the rules of attraction Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Usually the scenes we love are the ones that make us happy, or blissfully mesmerized. But sometimes they're those gut-wrenching moments that are painful to watch -- the ones created so perfectly that you can't help but appreciate them (like, say, the entirety of Requiem for a Dream).

But this is about Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction. In a film rife with disaffected turmoil and dysfunction is this one scene where pretension has no play. The sad and rolling love song, the last pain-filled note, the carefully placed rings on the tub -- it all kills me each and every time I see it. The fact that it's the result of a girl liking exactly the wrong guy just makes it all the more sick, twisted and cringe-worthy.

Creepy Fact:

According to IMDb, the "End of the World" party was filmed on September 11, 2001.

And lady lovers can go here for a photographer's topless spin on Lauren's discovery of the body.

Warning: This is a dead girl in a tub, nude ... and there's blood.

Although the audio tape is pretty much dead, people still love making mix tapes, even if they now come in CD form. It's funny how this ritual of appreciation has transcended age and time. We used to scour radio stations for the perfect mix of songs, and now we whip up aural delights from thousands of mp3s. Mixes were useful to tell that certain boy or girl that you liked them in school, and today we often send mixes to say hello, or to gently shake a person and show them all the good music that they are missing.

There's also no short supply of movies that have absolutely fantastic soundtracks that work like a visual mix tape, sending the viewer through an optical pathway of music, sometimes even bringing new meaning and depth to the tunes that are played. While I would love to gush about Beethoven's music set to drama in Immortal Beloved, or even the brilliance that is Simon and Garfunkle in The Graduate, this space is reserved for the films with varied soundtracks full of a myriad of sounds and artists, which somehow all morph together into a cohesive and enjoyable whole. Sometimes they are just great collections of music, and sometimes they completely make you rethink something you might have heard many times before. If only I could list 14, or even 21! But I can't, so here are 7 films to inspire you into a mix-making frenzy:

High Fidelity

This almost seems like cheating, being such an obvious and no-brainer sort of choice, but you really can't talk about the power of mix tapes and movies without talking about the film that is all about creating musical mixes that portray slices of life. John Cusack stars as Rob Gordon, the music store owner who is at a crossroads in his life -- his serious girlfriend is leaving him, and through music, he delves into his less-than-desirable relationships with women. The beauty of this movie's soundtrack is how many different slices of music it tastes -- from the melodic Dry the Rain from The Beta Band to Aretha Franklin's Rock Steady. The old is mixed with the new, introducing us to what we might not have heard, while reminding us of songs we might have forgotten.

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.

Here's one to make you laugh as we head into the weekend: A 60 year-old guy pulled out a handgun, held up a Hollywood Video in Oregon and forced all of the employees into a back room ... but only after he strolled about the store scoping the latest DVDs to hit the shelves. Arriving a half hour before the store was set to close, the robber killed time before approaching the front counter with a black handgun and one request: "Give me Borat, or give me all your money!"

Okay, he didn't demand a copy of Borat, but who knows what was going through the guy's mind. Heck, there were times before I made the switch to Netflix when Blockbuster would be out of everything I wanted to watch -- for weeks on end! On a few occasions, I would run to Blockbuster after work, arriving pumped up to see a particular film, and not find it on shelves or even in that little pile of movies behind the desk (please, you know you check there too -- after you pretend to be the only one on the planet who knows that secret pile exists.) After I would come to the realization it was unavailable -- and deal with attitude from the Blockbuster employee -- there were moments where I contemplated doing something illegal.

Of course, that never happened -- and thanks to Best Buy, I currently have films like The Rules of Attraction, The Mexican and Swordfish in my DVD library. I say Blockbuster should buy those awful films back from me; sixty bucks down the drain because they couldn't keep their shelves stocked. But I digress. Oh, and the robber was never caught -- though I bet the cops never checked the local Best Buy.

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.