The movie “American Psycho” is one of the worst adaptations of a book to a movie I have ever seen (just slightly better than “Bonfire of the Vanities”). Unless you have read the book, you really have no understanding of the depth of the story.
To be fair though, there’s no way anyone COULD make a good adaptation. Which makes me wonder why they tried . . .
[quote]JDREDD wrote:
The movie “American Psycho” is one of the worst adaptations of a book to a movie I have ever seen (just slightly better than “Bonfire of the Vanities”). Unless you have read the book, you really have no understanding of the depth of the story.[/quote]
[quote]NateN wrote:
To be fair though, there’s no way anyone COULD make a good adaptation. Which makes me wonder why they tried . . .
JDREDD wrote:
The movie “American Psycho” is one of the worst adaptations of a book to a movie I have ever seen (just slightly better than “Bonfire of the Vanities”). Unless you have read the book, you really have no understanding of the depth of the story.
[/quote]
I’ve never read the book, but the part in the movie where Bale is filling in an entire crossword puzzle with the words “meat” and “bones” was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
adam west may have been a good batman, but he truly shines as mayor of quahog.
[quote]wufwugy wrote:
i haven’t read the book.
the movie indeed was a glorification of serial murder and psychotic behavior (not necessarily violence). the fact that in the end we find out that it was all in his mind is inconsequential because while we’re watching the movie we are viewing a murderous behavior that is uncontended.
the american psycho was the protagonist. just like mickey and mallory were the protagonists in natural born killers. this is what makes me sick.
on the other hand, i’ve heard that some people think american psycho is a parody. yeah, right.[/quote]
Hmm, I think you should read the book, and possibly watch the movie again. You don’t seem to have got the themes and motivations at all.
Whoever says that it was all in his mind really needs to watch the entire movie again. I thought the movie spelled things out fairly clearly, and was really the lite version of the book.
Aside from that Bale Rocks!
I guess I am not clear on what you mean by glorifying serial murder or violence.
Saw the movie sevral times where is it clear he commited any of those crimes for real?
Feed me a stray cat.
Nuff Said.
[quote]Jersey5150 wrote:
I guess I am not clear on what you mean by glorifying serial murder or violence.
Saw the movie sevral times where is it clear he commited any of those crimes for real?
[/quote]
Seriously, I think you should go and read the book again and then watch the movie again with an open mind. I can kind of understand where the confusion arises from in the film, but I think you might want to watch it another time.
I personally liked the book and the film and quite enjoy the opportunity to discuss it!
Later,
Paulos
Christian Bale is quite the hottie. I saw a trailer for the new Batman movie and it looks quite good.
Not that I expect anyone to have seen this, but I first noticed Bale when he played a newspaper boy in the musical Newsies. Not only can he act, but he can sing and dance too!
I’ll admit it, I’ve seen newsies. And I’ll buy it when it comes out on DVD…
for my mom of course.
i dont think the movie made it clear what actually happened. we find this out in the end. throughout the movie we see him do these things that in the end he finds out that at least one of them was in his mind. by implication i understood this to mean that he is indeed crazy and we are left with zero clue of what he actually did.
when i watched this movie i recently came off of watching natural born killers. murder of an indiscriminate nature (very debatable what that actually means) and rape disgust me. you could imagine how much i hated natural born killers when this movie protagonizes this behavior. american psycho (the movie) is in the same line inasmuch that it protagonizes an indiscriminate or psychotic murderer.
all in all, i thought the movie was good except that i just got caught up in the fact that it presented a topic in a way that i loathe.
im not a huge fan of comparing books and movies. they are such different entities that, imo, a movie that is made from a book is only good when it is intentionally changed.
fyi, eaters of the dead by Crichton and thirteenth warrior are my favorite book/movie.
i dont think i’ll read the book because i read non-fiction exclusively and find that i prefer to get my fiction in video form.
No the point is that he is one of many yuppies that are trying so hard to impress with wealth and sofistication that you can’t tell them apart. His lawyer doesn’t recognise him from a bar of soap, or any of his clients for that matter. The image matters so much to him and the other yuppies yet they become caught up by a shade of white in the business cards.
He did all those things and there is no stopping him, hence the final internal monologue. Amazing that you didn’t pick this up, read what Easton-Ellis’ ideas were and it might become clearer.
okay…i’ve been sacrificing my sleepy time so i could rent and watch american psycho again. i watched it from end to beginning, repeating much of it, specifically looking for the mistaken identity and bateman getting away with it (instead of it all being in his mind).
im aware that both easton ellis and harron (screenplay) meant that bateman gets away with it. i havent read the book so i wont discuss that.
from rewatching the movie it became apparent to me that bateman was very often mistaken for somebody else and that he could have actually done it and gotten away with it. but there are reasons that show how this may not be the case.
i’ll present three:
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“feed me a stray cat.” i find no rationale for him seeing this at the ATM and trying to feed it a stray cat other than him going psycho.
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in the end we find out that either bateman mistakenly identified paul allen or he’s psycho. if he misidentified paul allen then perhaps he is psycho because all the misidentification is not only of him but by him.
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the book that his secretary finds details everything he did. perhaps it WAS all in his mind.
if nobody read the book im sure very few would think the movie portrayed a man who got away with it; the movie did a horrible job of making it seem this way. despite the fact that the screenwriter meant for this to be the movie’s theme the actual movie expresses another theme more fully.
now excuse me while i have some nightmares due to the fact i haven’t been able to shrug the fright of the movie from my shoulders like i did the first time i watched it…
[quote]tim290280 wrote:
No the point is that he is one of many yuppies that are trying so hard to impress with wealth and sofistication that you can’t tell them apart. His lawyer doesn’t recognise him from a bar of soap, or any of his clients for that matter. The image matters so much to him and the other yuppies yet they become caught up by a shade of white in the business cards.
He did all those things and there is no stopping him, hence the final internal monologue. Amazing that you didn’t pick this up, read what Easton-Ellis’ ideas were and it might become clearer.[/quote]
Got to agree with Tim here. How often does Bateman get mistaken for some other yuppie clone in the movie? If Bateman’s lawyer cannnot recognise his own client then I think it is pretty clear that he did not have lunch with the Paul Allen character in London as he claims. Also, if you watch the film again I think you might realise that when he tries to go back to Paul Allen’s apartment after all the killings he has committed there, he returns to the wrong apartment and therefore finds no trace of his murderous activities.
At no point is it made clear that any of the crimes are a figment of his imagination.
Again, I think the original book needs to read in order to grasp some of the themes Easton-Ellis was trying to convey.
Laters,
Paulos
[quote]T-Vixen Mod wrote:
Christian Bale is quite the hottie. I saw a trailer for the new Batman movie and it looks quite good.
Not that I expect anyone to have seen this, but I first noticed Bale when he played a newspaper boy in the musical Newsies. Not only can he act, but he can sing and dance too![/quote]
Thats actually some impressive shit.
I hope this movie does well
Here’s a line of dialogue between Bateman and some girl (Daisy):
Daisy: “So what are you into?”
“Well murders and executions mostly.”
“Do you like it?”
“It depends. Why?”
“Because most guys I know who work with mergers and acquisitions don’t like it.”
I think this is a good example showing he probably gave her the genuine, boring answer, but was fantasizing the above as his real reply.
[quote]NateN wrote:
Here’s a line of dialogue between Bateman and some girl (Daisy):
Daisy: “So what are you into?”
“Well murders and executions mostly.”
“Do you like it?”
“It depends. Why?”
“Because most guys I know who work with mergers and acquisitions don’t like it.”
I think this is a good example showing he probably gave her the genuine, boring answer, but was fantasizing the above as his real reply.[/quote]
I think this is a good example showing how no one in Bateman’s social circle really listened to each other properly. Daisy heard what she wanted to hear. I also think that in both book and film this scene takes place in nightclub with loud music playing.
Paulos
[quote]Guilo wrote:
I’ll admit it, I’ve seen newsies. And I’ll buy it when it comes out on DVD…
for my mom of course.[/quote]
It is great isn’t it? It is based on the newspaper boys’ strike back in the early 1900s, so it’s historical.
Aww how sweet of you to think of your mom! Are you going to watch it with her too? That would be even more sweet! 
[quote]T-chick wrote:
DK wrote:
Check out “American Psycho” if you like Christian Bale…now THAT was a crazy movie…
It was nothing compared to the book.
Watch equilibrium for Christian Bale on top of his game
There is only one batman and I’m sorry to say that it is Michael Keaton.[/quote]
The book is probably better than the movie, but it should have been edited better. Yes, we get the point, you like to torture women.
I personally liked the movie and the book a lot, the movie probably more so because the book went on longer than it should, and Bale as Bateman was amazing. And the scene where he kills that guy (Paul Allen maybe? I haven’t seen it in a year) with an axe is probably one of the best dark comedy scenes I have ever seen. I was on the floor laughing.