    I re-read the book and it made perfect sense what the book was actually about. It is all about the total fakery of modern life, how people just casually judge you by what you wear or say rather than what you do or really are. How annoymous and alienating everything can be. How totally uninterested we all are about each other. If it doesnt involve me I dont care.

    It took the film to make the book work for me. Strange but there we are.
     
    norman_frappe and Ghostworld like this.
  4. Gene Parmesan

    Gene Parmesan Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA, USA
    [obligatory] book was 10x better. [/obligatory]
     
    Plinko likes this.
  5. PTgraphics

    PTgraphics Senior Member

    Good film. Bale was very good in this role.

    Pat
     
  6. shakehurst

    shakehurst Member

    Bale was great, and while the book is insanely better, the movie is still very good. I like to just think of it as a movie on its own, and not an adaptation.
     
  7. dreamwhip

    dreamwhip New Member

    Location:
    Delaware, USA
    I really enjoy this movie, I watch it at least 3 or 4 times a year.
     
  8. CrimsonNERV

    CrimsonNERV New Member

    Location:
    Canada
    This.
     
  9. blind_melon1

    blind_melon1 An erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind....

    Location:
    Australia
    I really like this film... The BD is excellent...
    (Apparently the Australian version is more "uncut" than the US one?"

    There are some great quotable lines in this movie.

    His rants about his favourite music are hilarious, the backwards (IMO) talk about Genesis, his thoughts on "The greatest love of all" by Whitney Houston and his enthusiasm over Huey Lewis and the News are not to be missed!!

    I have to return some video tapes...
     
  10. blind_melon1

    blind_melon1 An erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind....

    Location:
    Australia
    My friend (who works at a service station (or gas station for the US guys)), got a warning for reading the book behind the counter. (He works grave yard shifts). :D
     
  11. WHitese

    WHitese Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    North Bergen, NJ
    LOL..i agree with his music rants...
     
  12. agentalbert

    agentalbert Senior Member

    Location:
    San Antonio, TX
    That movie is so funny. The way the guys obssess over the business cards cracks me up. And when Bale is giving long speeches about Huey Lewis and Phil Collins, I just can't stop laughing.
     
  13. tonyc

    tonyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I agree.

    I just saw this for the first time recently.

    Of course, I'm confused by the ending. Reading quotes from the director saying it is all supposed to be real but it does not come off that way on screen.
     
  14. tommy-thewho

    tommy-thewho Senior Member

    Location:
    detroit, mi
    I thought Bale was terrific. Very entertaining movie.....
     
  15. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    Really? I thought it was all supposed to be unreal. The director said that? I remember the huge controversy when the book came out. I was sort of terrified to look at it. I finally got up the nerve and cracked it open to a scene where he was using a cigarette lighter on a stewardess. I dropped that book and it wasn't until a few months ago I got up the nerve to watch the movie (which is pretty tame compared to that scene I read). Then I heard they're thinking of doing a Broadway play from it. Jesus, time changes. From book banning to Broadway. "I've seen the future and it is murder."
     
  16. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK

    Not in this thread but in another American Psycho thread I mention that it can help to watch the movie or read the book as though its a study of mental illness, possibly severe schizophrenia (maybe even Aspergers). The ending makes a lot more sense then if you put that into the equation.

    It's an interesting oddity that can be examined from several different angles. As I mentioned a few years ago I started with this when I was pretty young and I just didn't get it. It's a book that gains a little something if you read it every ten years.
     
  17. Jupiter

    Jupiter Forum Resident

    There's a theory that in the book the violence and sex is Bateman's fantasy, that the boring minutiae of his life is reality.
     
  18. matthew5

    matthew5 Forum Resident

    Location:
    canada
    I thought Justin Theroux was great too. Perfectly cast.

    Is that Ivana Trump?
     
  19. tonyc

    tonyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I don't know if accurate or not but this is the quote I found when doing a google search "American Psycho Ending Explanation":

    Mary Harron (Director of American Psycho) in an interview with Charlie Rose, stated that she felt she had failed with the end of the film because she led audiences to believe the murders were only in his imagination, which was not what she wanted. Instead, she wanted ambiguity:

    "One thing I think is a failure on my part is people keep coming out of the film thinking that its all a dream, and I never intended that. All I wanted was to be ambiguous in the way that the book was. I think it's a failure of mine in the final scene because I just got the emphasis wrong. I should have left it more open ended. It makes it look like it was all in his head, and as far as I'm concerned, it's not."
     
  20. Tom Campbell

    Tom Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Well, then she's definitely right that she failed with the ending. Watching the movie, the only conclusion one can draw is that virtually the entire movie happened only in Patrick's head. I've never read the book.
     
  21. I don't think the book is much more ambiguous than the movie - as it goes on, it becomes very clear that Bateman's interpretation of reality is tenuous at best. I mean, I don't think many NYC talk shows were extensively interviewing cheerios even in the go-go '80s. :)

    I thought the book was a lot better than its initial reputation made it out to be, and it is a pretty solid dark comedy of social mores and observation of its time period. A Vile Bodies for '80s NYC, as some critic put it. I did think Ellis went way OTT in his quoting from GQ and Stereophile and the like - I mean, I know what his purpose was in doing so, but he could've made the point without piling it on so thick or by making it more readable, more like an internal dialogue than lists of spec's. Like his analyses of Huey Lewis, for instance. :)
     
  22. The musical actually premiered in London last year to mixed-positive reviews. It was supposed to have an Off-Broadway run this fall but the financing fell through; the producers are optimistic about getting it back up and running though. Stay tuned!
     
  23. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    What about The Informers ?
     
  24. Plinko

    Plinko Senior Member

    The way Bale talks in this film is hilarious. I would call it a successful interpretation of the book, regardless of how the director feels.
     
  25. Plinko

    Plinko Senior Member

    I need to return some videotapes.
     
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