WHEN WILL THE REBOOTS END? The Crew was going to do Falling Down today (we'll do it in a couple of weeks), but then they announced the dreaded American Psycho reboot. Queue the collective groans. This episode dives deep into the cultural implications and frustrations surrounding the incessant trend of Hollywood reboots, with a particular focus on the upcoming American Psycho remake. The crew discusses their thoughts on the original film, its adaptation from Bret Easton Ellis's novel, and how the unique elements of the story may be lost in translation. With lively debates on the effectiveness of the original's satire and the potential pitfalls of a new interpretation, they explore whether the reboot is a necessary addition to the cinematic landscape or just another cash grab. Tune in for insights, critiques, and a few laughs as they navigate the complexities of this controversial topic.

Takeaways:

• The discussion centers around the impact of reboots on beloved films, particularly American Psycho.
• The hosts express frustration over Hollywood's trend of remaking classic films instead of creating original content.
• They explore the psychological elements of American Psycho, emphasizing its dark comedy and satire.
• Willem Dafoe's performance is highlighted as a standout, showcasing his emotional range.
• The cinematography is praised for its intentionality, capturing the surrealist nature of the story.
• The crew reflects on their experiences with adaptations, noting the challenges of translating complex narratives.

Movie Wars.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Movie wars podcast.

I'm a child of the force.

Give me a break.

I'm Kyle.

I'm Seth.

I'm Drew.

Yeah.

And we are doing American Cycle.

We were going to do Falling down today, which we still plan to do, but then they announced the remake.

Yeah.

Of American Psycho.

It was in all my feeds.

They will never be stopped with these reboots.

Welcome to modern Hollywood.

It's.

It's sad.

It's.

You know, and I have some.

I have some categories and stuff about this later, but not only am I tired of it, but I really think it's interesting that because the new director says he wants to get as close to the book as possible, that is impossible.

That's a different category of.

We're getting an NC17.

American Psycho.

Yeah.

I mean, that doesn't even begin to describe it.

I mean, I.

I have.

I've only had one tweet ever go viral.

I'm not very active on Twitter.

I try.

I'm not good at it, but it was when I saw the announcement.

I replied that if they did the book faithfully, it would make Terrifier three look like the Rugrats.

And that's literally the only tweet I've ever had go viral, because it is.

The book makes the Bale movie look like Rugrats.

I mean, the book is.

Everyone knows I like to read the books for this podcast, and Brady Sten Ellis is a top three author for me.

My favorite book by him is Lunar Park.

I love the Shards.

I love Less Than Zero.

This was the first book I read by him.

Not my favorite.

I don't love it.

It's not even in my top three of his books.

And I tried to reread it for this, and I got through half of it, and I just couldn't do it.

Oh, wow.

I could not get through it.

I like violent movies, and I've never had a problem with it, but reading that book twice felt like punishment for myself.

No, I get that there's certain movies that I'm like that with.

Like, I will never watch Hereditary again.

I've seen it twice.

That was two times too many.

It is a beautiful movie, but I just.

Every time that one scene in the middle happens where the girl gets her head fucked off, like, it just.

I white knuckle the couch.

I have heart palpitations.

Like, I just have an entire panic attack.

So I get it.

Yeah.

Sometimes Things that are meant for entertainment are not entertaining.

And you're like, it's like.

It's the same philosophy of, like, why don't eat really, really, really spicy wings?

Like, it's like, I like a little bit of spice, but I also like to enjoy my food and not burn my mouth off.

And so, like, sometimes, like, because that's what a lot of people were saying, because this was my first time watching American Psycho.

And whenever I watch a movie, I always post on threads or on Facebook, like, what do you guys think about the movie?

Just getting people's opinions.

And I try not to read too much of it until after the movie.

But the one thing that people kept saying for America Psycho was, oh, man, you have to read the book.

And then as soon as they started telling me why I have to read the book, I was like, I don't think I have to read the book.

I think I'm okay not reading the book.

You just explained everything that you would have wanted me to get out of the book.

I'm okay.

Not like.

I will say I see them as complimentary.

And the reason I say that is because they could never do everything in the book ever.

I still don't think they could do it today.

Can't wait for that revamp.

Go and try.

Yeah.

But they did attempt at least to really attach themselves to the satire in the book.

The things they captured were the comedy, the satire.

There's not really a lot of violence in the movie when you think about it.

Maybe that's just because I read the book again.

I was like, oh, there's.

I think that's what you're thinking, because.

No, there was quite a bit.

It takes it a minute.

There's some violence.

Yeah, there's some.

Good, good.

It gets hardcore.

Yeah.

The mentality, the.

The.

The psychosis and the psychological elements are a lot more obvious in the book.

Because in the book he starts inserting his psychological breaks.

Like, you know, the whole cat thing, like with the feed the cat stuff like that.

Like.

Like a quarter of the way in.

Starts randomly in small amounts, slipping in and like this.

The random times when he's trying to tell people, like, I'm in.

Murders and executions.

Those things happen a lot.

A lot.

And it's kind of motif in and out.

And then like one.

There's one part of the book where he's like.

Talks about all the stupid things he did that day.

Like, I went to the gym.

I'm summarizing.

I went to get groceries, but then I found this dog At a pet store.

I took it home and tortured it to death.

And then I went back and had dinner with Evelyn.

And it's like he's, like, sticking these little things in.

And that's why the book is so hard, is because, like, you just know that, like, at some point it's just going to get unbearable.

Yeah.

I'm hoping that that's what the director's talking about when he says he wants to get closer to the book as far as, like, not just upping the violence for the sake of upping the violence, but you, you know, like you were saying, like, starting those hints a little sooner in the movie.

I could.

If it's like that, I could accept it a little more, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I did like how in the movie, like, I.

And I think it's because you going into it, you're watching a movie called American Psycho.

So you're already.

There's already a hint already.

But I like how it didn't take them long to start dropping hints.

But at the beginning, like, it was so eerily calm with just, like, him talking about his, you know, waking up routine and whatever and the bright lights.

Yeah.

And you're just like, this guy is.

This guy's crazy.

And here's the thing.

I was telling, I think, Seth, this before the podcast, or maybe it was some of you guys.

I was in a really bad mood when I was watching this movie.

And because I was just in a mood as I was watching, I mean, part of me is like, I mean, he's got a point.

Yeah, he's got a, like, maybe annoying.

Through, but I'm like, but maybe, maybe.

I mean, I get where he's coming.

We've all worked with those guys before.

Like.

Yeah.

And that's what's interesting about the choice, is that very beginning scene, you know, like, you, you know, you almost have an illusion immediately because there's this puritanical, completely white fluorescent room.

Like, it's almost like it is an insane asylum.

Yeah.

Yes.

Or heaven, though.

Like, at the same time, like, this is a bastion.

This is heaven.

But at the same time, like you said, there's just like this psycho psychotic cleanliness to it that's almost a sane asylum.

Very clinical.

Did we ever figure out what his actual job is?

Like, what does he do?

Like, like he does whatever Halberstram does.

Yeah, he's like this big, high paying job.

Maybe.

Unless it's all just.

Unless it's all a hallucination.

But, like, you see him in his office all the time.

You see him going out to lunch all the time.

Yeah, that.

That was my joke, was that he literally.

His job is to have dinners and lunches with people.

Yeah.

Like, never once did I.

I mean, I was like, I.

I'm getting attorney.

Vibes from him, but so they're in finance.

Like, they are.

They are definitely in finance.

And so he's a finance bro.

Like, he's a Wall street dude.

There's that.

But what we do also know is that his dad practically owns the company.

And so to me, what it felt like was his family knows how fucked up he is because he's 27.

They're trying to, like, put him out in normal life, but they know what's wrong with him.

They know how fucked up he is, so they're trying to just keep him occupied and at bay through whatever this corporate job is where he's not actually doing anything, but he feels like he's part of this company.

Yeah.

Yeah, that would make sense.

Also, I don't know if you guys noticed, but halfway through the movie, he takes the last of his pills and then never once takes another one after that.

And I think that's when the true psychosis starts taking over.

I think things were kind of breaking, like you were saying in the book especially.

We're kind of breaking in the beginning of it piece by piece.

But it's like, I forget what was going on when he just literally chugs the last of his pills, but he does that, and then you never see him take another pill again.

So that's when he really goes off the deep end and is actually in full psychosis.

Yeah, that.

That.

That would make sense.

That's.

I mean, of course, that's the big question for the whole movie is like, how what's real?

What's not real?

Which murders happen?

Which murders didn't happen.

Yeah, I originally, Originally I was thinking it was right when, you know, you see the mass murder spree after he shoots the gun and see it notices the big explosion.

It's like, wait, I'm not in a Fast and Furious movie.

And then at that point, from there beyond, it's like, all fake.

But I don't know.

Like, I.

I think in thinking about the movie since I've watched it, I wouldn't be surprised if all of this was just his crazy fever dream psychosis.

Yeah.

He never actually murdered a single person.

And I don't like that because then I wasted all this time watching a story about just a weird guy.

Like, yeah, if you have those thoughts, and you're medicated.

You're just an odd fellow.

And that we're all.

We're all a little odd to some degree.

But if he's actually killing someone, then that's a psychopath.

And that's why we named the movie American Psycho.

Or is it Psycho for Psychiatric?

American Psychiatric Patient.

I don't.

I don't love that.

Yeah.

That's why American Psycho is a better title.

Yeah.

And this was.

This was one of the more exhaustive.

When I say exotic, like, I was exhausted researching it.

Not just because of reading the book.

Yeah, this book.

This movie.

We'll get to it in the randos.

But this movie went through development hell.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

And there's a lot to that.

But also, this is a beloved film.

I mean, this is one.

When I started the Social.

Because I didn't have social media before I started the podcast, like, five years ago.

And one of the first things I noticed about, like, movie creators or whatever on TikTok is that this movie is, like, everywhere.

People that list their top tens, it's there.

People are, like, making, like.

Like, Greatest Hits of Patrick Bateman, like, people.

And what's interesting about that is Mary Heron speaks to that on the commentary.

And it's really interesting because she talks about how this movie, when it premiered at Sundance, people didn't respond.

Like, people didn't cheer.

People didn't laugh.

Like, they didn't think the jokes were that funny.

They just didn't know what to expect.

And so they.

She taught in her husband.

She.

She talks about.

Her husband kept joking with her after the premiere.

He kept calling it American Succo, because the immediate.

The immediate response.

What a great husband thing of a movie.

Gosh.

Are they still married?

They shouldn't.

I wonder.

Ye.

And it didn't have great reception.

But she talks about.

In the commentary, she's noticed, like, about five years later, like, people start bringing the movie up in popular culture.

It starts getting satirized on, like, Saturday Night Live, and people are quoting it, and then all of a sudden, it has this weird rebirth.

Yeah.

And it's in the American, like, kind of the Zeitgeist all of a sudden.

And she says all of a sudden, it became this beloved, popular movie, but for five years, we pretty much thought it was a failure.

That was the true boom of coming out in VHS and eventually dvd.

And that's where movies really got their second life.

They weren't really expected to make hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars in the theaters like they do today, because they knew that after you got, you know, 20, 50, 100 million, that was, like, a big deal.

Then you would probably triple that in DVD sales or in VHS sales on top of that.

I have a very strong feeling that somehow it just ended up in a bunch of blockbusters and Hollywood videos and your local video rental places.

And that's really when it started coming back into pop culture, was because people were seeing it physically in the store, and they're like, I'll spend $2, this random movie.

He was a relative.

Nobody here.

Exactly.

It was really strange watch.

Because I think of.

When I think of him, I think of Batman.

Yeah.

And then watching him and this, I was like, what if this was the prequel to Batman?

I.

That's the thing that made this movie so good, was like, it was weird.

It.

There's not many, like, movies like it.

It was original plotline, and you didn't know how to feel at the end.

And so that's what, to me, that's what.

Yeah.

Like, it was.

It's a.

It's a just an.

It's like someone handing you a food from a different country, and you're like.

They're like, I don't even know how to explain this, but just try it.

Yeah, Yeah, I get that.

Yeah.

And it's interesting, and it is crazy that this is how we meet Christian Bale.

Right.

He had.

He was a kid actor.

Yeah.

You know, he had done a few things, and he showed up in.

Mary Herron describes him as a skinny British guy and says, you might want to work out because, you know, Patrick Bateman in the book is a.

Is a workout fiend.

And he came back, like, a month or two later looking the way he did.

Didn't he do the workout retreat team listed in the book or in the script?

Yeah, yeah.

So she said.

She says that some of the.

Not.

Not just that, but she says some of the things you see him do on screen.

That's what he did.

Yeah.

Because that in the book, he.

He brags about how many crunches he can do.

And so.

So Christian Bale was like, well, I need to be able to do.

Yeah.

That many crunches.

And that.

That.

Go ahead.

I was just thinking that scene when he's watching a scary movie and doing crutches, that was real.

I could see him being.

That was.

That's something he did because that is crazy and weird.

I think people do forget, though, Christian Bale at that point was a little bit of a household name because.

He was the lead in Newsies, which a lot of people forget about, but Newsies was actually a really big musical at the time.

And then very quickly later, he was Laurie in Little Women with Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Connelly and Winona Ryder and Kirsten Dunst.

Like, he was in some reasonably decently big movies before this.

But this, I think artistically was definitely a career defining moment because, you know, it wasn't a big role at the time for him.

It showed that he was a serious artistic actor.

Yeah.

I mean, he shined in this movie.

I mean, this was the role.

I hope I'm not stepping on one of your randos, but I do feel like it should be mentioned.

I'm pretty sure he said that he based Patrick Bateman quite a bit off of Tom Cruise in the Oprah interview.

He did, yeah.

And if you watch that interview and then watch a clip of him as Patrick Baiton, it's makes so much sense.

He was so nuts in that interview.

What a.

What a weird thing for Tom Cruise to read on imd.

I know.

Yeah.

Well, it's.

It's the.

It's.

This is one disappointing thing they left out from the book.

There's this.

And this really is where.

And to me, as the.

Everyone kind of has a different part of the book.

They read it where they think, okay, I think this is fake.

Like, he's not.

For me, it was.

There's a whole.

There's a whole subplot in the book that he lives in the same building as Tom Cruise in the book.

And he talks to Tom Cruise and he.

And Tom Cruise and Bateman, you get senses of this in the movie.

But he's kind of a loser in his group.

Yeah.

Like they.

They always make fun of him.

He's kind of the reject.

And I just want to fit in, you know, that's.

It's more exacerbated in the book.

And he gets in the elevator with Tom Cruise and he's like trying to brag on a movie and he's trying to tell him he loved Cocktail, but he calls it a different name.

And the only thing Tom Cruise really says back to him, besides nodding at him, is Cocktail.

It was called Cocktail.

Bateman is a complete loser in the elevator.

And that's one subplot that they left Out.

But again, in the book, the.

It's.

It's times a thousand like them saying, is that Ivanka Trump, like, and all those like name things like, that's all the time.

They're all.

There's so many people that they misrecognize.

They're not the right person.

No, that's not him.

Or that's not her.

Yeah.

He thinks he's.

There's celebrities.

He's always thinking.

And that's even more.

Plays into to the idea of is anybody even sane in this world?

Yes.

Interesting.

I would.

I will.

I bet you.

I mean, I bet you when they were making the movie, they were like.

They were like, that'd be a great scene.

But let.

We can't afford.

We can't pay Tom Cruise.

So he was heavily considered for the role.

He was one of the people.

But he.

He never actually showed interest.

But he was one of the first people they wanted.

But Johnny Depp was the most interested in the role.

I think.

Honestly, I think Johnny Depp would have done well.

I feel like Christian Bale would have done better or did better than maybe Tom Cruise would have done.

Oh, absolutely.

But maybe that's just because I'm just picturing what we saw from Christian Bale.

I think it also would have been a little too real with Tom Cruise, though.

How funny would it have been if they got him to play Patrick Bateman and then hired someone else to play Tom Cruise in the elevator incident?

I know.

How great would that be?

They should have kept that scene because it's the funniest part in the book.

Yeah, it's the funny.

Because it's so awkward.

It's just so like you're reading it like he's.

He's this wealthy idiot.

Like, he's like, he's so uncomfortable.

And there's a lot of.

There's a lot of things in the movie too, that, that, that speak to this idea to me where I've landed.

Like, there's a lot of interpretations, but to me, one of the major.

One of the major ways to interpret both the book and the movie that they share is that, that there's no substance.

Like everyone is the same.

Like in.

And his psychosis is, in a way, him trying to lash out and differentiate himself from this pool of yuppie ism.

And that's why he is a psycho.

But also this idea that he's mundane when he says at the end, there was no catharsis it's this idea of this confession.

Oftentimes, if you look at the psychological profile of people that murder and are psychos, they want to be caught because it affirms this evil thing in them.

And that's their personality.

It gives them some uniqueness.

Yeah.

You know what?

Like, I kept as I was watching the movie, especially when he was doing his murders, but, like going off on his tangents about the music and the songs, I couldn't.

I couldn't help be like, I feel like he'd be a cool hang.

Like, I feel like we could talk music.

I feel like.

So, like we.

Maybe we'd be buddies in the book.

Those are individual chapters.

Yeah.

So there are hundreds of pages of that.

Not hundreds, but probably almost 100 total pages.

They're.

But they're.

But they decided that was a creative choice they made is they wanted that to be the precursor to a murder.

So instead of just having him talk about music like he does in the book, like, literally start to end.

Nothing happens.

He talks about when, like I.

That was kind of where I stopped reading.

The second time was there's like 30 pages about Whitney Houston.

Yeah.

And it's just literally.

And it's about her biography and.

And like he analyzes every track on the Whitney Houston record.

Yeah.

So.

But they said, how can we include this?

Well, what if this is what predates a murder?

So, like, if he's talking about music, you know, someone's to die, that makes sense.

So that was a choice that made sense.

Yeah.

And I thought.

I thought was good.

That was.

It was captivating to watching him murder people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So quickly back to your point about did the murders happen?

Did they not?

I.

I forgot until literally just right now.

But I.

I realized on this last watch, through which I've watched it through probably six or eight times by now, what I realized on this last one is I think it's possible that all of the murders he committed were just in that notebook.

Yeah.

Every time he wrote down something in the notebook in his brain, he was going, oh, yeah.

Like, so maybe he saw.

It's like comedians who have the other brain.

When you're writing a joke, like the real situation happened and your brain's thinking, wouldn't it be funny if.

And you come up with the fictional story similar thing.

He probably could be a great open mic comic, honestly.

Like, he probably would fit right in with a lot of comedians.

I think we know quite a few.

He would be like buddies.

So.

Yeah.

So it was just a notebook which would Kind of make sense too, if.

I mean, it would.

Because at the end when his assistant scrolling through his calendar and seeing the messed up stuff, it would be crazy if she was scrolling through like the Notebook and seeing like the things he was writing.

Yeah.

But that would have been too, because they were really good at.

Like, we don't want to just spell it out for the audience.

Yeah.

Because I mean, if they did, the movie would have sucked.

If they told us exactly how it ended and there was no mystery to it, it would have been like, oh, yeah, okay.

And that was definitely a big thing at the time, was these open ended.

Like, even Fight Club is as definitive as it is.

It still got a lot of open ended questions at the end of it.

Yeah.

So it kind of neatly fit into that genre.

And I think something I realized about myself during watching this movie is when I watch movies like that, at first I hate the ending.

So I'm like angry that the movie just made me sit through it and that's the ending.

But then as I think about it over time, I enjoy it more because it's given me something to think about.

Yeah, yeah.

It stays with you.

It's like a slow burn movie.

Yeah.

I love, I love that it opens with a really strong inner monologue and it exit with a really strong.

Yeah.

And what.

I love that.

I love that they hit you really hard at the beginning.

Yeah.

With the.

I'm simply not there.

Yeah.

I'm an entity.

You know, like, it's like, whoa.

And the fact that.

And really the way to interpret.

I think the most popular interpretation of him peeling off the face mask is that he's revealing another mask.

Right.

He's not revealing his face.

He's actually just peeling off a mask to show you another mask.

He's literally just an empty force.

Doesn't he say something like that in one of his monologues?

He's like, this is just a mask.

Or something in that monologue.

Yeah.

Also like, is his wife or fiance real?

Because if she's a real person, what the heck is she doing with this weirdo?

No, I definitely think she's real.

Again, that's where I'm like, everything that happened up until he took all those pills, other than the possible moments of just those quick psychotic breaks.

A lot of times happen after drugs, by the way.

He'll do cocaine and then the next scene will be him killing a homeless guy.

Well, you're not supposed to mix drugs and your medication.

Yes.

And Wall Street.

Yeah.

But no, I think the job in the Office is real.

I think the assistant is real.

I think the fiance is real.

What I think could even not be real, though, is, like, Willem Dafoe's character.

Right.

That could not be.

That's.

I was starting to think, like, anytime it was just him and someone else in the room, it might have not been happening.

Yeah.

Which.

Yeah, it was very.

There were very few times where it wasn't more than just two people.

Like, there was a lot of people.

Now, granted.

And this.

This would just be my own, like, head theory, but I definitely think that the.

I forget the character's name, but the guy who, like, comes onto him in the bathroom.

Yeah.

He's, like, about to choke him, and he's like, oh, you love me.

It's one of his friends.

Yeah.

One of his co workers.

Yeah.

I think that happened.

Like, I think he.

He was about to lean into the intrusive thought and kill the dude.

Like, that was a real moment.

And then the guy thought he was hitting on, like, I think that was real.

Which would be interesting because that would make.

The only killing moment that's real is the one that didn't.

He didn't actually kill the person.

He almost did, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And a lot of that, too, is.

Is built to show that he's not good at this.

Yeah.

Like, he's kind of, like, fumbling his way through.

And part of the.

Like, you talked about the exercising to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Part of the interpretation of that is he's practicing.

Yeah.

Like, he wants to work out.

Like, he's getting his body ready, but he's also listening because he wants to get a tune with murder.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Screaming and like, he wants that to be kind of like his.

His mythos.

Yeah.

No, that makes a lot of sense.

Betterhelp.com this guy at all.

And you're listening, boss.

Guys, there's.

There's other ways of handling your crap.

Yeah.

Not a sponsor, but if you want to.

Axes.com before we move on.

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Yeah.

Gosh.

He went from this to Batman to the best living interpretation of Batman.

That's so wild.

Don't forget Rain of Fire and the Machinist in between that.

Oh, dude, the Machinist.

Have you seen Rain of Fire?

I have.

Okay, good.

You, I doubt you've seen it.

And they did out of the Furnace later, which I love.

I don't feel like that movie gets a lot of love.

It doesn't it?

I, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it definitely was a very much smaller indie movie.

And I don't.

I could tell why it didn't have much appeal, like mass appeal, because it was definitely a very slow.

Like it wasn't slow necessarily in a bad way, but it was a very slow paced movie.

So I get why it probably didn't get Lot of love.

Yeah.

And I haven't seen it.

Yeah, it didn't get a lot of.

It's him and Casey Affleck, right?

Yeah.

This is one thing I love about him though.

He is still this way too.

Like he is not afraid to dip right back into the indie world.

He can play Nolan, Batman and then if he got an opportunity to do another machinist like movie.

I love that about him.

Well, I mean that was him kind of with David O.

Russell and the Fighter.

Like that was him dipping his toes.

Granted David Russell is a bigger indie director, but he thought that's still an indie movie.

Like that's not a big studio blockbuster movie.

And then again with American Hustle, he's fantastic in American Hustle.

So good.

Yeah.

He's got so much range.

Let's talk, let's talk real quick about the insanity of his body changes throughout the years because.

Holy.

Yeah.

So here's the deal.

He went from this movie and I think I read he was like 180 pounds, but pretty much a pure muscle.

And then he did a couple of movies.

And what he did literally was he would eat an apple and drink a cup of coffee a day and that was the only calories he was consuming for months.

Yeah.

And then literally six months after they wrapped filming that he gets up to 220 to play Batman and then continues to do that for different roles because he was in that, that Vietnam movie Something Dawn, I can't remember, but he got down again to like 140, 150 for that and then bulked back up for the Dark Knight Rises and then got fat as fuck for American Hustle.

Like just has gone to every extreme body wise.

I think he's finally said he can't do it anymore.

It has to be so unhealthy.

I mean, it has to be.

It's great for us as a viewer.

Oh, yeah.

It's kind of cool to think, like, man, that's the dedication.

He has this craft.

But, like, there's got to be nutritionists out there that are Christian Bale fans that are, like, rolling in there 100 waves.

Well, like when Jared Leto gained 63ish pounds for chapter 27, which I need to put on the list because it's a great movie.

He developed gout because of how quickly he gained the weight and the things he was eating in order to get weight.

He also, to the day is dealing with it.

He's also sending dead fish to cast members on Suicide Squad.

That's not true.

No.

Are you sure?

I'm positive.

He sent a live rat to Margot Robbie.

Okay.

And he sent a pretence, unwrapped condom to some people.

Okay.

My bad.

Sending a live rat to someone.

It was overblown.

She kept the rat.

It's her pet now.

That's so weird.

Was overblown.

And it wasn't weird because he was playing the joker.

End of that.

Okay, go.

I pressed a button there.

I didn't know there was a button by pressing it.

I am excited for future times of pressing that button right now, but I.

Have a 30 seconds to Mars tattoo, so we'll get into that later.

Gout.

The only thing I have in common with Jared Leto.

Same.

We're the gout generation, baby.

Oh, God, I hate it.

It's so bad.

You know how bad it is?

I do.

It's the worst pain I've ever been in.

I would wager it's on par with childbirth.

Yeah, I legit.

Depending on what joint it's on.

Yes.

Or how many.

Is it weird that I thought you were gonna say, I would wager it's on par with watching the Crow.

Wicked.

Yeah, it's very.

It's very.

It's not.

Because that was significantly worse for a lawy.

Right.

Remember, there are women who say they would like to have another kid.

No one wants to rewatch Wicked Prayer.

Not doing that again.

No.

This is the only time I haven't rewatched a movie for this podcast.

I hit play.

I was like, no, I went outside.

All right, so the questions.

Here we go.

How optimal of a soundtrack is Huey and the Huey Lewis and the News for axing your coworkers?

And what would the equivalent today today be?

Like, what was it Chapel Round 100.

Can you imagine?

H o T T o G O o.

My guys are getting a reservation of Doria's now.

You fucking fuck.

I love it, too.

Dorsey is amazing.

Yeah.

Happy.

The song.

Happy.

Oh, Pharrell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That would be a good one.

That'd be a good one.

To murder someone.

It is part of the genius of this movie is the.

Is the backdrop.

And obviously they merged those concepts from the book, but that was one of the genius moves that Mary Heron made, was like, let's consolidate these.

And seeing that ax fall and hearing Huey Lewis and the news was.

It's so good.

Yeah.

It's so good.

Back in the freshman year of college, I entered a contest to make a music video for three Days Grace.

And I literally used that scene as, like.

Our opening scene is where, like, we reenacted me getting axed in the face.

So.

No, that.

That moment, especially with the Huey Lewis in the news background, like, that 100, like, just hits me in a place.

Which Three Days Grace song.

Were you going to make a music?

Misery loves my company.

Nice.

Yeah.

It was a contest.

Like a bunch of people.

It didn't go anywhere, but I.

I don't know.

I had fun.

Yeah.

Did you watch it?

I haven't yet.

Sorry.

I forgot.

I will.

I'll watch it.

I will watch it, I promise.

No, I don't know.

It's one of those things where I got lost in my.

My text.

I.

Aside from all the murder and insanity here, did this make you want to go out and spend five grand and get a tailored suit, or is it just me?

Right?

Oh, 100%.

What I found out.

You don't have to do that shit.

Yeah.

I.

So I've discovered my tailor right down the road.

And you can go get a $40 suit from Goodwill, take it to a good tailor.

It'll look like $1,000 suit.

Yeah.

Like, God damn.

So facts, tips for all you guys.

But.

Yes.

You don't even need a suit if you want to go kill someone.

It's true.

Yes.

You know it's true.

You probably just should wrap yourself in plastic wrap.

Yeah, that was probably a good idea.

That.

Go ahead and do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Get you a clear raincoat.

That's one part in the book that is exhaustive is like the numerous.

Like, there's just pages and pages of brands and what.

Where the shoes come from and.

Yeah.

One of the biggest things in the book that happens.

I don't.

They didn't put this in the movie, but a Woman, like, ask him if his suit is from, like, a place it's not.

And he, like.

He, like, wants to kill her instantly because she asked him if a suit was like, Henry Taylor and it's like.

A cheaper brand than what he actually got.

Or, like, the weird things to me was, like, the fixation he had on the business cards and the different fonts and how.

And how.

But then it got, like, the good ones.

It got almost, like, erotic, how he was, like, into it.

And then the other thing was.

And maybe it was just kind of to cement the fact that he was really into stature and good places.

And maybe in his.

In his delusion, he was, like, a bigger deal than he was.

But, like, it was so weird how every time they mentioned a restaurant, they mentioned that one place, and he had such, like, apathy or, like, yeah, of course.

Reservation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Texarkana.

Yeah.

It's so funny.

I've been to Texarkana, man.

You're not.

That was so funny.

Like, Texarkana is a.

Is a town.

Yeah.

I got malaria there.

I'm pretty sure.

Oh, my gosh.

But, yeah, even.

Even how Jared Leto's character, Paul Allen, is just like, you got us in here.

I could have gotten us into Dorsia.

Like, yeah.

Everyone's bragging on the one thing that he wants to be able to do.

What was the jello chart?

Arugula.

And, like, some kind of Jello lime gelato.

Jello or some.

So also, like, they all just seemed like a.

Like, a really weird friend group.

Like, if you were.

That's finance, bro.

If you were.

If you were new to the job and you went sat with them and they were having those conversations, I'd be like, I'm gonna just go eat in my office.

I do love that.

That where Patrick Bateman draws the line is anti Semitism.

Yeah.

He's like, I will kill a.

But, hey, do not talk about Jews that way.

And I.

So part of that.

He's a murderer, not a monster.

So there's one really interesting.

And this isn't really necessarily a random.

We're fixing get to Randos, but one of the things that you.

When you read not only the book, but kind of read into how they directed this movie, a lot of those things that he's doing is because he is an empty vessel.

He's constantly doing things.

You got to really look and watch it to pick up on it.

There's another example.

You'll know he's trying to mimic because he wants to lash out and not be this nothingness.

He can't just be nothing.

He wants to, you know, exceed this by, with his psychotic acts, the him talking, because he's married to, like, your very typical 80s white liberal woman.

She's wealthy and they're very like, you know, there's kind of this.

I don't know a good word for it, but this archetype of the liberal white woman, that she's wealthy, like wealthy beyond, but still has all these causes and concerns.

So he's espousing this stuff constantly because he thinks that's how he's assimilating himself with the culture, because he knows he's this psychotic empty vessel.

And he does this again.

Now, when next time you rewatch it or just go to the scene when he's eating dinner with Willem Dafoe with the PI he's staring at him, eating, because he's trying to mimic how normal people eat steak.

That's what he was actually doing.

He's staring at him because, you know, he's.

He's just a PI.

He's not wealthy, he's not a celebrity.

And so he's like defoe.

If you watch him, he or a bail is staring at him and he's like trying to, like, mimic it because he doesn't know how normal people eat.

That makes.

Because that restaurant wasn't one of the.

So he's got.

So he's.

That.

Yeah.

So he's constantly trying to mimic what a weird dude.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, it kind of plays on the idea of psychopath psychopathy, however it's pronounced now where you don't understand the general social cues, emotionally or physically, of life.

So everything that you're doing, going through the motions, is what you have gleamed from what other people are doing.

Yeah.

Because you don't know what's normal because you have no baseline.

It's like how you're supposed to feel and do things.

So it does make sense.

I get that.

Yeah.

I've just got nothing in common with you.

God, I would love to say that.

Work without murdering anyone.

Yeah.

I would just rather be like, I got nothing in common with you.

You get out of my office.

Randall Randos.

I had to cap myself because I have.

I have a rando problem.

Yeah.

So like on Taxi Driver, on the old version of Movie Wars, I had like 10.

You've got to shut up.

We can't do a three hour podcast.

I was like, okay.

But I kept myself at six.

Here we go.

I had to do the same thing for the next episode.

Yeah.

Passion project coming From Seth on the next one.

Oh, it's a good time.

Yeah.

So let's see.

It's upgrade, Am I right?

Yeah.

Oh.

So I'm gonna try to be as.

As sustained with the backstory.

But the backstory, to me is the most interesting thing about this movie, about how it got made originally.

Stuart Gordon and Johnny Depp.

There was this black and white version of this book or this movie floating around.

The book was kind of seen as untouchable in a lot of ways, because when the book came out, there were protests.

Feminists were going into bookstores like Barnes and Noble and independent bookstores and pouring, like, pork blood and all over the books.

And women feminists were standing there in bookstores reading the book out loud so people.

So people could hear the grotesque.

Gosh, that would be so annoying if you just, you know, you finally get an hour off of work and you want to go check out your favorite a book, and you go in, or.

You'Re there to get Good Night Moon for your kid.

Yeah.

With your kid.

And so it was.

It was very faux pas.

Like.

Like people wanted to make.

Make it, but they didn't know how, and they didn't know how to get the right director.

Yeah.

So then Cronenberg was attached to it, which he would have definitely brought that horror element, but he.

He actually got in a room with Bret Easton Ellis and he actually wanted him to help him rewrite a lot of the book.

Not in book form, but he wanted him to rewrite scenes.

Because the thing about the book.

And I actually.

This is one thing I do enjoy about the book lot more than a movie, is that it's a very unreliable narrator, and it's very modern.

Like, it goes from first person to third person.

Like, it shifts its perspective a lot.

Interesting.

Because it actually.

And that puts you more in this idea of there's something psychotic happening because you keep bouncing around and, like, where you're at in the narrative, and it's so inconsistent and so crazy.

But Cronenberg wanted to add more of a narrative.

And this is something Mary Heron didn't do.

She did.

She really didn't do a lot to mend that lack of narrative.

And Brady Snell is like, I just.

I don't want to rewrite all of this.

Yeah.

So.

So then Mary Heron gets attached to it because a.

And Guinevere Turner, the writer, because they felt like if we got strong feminist director, strong feminist writer, that would help us stave off the toxicity of the book.

They can't say that it's Anti woman.

If we have women at the helm.

Yeah.

And I'm sure they still did.

I'm sure they had some very nasty things.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, you have no idea.

It's a great thought to think they can't say it, but.

Oh, can they?

Oh, yeah.

Well, in fact, I mean, even while they were making the movie, they ended up having to do a soundstage that they built.

They were going to film it at a Toronto office and this was filmed in Toronto, but the office building they were going to film at got protested and they couldn't even enter the building.

So they had to go plan B and build sound stages.

So even with him at the helm.

And this is the craziest part.

So a lot of actors had come in.

Billy Cruda was one.

Obviously we had the Johnny Depp.

So Leonardo DiCaprio was coming off Titanic.

He was very interested and they were very interested.

The only person that wasn't interested was Mary Herron because she loved Christian Bale.

Christian Bale had been in those films you mentioned, but he was still kind of rel.

He was not a leading man.

Yeah, by any means.

And he hadn't really done anything huge.

And this was a $6 million budget, but the studio was still willing to pay Leonardo DiCaprio $20 million.

Wow.

And so Mary Haram believed in she.

And she was really frustrated because how are we going to get Titanic guy?

His whole life is about 14 year old girls worshiping him.

Like that was his life at the time.

And she was like, that's not.

This isn't going to work.

And so she left the project and said, if you ever decide you want to go with Christian Bale, let me know.

And she loved.

I mean, she loved Christian that much that she was willing to quit the project.

Oliver Stone comes in and they're going to have Oliver.

Oliver Stone directed.

But then it turns out her instinct was right.

It actually came down to the fact that not only Leo's agent, but people in the industry started telling Leo, your whole life is propped up by the worship of 14 year old girls right now.

He was like, if you do this, not only is it going to betray your entire fan base, but this could be career ending.

Yeah.

Because of the book, because of all this.

And so he actually ended up walking away.

They invite Mary Heron back and that's how they get Christian Bale in this film.

That's amazing.

I remember watching an interview with her where she was talking, and maybe this is also Christian Bale talking about this, but like they were talking about when they were off the project and they were still working on the project together, she was still rehearsing with him.

She was still going through her script with Christian, trying to help him figure out.

And he, he literally kept going like, but we're not, we're not on the project.

She's like, don't worry about it.

We're just going to.

Right, it'll work out.

And it's like she knew that she was right and she knew that people were going to get to the point where they agreed.

She manifested it.

Yeah.

Womanifested it.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

For something that's predominantly a woman related thing.

You don't hear about many dudes manifesting things.

That's how sexism is in America.

We've taken even their word.

We've masculine.

Yeah.

And actually, and this is, this is actually Christian Bale is one of my top, probably 10 actors.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah.

And one.

And actually the reason she was so obsessed with him taking this role, besides the fact that he didn't cost $20 million, in fact, he took less than.

He took one of the least amounts of the, in the movie actually to take this role.

She said that every actor, and even Leo and all the great actors that came in to read, they wanted to know his motivation.

They wanted to know what's the psychology they were trying to dissect.

Yeah.

Bateman.

Bale knew from the beginning that he was an empty vessel, that he was this kind of like what he describes as this, this, this entity.

Yeah.

Bale knew that.

And so he, right off the bat was like, there is nothing to dissect.

There's nothing here.

He is a.

He's a force and he's, you know, he's, he's either psychotic or he's not real.

We don't know.

But there is nothing.

And she got.

He gets it.

There is nothing.

And so that's actually why she knew.

He was the perfect person for the role.

And that I think speaks to how important a good relationship between producers and a studio can be with the director, because the director has a vision for a reason.

You hire a director for a reason.

And it just always frustrates me when I see like Edgar Wright doing the original Ant Man.

They hired him for a reason.

He has a very strong physical presence in the types of movies that he makes the style.

You watch an Edgar Wright movie, you know, it's an Edgar Wright movie.

And yet Disney hires him to make Ant man and then cripples him the whole time.

And that's when he quit the project.

Yeah.

And it's like, don't hire a director who has a vision for the project and not trust the vision.

Yeah.

Like, I get it.

There are times, you know, sometimes the director just not good.

And an executive can look at it and be like, no, no, no.

I can tell you this is not going to work.

But when you're making a movie of this kind of artistic depth, you really have to trust the people who are coming in out of passion for it.

Yeah.

And you have to know that, like, that's part of the job of the studios, the producers to hire, like, knowing the director's exact version and hiring the person you're.

You want to make the kind of movie you want, but then, like you said, step away and letting them do their thing.

Because then.

And you can tell when you watch those movies, you can tell the movies where they're like, they're doing exactly what they want to do and what their style.

And then you can tell the ones that are like, they were maybe given too much micromanagement.

Yeah, yeah.

Next rando.

So one of the.

This was really cool.

So when.

When he's killing Paul Allen, which in the.

In the book, his name is actually Paul Owen, which is crazy.

So that was messing with me.

Yeah.

But in.

When the blood only splat spatters on one face, I think that was.

I'm trying to remember if it was accidental or not, but.

Oh, it was 100 accident.

It was accidental.

Okay.

And they just went for.

Right.

Yeah.

And what they loved is in post when they were editing, like, actually that's kind of got the Dr.

Hyde, Mr.

Hyde thing going on.

So they've kept it because, you know, originally I think they wanted the blood to really be all over his face and stuff.

Like, whoa.

It's like that accidentally happened.

Yeah.

And it had that Dr.

Jekyll, Mr.

Hyde look.

Is that right?

Or is it Mr.

Jekyll.

No, Dr.

Jekyll, Mr.— Hyde.

Yeah.

Because you could have very easily gone full gore and just shot blood everywhere.

And I'm sure they had takes that was like that where he was just drenched in blood all the way around.

But yeah, like, sometimes it's those accidents where you're like, ah, that wasn't a good one.

Or that wasn't what I planned for.

Let's do it again.

And then you go back and it tends to, like, make the film better somehow.

I'm glad that they, in many circumstances, didn't go full gore in this movie because, like, the less is more Made it more eerie.

So much.

It just made it more creepy.

Because when it did get hyper violent, then it was impactful.

If everything had been this awful blood gore show, then you get to those last couple of murders and.

And you're just like, okay, whatever.

Yeah.

But the fact that they significantly upped that ante so hard at the end there made it way more impactful to not have everything in your face the whole time.

Yeah.

And the way that that murder is described in the book is grotesque.

Like, he even goes into detail about, like, the sound of air escaping from his brain when he cracked his skull.

And, like, oh, wow.

And then, like.

Like he talks about, like, seeing the jaw hanging and, like, it's just like, that's the book.

That was, like, minimal for the book.

I mean, that's why I was like, I can't.

I can't read this all through again.

I can't do this.

This was my.

This was my favorite Ramb Rando.

As someone in filmmaking, I think you'll love this too.

Willem Dafoe.

So the way they coached him was that they wanted him to do three takes of every scene.

Okay.

They wanted him to do one take where he believed Bateman, everything he was saying, he thought he was innocent.

He totally was.

Just in his world.

And then they did a take where he didn't know he was kind of in between.

And then they wanted to take where he.

Where he thought he was guilty.

And Defoe is so expressive.

Yeah.

With his face and, like, his acting is so, like, nonverbal.

And they wanted the ability.

And they did this.

And when you rewatch it, you'll notice it's like they wanted to be able to cut between those.

Yeah.

So you're actually seeing reactions that may not have necessarily been shot chronologically, but they're like, actually, let's put a take of him being unsure here.

Yeah.

Or let's make him accusatory here.

And so those takes are all, like, variances of that.

That makes so much more sense.

So brilliant, too, because when you're watching it, like, when I was watching it the first time before I even knew that I was like, does.

Does he think he's the murderer?

Does he not think.

Is he just asking his question?

Like, you don't know, but it makes so much sense because you're watching different versions of his expression.

Well, I think it also can be read into.

In this is Bateman's projection of his reactions to the thing that he's saying, because it's like you can tell throughout all of Those interactions where Patrick is like, oh, no, he didn't believe that.

I've got to say something else to make this more believable.

And then he'll say something and Willem Dafoe will just get like, oh, yeah, no problem.

Like, whatever.

When clearly what he has said is absolutely outrageous.

But it's like in his mind, this horrific, stupid little lie that he tells is what actually is like, oh, no, no, that worked that 100%.

Do we think William Defoe was like a hallucination the whole time, or was there actually, in this storyline, concrete, like a investigation and an officer coming in or detective coming in?

Because.

Because the more I think about it, I'm more inclined to believe that that was part of his psychosis.

Was everything William Defoe related?

Here is.

Here's what my theory has been.

And I don't know if it's going to change, but what my theory has been since the first few times I saw it is that potentially the only real murder was Paul Allen.

And here's why I think that.

Because at the very end, he goes and talks to his lawyer, and his lawyer is the one who says, oh, no, I talked to Paul Allen 10 days ago.

And for me, it's like, I think he killed him.

Called his lawyer, his lawyer cleaned up, and now that they're in public and everything else has been him, like, writing down all these murders he wants to commit and not actually doing it, now that he's going back to his lawyer to be like, I killed Paul Allen, he's just like, no, you didn't.

Like, no, I've.

I've fixed this.

You didn't do that.

And is now this is where it also gets confusing, because I don't know if the name change, like, has anything to do with that, because it could.

That name change where he's not actually Patrick Bateman could just be that everything was psychosis.

But that's where I tend to believe that the only actual murder that was committed was against Paul Allen.

Yeah.

That's interesting, because I think my interpretation is like, that was them putting the bow on the ambiguity.

Because this whole movie, everyone's calling somebody else a different name.

Yeah.

Everybody looks the same.

He very well have seen someone else and thought they were Paul Allen.

He thinks Bateman's Davis.

Well, when he says Paul Allen at the very beginning of the movie, in that very first scene, it's not Jared Leto.

Yeah.

Like, it's someone totally different.

So, I mean, that's where I'm like, I.

I could be convinced otherwise, but that's just.

That's always been my thinking, is the one real one was Paul Allen and that's what set off his internal psychosis.

But he didn't actually follow through on any of it.

That's what makes this movie great is like.

Yeah.

You just don't know.

Nobody knows.

And there's not a lot of side quests.

They're not taking a lot of moments to get into subtext.

Like, the only time that you're challenged with subtext, honestly, like, in a tangible format, is when Willem Dafoe is present.

Yeah.

Outside of the investigation, you are literally just having to depend on your own mind.

Yeah.

What you're seeing.

And because the dialogue is about loafers.

Yeah.

It's about being engaged.

It's about, you know, it's about everything but the murdering.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

So you're having to, like, sit there and be like.

But when Willem Dafoe is on, he's like the only source of, like, okay, now we can maybe get to the bottom of something.

Right.

That never happens and you never do.

But see, that's where I think Willem Dafoe was real, is because the one disappearance murder of Paul Allen actually happened.

Yeah.

If the.

If.

If that was a real murder, then he was definitely real.

Yeah.

Doing good police work.

As they should.

But again, it's just.

I can't with any definitiveness say that that's the way it is.

Shall we go to Dorsia?

Let's do it.

Shall we see.

Shall we?

I'm trying to think of drop a chainsaw.

I love that scene.

The most unrealistic ever.

Love that.

That was.

That was just, to me the most because.

And his enthusiast got her.

We've all been there.

We've all wanted to drop a chainsaw on a person.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And what's funny, it's one of the most unrealistic kills ever, but it's one of the most, like, beloved by fans.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't think.

I can't remember because I didn't get through the second half of the book this time, but I don't think that one's in the book, actually.

I don't think that's actually in the book.

I'm trying to remember.

I read it the first time years ago.

So.

Yeah.

Feel free to correct us in the comments.

Correct us nicely.

Nicely.

Don't be a dick.

Don't wish me cancer like the last guy.

Jeff Tones, top Bill cast.

And so I hear.

I kind of had to make Creative decisions here because Christian Bale was not highly paid, so.

But I still put Bale as Bateman.

I mean, he was the first name on the.

On the list.

So it doesn't.

Payment doesn't matter at that point.

A lot.

I mean, even Jonah Hill in the Wolf of Wall street took a significant cut in pay just so he could be in the movie.

Yeah, true.

Justin Theroux as Timothy Brice.

And then Josh Lucas is Craig McDermott.

Yeah.

How do we feel about this top Bill cast?

I mean, they were fantastic.

They took the cartooniness.

Oh, go ahead.

Sorry.

By the way.

No, hold the thought.

My category is if it's.

Yes, affirmative.

It even has a watermark.

There we go.

That's positive.

If it's negative.

No.

This confession has meant nothing.

It's all good.

I love it.

That's very creative.

I think every single one of them committed to the surrealist nature of the film.

Film.

Because it wasn't ever supposed to fully feel like real life.

So you got a second chance at doing the acting.

I feel like they were purposefully this kind of surreal acting style where it kind of felt above real life, outside of real life.

So, no, I think every one of them committed to the correct bit as hard as they possibly could.

So what is it?

Yes, it has a watermark.

Yep.

Or it even has a watermark.

Yeah, yeah, they have a watermark.

Oh, yeah, I agree.

They even have a watermark.

Pale nimbus.

They did.

They did.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

I almost wanted to put the.

The color of the cards as the positive.

Pale nimbus.

Raised lettering.

Yeah.

Bone.

I go.

I go.

It has a water mark too.

And I.

I love how everyone is.