american psycho Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Perception is everything, and I don't mean to get all metaphysical on you, but sometimes it's how the world sees us that can define who we are -- but what if the world thinks you're a psycho? In an interview with American Psycho director Mary Harron, she was reminiscing about the black comedy, and as it turns out, her star Christian Bale based his vision of the murdering yuppie on -- wait for it -- Tom Cruise. According to Harron, she and Bale had been collaborating on the character when "...he [Bale] called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy."

Actors take inspiration from all kinds of places, but you can't help but wonder if Bale saw something that we would all be made painfully aware of: the 'crazy' side of Cruise. And it was that same energy that worked so well in P.T. Anderson's Magnolia when Cruise played motivational speaker Frank T.J. Mackey. But for me, what made this story truly funny, is that who could have predicted that soon enough Bale would be dealing with his own troubled image in Hollywood as a rage-aholic and something of a bully? On the upside, though, maybe Bale's on-set rant will one day inspire another young actor (ahh, the circle of life).

These guys aren't the only ones to battle troubled reputations (whether or not they're deserved), and after the jump: a few more stars who have run their reputations into the ditch...

It's not easy being a fan of Whit Stillman's. We fall for Metropolitan in 1990, get an international treat 4 years later with Barcelona, and then The Last Days of Disco another 4 years after that. Eleven years since, we're still waiting for a fourth -- for any of the many projects on Stillman's plate to come to actual fruition and reach our eager eyes. Granted, it could be worse. Three fun films and silence is probably better than filmmakers who continue to throw out work that doesn't begin to meet their early success, or directors who jump into an entirely different path and leave behind the beloved work that gave them their name.

All this said, there is a new treat today for Stillman fans -- Criterion's release of The Last Days of Disco.

It's perfect for a double-header with the previously released Metropolitan, but I wonder about other possibilities. What films are good if you want a whole weekend of Stillmanesque fun, or want to pair Whit with another filmmaker, or just want more options to dig into until Little Green Men hits the screen? Or, outside of Stillman's world completely: What if you just want overly verbose kids who can do nothing more than talk, youths who try to play dress-up seriously, 80s yuppies who are more obsessed with status than genuine life, or dips into the foreign allure of Catalonia?

It's not often that two of my favorite things come together, but Tom Cruise impersonator extraordinaire/film actor Miles Fisher has managed to do just that by combining the Talking Heads and American Psycho. Over at his personal website he's launched a musical tribute to Psycho in a video for This Must Be the Place (possibly one of the best Talking Heads songs ever written, but I digress) -- and what do you know -- I don't hate it. The song is the first release off his self-titled EP, which you can download for free if you're into that kind of thing.

All your favorite moments from Psycho get a nod, including Bateman's infamous Huey Lewis and The News speech, the business cards and facials, and we even get the creepiest three-ways ever to go on film. The video stars Fisher doing a pretty decent Bale/Bateman alongside Lydia Hearst (a model/socialite who is also heir to William Randolph Hearst) filling in as the 'hooker' in the story (I'm sure Great Grandpa would be thrilled).

Of course, last fall it was announced that Psycho was in line for a Broadway re-imagining that would turn Ellis' yuppie mass murderer into a song-and-dance man. So I have to wonder if Fisher thought he'd get in on the ground floor and get to work on his 'audition tape' a little earlier than the rest? Especially since the last time he did a good celebrity impersonation we even forgave him for taking a role in Superhero Movie.

After the jump: This Must Be the Place, and remember, this is an American Psycho tribute, so things get a little NSFW...

From Pacman to Public Enemies, he's had more ups and downs than most other actors of his generation. Christian Bale has careened between extreme highs and deep lows, in the view of the folks at MovieFill, and they decided that a rollercoaster was the most apt visual metaphor for his career. A reduced-size version can be seen above.

They squeeze most of his films into the chart, though they left out a few. Before his sensational role in Mary Harron's American Psycho, he was very appealing in Metroland and got good notices in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine; pre-Batman Begins / The Dark Knight, he was fun to watch as a frisky villain in John Singleton's Shaft and an uptight, would-be psychiatrist in Laurel Canyon. I don't agree with every notation in the chart. Harsh Times, for example, is cited as one of his "lows," but Bale was riveting. Two notorious off-screen incidents are included, which both affected his public perception, though it seems somewhat unfair to lump those in with his films.

Still, the rollercoaster graphic provides an easy way to look back and consider the range and daring of what he's done, especially earlier in his career. Recently he's been in more big-budget productions than anything else, and next up is David O. Russell's boxing biopic The Fighter. I'd love to see him in a couple of smaller indie flicks. What are your thoughts on Christian Bale's career so far? More ups than downs?

This just in to Cinematical headquarters: American Psycho, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, is being turned into a stage musical! Seriously. We're not joking. According to a press release, "The Johnson-Roessler Company, The Collective and XYZ Films have partnered to acquire, develop and produce the live stage version." Most folks remember the 2000 film starring Christian Bale as a wealthy New York investment banking executive whose sick, twisted, murderous alter ego exposes itself in the most delightful and imaginative ways. While Bale had been acting since a very young age, it was his role in American Psycho that catapulted him into the spotlight.

There's no word on who they'll get to play Patrick Bateman on the stage (though I'd personally love to see Bale reprise the role for a limited run -- heck, we know he can belt a tune or two; just watch Newsies). As far as music goes, it will "revive the nostalgia of the 80's alongside celebrated hits from the era." Look for tunes from Talking Heads, Genesis and Huey Lewis and The News to make an appearance. Okay ... can I buy tickets now?

Did I just make your day, or what? Now tell us: Which scenes absolutely need to be included in the musical? And if not Bale, who would you choose for the lead?

I have a problem. As a moviegoer, I'm always attracted to charisma over deed. More times than I can count, I find myself rooting for the bad guy and hoping that they bring the bland hero down. Of course, sometimes it's a fight between hero and villain for who has the most charisma, and sometimes the film wants us to love the villain, but whatever the case, the thorn is usually a lot more fun than the hero he's stuck onto. And this means that I'm often disappointed at the end, because the bad guy almost always dies.

Still, this is what's so great about film -- you can love the baddies without the real-world consequences. We've all heard about bad-guy lust, but this way, the baddie can do his bad thing for us to enjoy, without us getting all of the negative repercussions. We get the wild eye without the body count, the ripped muscles without the steroid set-up, and the twisted humor without the reality.

However, seeing that bad guys are my kryptonite, it's hard to pick just seven. While the following is, by no means, all-encompassing, it's a list of some of my favorite baddies. Some we're told to love, and others, well, they just steal the show.

Jason Dean -- Heathers

This is probably what started it all. When my friends and I gathered around the television to watch Christian Slater's new movie, we were immediately smitten. We didn't care that J.D. had a thing for doling out his own deadly justice. By the time he said: "Alright, so maybe I am killing everyone in the school... because nobody loves me!" We were exclaiming: "We love you!" J.D. had the drawling, Jack Nicholson voice, the sexy trench, and the need to row out to the middle of a lake somewhere with a bottle of tequila, his sax, and some Bach. He was very. Very very.

Say what you will about David Fincher's work, but I've been with him the whole way. Yeah, I even liked Alien³, at least at the time. Okay, I have to admit a lot of my attraction to Fincher's movies is actually to the cinematography of Darius Khondji and Harris Savides (now that I look back, I'm surprised to see they only shot two Fincher titles each). But hey, at least the guy can pick a DP, right? Well, I do appreciate Fincher's directorial talents, as well, and regardless of how few films I've seen this year, I continue to consider his Zodiac to be the best of the year. Fincher recently wrapped his next feature, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons, which reunites him with Brad Pitt. Now that that's done, he may choose to direct an adaptation of a French graphic novel titled Le Tueur (The Killer). According to Variety, Paramount has bought the rights to the comic, written by Matz and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, with Fincher in mind. Producer Allesandro Camon (American Psycho) is writing the screenplay, and Pitt's company, Plan B, and Alexandra Milchan (Chapter 27) are producing.

Despite the need for a title change, and the fact that we have too many hitman movies coming out these days, the graphic novel should make for an interesting adaptation. Publisher's Weekly compared it to the films of Godard and Melville and the illustrations of Darwyn Cooke and even addressed Jacamon's placement of the camera (maybe Fincher should recruit him to be the film's DP). So, it already sounds like a cinematic story. Unfortunately, PW also claims there's too much "self-consciously cool narration," which can really ruin this type of pic. Another opinion of The Killer, this one from The Comic Book Bin, relates the graphic novel to American Psycho (nice, then, for Camon's involvement) and Leone/Eastwood westerns. Dark antihero with a gun? We see them every day. But with Fincher at the helm, I have higher hopes than usual.

I'm a big fan of author Bret Easton Ellis' work. Since many of his novels rely on the inner workings of characters' minds, they can be difficult to adapt to the big screen. The film version of Less Than Zero made cocaine addiction look like Pretty in Pink. I know I'm in the minority, but I detested Mary Harron's American Psycho. The only adaptation I feel got Ellis exactly right was Roger Avary's excellent take on The Rules of Attraction. Now three more films are going to try and re-create Ellis' world. Darren Star is working on The Frog King with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. There is no director yet, but a movie version of Lunar Park has been announced. And director Gregor Jordan (Ned Kelly) has put together a cast for the film translation of Ellis' 1995 novel The Informers.

The Hollywood Reporter writes that Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, and Superman himself Brandon Routh are in "various stages of negotiation" to star in the ensemble film. The Informers is set in Los Angeles in 1983 and it tracks seven stories. The major characters are: a movie executive (played by Thornton), his wife (Basinger), his mistress, a rock star, a kidnapper, and a vampire (Routh, apparently looking to darken up his image). Rounding out the cast are Ashley Olsen as a "sexually promiscuous girl" (doesn't it seem like those twins are getting a ton of work these days?), Jon Foster (Stay Alive), Austin Nichols (John Monad on the baffling John From Cincinnati), and Lou Taylor Pucci (star of the very good Thumbsucker and the not very good Chumscrubber -- yes, they're different movies). Sounds like it could be a great flick! Now, whatever happened to Roger Avary's planned Glamorama movie? I would love to see that come to light. Did Zoolander steal its thunder?

I'm still disappointed that we will never get to see Glitterati, the semi-spin-off of The Rules of Attraction, which does exist but which writer-director Roger Avary claims will never be released to the public. I still have hope that Avary will eventually get his Glamorama adaptation off the ground -- Kip Pardue deserves the work. But while I wait for Avary to stop writing bad Silent Hill films, I will have to get hyped up for another Bret Easton Ellis adaptation: The Informers. Based on the author's 1995 collection of interrelated vignettes, the film is the first to be adapted by Ellis himself (with help from documentarian Nicholas Jarecki, who was originally set to direct and is also a producer). As can be expected of Ellis' work, the film will follow a number of amoral characters, including a pop star, a Hollywood player and a vampire. The criss-crossing stories are set in Los Angeles in 1983, though it is possible the adaptation -- like Rules -- could be modernized.

The Informers will be directed by Gregor Jordan, who better not let me down. So far, Ellis has been adapted three times and each film's director managed to create a style and tone that -- if not exactly captured the same style and tone of the source -- fit the material brilliantly. Jordan's film Buffalo Soldiers was a decent enough satire of the army during peacetime, but it just wasn't edgy enough for me. The characters in that pic should have been just as despicable as any in an Ellis book. So, therefore I pray the director will push himself a little further this time -- he at least will be working from a script that likely will have Ellis' teethmarks all over it. With that under consideration, I'm not too worried. Sure, Jordan probably won't make as great a film as Avary or Mary Harron (American Psycho) has, and he may not even make a film as notably atmospheric as Marek Kanievska (Less Than Zero) made, but I'm crossing my fingers that it will follow in the footsteps of those mostly underrated, mostly perfect adaptations. I do imagine a worst case scenario, though, which resembles the terrible 80s-set ensemble piece 200 Cigarettes. Other projects involving Ellis that may eventually see the light of the projector include an adaptation of his novel Lunar Park and the author's script for The Frog King.

After three of his books (American Psycho, Less than Zero and The Rules of Attraction) were adapted for the big screen, Senator Entertainment is sending another Bret Easton Ellis tale our way. This time, it's The Informers, a collection of loosely-connected short stories which was originally published back in 1995.

Coming onboard to direct is Nicholas Jarecki, who also co-wrote the script with Ellis (which marks the author's first attempt at adapting his own work). Though I've read Less than Zero and The Rules of Attraction, I haven't yet had a chance to check out The Informers. However, Variety says the book "captures a week in L.A. in 1983, featuring movie execs, rock stars, a vampire and other morally challenged characters in adventures laced with sex, drugs and violence." Wow, that's almost a word-for-word description of my morning. Go figure. Pic will begin its production in early 2007.