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Old 02-03-2009, 11:52 AM   #31 (permalink)
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American Psycho is the most brilliant film released since 2000 and it's largely misunderstood by it's critics. The 1991 book by Bret Easton Ellis was considered to be largely un-filmable because of the grapic violence and sexual content of the book. It only got filmed because of writer and director Mary Harron's relentless efforts to put the Ellis novel on the screen, despite the conventional wisdom that any film of the book was DOA at the box office.


Here's two connected scenes from American Psycho that demostrate Bale's amazing talent.

In the first scene, Christian Bale runs to hide in his office to flee a police dragnet after a killing spree. Bale leaves a message on his attorney's answering machine in the middle of the night to confess that he's a serial killer:



The sencond clip unfolds on the following day when Bale runs into the same attorney he confessed to the previous night at a Harry's Bar. Bale gets this darkly comic reaction to his confession from his attorney:

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Old 02-03-2009, 01:59 PM   #32 (permalink)
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Jackhammers review:
http://www.musicbanter.com/media/333...tml#post575194
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Old 02-03-2009, 03:02 PM   #33 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Piss Me Off View Post
He likes Phil Collins and Huey Lewis.
But yeh just because he has bad taste doesnt mean he doesnt know anything. Also he's a big Talking Heads fan
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Old 02-04-2009, 10:48 AM   #34 (permalink)
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Fantastic review, jack. Great minds think alike and we share a perspective on the film's merits that eluded the elite first tier of film critic as they winced over the political correctness of the cartoonish violence. Effective satire is intended to offend the tender sensibilities of the genteel bourgeois class.

Director Mary Harron has an interesting artistic background. She was once a rock music critic and the first American critic to write extensively about the Sex Pistols and the punk music revolution in the UK. She also directed "I Killed Andy Warhol" the gritty biopic of failed Warhol asassin, Valrie Solanas who was an outspoken militant feminist. The film was more of stark commentary on the vacuous social savagery as practiced by Andy Warhol and his proteges at the Factory.

Harron is a close friend and associate of former Velvet Undergroud member and brilliant artist in his own right, John Cale who has written the musical scores for all of Harron's theatrical film releases.
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Old 02-05-2009, 06:46 AM   #35 (permalink)
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But yeh just because he has bad taste doesnt mean he doesnt know anything. Also he's a big Talking Heads fan
I just really hate Phil Collins
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Old 02-05-2009, 10:28 AM   #36 (permalink)
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I just really hate Phil Collins
Phil Collins is a pretty easy guy for anyone who isn't tone deaf to hate. I can't say enough bad things about his music. To be fair to the talentless bald-headed little gnome, I've heard he's a nice guy who pretends to be nothing more than what he is. I worry more about those success driven musical hacks who willfully pass off their cliched product as high art. There is nothing more annoying than a stupid person who has convinced himself that he's brilliant artist.

The satrical subtext Christian Bale's over-the-top reviews of Huey Lewis and Phil Collins music was this: Only a sociopath is capable of finding deep meaning in music as vacuous and contrived as the music of Huey Lewis or Phil Collins.

I thought most folks were astute enough to catch the double edged message of Bale's histronics in that scene but perhaps I expect too much from people.

I have a nasty habit trying add nuaunced meaning into that which is best understood as random madness. Its quite possible that I haven't come to grips with the absurd nature of my own loosely connected associations with reality, in precisely the same demented manner as Christian Bale's character in American Psycho. Of course that would put me in the precarious position being criminally clueless a serious charge, which I'll never cop a plea to, even if I'm deemed mentally unfit to stand trial for being dead wrong about everything.

Your unrepentant hatred of Phil Collins has provoked me to embark upon my own fearful pilgrimage up the winding river, and straight into darkest regions of my subconcious mind to do mortal combat with my demonic Kurtz alter-ego. If my mission is successful I will not simply hate Phil Collins, but I will also hate Phil Collins for all the right reasons. The horror...the horror of it all.

It's my own frivolous yet stubborn conviction that Bale was making brilliant statement about the insipid mediocrity of corporate "rock and roll." Somebody out there must be buying all those millions of Phil Collins records, and yet I've never personally known a single Phil Collins fan and there's a damn good reason why don't know any Phil Collins fans. It's the same reason I'm not aquainted with a single person who is a faithful viewer of American Idol.
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Old 02-05-2009, 10:39 AM   #37 (permalink)
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The satrical subtext Christian Bale's over-the-top reviews of Huey Lewis and Phil Collins music was this: Only a sociopath is capable of finding deep meaning in music as vacuous and contrived as the music of Huey Lewis or Phil Collins.
That's a good take on it, lest we not forget he also gets an erection over Bono. That is fairly psychopathic.
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Old 02-05-2009, 04:56 PM   #38 (permalink)
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I just really hate Phil Collins
Brand X was pretty good......
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Old 02-05-2009, 05:04 PM   #39 (permalink)
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By Douglas Coupland?
oh yeah... haha. Prominent 80's author A, prominent 80's author B... I get confused!
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Old 02-06-2009, 09:02 AM   #40 (permalink)
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Bale is awesome and his performances are really solid. Apart from his over-exaggerated Batman voice a la Clint Eastwood in ''Heartbreak Ridge'' this guy is one of the few really accomplished actors of his generation. Killer!
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