American Psycho (2000)

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome, listener, to the return slot of. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Horror. [00:00:15] Speaker A: A podcast recorded in the basement of our video store. After hours, when the doors are locked, the vhs are rewound, and the moon is glowing pale blue on a brisk and breezy night, we like to hang out in the basement, light a scent a candle, crack open a drink, and discuss our beloved genre, horror. Every episode, we invite you to join us for a frosty libation as we discuss a film selected from one of our painstakingly curated subsections of the video store. That's right, for the uninitiated, or anyone unlucky enough to have grown up without an independent video store. Mickey, can you shed some light on this? [00:00:47] Speaker B: Well, back in the day, before there was streaming and even before blockbuster, there were these independent video stores. And to appease the appetites of movie nerds like myself and Michelangelo, they would fill their shelves with anything they could get their hands on. Especially my favorites, these video nasties. Right? So these mom and pop shops were responsible for taking the horror genre from this limited theater runs and late night drive ins to every rural town in America. But what really made these video stores special were the people working in the store, curating personalized sections based on their interests and the interests of their patrons. Recommendations based on conversations, not algorithms. So here at the return slot, we keep that spirit alive and strong. We hope you enjoy perusing our sections and joining in our conversations. [00:01:34] Speaker A: This week we find ourselves in the true bromance section of the video store. Yes, that's right. This is our Valentine's Day, one of two, possibly Valentine's Day episodes. Unfortunately, we had to take down the bermancing the bones section of the video store and got some complaints. Fill it in with the true bromance. I see Chris for this film. Chris, there was a lot of protests. [00:02:06] Speaker C: That we heard about and Simon and Schuster dropped the sign. But thankfully someone else picked. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't even introduced Chris yet, but we'll get to that. I am going to warn the listener, this is a hangout. Have a drink and talk with friends about movies, podcasts. This is not a professional situation. We are not highly educated film reviewers providing you with a critical analysis of these films. We just like horror films and we like to talk about them. And that's what this is. So if you don't like that, I don't think you're going to enjoy this. So if you are, though, if you do like that, join us in the basement for a drink, because tonight we are joined by Ronald Reagan, superfan and expert Chris. [00:03:10] Speaker C: Long live Reagan economics and the Troika. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Yeah, there it is. There it is. [00:03:15] Speaker A: So lovely to have you again, Chris. You're on a roll. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:18] Speaker C: You can't get rid of me. I seriously. I won't leave the. [00:03:24] Speaker A: Something. That's a positive quality I find in running a business to have someone who isn't an employee, who's always hanging. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Just constantly hanging. Yeah. [00:03:36] Speaker A: Contributing to the smell of the basement and to the overall vibe. There's too many women around, so we needed another guy. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Another man. [00:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah, another man. Which is perfect for tonight's film. [00:03:51] Speaker B: Oh, yes, it is. [00:03:52] Speaker A: But before we get to that, what are we having to drink this evening, Mickey? [00:03:57] Speaker B: I am having the founder's breakfast stout. I would say it like this. It's the coffee lover's consummate beer. Brewed with an abundance of flaked oats, bitter and imported chocolates, and Sumatra and kona coffee. This stout has an intense, fresh roasted java nose topped with a frothy, cinnamon colored head that goes forever. That's the breakfast out. [00:04:21] Speaker C: That was good. [00:04:22] Speaker A: That makes me want it, actually. [00:04:25] Speaker B: It's real frothy. [00:04:32] Speaker C: It would have just been perfect if you could have referenced some sort of, like, as blah, blah, blah beer. You know what I mean? Like, a professional point into it, then it would really nailed it. [00:04:44] Speaker B: New York Times says it's. [00:04:45] Speaker C: Yeah, there you. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Micro brewer aficionado. [00:04:50] Speaker B: So that's what I'm having. The breakfast stout, one of my go tos most through the winter. I like to have them. I don't drink a lot of them because they're pretty good. They're kind of heavy, and they do have that strong coffee flavor, that Kona, but it's good. I like it. Highly recommend. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Also, if it hasn't been made abundantly clear, Mickey is wearing under eye patches. [00:05:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:05:15] Speaker A: To moisturize moisturizers. And they are slipping off of your face. I have these things, too, and I'll wear them. And, yeah, I keep mine in the fridge for those added cooling. [00:05:38] Speaker B: Off soon. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Chris, unfortunately thought they were fruit roll ups and ate the rest of the package. Yeah, they tasted like roll ups. Yeah, they're delicious. [00:05:50] Speaker B: They are quitting. [00:05:51] Speaker C: I mean, you kept saying, like, hey, don't eat my eye mask. I'd say, what's that? This fruit leather is delicious. [00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah, fruit leather. It's a hard. [00:06:02] Speaker B: Did you ever take a fruit roll up, though, honestly, and, like, poke the eyes out and the mouth out and wear it as a face mask? I did, too. [00:06:08] Speaker C: I didn't even love fruit roll ups. [00:06:10] Speaker B: But I did that because it looks. It's really cool. [00:06:13] Speaker A: Speaking of looking like fun, what do you got there, Chris? Is that a spooky cocktail? [00:06:18] Speaker C: I got a little something for know. Okay, so I guess we haven't mentioned the film yet, but this is a. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Film that no one would possibly know what film we're talking about. [00:06:28] Speaker B: How would you. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Don't ruin. [00:06:29] Speaker C: That's a good point. That's a very good point. Well, no, but this is a film in which, distinctly, the film, or if you've also read the book, really calls out certain drinks. So definitely, I'd say that this is a good one. If you want to enjoy, like, a little j and B on the rocks like that while you watch this film, I think that's also a good choice. However, I did create a little something for it. It's actually a reference to a segment in the novel that is very appropriate for the time of the season that we're talking about, which is. I call this watching the Patty winter show and sending a box of flies to Evelyn for Valentine's Day. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Hold on. You need to say that. That was a long name, and you said it really fast. Too fast. [00:07:07] Speaker C: I'm sorry. [00:07:07] Speaker A: I need you to say it a little. [00:07:09] Speaker C: Sorry. [00:07:09] Speaker B: It's a book. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Say it like the protagonist. [00:07:14] Speaker C: Sure. Watching the Patty winter show and sending a box of flies to Evelyn for Valentine's Day. Is that better? [00:07:23] Speaker A: That's better. [00:07:24] Speaker C: This is a couple ounces of scotch that have been soaking in muddled strawberries for a couple of days to infuse a little strawberry flavor into it. Strained and mixed with half ounce of quantro and three dashes of chocolate bitters and put on a large ice cube. [00:07:38] Speaker A: God damn. [00:07:40] Speaker C: Kind of like a scotchy old fashioned that's with strawberry chocolate for Valentine's. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it sounds great, man. This is why we keep you around. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Yay. [00:07:50] Speaker C: I earned my. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Those. Are those strawberries from your garden? [00:07:56] Speaker C: Oh, no. Wrong time of the year for that, bud. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Maybe you had come on frozen them. [00:08:01] Speaker A: You slide piece of shit. You could come back. Son of a bitch. [00:08:07] Speaker B: You outstage your welcome. Chris. Go. [00:08:11] Speaker A: Leave the cocktails. [00:08:14] Speaker C: Okay. It's early in the episode to be kicked out and banned. Normally, I wait until about halfway. [00:08:22] Speaker B: Michelangelo, what are you having? [00:08:24] Speaker C: Yeah, what you drinking, Michelangelo? [00:08:26] Speaker A: I am having. In celebration of women everywhere. I am having El dente, which is an italian style pilsner from the woman owned brewery in Brooklyn, Talea. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Great. [00:08:43] Speaker A: They make great beers. I've mentioned them before. They make my favorite. Believe it or not, so far in my life, I would say they make my favorite October fest style beer because it's like a combo of a pumpkin ale and an October fest. And it's amazing. It's really delicious. [00:09:03] Speaker C: What kind of a style of ale did you say that was again? [00:09:06] Speaker A: This is al dente, which I can say because I'm italian, which is an italian style pilsner. [00:09:14] Speaker C: Okay, awesome. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm going to tell you a joke, and then you tell me if it's problematic if a non italian person tells this joke in Italy. [00:09:26] Speaker B: Sure. Okay. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah. A non italian person, like in Italy telling this joke. [00:09:36] Speaker C: North or south Italy. [00:09:38] Speaker A: I'm not talking about those pieces of shit from the north. No, actually, this would be in northern Italy, where these people will be. And this is coming from a child. A child would be telling this joke. Okay. And Chris, I'm pretty sure, Mickey, you both know the punchline to. But so play along if you know the punchline. How do you say gorilla in Italian? [00:10:01] Speaker B: Oh, I know it. Yep. I know it. [00:10:03] Speaker C: How do you say it? [00:10:04] Speaker A: I said, play along, you son of a bitch. What, me? [00:10:09] Speaker B: I take two. [00:10:12] Speaker A: You did a great job. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I almost. [00:10:17] Speaker A: We're off to a bad start. Okay, say it again. [00:10:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:21] Speaker A: How do you say gorilla in Italian? [00:10:24] Speaker B: Gorilla in Italian? Oh, gosh, I don't know. [00:10:29] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:10:30] Speaker C: How do you do it? Big. [00:10:31] Speaker A: A bigger monkey. Now, do you see that being a problem for a little american kid to say to italian people in Italy? [00:10:43] Speaker C: Well, I will say this. Do these italian people actually speak English? [00:10:48] Speaker A: Yes. This would be a situation where. [00:10:50] Speaker B: And he's the kid of italian descent, he's not italian at all. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Well, I mean, hey, jewish kids and italian kids, Jews and Italians, very similar. This is my partner's nephew, who is the sweetest little boy ever. And Ali was like, I taught him that joke, and I think it'll be fun for him to tell when he's in Italy. And I was like, I don't think that. I think if I told that joke in Italy, they wouldn't like it because Italians don't see me as italian. They see me as american, which is rightly so. I am american. [00:11:30] Speaker C: I would say that they're not going to care about his existence, so thus they're not going to be offended. Does that make sense? [00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if anything, they're also not going to be offended by the kids saying it. They're going to be offended at the parents being like, seriously. And it also depends on the crowd. Some people have a little more empathy for kids. Just. Oh, they'll do the darndest things. [00:11:56] Speaker A: True, but is that an american mentality? I don't know. [00:12:03] Speaker B: I really don't know. You make a good point. [00:12:07] Speaker C: This is a very distinct and relative to the. [00:12:12] Speaker B: About that. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Tonight we are talking about the Wall street secret life of Walter Middy. A farcical horror comedy of mistaken identity and social satire. This film tells the story of one very handsome, very rich, very dorky Manhattanites journey from psychopath to psychotic. I'm, of course, talking about Mary Heron and Guinevere Turner's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's critique of male behavior set in the lawless Manhattan of the 1980s 2000s. American psycho. Was that too wordy? I felt there's too many having the. [00:12:56] Speaker B: Thought it was fine. [00:12:57] Speaker C: I think it was good. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:00] Speaker C: You get a check plus on that. [00:13:04] Speaker B: You're so good. [00:13:05] Speaker A: You're so good. [00:13:07] Speaker C: Handsome. You're smart. [00:13:12] Speaker A: My hair is thick. [00:13:14] Speaker C: How'd you get the hair of the. [00:13:15] Speaker A: And the skin? [00:13:17] Speaker B: But as he was reading his monologue, he was, like, looking in the mirror, flexing. It was weird. [00:13:23] Speaker C: Yeah, a lot pointing and flexing. [00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I had some high heels, too. Always have those around just in case. So, yeah. Tonight, american psycho. Mickey. Mickey, this is your pick for true bromance. This is our Valentine's Day episode. Why American Psycho? For Valentine's Day? And what is your relationship with the. [00:13:51] Speaker B: Uh, like I said, valentine's Day is here, and I wanted to have a bromantic night. I don't get to have those very often, so I thought we'd get some craft beer, some face masks, some cocktails, do a little bit of pampering, and watch a film that helps us explore our masculinity together in so many different pockets of my life. The relationship that I have had with Patrick Bateman, or should I say the relationship I have to Patrick Bateman and his male counterparts, runs a parallel and similar line to relationships I've had with males, albeit the movies exaggerates these relationships. It points to the stupidity of the toxic male culture. But it's one that I have taken a large part in and still do sometimes, but have also spent decades growing out of. And hopefully this movie allows us to laugh at the joke. [00:14:41] Speaker C: Right? [00:14:42] Speaker B: Because for me, this movie is hilarious. And in multiple iterations of different generations, different decades of watching this film, it has made a different impact on me. The first time I saw this was probably a year after it was when we were in New York City. My brother had come to visit. And are we rolling right into our history with it? I'll start. [00:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. And Mickey, of course, is talking about when he and I were 18, we met at an acting school in New York City in 2001. [00:15:16] Speaker B: We were some of the youngest people there, and we really hit it off, and we formed the John Wayne club. [00:15:25] Speaker C: The much. [00:15:29] Speaker B: Didn'T age well. [00:15:31] Speaker C: John Wayne club didn't. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Didn't age well. But, Chris, you can take it over. You can be the charge of that club now. Oh, sweet. [00:15:39] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:41] Speaker B: But it was in 2001, I believe, my brother had come to audition for the cult brother. The cult brother? Yeah. He had come to audition for the Metropolitan Opera because he has a brilliant baritone voice. [00:15:52] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:15:53] Speaker B: And he did actually get an understudy. So he was there. [00:15:59] Speaker A: He got an understudy. [00:16:02] Speaker B: And then turned it down and joined and became a preacher. [00:16:06] Speaker C: Fuck this guy. [00:16:10] Speaker A: I met your brother. I remember him. He's a very handsome and charming guy, and obviously those choices led to his family and things like that, but, man, that's crazy to turn down an understudy gig. Well, it all happened over this period. [00:16:27] Speaker B: In New York City, because he ended up volunteering while he was down there at the Bowery mission to help out, and it totally changed his life. So he was down on the Bowery mission helping these guys, these ex cons, get back on their feet, and he ended up going on this pilgrimage where he gave up everything he owned, all of his money and possessions, to the Bowery mission, and decided to start from scratch again and stopped his pursuit of. It's very similar to Patrick Bateman in some ways. Like, his pursuit was to be this superstar Metropolitan opera singer. I just mean in a different world. The way that they climbed the ladder of Wall street, he was trying to climb the ladder of. I don't think the opera pairing your. [00:17:03] Speaker A: Brother to Patrick Bateman, and I see what you're saying, but join a cult. And to be clear, the Bowery mission is not the cult you're talking about. [00:17:17] Speaker B: No, of course not. Of course not. [00:17:18] Speaker A: I know. I'm just trying to be clear to the listener. That's a good organization. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I'm driving this car back on track because this is not about my brother. He just happened to be there. And there were two movies we watched over the weekend in Queens when I went and stayed with. [00:17:32] Speaker A: Just. Just gotta say, just because you want to succeed in life, in something I know, does not mean you're Patrick Bateman. [00:17:41] Speaker B: I understand this. Everybody understands this. [00:17:44] Speaker A: Okay, I just want to clarify. I just wanted to. [00:17:51] Speaker B: Have this conversation going to be interesting, then. I'm already getting you like? So we watched two movies, memento and American Psycho, over that weekend. [00:18:02] Speaker C: That's a great. [00:18:08] Speaker B: It's hard for me to say this, but there is a part of Patrick Bateman in me. All right, I know that sounds creepy. [00:18:16] Speaker A: And gross, of course, a part of. [00:18:19] Speaker C: Patrick Bateman in all of us. [00:18:21] Speaker B: But when you're 19 and you watch that movie, I haven't experienced enough life to understand or figure out why I'm drawn to this character, even though it's just hard for me to suss through all the balance of humor, but also feeling a little, like, disgusted with his behaviors, but also feeling like there's a blurry line where I also kind of idolize this person. And some of it was like, I think I just love the performance. But then I'm like, no, there's something else happening. And then the older I get and the more I watch it, the more I understand my relationship better to that character and why I really adore this movie and his performance. And then most recently, when the pandemic happened, my oldest son, Jackson. The pandemic hit the year before they all went to college. Or maybe it was. Yeah, it was around there. They were getting ready for college, and he and all his guy friends just were all in on idolizing Patrick Bateman. It was like a whole Internet. [00:19:23] Speaker A: I want to talk about this. [00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a whole Internet thing. And he was like, is this a good movie? And I was like, it is a good movie, but I think you're kind of missing the point. I think you should watch the movie. And then after watching the movie, we didn't have, like, a deep conversation. We just had a very surface level conversation of me being like, you understand that this is, like, making fun of these behaviors, not saying these are the behaviors that you should be doing. But I had to sit there, like, talking to him, being like, is that what I was feeling 20 years ago when I was his age, first experiencing this film, that there was something about the relationship between those Wall street yuppie friends that for some reason, I kind of wanted to be in that group. That's why I say, and we're going to uncover. We'll unpack this more as we go through. [00:20:17] Speaker A: Did you want to be in that group because you identified or it made sense to go ahead. [00:20:27] Speaker B: They were rich, successful, handsome white males who could do whatever the fuck they wanted. And I was like. There was, like, a sick part of me that's like, that's the american dream I really want, where you can just do whatever you want. And you have a license to do it, and you can talk this because we joke all the time about how I'm the whitest person Michelangelo knows, and there is truth to that. But I'm also. I, you know, born in Honduras, raised in the south, where I always kind of felt just adjacent to the cool, popular kids, just slightly on the fringe of it. Like, they all accepted me. I was part of that crew, but always feeling, like, not fully accepted. So watching american psycho, as gross as it sounds, I was like, if that's the kind of people I got to be, it's like, I would rather be that than to be on the outside of that. But as I've gotten older, I also understand that this is me wrestling with masculinity in America. What does it mean to be successful? All these things that this movie is touching on so well and doing such a dark humor satire of it, that once you've had these experiences in life, you can look at this and be like, this is incredibly amazing. And only could have been done in the movie by a female director and female writer. And I have not read the book, so I want to make that very clear. I've not read the book. I understand there's some difference in tone. So that's my history with it. And I had a blast watching it, this very, very quotable movie. I laughed the whole way through, and it's great. [00:22:10] Speaker C: Real quick. I think it's interesting. I don't know. I'm sure, michelangelo, you and I can probably both speak to, I think, in watching this and writing down what to talk about. Mickey, you're hitting on, I think, something that I would imagine we both did, which is probably, like, it's interesting to think more as you get older about that perception of an ideal, of a toxic character that can be perceived as positive on a younger generation. It's so interesting that you actually had that firsthand experience like that, Mickey. I don't know, something I was going to bring up and so interesting that you had that firsthand. [00:22:46] Speaker A: So I'll jump in with mine real quick, please. I saw this in high school and actually did a fake book report on the book as well. I had a friend who is now a journalist, who I would pay in sandwiches to do my homework, and he did a book report on american psycho, and I got, like, a d on it because two reasons. One, I think, just like the film and the book, it was misunderstood at that time, and it was a female teacher. And two, she knew I didn't write it, but she couldn't prove it. [00:23:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:32] Speaker A: It was like, he is a wonderful writer, and I'm dyslexic. I could barely write in high school. So he wrote this elegant report about it, and I tried to dumb it up a little bit, but she knew. But I saw this while I was working at Hollywood video. I rented it, and I loved it. I idolized Christian Bale, not Patrick Bateman, which I think there's two issues that you've already kind of brought up with this film, which is, one, it being co opted by bros for the wrong, like. Like, fucking. Yeah, Patrick Bateman's fucking in shape. [00:24:25] Speaker B: He looks good. [00:24:26] Speaker A: He's got fucking money. And then also just the misunderstanding of, like, absolutely. This is farce. This is comedy. This is satire. This is not a redeemable, likable person. This guy is a loser. He's a dork. I want to fit in. Right? He does not secure in. He's like an alien trying to understand human behavior. [00:24:57] Speaker C: That's literally what they were doing. [00:25:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So the renting of the videos, trying to, how do I have sex with someone? How do I murder someone? Anything he says that's positive is just regurgitation of something else. So as a young man, I was like, I want to be Christian Bale. I want to get in shape like he does. And look, as he does in this film. That's a thing for sure. But also, I want to work on projects like this and take these big, wild, crazy fucking swings. I do identify with what you're saying of, like, oh, yes, the morning routine. It seems to work. And as a person who has some OCD tendencies in the book, I like his. And also, speaking of the violence in the book, right. According to Bret Easton Ellis, there's really only four pages of horrific violence in the book, according to him. And then the rest of it is just satire and lists. I haven't read it. I was becoming friends with Chris when I read it fully for the first time. And I remember, yeah, it was around that time that we met that I was reading it for the first time. [00:26:34] Speaker C: Did we talk about it a lot back then? [00:26:38] Speaker A: I think we talked about it a little bit. I remember reading it and being so disturbed by the violent sections that I would throw it across the room, not pick it up for, like, a day or so. [00:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:55] Speaker A: You remember me telling you this? [00:26:56] Speaker C: I do. I had a high school friend that had the exact same experience, because it's. [00:27:02] Speaker A: Really just really awful stuff. So to hear it's only four pages, I don't know if that's an exaggeration, but I would agree that the book is probably more the satire and the lists than it is anything else. It's just the violence is so. I mean, in the book, it's just so awful. You could never put it on the screen, what he told. [00:27:29] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:27:34] Speaker A: And as I've gone and revisited it. Revisited it. Good writer. [00:27:43] Speaker B: That's that. Good writing. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Thank you. I didn't understand satire completely when I saw it for the first time. [00:27:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:57] Speaker A: But I knew that this was not a person to be idolized, the character. And just like, as I watch it, as I get older, just appreciating it more and more as time goes by, and, like, thank God this was a Mary Heron film and not an Oliver Stone film with. [00:28:20] Speaker B: Leo would have leaned in to the schmuck of it and not the foreign alienness of it, and it would have been. He plays this character later in life in a lot of ways, but they redeem him in the wolf of Wall street, which is so weird. [00:28:37] Speaker A: That's another film, I think, that's misunderstood in the way also goodfellows my brothers, like, one of my brothers as a younger man, worshipping the Joe Pesci character and that. And, like, that's not a person to worship Tyler Durden. Like a bros co opting good cinema, right? Good films. And then these movies are sort of like, oh, you like Fight Club? You must not be a very intelligent person. [00:29:11] Speaker B: Yeah. But I do want to say, because just like with nightmare on Elm street part two, where it was also co opted for a positive reason and stuff like that. Right. You know what I mean? I do think that there is something in this film which is smart that does blur slightly. This, like, they want you to be turned on by Patrick Bateman. The way they shoot him, the way they cover him, the way the coverage is done from the shooting style early on, especially, is like, we want you to be seduced by this person somewhat. And I think it's very effective. And I think that's where it's like, if you're not somebody, like I said, doesn't have the social intelligence yet to understand that this is part of the charm of this. Like, it doesn't come out and just immediately does that make sense, what I'm saying, michelangelo? [00:30:08] Speaker A: Chris, I think you're maybe having a slightly similar reaction. Why don't you go ahead? [00:30:12] Speaker C: I don't know if I necessarily agree with mean. I think that he is supposed to be an enticing character because of. He does have, obviously, the physique and. [00:30:21] Speaker A: The perfectness, but does all the right things. He has maybe. [00:30:28] Speaker C: I think if you are a 15 or 18 year old boy, that type of thing, then the ideology of someone who is so quote unquote alpha, if you will, it is kind of. [00:30:47] Speaker A: Funny. He's totally not alpha. He's such a fucking outcast. He's such a loser and a dork. [00:30:53] Speaker C: And it doesn't take long in the movie to get to that point. You know what I mean? Yeah. The curtain falls on the perception of who he is if you're, I think, paying attention. [00:31:02] Speaker B: But this is the thing that makes him so appealing. I'm just saying, again, he's an outsider who operates within and looks just like them, fits in like them. It's like, what's the old tv show about the aliens that come and live amongst you? And they're maybe, I don't know, they look like you. But my point is that I think that that is working on multiple levels. And we can talk about the Sigma thing, too, if you want. But he's become a lot of what I think I was as, like somebody who operates slightly on the outside. Yes, exactly. No, but somebody that operates on the fringe of it. But somehow he figured out a way to be, like, right in the middle of. About. No, there's something beautiful about being so much like the thing you want to be that you get forgotten and lumped in as the other. Right. Like to be called Davis. And I'm telling you, I'm saying, as being an outsider. Yeah. [00:32:08] Speaker A: I'm not trying to take away what you're saying about being an outsider. But he's an outsider because he's a fucking psychopath. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Right? I know. [00:32:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:18] Speaker B: But if you can empathize with leatherface from Texas Chainsaw magic or two, allow. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Me to have some. I'll disagree with you there. And then we should get to Chris's history. But I can sympathize with the caricature of leatherface in part two because he does have some redeeming qualities. Bateman just has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is pure and utter. And my intro that I wrote, one man's journey from psychopath to psychotic, that's pulled from Bale. That's what Bale says. Like, his character arc is. He's a psychopath and his arc is going to psychotic, which I think we. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Do a disservice as human beings. To take somebody that a lot of people have mischaracterized and idolized and just say it makes no sense. It obviously makes tons of sense. Because it's happened to millions of young boys all over the world. [00:33:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:24] Speaker A: But for me, I think it's coming from the insane charm and good looks of an actor who's, like, breathing life into. This movie needs Mary Heron and turner, but it also needs Bale. Bale, who's doing, like, Julia Louise Dreyfus, right, on Seinfeld. What makes her so brilliant is she doesn't care about not looking stupid, right? So Bale doesn't care about looking like a dork. He is willing to make these wild choices, and it's just like the director and the actor syncing with one another and the vision, if I may, a. [00:34:08] Speaker C: Little bit to that, though. I mean, it is a distillation, though, of the character that was created by, you know, there is definitely a difference between the Patrick Bateman of American Psycho, the movie, and American Psycho. In the movie, though, there's a great scene in the book in which Tom Cruise lives in the same building as Patrick Bateman, and he runs into him in the elevator, and they have this hilarious exchange about him calling Patrick Bateman calls cocktail bartender, and Tom Cruise is kind of obviously awkward and put off by him. Patrick Bateman's nose starts to bleed. Something like, that's not in a movie. But then Christian Bale gave the moonwalk to the murder of, you know, that's his know, twist on it, his own take on it, to still give it that dorky, dumb character kind of arc, a bit of Patrick Bateman in the film. Anyway. [00:35:07] Speaker A: So, of course, Brett Easton Ellis writes the book. It's fantastic. So. Yes, but, Chris, what's your history and relationship with the film? [00:35:20] Speaker C: So I don't remember why. [00:35:23] Speaker A: And slightly the book. [00:35:25] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, I think they're kind of intertwined a bit. [00:35:28] Speaker A: A bit. But I do want to focus mostly. Of course, we'll bring in the. Yeah, because they are different. [00:35:36] Speaker C: I don't remember why me and my friend group, whenever I was, I think, 16 or 17, didn't see this in theater, because I remember watching the commercials and being like, oh, shit, this is on my radar. I want to see this, that type of thing. But I vividly recall this being like a new release at the video store, renting it on dvd, watching it with my friends on a Friday night after school, I think at my brother's apartment or something like that, and just, like, loving it. It worked for me on every level. I thought it was hilarious. A Christian Bale was captivating, incredible. To watch him in this film was like. I was not really familiar with him. I hadn't seen Newsies. For me. [00:36:27] Speaker A: I was like, summer night. [00:36:31] Speaker C: This guy's amazing. [00:36:33] Speaker A: It's a landmark performance, for sure. [00:36:36] Speaker B: It is, I think, his best. [00:36:41] Speaker C: No Batman. No Batman. No machinist. [00:36:45] Speaker A: No machinist. [00:36:47] Speaker B: No. I don't think it's better than this machinist. Anyway, physically and physically, we can do a whole episode. [00:36:52] Speaker A: Episode on. [00:36:54] Speaker C: Yeah, anyway, but to focus this back in. So anyway, so I loved it immediately. Then very quickly, I think, just from watching the movie was like, oh, shit, this is a book. Immediately went and read the book. Was that linchpin to my friend group of being like, you got to fucking read this thing. And it became like, the stuff from the film and the book became shorthand amongst us. We'd go to a concert. A friend would come back from the bathroom and be like, they have a terrible bathroom to do coke in. Like, that type of thing. You know what I mean? The jokes from the book and the film became our little, ha ha. Things that we would do between each know. Similarly. I think it's so funny. Michelangelo, you had the same thing that a friend of mine did of read the book and then would get to some of those horrible, horrible things in the book and would be so disgusted, would throw it across the room. I think it's actually Gwynever Turner. I believe her. Mary Heron, I think it was. Mary Heron actually had a quote that actually sounded the same exact thing, too, whenever I read an oral history of this and running up to it. So it's interesting. But so anyway, so, I mean, it's a book that I've read a couple of times. It's a film that I've seen half a dozen to ten times. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Sure. [00:38:13] Speaker C: I love it. I love the history. [00:38:15] Speaker A: A baker's dozen. [00:38:17] Speaker C: A baker's dozen. I think something, too, that I love. If you read about the history of this film, too, this is something that won't happen again. [00:38:30] Speaker B: No, you know what I mean? [00:38:31] Speaker C: Like, how it came to be. It's a one of a kind. It's fascinating to me. [00:38:37] Speaker B: It's a passion project. [00:38:39] Speaker C: And thank God that, to your point, Mary Heron and Guinevere Turner and Christian Bale were involved in it. At the same time, though, I would be very interested to know what a Stuart Gordon black and white with Johnny Depp version would look like. You know what I mean? [00:38:52] Speaker A: Or an Oliver Stone Leonardo DiCaprio version. [00:38:55] Speaker C: I don't really want to see that, actually. [00:38:58] Speaker A: I would want to see Wall Street. [00:39:00] Speaker B: I don't really want to see Oliver Stone. I kind of know where that's going. [00:39:05] Speaker C: But, yeah, no, so it's like all those versions and all those possibilities that are out there because all the people like David Cronenberg and Brad Pitt and all these people, the possibilities, I think, is really interesting. But anyway, so, no, I was really looking forward to an opportunity to talk about this film. I'm a big fan. [00:39:24] Speaker B: Thank God Gloria Steinem came in and stopped Leo from doing that. [00:39:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:39:29] Speaker B: Feminism in this glorious movie, won by feminism. This is what I love about this film. Right? [00:39:34] Speaker A: It's like, well, it's. [00:39:36] Speaker B: To have grown. [00:39:37] Speaker A: To have grown. [00:39:38] Speaker B: Well, yeah. [00:39:39] Speaker C: Gloria Steiner would disagree with that. [00:39:43] Speaker A: But for a $6 million budgeted movie, to acquiesce a $20 million payout to its lead actor, but still keeping the $6 million. I don't know if that's true, but that's the information that's out there. And then Mary Heron being fired temporarily as a result of his. I just want to throw this in there because it's so obvious, but, like, wow, the rest of the cast of this fucking movie is phenomenal. [00:40:21] Speaker C: Everybody. [00:40:23] Speaker A: Matt Ross. What a coup. Willem Dafoe as detective. God, I love him. I love him in this film. That's stunt casting right there. Especially at that time. You put him in any part, and it's just. He's so unpredictable that you just. [00:40:44] Speaker B: It just. [00:40:45] Speaker A: You automatically put you on pins and needles, like. Like tension in every scene. And I'm sure you guys know, like, she had him play it three ways and every scene, you know he did. You don't know he did it. You know he did it. You're sure he didn't do it. You're not. Right, right. He's. He's kind of like Colombo a little. [00:41:07] Speaker B: Bit in this, I will say whenever. [00:41:12] Speaker C: He does the cat. [00:41:13] Speaker B: Colombo. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Yes, like Colombo. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:41:17] Speaker A: Which, by the way, I love that meme that's out right now when it's Defoe talking about a character he played, and it's like, when I'm talking about my cat, and it's like, well, you know, he's gay. He likes high school music. He's just. He's very interesting. He's very complicated. It's a fun meme. Anyways, what were you going to say, chris? Something actually important to what's happening? [00:41:41] Speaker C: Oh, no, I don't know about that. I was just going to say, even. Actually, it's been a while since I had watched it and seen it again and realizing I was like, wait a minute. The homeless man that kills is familiar? I was like, oh, shit, that's Reggie Cathy. He's awesome. And he's just in this little bit part for like five. [00:42:04] Speaker A: Stars all the way through. [00:42:05] Speaker B: And Jared Leto playing. You think Jared Leto left this film saying like, God, Christian Bale was so nuts. And then after seeing the performance, like, I've got to do that from now on. I've got to take big swings from now on. [00:42:18] Speaker A: I think Jared Leto left. This performance was like, you know what? Patrick Bateman's a cool guy. I'm going to try to become Patrick Bateman. [00:42:26] Speaker C: Talking about still to this day, speaking of cults. [00:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:32] Speaker A: Okay. We'll just skirt that. He is fantastic in this. And it is funny. It's interesting to hear Mary herons be know just like, talking about Bale and how Buffy got for the part and how handsome he is in it, and how the women flocked when they were shooting the shower scene to the monitors to watch, like, but then to hear her talk about Jared Leto and be like, he's the perfect guy to play Paul Allen, because anybody. He's effortless, so good looking, and he's so effortless. He's the perfect foil to Bale's bateman. It's just so obvious. And, yeah, this is early, before all the bullshit method acting bullshit, which is not. Method acting is a very misunderstood thing. [00:43:27] Speaker B: There's so much golden boy. I don't know if you guys. I see your lives in my life have been different. So in the military, there's this golden boy thing that happens where a big group of men show up, and there's usually, like, one guy on each other. A bunch of guys show up in a shower, but there's always, like, somebody in a unit that, regardless of effort, gets everything, right? [00:44:05] Speaker C: Okay. [00:44:05] Speaker B: Yes. Regardless of effort, gets everything, because they look the part. They're like the golden boy. They just get everything. And just in the way that they all show up dressed the same business cards. It's their uniform. It's their uniform. It reminded me so much the interactions. There are so similar to many interactions in the military when a bunch of men are together, where it's like, this is how the relationship works. It's like they're talking shit. But the whole time, it's like, who's going to be kind of, who's the person in charge here? Who's going to assume the rank? [00:44:41] Speaker C: Is it like, so who's trying to be, like, the top dog of a group of people that all look indistinguishable? Like that type of thing? [00:44:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And also there's something called the coin challenge. I'm sure you guys have heard of this, right? In the military? [00:44:53] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:44:54] Speaker B: So through your military career, as you do things, if you do a good job and somebody recognizes it, they'll have a coin that they've been either given or that they had created, and they'll give you a coin and say thank you for it. And at a bar restaurant, when a bunch of. And I'm going to say men, I know women are in the military. I'm not trying to insult any women that serve in the military, because you're a part of this culture as well, but it's a very male dominated culture. But when you're at a bar or something like that, all the guys are Jack John. A guy will say, hey, challenge coin. And he'll put a coin down, and then you have to pull out whatever coin you have on you. And then it's like everybody passes the coins around. They're all looking up like, oh, this is like a two starmen general. Yeah. [00:45:35] Speaker C: Policemen do it too. And that's normally very dark. [00:45:41] Speaker B: So it requires the person to buy drinks who has. Whoever doesn't have the best coin or whatever. Or whoever has the best coin. But it's a coin challenge, and it's a dick measuring contest, just like the business cards. So, like I said, different pockets of my life. I have been in these situations where I was like, this is such a great, humorous, funny way to showcase how dumb men are in big circles of each other when they're all trying to prove themselves. [00:46:15] Speaker A: Speaking of dumb men, don't talk about yourself that way. [00:46:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Comment on what your son was experiencing. I love that the opening montage, right, of Bateman's morning routine has become this thing that's been parodied by douchebag fitness influencers, and it's used to great success, and both the audience and the influencer being oblivious to the point of the film, the idolization of Bateman. [00:46:54] Speaker C: If I may, though, I think that's actually something like, I think it was parody for a while, and now we're beyond the lexicon of it being parody, and now it is just part of social media influence. [00:47:04] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:47:05] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [00:47:06] Speaker A: That's my point. It's not parody. It's just straight up like, this is awesome. There's a real douchebag guy named Kenobadi, and he has. [00:47:19] Speaker C: That guy's a douchebag. [00:47:21] Speaker A: What do you mean, nobody? [00:47:22] Speaker C: What? [00:47:23] Speaker B: Why would his parents name him? [00:47:25] Speaker A: And he will parody fight club Batman, Joker, psycho. And it's to the point where it's like, to great success on his end, but it's interesting to think about, like, is he aware of what he's doing or is he not aware? Either way, it's working. [00:47:52] Speaker B: I have this theory. [00:47:53] Speaker A: Incredibly successful. [00:47:55] Speaker B: Time will tell. But I have this theory, right? Like, for Jackson's group. Jackson's really into working out. He lives watching YouTube videos of guys talking about all their things they do to cut extra weight, to put on extra pounds. My point is, though, is that I have to believe that if that draws them to the source material and he watches american psycho, maybe it didn't work. Now the makers are that good, right? The creators behind this are that good that it will subconsciously, somewhere, whether it's. He's going to see the behaviors of those people and he's going to have experiences in his life where he's in groups of men that things feel a little off, or things feel like, why are we acting this way? And he's going to somehow draw back to that content, to that media and be like, oh, I get the joke now. I have to believe that. [00:48:47] Speaker A: I think you have them read the book. I think that's the ultimate. I think unless you're a psychopath, you cannot read the book and not get, and get like, oh, Bateman's terrible and steroids are bad for you, and coke is not good, and these are not good. [00:49:10] Speaker C: You. You make a good. Yeah. [00:49:13] Speaker A: So put away the coke, Chris. There's no good place to do it down mostly. [00:49:18] Speaker C: It's mostly nutritional. [00:49:19] Speaker A: Don't do it on the laser. Ruin the value of my laser disc. [00:49:25] Speaker C: If we do enough of, it'll be like. [00:49:28] Speaker A: It's always interesting when Bateman is like the reasonable, nice one in his group of friends, right? In that group, he's usually the voice of cool it with the anti semitic remarks. [00:49:43] Speaker C: Well, but that's the whole thing, right? It's like you have to have that outer pretense of being evolved and being the coolest of the group and all that. But then behind closed doors, whenever you're this monster. You know what I mean? [00:49:59] Speaker B: And it's kind of scared of apartheid, for one. [00:50:02] Speaker C: Yeah. His little lecture at the dinner table, all the things wrong with the world. [00:50:07] Speaker A: And then goes on to fucking murder a homeless man and his dog. [00:50:14] Speaker C: And in saying that too, actually, it was funny actually thinking about that on a rewatch in that little scene that he's like doing his little speech about all the things wrong with the world. I was like, man, I feel like there were some times when my younger years that I kind of sounded like this. I have, you know what I mean? [00:50:30] Speaker A: Regurgitating someone else's opinion as your own. [00:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:33] Speaker C: Or especially Price's little, like, have you heard about the travesty in Sri Lanka? Do you even know about what's happening in Sri Lanka? You know what? Like, you get points or something like that. [00:50:46] Speaker B: I've been in those dinner conversations in the last couple years of my life, especially over pandemic things where I'm sitting there with what I would. I don't want to present myself in a wrong way doing this movie name names, but I will say that I have some liberal friends that can be so elitist in some ways sometimes that it turns me, it's because I know that they're not on the ground doing the thing. Right. They're not actually doing the thing, they're not supporting the thing, but they want to talk about the thing and share what they read from the New York Times article. And then they listened to the podcast on the daily, and then they did a deeper dive, and now they want to just tell me all the information they found out about it. And then I'm like, well, it's actually interesting you should say that. I've actually lived in that country for a year and I'll tell you about it. [00:51:41] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:51:44] Speaker B: It's interesting to me because obviously I'm kind of giving away some of my politics and stuff, but I don't spend a lot of time around republicans or conservatives types in my life. I've spent my life running away from those people because never worked out well in those situations. Yeah, but I see it on all sides of the ticket, everything people believe in. We live such sheltered, safe lives right now in a way that I hear it from all. [00:52:14] Speaker C: Yeah, well, if I may, too, I think that that's something that the film touches on and is in the book even more so. It's like, patrick Bateman is a good example, I think, of some people that are out there in the world of like in public, they'll virtue signal and they'll say all of the most progressive things, but then if you get them behind closed doors now, obviously not this level of murder and all that, but then racist, misogynistic, homophobic things come out of their mouth. It's true for a lot of people out there in the United States that just maybe they might be on one side of the political spectrum or the other. Doesn't mean that's where their heart is in regards to their actions towards others and how they feel towards other people. [00:52:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Michelangelo, we're not talking about you. Stop. [00:53:02] Speaker A: I used to get into terrible, long arguments with my partner, Allie, because I refused to call myself a feminist, because at the time, I felt like all the guys who were saying that they were feminists, full of shit. You know what I mean? [00:53:22] Speaker B: Just trying to get laid. The anti feminist. In a lot of ways, they were, like, being a misogynist, but using feminism as their way to do their misogyny, it made absolutely. Yeah. [00:53:39] Speaker A: Um, Chris, I gotta ask you to tell a personal story that slightly connects with something in this film. [00:53:51] Speaker B: Cue the emotional music. [00:53:53] Speaker A: Now, the wonderful Reese Witherspoon Evelyn is talking about their wedding planning, and I do love that she's like, they're going to get Annie Leibowitz. [00:54:10] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good line. [00:54:12] Speaker A: But she is talking about having Godiva chocolate. Right. And I know that Chris has a very personal, visceral story connected to Godiva chocolate, and I would love it if you would share that story. [00:54:27] Speaker C: No. Michelangelo always just gets a chuckle out of this story. Whenever I was a young man, in my, like, I don't know, 19 or 20 or something like that, I worked at a Godiva chocolates in a mall in Kansas. [00:54:40] Speaker B: Very nice. Very nice. [00:54:42] Speaker C: And it was kind of like a one man shop kind of thing. You know what I mean? So I remember it was like, it was late in a weekend day, and I was working it, and suddenly my stomach kind of felt like it was filled with angry bees. [00:54:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:01] Speaker C: And I had to run and take a diarrhea. Shit. They blew out my underwear. Everything was terrible. And then I didn't have time to lock the front door or anything like that at the place. So then walking in your. I feel like I just wreak, like, diaries. [00:55:29] Speaker A: Underwear. [00:55:34] Speaker B: At your workplace. Wow. [00:55:36] Speaker A: That's when you need to leave. [00:55:38] Speaker B: I got a perfect out for you. Just say I have to return some videotape. [00:55:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. Yeah. [00:55:49] Speaker B: I'm sorry to hear that, man. [00:55:51] Speaker A: I really am. [00:55:51] Speaker C: I've gotten past it. [00:55:53] Speaker A: That sucks. That really sucks. So are there characters that you do feel sympathy for in this story? Gene? This. [00:56:14] Speaker C: Yeah, Gene. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Yeah, Gene, obviously. Yeah. [00:56:16] Speaker A: Yeah. What about Courtney? [00:56:18] Speaker B: So, is Courtney Bryce's girl? [00:56:22] Speaker A: Is Lewis's girl. Matt Ross's girl, Samantha Patrick's having the affair with. She's the one who thinks she goes to. He tricks her into thinking she went to. What's the restaurant that he has? [00:56:37] Speaker C: Dorsia. [00:56:40] Speaker B: Reservation. [00:56:40] Speaker C: He says that she's on all the drugs, pretty much the whole time is. [00:56:44] Speaker B: All question for you. In the book, does she kill herself? [00:56:51] Speaker C: I don't believe so. [00:56:53] Speaker B: Did you feel like her? Goodbye to Patrick Bateman the last time we see her was a goodbye. Goodbye. [00:57:02] Speaker C: It's kind of interesting the way it's shot in the film. It does kind of like there's a music undertone. It definitely seems like there's something more to it. So to your point, there is going to be a suicide or something like that? Which, man, I don't remember now, man. I don't think that anything like that happens in the book. Michelangelo, do you remember at all? [00:57:22] Speaker A: It was such a long time ago. [00:57:24] Speaker C: I know. I want to reread it now. It's been a while for myself, too. [00:57:28] Speaker A: I think that could be implied. It could also be implied that maybe. [00:57:31] Speaker B: She. [00:57:35] Speaker A: I've known this character, the drugged up rich person who thinks having kids will bring meaning to her life. And maybe for some people, sometimes having children does bring, like, it changes them. And they do become, like, this better person. Sometimes they don't. So I would have that thought, too. I feel like the movie is maybe telling me that, but also, maybe it's like something she does a lot for attention. [00:58:05] Speaker B: Sure. [00:58:05] Speaker A: Because chicks, right? [00:58:08] Speaker B: Yeah, they are. [00:58:10] Speaker A: They always want to do you know what I'm saying? [00:58:13] Speaker B: Talentless hex. [00:58:14] Speaker C: I think, though, that's like. I love that scene, though, about how. [00:58:19] Speaker B: That's a joke, mom. That's a joke to my sister. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure that if my sister. [00:58:24] Speaker C: All the women in my life that. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Listen to this podcast, my mom, my. [00:58:27] Speaker A: Sister, all the women who definitely don't listen. [00:58:31] Speaker C: But no, that seems great because, one, it's how disjointed even their affair is. She's kind of hinting that she wants something more from him. And then when she's like, I want to talk, and his reply is just, you look beautiful. [00:58:46] Speaker B: And that's just like the great line. Beautiful. [00:58:51] Speaker C: You know what I mean? So great. [00:58:53] Speaker B: You're going to have the blah blah blah blah orders for her, totally oblivious of what she's going through. [00:58:59] Speaker A: The peanut butter. It was like a peanut butter peanut butter, like with duck soup. [00:59:04] Speaker C: According to blah blah blah. [00:59:07] Speaker B: That was the New York Times. According to New York Times. Yeah. Okay, pumpkin. And she's like, patrick, stop calling me pumpkin. I don't feel for her like I do Christy, since we're just on that. But I can see Christy. [00:59:27] Speaker C: Christy, prostitutes slaughtered. You didn't have the same symptom. [00:59:34] Speaker A: Okay, let's get serious now. [00:59:36] Speaker C: Okay. [00:59:42] Speaker A: We often talk about the male gaze, right? Especially in the horror films and most of what we're doing. So this is actually one of the few films we've done directed by a woman. And the chainsaw scene, right. Where he chases her, Kara Seymour, beautiful woman, right? She's in this sexy, like, negligence. Negligent Teddy. [01:00:14] Speaker B: What do you call it? [01:00:15] Speaker A: No, it's not a teddy. [01:00:16] Speaker B: It's just a nightgown. I'm sorry. [01:00:20] Speaker A: Whoa. [01:00:21] Speaker C: What's the definition of a teddy? [01:00:23] Speaker A: I have no idea what a teddy as I understand a teddy to be. It's like with the stockings that are connected with those little connector pieces to the Nicola J part. [01:00:37] Speaker C: I don't think that's right. [01:00:38] Speaker B: I don't think it's a teddy at all. I don't think that's right. [01:00:41] Speaker C: Anyway, let's not get into the definition talking about teddies. [01:00:47] Speaker A: I'm trying to make a point about a choice that was made by. Very intentional choice. Please. Made by Mary Heron about Kara Seymour's that scene where she dies. And it's just know often you'll see in films, especially in canon films, where it's like a rape scene or a murder scene with a woman. And it's like, this is a way for us to get tits in the movie. And this is a way for us to really sexualize this horrific act. So it's uncomfortable, but enticing because of those things. I don't like rape. But you're shooting this in a way. Anyways, we understand this scene with her death. Despite the fact that she's a beautiful woman in this neglige, she does not look, nothing is sexy about it. It's really just awful and disturbing and horrific. She really captures. She does this many times throughout all the sex scenes. How uncomfortable these situations would be for the women. For a woman. The reality of a woman's role in this part. [01:02:12] Speaker C: I was actually going to say that actually goes to both sex scenes. You know what I mean? [01:02:18] Speaker A: The sex scenes are all so uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, disconcerting and horrific. So the first scene he has with her, with Kara and the other prostitute, right. Where he's just know. This is a movie where no one listens to one another. And it's like, is this what a lot of women's first dates are like? Where it's just like this guy who's giving orders and saying the right things, but not actually listening and telling me what to do. [01:02:53] Speaker C: If you're with segment. Yeah, of course. [01:02:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Not with us. First dates with us are amazing. [01:03:02] Speaker B: Well, no, first dates with us are the reverse. When I dated Molly, I was like, just tell me what to do. I'm so nervous. I was like, I'll do whatever. [01:03:09] Speaker A: So Molly chainsawed you? [01:03:12] Speaker B: Molly chainsawed me a couple of times. [01:03:15] Speaker C: Well, I was actually. [01:03:16] Speaker B: Coat hangers are. [01:03:19] Speaker C: No, no, that's a rough. And even to that line that he has when he picks up Christie for the second time. I might have to get surgery. It's like, oh, man. So much worse if they had showed something. [01:03:31] Speaker B: And the way they leave the house, it's just in just complete disgust. And, like, give us our fucking money and let us fuck out of your house. [01:03:39] Speaker C: The other. And look like she's crying. Oh, yeah, he's transactional. [01:03:44] Speaker B: Well, and not just that, but the nerve. Well, not just that. The entitlement to show up to that woman that you've abused and possibly damaged her. And then you show up with the nerve to be like, well, we're going to do it again. We're going to get together. It won't be like the last time. It's fine. I got a check. I can pay for it. [01:04:06] Speaker C: It's so great, though, about the power, though, right? That's such a powerful scene. Like the way he whistles with the money clip hanging out the window. You can't pass this up because I'm power and I'm money and you're nothing. You know what I mean? [01:04:19] Speaker A: And it is like, when you're in that position to fuck, I got a fucking. How many times in your life have you been in a position where, like, I fucking. Obviously, it's an extreme. Nothing to this level, right? It's an extreme example. But, like, fuck, I really don't want to work with this person. They fucking suck. They're an asshole. But, like, I fucking need the money. You know what I mean? And then for it to be that extreme, right, where it's like, you're a sex worker and you've been abused by this client before. Like, oh, my God, it's so. How Bateman is idolized is just like. It blows my mind all the. [01:05:06] Speaker C: Um. To kind of go to. Actually, I read a Mary Heron quote, and I don't know if you read it too, guys, but about how, like, originally this was rated NC 17, and she had to edit really, like, 40 seconds out to get an r. Like, barely anything. And it wasn't anything, really, of the violence that had to come out of the film. It was from the sex scenes, right? Saying asshole instead of ass and a little bit out of the sex scene. And she was saying about how this film is not really that violent in comparison to the films of the time. [01:05:42] Speaker A: And even what's to come, obviously, very much so. [01:05:45] Speaker C: And it's not even that sexually explicit. The thing is that in all the sexual scenes, the women are uninterested and slightly scared. And because of that, because of that fear, even that perception of it is what made people think that it was much more grizzly and hard, which is so interesting. That's such a small thing, you know what I mean? To get such an extreme Titling or labeling from a ratings board, yet it was enough. [01:06:11] Speaker B: It's also interesting that if you're a sex worker, obviously, if that's how you make your money and you're good with it, then I 100% support that. But the way they make it too much. [01:06:30] Speaker C: Reminds me. You're behind on your invoice, Chris. [01:06:33] Speaker B: I will get you back. Don't worry about it, man. There's a couple ious. Come on, man. I'm let you hang out in the store, and I'm really just beating a drum here. But the way that they make it feel so transactional versus what my experience prior to this film of what prostitution in movies is, it always felt like you're paying her, but you're both having a good time, right? More pretty woman. Yeah, more pretty. [01:07:06] Speaker A: Recently, I recently watched with Allie's parents, my partner's parents, pretty woman. And I'm like, we're watching it, and I'm like, this is fucking nuts that I'm watching this with my partner's parents. This is nuts. This is fucking crazy. It makes more sense that we watch american psycho than fucking pretty, right? [01:07:28] Speaker B: To go back, what you're saying, michelangelo, about Patrick Bayman being idolized, I want to make it very clear to the listeners that you love him and you're just like him that I'm trying my hardest to get to where, you know, I think that he's a Trojan horse, and I do think there are a lot of people that memify him and do that. But I do also think that if that leads you to the source material, right? It's like a Trojan horse. If it leads you to source material, it's going to make men. I think it will work. I do. It worked on me. [01:08:07] Speaker A: You are an intelligent, sensitive artist. [01:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. [01:08:13] Speaker A: Okay. [01:08:15] Speaker C: It worked on me. [01:08:17] Speaker A: Well, what about Chris? [01:08:18] Speaker C: I'm not any of those things. [01:08:20] Speaker A: Chris is a fucking robot. So he just processed it. He ran to my point. You're both sensitive artistic men. [01:08:37] Speaker C: More compliments. [01:08:40] Speaker B: Yes, continue. [01:08:42] Speaker A: You're well read, and I am. You're both very handsome. [01:08:47] Speaker B: Handsome. [01:08:52] Speaker A: Chris has great calf muscles. Crazy calf muscle. Patrick Bateman. [01:08:59] Speaker B: He would kill you, Chris. [01:09:00] Speaker A: That would be the like I love. Mary Heron says these men are so obsessed with the minutiae status that they're basically having breakdowns over such tiny up. I got to bring up so trueness card scene. [01:09:20] Speaker B: I love favorite scenes. [01:09:23] Speaker A: The sound work in that. Oh, my God. And every card looks the fucking. [01:09:31] Speaker C: The samurai sword noise. When the business cards come out, it's great. Supposedly, Christian Bale was able to sweat on command. [01:09:42] Speaker A: Sweat on robo actor. Like, he would sweat at the same moment every time. [01:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah. His monologue, it even has a watermark. I was like, yeah, the watermark just. [01:09:57] Speaker A: Makes him, like, break down. [01:09:59] Speaker B: I know. It just, like, crumble. Just crushes his soul. [01:10:04] Speaker A: Go ahead. [01:10:09] Speaker C: Turn into gremlins. [01:10:11] Speaker A: In those scenes, he goes from such an attractive man to. He looks like the veins are throbbing in his face and sweating, and he's just like, oh, God, they're so uncomfortable. [01:10:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:29] Speaker C: Also, too, I love in that scene whenever. Then Christian Bale says, let's see Paul Allen's card that Bill Sage plays, david Van Patton. He puts his card away, and it's like the look on his face is like someone said, like, hey, baby penis, or something like that. You know what mean? Like, it looks so emasculated and so pathetic because he knows that this card's going to come out that's way better than his. It's so great. And it's been parodied now, I guess, in a whole bunch of, like, I've seen some stuff. Like, I was just reading about, like, was it a New Zealand? Another country's, like, jeans company did a parody of it in front of commercial and stuff. [01:11:07] Speaker B: Like, know, I work with a lot of cinematographers and directors of photography, and they redo the scene all the time with cameras. It's like, oh, you want to see my camera? It's like, ari Alexa, this particular version. He's like, oh, I actually have the Ari Alexa Scarlet three, blah, blah blah. And the other person's like, see, I actually went out and got the re Alexa, blah blah. So it's like a big thing wherever in every industry. And it's the same. The military. The military is the exact same. It's like when you show up at, say, a shooting range and people start pulling out their gear, it's like, oh, what's that right there? These are just noise canceling headphones. That will at a certain level, and you're like, oh, wow, that's a nice brand. Oh, I've got these. These are standard issue. It's something that resonates so heavily in so many pockets. Yeah. [01:12:00] Speaker C: Who has the new best tech? Who's going to win the showdown? [01:12:04] Speaker B: It's all subtle things. We're all wearing the same, because you have to fit a certain issue. It has to be approved by the military for you to have it. So it's like the minutiae, like you said, it's minor changes on something, but it's like, oh, wow, that guy has that. Well, you immediately are like, well, I have to do better. I have to do something a little slightly better. And it's all the same. [01:12:27] Speaker A: Fuck you. Fuck you. Like, listener. If you could have seen what Mickey just did. Disgust the worst than anything I read in the book. What he just, uh. [01:12:41] Speaker C: He pat you on the back and he, hey, you're. You're doing a good. What? Would that bother you? You thought that was disgusting, Chris? [01:12:49] Speaker A: I thought it was disgusting, yes. [01:12:52] Speaker C: Is it because another man touched you? [01:12:55] Speaker A: Yes. Let's talk about the homophobia. [01:12:59] Speaker C: Don't put on your strangling gloves. Put those down. It's okay. Mickey didn't. [01:13:03] Speaker A: Okay, I'll wash them. I'll wash my. [01:13:05] Speaker C: Strangling. I love that he's like. He doesn't know the 80s too. You know what I mean? I think that's one of those moments. It's like, great. It's hitting on the whole weird anti I can get aids from everything kind of thing. [01:13:22] Speaker A: Oh, you can get dyslexia. You can get dyslexia. [01:13:25] Speaker C: I get dyslexia. So I love the fact he's washing his leather gloved hands. [01:13:30] Speaker A: So it's interesting who Bateman kills and who he doesn't kill, right? Because Mary Heron sees it as, like, he's a right in a machine. So if he kills or if he doesn't kill, it's just all happenstance, right? But in combination with the fact that he'll only kill someone who he sees as vulnerable or beneath him, but his fever, that he gets into murder someone is random. I'm going to help the homeless man. But then he touches me, and he smells, and that's the pinball that shoots off to another area. [01:14:22] Speaker B: I also slightly disagree. [01:14:24] Speaker A: Well, if that were the case, I'm echoing the director right now. That Bateman is a pinball who's shooting all over the place. [01:14:33] Speaker B: This is her. But I'm saying, when you said people. [01:14:37] Speaker A: You hate women right now. [01:14:39] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying is that. [01:14:42] Speaker A: I'm sorry. [01:14:43] Speaker B: I think he sees Gene beneath him. I took it as something slightly different on why he chooses and when he chooses. And yes, I do agree with the pinball machine. He's very random with his acts. But I think if we're going on the corporate greed reaganism of it, he sees homelessness as a scourge. Right? It's in the same way in his monologue about wanting to help the world. And he goes there, he's like, but why don't you have a job? Why can't you get a job? I think he's disgusted by him. And then I think that's. [01:15:22] Speaker C: See, I don't think he was never going to help him, though. That's my reason. He's like, he's a cat playing with a mouse that he's going to murder. [01:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah, but you can't get into the mind of a cat. Is the cat really maybe thinking, maybe I will do this. Maybe I will. I have so much money. [01:15:42] Speaker C: Predator Prey instinct is pretty well known. [01:15:48] Speaker B: Just speaking to the movie. If we take what he's saying to the lawyer in the phone call as some truth, then he has killed multiple homeless debate. [01:16:00] Speaker A: That's a big thing of discussion at the end, but yes, sure, but if. [01:16:03] Speaker B: We take that, then he has killed multiple homeless people. It feels like this is a thing for as the embodiment of reaganomics or Reagan like. Obviously he's going to kill homeless people. Obviously he's going to think of prostitutes as dispenseable. He's going to kill Paul Allen out of pure corporate greed and lust. Like I want to be. This person stands in my, like it's stature too. [01:16:29] Speaker C: You know what I mean? It's like Paul Allen can get to Dorsea. The table at Dorsea. He has the Fisher account or whatever. [01:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, he's got the Fisher account. You know what I mean? [01:16:40] Speaker A: So he's got to go, better haircut, better apartment, better. [01:16:47] Speaker B: More interesting. I think this leads me to a more interesting question, is why doesn't he murder Gene? [01:16:56] Speaker A: Do you guys have an opinion? My opinion comes and it is solidified by the director of the pinball. He's thinking about it, he's going to do it, but then he gets the call and he kind of loses his boner. Kind of like, I mean, see, this is why she's been bromance the bone. Bromance the bone. It's really the only hashtag moment. Hashtag bromance the bone bromance. The bone. It's really the only moment in the film where I feel like there's any remorse or sympathy you can possibly feel, humanity you could possibly feel for Bateman. But I think it's coming from having his balloon deflated from Evelyn's voicemail, or not voicemail. What do you call the message answer machine? I think it's just like the balloon that was filling just got released, and he just kind of like. And then there's just a moment where he's just like, that. You could interpret it as humanity, of like, I don't think I could control myself if you stayed. But I think it's coming from a place of that balloon being deflated from the voice message. That's just my thought on it. [01:18:42] Speaker B: I agree with you that Evelyn's phone call, it deflates his balloon, as you say. But I thought, and this is me doing my own work, and this is also me probably sharing some of my own personal. This is me mentally. What I think in the moment is that I think Patrick Bateman's a little self loathing. I think he recognizes that completely. [01:19:04] Speaker A: Self loathing. He hates himself. [01:19:09] Speaker B: He also hates, I think, his whole society. [01:19:13] Speaker C: I think he hates humanity. [01:19:14] Speaker A: He hates everything. He hates everything which. [01:19:17] Speaker B: Hold on. But this is where I'm going. [01:19:18] Speaker C: Hold on. No, I gotta yell at. [01:19:26] Speaker B: You. [01:19:26] Speaker A: I'm just yelling. [01:19:27] Speaker B: But Evelyn is such a yuppie. She is such a yuppie that when he gets that call, he's reminded that maybe Jean is not in that pool. Right? And I think he lets her go for that reason. I think. [01:19:42] Speaker A: I think he's like, fuck. [01:19:44] Speaker B: You're not one. I really do. [01:19:47] Speaker A: That's a valid point of view for a child, for an imbecile. [01:19:57] Speaker B: I'm sorry. The director did not solidify all my thoughts. [01:20:03] Speaker C: I'd really like to read the quote in context, because I would really kind of wonder, like, when she says the thing about being a pinball, is she speaking to, in effect, the third act of the film, in which Patrick Bateman has become. In the film and in the book the third act, he's gone into a full psychotic breakdown. And he's a whirling derbish of occasional murder. [01:20:25] Speaker A: And occasional derbish. [01:20:30] Speaker C: He murders the security guard and the janitor whenever he goes into the wrong building. And it's random when you think about it. [01:20:40] Speaker A: It's hilarious. [01:20:43] Speaker C: Really fun. [01:20:44] Speaker A: And that scene starts with one of the funniest images I've ever seen. And this is coming off of watching him stomp a dog to death, which was very disturbing, which is him picking up a kitten. And then I'm like, oh, no. But then his confusion as to what the kitten is and his love for the ATM and him trying to jam the kitten in the machine with the fucking handgun. [01:21:10] Speaker C: The ATM. [01:21:11] Speaker A: Goddamn funny. It's just so goddamn funny that he shoots. [01:21:16] Speaker B: It's incredible. [01:21:17] Speaker A: The old lady. That scene starts with something that is so telling of society, which is like, he's walking, and then this old couple is walking up those stairs, and he was going to put his hand on the railing, and he can't touch the railing now because there's old people, right? We don't like old people in society. We don't like the unattractive. We don't like those things. And Patrick Bateman is like, I don't even recognize old people because they don't exist in my world. Because there's only the ideal, right? [01:21:52] Speaker B: Yeah. The young, the beautiful, the best of the him. [01:21:59] Speaker A: They picked the perfect cat to try to shoot into an ATM. I can laugh about it because he shoots a person. [01:22:14] Speaker C: I can laugh about it because he shoots a person, quote unquote Michelangelo. [01:22:22] Speaker B: An old nice woman walking down the street. [01:22:25] Speaker A: She was a bitch. That woman was a bitch not to face you. [01:22:30] Speaker C: Bitch eating ATM from getting fed. [01:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Hey, what are you doing? [01:22:36] Speaker C: Just fucking. [01:22:37] Speaker A: Oh, God. That whole sequence is fucking hilarious. Oh, my God. [01:22:41] Speaker C: It's amazing. Has there ever been a film that had an actor doing better scowls than Christian Bale? In this film? His scowl game is on point. [01:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's on point. [01:22:53] Speaker C: Christmas party. He looks like the fucking. Like that's the line. But he literally does look like the. [01:22:58] Speaker A: Grinch in the book. Chris, do you remember that scene in the book? Who's catering the party? What's the thing they couldn't do? They felt like they couldn't do this in the film. It's too far. [01:23:13] Speaker C: I don't remember. [01:23:14] Speaker A: Little people were catering and they felt that was too much, so they went with filipino people in the film. [01:23:26] Speaker C: I didn't know that. I don't remember that. That's interesting. I remember that. I think at the Christmas party, he, like, shoves Evelyn's cat in the deep freezer or whatever. It doesn't matter. [01:23:36] Speaker A: I know. I don't remember that. I do remember he eats like. He's, like, having a fucking breakdown. And he's, like, crying, eating an octopus that he microwaved when he takes a vacation with the hamptons or something. And she keeps, like, every day she takes a helicopter back into the city to get a facial, and he's just eating sand and squids, trying to feel alive. [01:24:04] Speaker C: It's interesting, right? The film is such a. It's a. To me, it's a perfect distillation of the book. Can't go. The book is going places that the film cannot go. And it's given you all of the beats and all of the notes without having to go as far. So in that I think that this is such a good. And then even. I mean, so much of the verbiage that's used, the quotes are direct from the book. So it's a fantastic. What Mary Heron and Guinevere Turner did with it is, I think, fantastic in that they did a perfect summation of. And then even also then, too, took it to some different places because of being, obviously, I think, having some more progressive viewpoints than Bret Easton Ellis now. [01:24:53] Speaker B: Bret Easton Ellis, have you heard him talk about how really only a man should direct. Have you heard that quote? [01:25:02] Speaker C: I've not heard that really stupid shit. [01:25:07] Speaker B: Just in general, he thinks only a man can direct this film because they would understand what it actually means or something like that. I don't have the exact quote on me, but he was kind of women. [01:25:20] Speaker A: That must have been pre this, because. [01:25:23] Speaker B: No, this is after this film came out. [01:25:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:25:26] Speaker A: Oh, really? [01:25:27] Speaker C: Yeah. He sometimes says some really positive things about the film, and sometimes he says some really backhanded comments and some very sexist things about it. But Freddie Stonellis is someone who. I'm a big fan. I love his writing as a person. I don't know if he is just a massive prick or if he's distinctly trying to be, like, a provocateur. You know what mean? Like, I'm going to say something that's going to be really get you, because that's who I am, that type of thing. It's like, okay, great. He loves throwing out things. Like, I'm so like, oh, woke America. Just loves the fact that a couple feminists made this film from me, this man. He says shit like that. It's just. [01:26:21] Speaker B: I'll put it online somewhere. [01:26:23] Speaker A: But he also said in his Charlie Rose interview with Heron and that he would love to play the part of the bratty artist and be like, they ruined another one of my books. But at the time, he said he couldn't. At the time when this came out and he was making the circuits, he was saying that he thought this was fantastic. He thought this was great. [01:26:49] Speaker C: Yeah. He said some very positive things, and then he says some things that are like, actually, there's an article that was written about a year ago, far out magazine, that was an interview with him, and he kind of talks about, like. And this just also speaks to a bit of his ego. Right. The crucial problem for Alice is that american psycho was written as a novel, and therefore its themes can only be properly explored as a novel. Quote, how do you adapt the Iliad? He continued, how do you have that experience? Be the same as experience that was conceived as a book. You're getting a watered down, secondhand version of it. In a way, if you've written a novel, you've written a novel because it is a novel. And it's like, there is a point in that. But at the same time, too, to then compare American Psycho to the Iliad, you know what I mean? Come on. [01:27:34] Speaker B: The quote is this film requires the male gays, female directors need to, need not apply. [01:27:49] Speaker A: Let's leave this. We're talking about film and how great it is. [01:27:53] Speaker B: We are. [01:27:53] Speaker A: But you're talking a lot about the. Right. [01:28:07] Speaker C: The story of how american psycho came to be in the film is, I think, a bit entwined. You know what? Because then I think there's that kind of point, that quote from there, which, again, I think everything he says you kind of to take with a bit of a grain of salt, because sometimes. [01:28:29] Speaker B: He'S trying to, he's trying to push the envelope. Yeah, I get it. [01:28:33] Speaker C: But to that point, right, a character like Patrick Bateman, if you read the book, and I think if you watch the movie, he's everything that's wrong with toxic masculinity, know, manhood gone awry, let's say. But at the same time, too, there is a group out there that can easily idolize the character of Patrick Bateman, as we were saying before. So it kind of know, it begs the question, which, I don't know, wouldn't think that there is anything, but at what point is the responsibility of an artist on their creation to the general public? [01:29:13] Speaker B: Well, I also begs the question of. And something I think a lot about, which I think I believe what I'm about to say. To say I think I believe, I. [01:29:26] Speaker C: Believe what I am about to sing. [01:29:31] Speaker B: Once you've created something and you give it to an audience, an audience becomes a part of what that thing will become. And I'm going back on a nightmare on Elm street, part two. To ignore the audience's. Yeah, I just think that you can't, as an artist, sit there and say, well, this was my thing. And if people took it this way, that's wrong. No, people take it that way because it's written. Whether it's subtext, whether it was subconscious, whatever. It's like these things. This is how societies move forward, right? You write a piece of art that gets debated, gets talked about, gets people riled up. It's interesting. It's fascinating. It's worth conversing about 20 some OD years later, because that's what art is, right? It's like art can't just be the. I hear what you're saying. Even with Mary Heron and saying, yes, she did her thing too. Christian Bell did his thing. How we interpret it is part of that story as well. Right? It's like, that has to be, because if it's not, then we can't make the argument that nightmare on Elm street has any, part two has any validity. But the audience found and saw something in it, pulled something out of it, and it became a conversation, a topic because of it. It was imbued by the actor who played Jesse. It was imbued with a certain sensitivity and self that he, as he brought to that character. It's become a thing that, 30, 40 years later, we're talking about in a whole new light. I think the same goes with this. It's worth talking about the toxic masculinity and the potential that it wasn't written to be this feminist thing that it actually talks about. Every sword has two blades, right? Patrick Bateman's an awful, evil, psycho human. He appeals to a lot of people. This is something that maybe we should all pay attention to and talk about. I'm saying their audience's reaction to a piece of art is part of the art. It's not like. I just think that's true. [01:31:47] Speaker C: No, I agree. [01:31:48] Speaker A: It doesn't happen in a vacuum. Yeah, I agree. That's how art works. [01:31:54] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. And I think that it's an interesting topic and conversation to bring up and I think, and to converse about. Personally, I'm of the camp that there is no such thing as the retroactive effect of something being created, even if it has, say, a negative consequence. If that's not the creator's intent, then that just kind of is what it is. Like you cannot control other people's reaction to it. I mean, if you're trying to write in subtext, you're trying to direct people towards something, that's one thing. But if your point is not to do that, then it's bystandard effect. I don't think that's a connotation that can be weared upon the creator. I think that it's one of those things, right? If someone takes something the wrong way, then you could say, you could put a little bit on it, back onto whoever was the creator of it. But I don't think that that's fair. You know what I mean? Because I think that that just sometimes, especially anymore, sometimes things are misrepresented, you know what I mean? Especially as we're seeing the growing elements of editing and faking things to try to present something that's not as a whole. [01:33:10] Speaker B: And I guess that where I'm going with that is that. I'm not saying that Bret Easton Ellis wants to create a douchebag society. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that he's bringing up something that's really a part of our culture that's worth talking about. And he wrote, that was it. He said he based Patrick Bateman on what his father initially, and then he said later on it was kind of him as well. [01:33:35] Speaker A: It was his most autobiographical work at that time. And. [01:33:41] Speaker C: Originally he was claiming that it was written towards his father. But, yeah, later on he's taken that back and said, that's more written from himself. What was the quote that you had. [01:33:51] Speaker A: But just a critique on male behavior, specifically his experience of it, which is like a very privileged white guy in Manhattan with way too much. [01:34:06] Speaker C: See? And it's. Right. So, okay, like, it's a critique on privileged men having these very racist, misogynist, sexist kind of viewpoints. Right. Like, really? And it's incredibly well done. I love it. Then you get interviews with him and then he tries to say that at times he sounds a bit like he could be having the six to 07:00 show on Fox News in some interviews and some things that you read because he's talking about how cancel culture wants to say that blah, blah, blah and all this stuff. And it's like, it's so funny to me. And he's not of this viewpoint, I think. I think he likes to wade into the pool and to say this stuff. And it's funny because to me that comes from the fact that he has lived a life of privilege. For those of you that maybe don't know Stonellis, you know, he wrote his first novel while he was, I can't remember what college that he went to, university he went to, but the point being was that, and not to take away from, I'm sure, what work he's done his to. He never lived a blue collar life. He never had to work a nine to five or anything. He's been living in Manhattan for very. [01:35:26] Speaker B: Ivy League, I'm sure. Background. I don't know enough about his background. [01:35:30] Speaker A: But even the jokes of that Bateman. [01:35:33] Speaker B: World, for sure, sure, yeah. [01:35:35] Speaker C: It's coming from someone who's lived not that life, but pretty dang close to it. [01:35:43] Speaker A: Well, you write what you know, and that's what he's doing. All of his stuff is about privileged white people with drug problems, and they have everything available to them. But life is tough even if you're privileged. You know what I mean? Which is. That's a fair point. Fucking hard, true. [01:36:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:36:14] Speaker A: You can have everything, but without an inner self, without a personality, without. Like, you're just a husk of something pretending, going through life. And that's Bateman's ultimate punishment, right, is that he's stuck in this personal hell he's built. He cannot get caught. Well, let's get to that. Let's get to what do you think? We'll, of course, bring up Mary Heron's idea, her interpretation of how she sees it. Do you? When you watched it and as you've watched it, what does Bateman's story mean? What happens, what's going on? [01:37:06] Speaker C: Like, you mean relevant to what's real and what's not? Is that kind of what you're what's. [01:37:13] Speaker A: Real, what's not, what's the point of it all? What are you left with? [01:37:20] Speaker B: I feel like those are two different questions, because I do have a feeling of what the metaphor says to me, or how I see the metaphor of the film, and then whether or not I think that towards the end, is he really like blowing up cars with a bullet, is he really. When you shoot the trunk, when he talks to know, is Paul Allen still alive? If Karn said he ate twice with. [01:37:51] Speaker A: That's what. That's what I want to know. [01:37:54] Speaker B: So I can answer one, but I. [01:37:56] Speaker A: Can'T tell me what to think. [01:37:57] Speaker B: One. [01:37:58] Speaker A: Yeah, well, not one answer, two answers. It's two part question. [01:38:03] Speaker B: Okay? [01:38:04] Speaker C: Do you want me to go? [01:38:07] Speaker A: Chris wants to go. Chris. Chris wants to go. Chris wants. [01:38:09] Speaker C: I can tell you because my perception on it, okay. The output has always remained the same to me, which is that this is a tale of, obviously, what we've been talking about, toxic masculinity and those sorts of things, reaching to a head of psychosis. You know what I mean? On a higher level, it is a. [01:38:29] Speaker A: Review of classism for the listener. Can we break down the difference between psychosis or a psychotic episode and a psychopath. [01:38:42] Speaker C: I don't feel like I'm of a degree level worthy of breaking that down. Do you feel like you are? [01:38:49] Speaker A: I obviously wrote it down because I flipped through my pages, but just. [01:38:53] Speaker C: And does this come from DSM nine? [01:38:57] Speaker A: This comes from my cat, Colombo. [01:39:03] Speaker B: She told me about Colombo. Colombo is really smart, though, so I accept it. [01:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So psychotic. Right. Is when someone's mind is losing its grip on reality. So you can have a psychotic episode. [01:39:17] Speaker B: Episode, yeah. [01:39:18] Speaker A: That can be brought on by any number of things. Right. But a psychopath is like a personality trait. It's when someone who isn't able to feel for others and may act in a reckless or antisocial behavior. Right. So there is a major difference between a psychotic episode or psychosis and a psychopath. [01:39:47] Speaker C: But that doesn't really matter to this, though, because Patrick Bateman has both of those. Well, because he snaps from reality at the same time, too. He is a psychopath. [01:39:59] Speaker B: He's a psychopath. [01:40:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it matters in its definition and understanding the differences between those two things and understanding, like, what Bale is saying about the arc of his character. And I do hear you. It's like, well, he starts out as a psychopath, but then he has a psychotic, breaks from. According to him, he breaks from reality. Right? [01:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:24] Speaker A: Well, that's a reality of a psychopath. [01:40:25] Speaker C: That's an. [01:40:26] Speaker A: Eric. Sure. I just wanted to clarify those two. [01:40:34] Speaker B: Things, but I think that's pretty obvious. Yeah, that's not even on, like, that's not subtext. That is the text. That is like how the movie. [01:40:43] Speaker C: I mean, he is a psychopath. And there's not really an atm that says, feed me a cat. [01:40:49] Speaker B: I would love. [01:40:50] Speaker C: Clearly. [01:40:52] Speaker A: Wait, what? [01:40:54] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [01:40:56] Speaker A: It says, feed me a dog. Am I right, guys? Am I right? Because, dog, feed me a parakeet. I will say, I think people who are like, dogs are awesome and cats suck. Anyone? It's interesting. I feel like cat people are like, animals are awesome, and dog people are like, dogs are awesome and cats suck anyways. [01:41:18] Speaker B: Yeah, Chris, your. You're. Well, you're saying dog people identify and empathize with Patrick Bateman too much. [01:41:25] Speaker A: Dog people are Patrick Bateman's and cat people are. [01:41:36] Speaker C: New novel that you're writing. It is funny too, right? Just real quick. Dog people, it's always kind of like, it seems like they're more like, I don't know, gruffer types or whatever. But then I feel like dogs are like, oh, yeah, no, this is a fourth generation purebred from this. Blah, blah, blah. Blah. Cat's like, I found it from behind the dumpster. [01:42:01] Speaker B: I bred a Malin with a poodle. So it's a Malin poo. [01:42:10] Speaker A: I got a cat and it's like fucking ear just leaks earwax for some. I don't know what's going on with that thing. It doesn't have mites. I guess I got it from one of its dads, because that's right, she's got multiple dads in the litter. Did you know that? [01:42:34] Speaker C: What? [01:42:34] Speaker B: I didn't know that. [01:42:35] Speaker C: What? [01:42:37] Speaker A: A female cat can take sperm from multiple when she's in heat. She usually ends up being attacked by men, by male cats, and she uses a litter, will have multiple sperm, assuming there were multiple partners. [01:42:57] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:42:58] Speaker C: Really? I had no idea. [01:43:01] Speaker A: My two cats are so different that it's to me very obvious that they have traits from different combinations of genetics from the different things. Because their parents were streetcats, they've only known the indoor life because they were born indoors in a foster home and then adopted by us very young. But this totally ties into the film. [01:43:34] Speaker C: Is this the podcast now? [01:43:39] Speaker A: My cats. I could talk about my cats for. [01:43:43] Speaker B: I know, 75 episodes. Yeah, he can eat you 20 pictures a day. [01:43:49] Speaker C: The big takeaway here is that the Aristocats is a lie. [01:43:53] Speaker A: That's what I point before I knock. [01:43:59] Speaker C: I was going to say, what the. [01:44:01] Speaker A: Hell did we start? Oh, my God. [01:44:05] Speaker C: Okay. Was it takeaway from what's real and what's not at the ending? And was the other part you were. [01:44:10] Speaker A: Talking about, like psychosis? Psychopath. [01:44:14] Speaker C: Oh, like major takeaways. Was that what it. [01:44:21] Speaker A: The ending? What's Bateman's storyline? What's his arc for you? What do you see happens at the end of this, and what does it mean to you? [01:44:31] Speaker C: Sure, it's a two part. [01:44:32] Speaker A: It's a two part question. [01:44:35] Speaker C: It's a two part with three questions. It's a real two, three. [01:44:38] Speaker A: What do you think about my cats also? [01:44:41] Speaker C: That's a four. No, what I would say though, is it's a story of, it follows this person that's psychotic, that clearly has psychotic breaks, story arc. And then within that, though, it's telling a tale of toxic masculinity, someone that is a diatribe of hate, pretty much. And it comes from, I think, this ball of, obviously, without getting back into the author and all that. But it's a character type of hate synthesized down. And it's telling a tale too, about classism as well. So that's what I would say my bigger takeaways of that. It's a satire of all of this. Of course, now, when it comes to the whole ending and what happened, I feel like that has been a bit of a journey for myself, because in the beginning, I did not think my takeaway was that Patrick Bateman had know this was all fantasies of a board person, a vice president at a Wall street company who does no work, and all he does is sit around and is worried about his image and being seen. And thus has these fantasies of the most grotesque violence and hatred that you can possibly imagine. And that that's what we're experiencing. Then I kind of flipped and kind of said that, no, some of this is real. [01:46:10] Speaker B: Obviously. [01:46:10] Speaker C: Some of it is so over the top. That's clearly part of that untrustworthy narrator, these narratives not really happening, that type of thing. Now, I've come to the point that I don't think it matters whether it happened or it didn't happen. It does not matter. The story is what the story is, and that is kind of the part that goes on within this world. Is he actually a murderer? Is he just an incelly type that is lashing out in his journals of drawing little fantasies of dismembered? Know, I don't think that really matters. You know what mean? Like, I think the biggest thing is that that is what the image of this person is, and that's what continues. Take it away. [01:47:06] Speaker A: Nick. [01:47:07] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like a modern morality play. And I'll say this about the film, not about the book, because, man, I can't speak to the book. [01:47:19] Speaker A: I haven't read it. [01:47:20] Speaker B: I'd feel like it would be pretty shitty of me to, like, sit here and, like, make a statement about a book, right. That I've not read. But for the movie, for me, what I take away is that it's a giant metaphor. Yes, he is a serial killer. Yes, he has killed. Yes, he's having a psychotic break. Yes, it's untrustworthy, what he's saying. It's also, did he kill all those people? Did he not? Did the cop car explode just in his mind? Yeah, I'm kind of, like with Chris, does it even matter? Because the metaphor is this person's journey to the point where he is now admitting to all of his foibles, all the bad things he's done. And I think it's a journey, unfortunately, that most men should take themselves, where you self reflect at some point in your life about your own misogyny, your own toxicity, and you hopefully come out of it saying, like, yeah, I did some pretty shitty shit. And you find out that you can move on from it and not feel like you just have to be quiet about it and shut up and still fit in in your uniformed society that says, be this way or do this thing. And I think that's what it's always spoken to me as. It's like, in the way that Patrick Bateman's like, the truth doesn't even matter because I'm stuck here is a very bleak look. I take the look when I watch this film of like, no, it does matter. And we reach these periods where we have to move out of this. And society will allow me to continue to be just in the military. Let's take that, for instance. Society will allow me in the military to continue to be misogynistic. It will allow me to be cruel and punishing to people that are beneath me. It'll allow me to do things that I don't think are morally right. But I have to make the efforts to be like, no, just because I'm allowed to be this person and be this thing and do this, I can make that choice and not accept it. So there's a lot of that in this film that I take away. And whether it was meant to be or it's just like, things that I pick up on when I watch it, it just speaks a lot to me. And those male relationships, it's just growing up a place where, yeah, you know what? Patrick Raymond can get away with fucking killing people. You know why? Because he's rich. He's the son of a rich guy. His dad's the owner of that company that he works at. He surrounds himself with rich guys that look just like him. He can disguise himself in modern society. He's fucking a lot of ways. Donald Trump. You can say whatever you want, do whatever you want, and nobody gives a shit because you know what? You operate outside the norms of most of. So, anyway, I'm getting into something else when I do that, but that's what it says to me. I do think he's a serial killer. I do think he goes through a psychotic break. And I don't think that he's Davis. I know. I've seen that online where people are like, he's actually Davis. The whole time. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. That's stupid. Yeah, that's where I am with that. [01:50:19] Speaker C: Davis. [01:50:20] Speaker A: Davis. [01:50:22] Speaker B: His lawyer goes, no, you're Davis. He's like, no, I'm Patrick Bateman. [01:50:25] Speaker A: He goes, no, he's the guy, Paul Allen, he's another. [01:50:30] Speaker C: In effect, he's like another one of the friends. [01:50:33] Speaker A: Mistaken, one of the many. [01:50:36] Speaker B: But his lawyer is kind of like that weird moment where his lawyer, it's at the end of the film. He's told his lawyer everything. He goes back to his lawyer at the restaurant and says, hey, did you get my message? [01:50:46] Speaker A: Lawyer's like, yeah, it was hilarious. [01:50:49] Speaker B: Yeah, hilarious. And then they go through the whole one mistake. [01:50:52] Speaker A: Bateman would never Fucking have the ball to do something like that. Yeah, Bateman's a door. [01:50:56] Speaker B: Yeah. He says, davis, I'm not one to madmouth anyone. The joke was musing. Yeah. And he goes, no, I'm Patrick Greatman. He goes like, no, you're Davis. And so there's a moment in there where I was like. And I've read the stuff onwards. Like, is Patrick Raitman the whole time, this guy, know. And Carnes had, he says he ate twice with Paul Allen in London. [01:51:17] Speaker A: So there's that too. [01:51:18] Speaker B: That kind of puts a lot of shade on whole. [01:51:21] Speaker A: The whole film is a farce of mistaken identity. So it's like, these guys are not. [01:51:27] Speaker B: Interchangeable, but not just mistaken identity. It's not just mistaken identity. It is specifically that we work so hard to look like each other. We work so hard to be uniform. Yes. [01:51:41] Speaker A: That's what I mean. That's not mistaken identity. [01:51:45] Speaker B: That's trying to all look alike, trying to be the same. Yeah. Well. [01:51:49] Speaker C: They all laugh the reason for the. [01:51:51] Speaker A: Mistaken identity, it's very intentional. [01:51:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:51:55] Speaker A: It's the farcical satire that's written within the thing. We're green with one another. [01:52:03] Speaker B: No, I want to be careful because I don't want people to think. Because in my definition of mistaken identity, that's something different. Mistaken identity is like, oh, yeah. It's like they mistake the identity. No, it is very fucking intentional. [01:52:17] Speaker A: Homogenizing into trying to be the most successful, attractive, white, completely interchangeable, wearing, nothing special. [01:52:29] Speaker C: And they all have the same inputs on what the style is, and they're all following to a t. It comes from a magazine or whatever. [01:52:36] Speaker A: GQ, New York Times. [01:52:39] Speaker B: I do want to hear your insight, Michelangelo, but this is the perfect moment. I do want to mention something that I thought of today when watching american psycho and my own son. This is my youngest son, he had his wisdom teeth pulled out, and he was at lunch today. Molly told him, she goes, let me go to Panera and get you some soup. So you can have soup at lunch, because you can't really chew on the stuff that they have at their lunch. And he said to her, he said, please don't show up with Panera. I don't want anybody to think I'm, like, different. And it made. [01:53:13] Speaker A: I want to fit in. [01:53:15] Speaker B: And after watching american psycho this morning and then listening to that, it was different to hear him say that. And that's the beauty of art, right? I was like, he wants to fit in, but he also wants to be special. And that's such a fucking damning. It's such a hard fucking thing to do in life. It's like, you want to fit in so bad, but you also want to be somehow special. It's just. [01:53:43] Speaker C: That's. That's amazing that you've had two experiences to hit right in the wheelhouse of this film. You know what? [01:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So please, Michelangelo, your takeaways, your feelings on the ending, all that stuff, you. [01:54:00] Speaker A: Can'T take the story literally, right? That's the first thing for me. Right? [01:54:11] Speaker C: That's the one you can definitely write off. Yeah. [01:54:13] Speaker A: Right? It's like, well, obviously he would have been caught, but it's like, this is not a normal story. This is not a documentary. This is satire. So it's like, I do see this as, like, he does do all these things, right? When I was younger, I was like, oh, this must have been. I took it literally, like, oh, this is the machinations of his mind. These are, like, the fantasies he lives in. He's this pathetic loser. He's a dork, and these are the things he wish he could say. And when I was watching it this time, I was trying to break down, I was like, oh, maybe she's going to do, like, a mirror thing, because early on in the film, he's very normal. And then when he's in the club, he tells the bartender that she's a bitch and that he wants to murder her, right? And I was thinking, maybe because there's the mirror behind the bar, like we go into the mirror or something, but that doesn't happen. I was thinking maybe that would happen, but it doesn't happen. It's like he's doing these things. He's like a kid with too much Internet access. He's just beaten off raw. What happens when you have everything presented to you and you feed only into your base desires and you don't have any concept of trying to be like, some sort of evolved person? What is, like, existence outside of material things, outside of sex and greed, right. He has created this personal hell for himself, and despite his efforts, his extreme efforts to get caught, right. This like, crazy shootout. In this confession, he cannot be caught. And it's so sad when he says, I've gained nothing through this. I've learned nothing about myself as a result of this. And all I want to do is make people hurt the way I hurt. Right? I'm not quoting it exactly, but that's what he's saying. [01:56:55] Speaker C: In monologue. Yeah. [01:56:59] Speaker A: That's literally what's happening for the character, but within the satire of what I'm watching. Right? I can identify with someone who's like, I am so privileged, and I am so miserable as a result of it, but I cannot break out of this to save my life. I'm stuck here. I'm in a rut. And I think we can all relate to being stuck in a cycle of behavior, right, where it's like, you want to grow out of this, but you can't, because you're stuck in a cycle of behavior. And I think a lot of us maybe experienced that during the pandemic, where we were so confined to certain things. Certain people grew, and I think certain people had, like, a nightmarish experience, like myself. [01:57:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you started drawing in books and. [01:57:54] Speaker A: Your little notebook, little pictures of women being decapitated. No. I tried to think of Patrick Bateman now with social media, and I think it's a very dangerous time because it's a very easy place, because it's like you have these algorithms that are designed to break your brain into scrolling through your most base desires, right? You like horror movies. You like sex. You like being like. [01:58:33] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [01:58:34] Speaker A: It's like, whatever those things are. And it's like, it's very easy to become. To get programmed into being a Patrick Bateman when it's like, turn it off, look outside, pay attention to what's happening in life. Have a conversation with a stranger. You know what mean? Like, don't regurgitate an opinion that's been written and thought out by somebody else. What does this mean? [01:58:57] Speaker B: To. [01:58:59] Speaker C: Quote Mary Holland's death? [01:59:01] Speaker A: Yeah. But. [01:59:08] Speaker B: You know the story of, like, pre social media Christian Bale walking the Wall street floor right after the movie came out, he went. And I don't know if he was invited or if he just said, I'd like to come. And somebody was like, yeah, that'd be cool. He came down to the trading floor. He was heralded as a hero. [01:59:35] Speaker A: They were like, patrick Bateman. [01:59:37] Speaker C: Yeah. This is fresh off american psycho being released. [01:59:41] Speaker B: Yes. Prior to any social media. And he tells the story, and this is in an interview that he gave in the last couple of years. But he tells the story of, like, realized that these Wall street guys didn't get it. No, they didn't get it. [01:59:58] Speaker A: He's not even in the same job. It's like a different job he's doing. [02:00:02] Speaker B: By the way, trading floor. I know, I know. [02:00:04] Speaker C: He's not working too. [02:00:09] Speaker A: He doesn't know what to do when no one's around. [02:00:13] Speaker B: That reigns true of so many of these films. It's like, what's that one that came out? I even did a monologue from it with Giovanni Rubisi and boiler room. Boiler room. [02:00:24] Speaker A: Ben Diesel. Ben Affleck has the Alec Baldwin Glengari Ross monologue. [02:00:32] Speaker B: They're ripping people off right and left and taking money to the bank. And for some reason, a young Mickey thought these guys were cool. I don't know. I can't explain it. I can't explain it. It's like I've luckily grown up and grown out again. I go back on that. My one little mantra of this whole thing is that I think the content at the end of the day wins. And I think that the world wisens up. And you do learn something from this. I hope that's my. [02:01:05] Speaker A: Defend you, Mickey. To defend you. You are the ultimate outsider. You're an adopted child. Like a baby from. [02:01:21] Speaker B: Honduras. [02:01:22] Speaker A: Go ahead, Honduras. [02:01:25] Speaker B: The city was Tagusi Gulpa. Can you say Tagusi gulpa? [02:01:27] Speaker A: Yeah, Tagusi gulpa. And you had these white texan parents and you grew up as. Know, we joke about it. You're the whitest guy that we know. But it's like you're not white. And it's like you grew up in these environments in Texas and Arkansas. And there is this very overcompensating part of yourself, of your personality. You want to fit in. [02:01:57] Speaker C: Just. [02:01:57] Speaker A: I want to fit in, too. I grew up in a very white area as the child of sicilian immigrants and trying to assimilate into american culture. Sure. Wanting to fit in is a very thing. You can connect with human experience. Who doesn't want to? Yeah. You want to fit in, right? [02:02:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:02:25] Speaker A: So I get what you're saying in regards to that, but. [02:02:39] Speaker B: I'm not justifying Patrick Bateman. [02:02:41] Speaker A: I just said that the source material will win the day. This is the most important thing. [02:02:48] Speaker C: Are you going to say it or are you just going to keep saying. [02:02:50] Speaker B: But this is the most important thing? I'm right, you're wrong. [02:02:57] Speaker A: Hold on. But. [02:02:59] Speaker C: Okay, are you ready? [02:03:03] Speaker A: Who? [02:03:03] Speaker C: Sure. [02:03:04] Speaker A: Now who? [02:03:04] Speaker C: Good. [02:03:05] Speaker A: Who do we recommend this film to? Hold on, hold on. We do last looks. Last looks. Last looks. Last looks, Chris. Last looks. [02:03:22] Speaker C: Real quick shoot. Sorry. [02:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah, you. What is. This is the difference between someone who's written everything, has scribbled it out on like seven pages, versus some asshole who's on his fucking laptop. Like, get your shit together. [02:03:49] Speaker C: I'm so sorry. Do you want more wrestling of papers? [02:03:52] Speaker B: I'm sorry. Chris, Wisconsin called. They want you back. [02:04:01] Speaker C: No, I was just going to say there's an early scene before Patrick Bateman does a murdering murders in the film, in which then there's a scene that's like the dark street, and he sees a woman and he catches her glance, he says, hello. And there's that creepy scene. I was like, man, I am sure that there is. Probably every woman in the world has had that experience of some creepy guy on a street or something like that. That just seems so like, I like the fact that the film starts setting the tone of him being a psychopath is this incredibly human experience that is off putting, I think to me as a male viewer, and I'm sure for a female viewer would be very. Oh, yeah. I can identify to a situation in. [02:04:52] Speaker A: Which I felt scared. [02:04:53] Speaker C: Like, is this person just being weird or are they going to lash out at me? And also, too, I feel like that's a running thing. I think that you can go back through the last handful of films that we've done. There's been a scene similar to that. Just kind of interesting. [02:05:04] Speaker A: I will say to Mickey's point, there is the layer that the director puts in. It's like she is worried for a second, but he's so handsome and so. Well, absolutely. That it's like, I guess I'm going to give this guy the time of day, right? It's her fault. But it's like, oh, fuck, yeah, it's her fault. That was a joke. [02:05:30] Speaker B: Thank God. [02:05:32] Speaker A: Obviously it was a joke. It's like, well, of course there is this, like was the Fibonacci. [02:05:42] Speaker C: Fibonacci sequence. [02:05:43] Speaker A: Sequence where it's like he fits the Fibonacci sequence. It's just like, there's something about an attractive person. You're like, yes, that's what influencers. It's like, oh, this person must know something about health and fitness and things like that. And Ted Budney, it's like. But they're so. I'm going to maybe duct tape you, but you didn't know about Ted Budney. I will say, as the base part of a male, I will say there are often times with Allie. Well, I'll be like, hey, I'm going to bring this up. And she's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, never mind. I think I'm just going to Charlie Brown my way back into the bedroom or something. [02:06:34] Speaker B: I'm not blaming for, for changing the name of the section, but she wasn't on board with bromancing the bone. And I thought that was really clever. A movie callback, a movie that we all watched. [02:06:50] Speaker A: Well, true. Bromance is also a callback to a film. [02:06:53] Speaker B: It's also a callback to a great film. Yeah, I know. [02:06:58] Speaker A: I would watch true bromance over bromancing this. No, wait a second. I was thinking you'd watch broke back Bromantin. [02:07:11] Speaker C: Oh boy. Let's just take that section out. [02:07:20] Speaker A: Bromantic. The stone is a great movie. I'll agree with you there. Okay. I've had too many al dentes. [02:07:27] Speaker C: Real quick, I wanted to bring up something which was know so much of this film, right in the book is about image and all that's done for, right. And like, even as we've been kind of talking, know, Patrick Bateman's morning routine was kind of, it can be something that's been parried on social media and then even non parodied. Like, it's just like the, this is my day in the life as a. And it's like, it feels like a Patrick Bateman esque thing. Which begs the question, right, of like, when the book was written and then the film came out, this is all pretty much pre social media influx. [02:08:01] Speaker A: Incredibly pre social media. [02:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:04] Speaker C: There was no, well, technically Myspace was around in 2000, but anyway, doesn't matter. Point B. [02:08:11] Speaker A: No, but is that okay? [02:08:14] Speaker C: Have a few more beers. The point is, wealth creates their ability of Patrick Bateman and all of his friends and all that to create the image to be seen. The most important factor is to be seen. That's why you get to be restaurant, reservation at the popular restaurant, go to the club, blah blah, blah. That's what social media is today. Right? So it's like how much of access, the element of it. Yeah. Has the access element, which in the time of the book, in the film, was the special area that was only allowed to the privilege has become decentralized to now everybody who has a social media account. And then how much of that sickness then is in all of us then because of that fact? [02:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point. That's a great point. [02:09:05] Speaker A: I want to blow my brains out every fucking time I'm on social media. I just want to fucking. Fucking blow my brains out. [02:09:16] Speaker B: God. Listen, everybody listen. I'm going to put a trigger warning. [02:09:20] Speaker A: Trigger warning. Sorry. [02:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry. So I had a couple of things moving. Yeah. So how about that restaurant? Texarkana? [02:09:34] Speaker C: I like. [02:09:39] Speaker A: Reason why I would come to this fucking place is your. What is it? What is the name of the soup? [02:09:46] Speaker C: Well, there's mud soup. There's something with charcoal. [02:09:49] Speaker A: Wasn't it like Crawdad mud soup or something? It was more than Paul Allen says. The only reason why I came to this place was this charcoal braised arugula, the mint jelly pork loin I do enjoy. It's like, okay, Bateman's obviously there because no one would be there, but he still is embarrassed for having not getting into Dorsea and for picking this place. It's like. [02:10:30] Speaker C: I disagree. That's the whole joke, though. He wants Paul Allen to sit in this desolate, crappy restaurant. He's going to show up late to it, and then he's going to belittle him by being like, oh, is that Ivanka Trump over there? Like that type of thing. [02:10:45] Speaker A: No, I hear you. I think that's all true. But I also feel like Patrick Bateman is such a fucking pathetic loser that he still feels embarrassed for having to put Paul through this. It's both. [02:11:03] Speaker C: I don't have that read on it. [02:11:05] Speaker A: He plans it, but I still feel he's like. He's vulnerable to the insult. Anyways. [02:11:14] Speaker C: I do like his. I could have gotten a stable at Dorsea. No one goes there. That line is fantastic. [02:11:21] Speaker B: No, I just thought that was a very funny sequence, because it also looks like a restaurant that my parents would go to in New York City, and. [02:11:30] Speaker A: Be like, I was at that restaurant with your parents and you in New York City. We went to a Dallas barbecue. Fucking. It's like we're in New York City. Let's go to the. And I will say at the time, I'm like a fucking extremely poor artist student. I'm like, I was just happy to eat a meal at a restaurant. [02:11:53] Speaker B: Are you kidding me? [02:11:54] Speaker A: I don't care where it's at. But, yeah, we were at a restaurant very similar to. [02:12:00] Speaker B: To. Obviously, not to insult anybody, but Texarkana is a city that is on the border of Texas and Arkansas. Texarkana. And I'm sure that everybody knows that, listening. But that's also just kind of funny to me because I'm from Texas and Arkansas, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's pretty much Texas Arcana. Big ass menu. Really? Like, chintzy, kind of like Tex Mex. [02:12:21] Speaker C: So you would eat at Texarkana? Would you be a big fan? In 1980. [02:12:28] Speaker B: I would have been there all the time. [02:12:32] Speaker A: When I went out to dinner with Mickey's parents, I remember I ordered soup because I wanted to be like, I don't want to make his dad pay. Like, his dad's going to pay for everybody. I don't want to charge. And I remember his dad, the look on his face. He was, like, so mad at me that I was like, what are you doing? Ordered soup. Order something. Order something substantial. And I was, like, ordering soup? And he was like, pissed. I don't think your father likes me because I ordered soup. [02:13:01] Speaker B: No, my father likes you. I do think that there's, like, what's wrong with this kid ordering soup? Who is my son running around with? Who are these people? They're on drugs. They only eat soup. [02:13:11] Speaker C: Well, to be fair, you're at a barbecue restaurant, and, Michelangelo, weren't you like, excuse me, do you have a good booyah base tonight? [02:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah, you're like, tomato brisk. [02:13:22] Speaker B: I'll do the tomato brisk, please. [02:13:25] Speaker A: Okay. Chris's voice wasn't problematic, but I'll say Mickey's voice was. Can I get the tomato brisk, please? [02:13:38] Speaker B: No, I was just doing a young Michelangelo. No, that's different voice. [02:13:41] Speaker A: Replay it, replay it. Replay it right now. Mickey, edit it. Mickey's the editor. [02:13:46] Speaker C: Put in a rewind noise here, and then replay it. [02:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah, you're like, I'll just do the tomato brisk. [02:13:56] Speaker B: I'll do the tomato brisk, please. [02:14:02] Speaker A: So, Mickey, what else you got to say so we can fucking get the recommendations? [02:14:06] Speaker B: I feel like you talk about this. I got nothing else. I got nothing else. I just want to give a small shout out to an amazing cast. Everybody in this cast is incredible. I know we've said it over and over again, but it's like, josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Justin Thoreau, Christian Bale, Chloe Seveni, Samantha Ross, Jared Leto, Karis Seymour, Stephen Bogart, Monica Meyer, Guinevere Turner. The writer gets to be in the movie. It's incredible. [02:14:31] Speaker A: It's like, everybody is fantastic. [02:14:33] Speaker B: And I'm sure somebody. [02:14:35] Speaker A: Oh, I need to talk about this real quick. [02:14:37] Speaker C: Andrew dice Clay. Thank you for coming. [02:14:43] Speaker A: Little Miss Muppet, little boy blue. If you know Andrew dice Clay, you'll laugh, but if you don't, you're like, what is he doing? Anyways? Justin Thoreau. I sent you guys a photo of Justin Thoreau's eyes during an interview for American Psycho, and you will see if you look at the photo, he's got these green eyes, but then there's this thick black line on the outline, which makes me believe he's wearing contact lenses to change the color of his eyes. And during, when I was watching this film, every time I watch this film, I'm like, justin Thoreau has, like, weird looking eyes. Does he have a weird, like, I'm colorblind, so they look a little red to me. They look a little demon to me. Like, what's going on there? And then I was watching these behind the scene film of Justin Thoreau, and it's a close up on his eyes, and there's that black line on the edge of his iris. And I'm like, does he wear contacts to change the color of his eyes? Does he have, like, brown eyes and he's making them green? [02:16:04] Speaker C: Was that it? That's it. I don't know. [02:16:11] Speaker A: What color is his eyes? [02:16:13] Speaker C: I'm colorblind. [02:16:14] Speaker A: I don't know. [02:16:15] Speaker C: I don't know. [02:16:17] Speaker A: It's weird to me, that's all. You guys didn't notice he had weird eyes? No. Never mind. We'll talk about this later off the podcast. Who do we recommend this movie to? Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ. I need another. [02:16:40] Speaker B: Long build up to. [02:16:41] Speaker A: Be like, I don't know. [02:16:44] Speaker C: I don't believe this. [02:16:45] Speaker A: But no, not just long build up. [02:16:48] Speaker B: One that he's taken day. [02:16:49] Speaker A: He sent us this picture a day ago. [02:16:52] Speaker B: This up over 24 hours. [02:16:54] Speaker A: No, more than 24 hours. More. 48 or more? [02:16:59] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, 48 easy. So I'll tell you my recommendation. Are we doing recommendations? [02:17:05] Speaker A: We're doing recommendations, yes. [02:17:07] Speaker B: Okay, I'll do my recommendation. [02:17:08] Speaker A: Who comes into the video store and you're like, you got to see a master psych. [02:17:13] Speaker B: I hate to do this, but I'm going to say it. If you're coming into this video store. [02:17:18] Speaker A: I think I know where this is going. [02:17:22] Speaker B: You need to see this fucking movie. [02:17:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:17:24] Speaker B: If you come in, you tell me you like 30 seconds to Mars. [02:17:28] Speaker A: You need to see this fucking movie. [02:17:32] Speaker B: If you come in here and you. [02:17:35] Speaker C: Okay. [02:17:36] Speaker A: Neil deGrasse Tyson, first thing that people. [02:17:40] Speaker C: Got to say, I'm a huge Jared Leto music fan. [02:17:45] Speaker A: Neil degrasse Tyson, huge fan of 30 seconds to Mars. [02:17:48] Speaker B: That's how long it takes to get it to Mars. Yeah, he gets it. No, seriously, I don't know anybody I wouldn't recommend this to. It's that good? Yeah. [02:17:59] Speaker C: Nice, Chris? I would pretty much say the same thing. I would recommend it to everyone. I love this film. It's interesting. To me, though, right? Especially reading a lot about it kind of before we recorded how I didn't realize how this premiered at Sundance and how everyone didn't. Well, I shouldn't say everyone. It was not very widely liked. Like, Guinevere turner had a story about the night after its premiere. She was supposed to have dinner with Kevin Smith, and he canceled the last second. And, like, years later, he admitted to her. [02:18:30] Speaker A: Really? [02:18:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I was at the screening, and I hated the film so much that I had to cancel dinner. [02:18:35] Speaker A: I couldn't face you. That's insane to me, the fact that that's coming from Smith, that's okay. I have a whole podcast to talk about. [02:18:51] Speaker C: I mean, but a lot of critics panned it. Like Roger Ebert wrote a scathing review on his first one years later, came back and know, hey, I was actually really wrong about this and blah, blah, blah. [02:19:01] Speaker A: But for Kevin Smith, like, a person who's had such a crazy career of people being like, you know what I mean? For him to watch this and not get it, that really makes you question my love of his early work and his midwork. No, I'm a psychopath. [02:19:25] Speaker C: Then be wrong. [02:19:27] Speaker A: I'm a psychopath. I'm a psychopath. [02:19:30] Speaker C: Be judgmental. But anyway, the point of it was just that it's interesting to me how, in reading, how there was a lot of people that this film did not work for, and it took years for, really, its appreciation to grow. I'm hopeful that now when people see it, they can easily just see it for what it is. You know what I mean? See that it's a satire and see its relevance, which kind of goes to what we've been talking a bit today about if it's effect on maybe more susceptible younger viewers. But hopefully it works. I'd say maybe. I think an interesting double feature would be like, if you watch this with the house that Jack built or something like that. [02:20:06] Speaker A: Or cruising. He said about every film, he likes. [02:20:10] Speaker B: To put cruising on. After every film, every time we watch a movie together, you want to put on cruising. Little double feature cruising now and then, cruising time. Now we've had a couple beers. [02:20:18] Speaker C: Let's put on cruising. But, yeah, no, I'd recommend this to everybody. Michelangelo, who would you recommend this to? Maybe people who've had a few more beers. [02:20:31] Speaker A: I resent that. [02:20:33] Speaker C: Good. [02:20:36] Speaker A: Are you a fan of our Halloween playlist? Check out those episodes, because there's a fantastic song that has to do with Patrick Bateman returning his videotapes. Chris, you have a confused look on your face. Do you not know this song? [02:20:56] Speaker B: What song are you talking about, Mickey? We have it. We have it. Can you play it? Play it on the discord. I think so. [02:21:05] Speaker A: I don't think it was an official selection of mine, but it was an honorable mention one year. But it's a song that a fantastic artist came up with that is like an R B Bateman song about how he has to return the videotapes. Mickey, are you close at all to pulling it up? [02:21:31] Speaker B: There it is. [02:22:02] Speaker A: Chris. You listen to it. And this will be a live Chris listening to it. [02:22:07] Speaker C: Did you know that, Christy, there are no girls. Hey, there you go. [02:22:14] Speaker A: Talk about distilling the film into, like, this really distills the film into, like, a couple of minutes. [02:22:23] Speaker B: We are definitely going out on that. Yeah. [02:22:26] Speaker A: Well, I got to do my recommendations. [02:22:30] Speaker B: No, we're going out. No, we're going out. I'm sorry, budy. We're going out on this right now. Go ahead. Okay. [02:22:36] Speaker A: Layered in. Are you a fan of renting from our video store, confessions of a window cleaner? That's a porn Bateman. That's a fake porn Bateman that rents, by the way. Do you think Bateman. So Bateman is obviously a supporter of the local video shop, and I bet you he's got lots of late fees from all the. [02:23:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I just don't think he gives a shit. He rents films, and then they say, hey, this is probably back to great. Like, hey, you've had this for three weeks. It's now like $400 for whatever. [02:23:19] Speaker A: No, I've had those conversations with people. You'd be calling the house, obviously not in Bateman's case, but you'd be talking to the wife of the house. There's like a $90 late fee on a porn title that you don't want to say to the wife because it's obvious that the husband rented it. You know what I mean? That's where you make your bread and butter, especially the porn. Because it's like, there's so much shame connected to the porn. But it's like, does he have shame? I'd be interested. Like, is he an ideal video store customer or is he not? Would he contest the late fees? You know what I mean? Would he just pay them? Or would he just like. You know what I mean? Because it's status, right? It's not just money, but it's also status. Anyway, are you a fan of Luis Boonel's 1972 french surreal satire, the discreet charm of the bourgeois? Then I highly recommend 2000s american psycho. [02:24:30] Speaker C: Have you seen this? [02:24:32] Speaker A: Yes. [02:24:33] Speaker C: Okay. [02:24:35] Speaker A: When I was. [02:24:36] Speaker C: You look like you're just reading off a piece of paper, so I wouldn't tell. [02:24:39] Speaker A: I was. But I did have a part in an opera at Bam. And one of the research films I watched. [02:24:54] Speaker B: Books. [02:24:54] Speaker A: A million books. [02:24:56] Speaker B: A million books. [02:24:57] Speaker A: A million. One of the films I did watch during that time period when I was researching, like, what the fuck am I in? I don't speak French. What am I doing? Why am I in a french opera? This is crazy. That was one of the films I watched was the discrete charm of the bourgeois. I agree with both of you. Obviously, if you come to this video store, you have to. What are you doing? You laughing at me? Are you coughing? [02:25:28] Speaker C: What's happening? I laugh at you. The fact that you had to bring up an art film from the 70s needlessly. No. Ever. [02:25:37] Speaker A: Thank you. I just want to fit in. He's trying to hate this place. It's a chick video. It's a chick video. Know, your compliment was sufficient, Mickey. Okay, that's another quote. [02:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:25:58] Speaker A: If you come to this video store, you have to see this. Thank you so much for listening to the episode listener. Please subscribe, rate and review, assuming you have positive things to. [02:26:12] Speaker B: Please. Please. [02:26:14] Speaker A: Chris, thank you so much for being here again in the basement with us. We love having you here as often as possible, Mickey. Thank you, sir, for your amazing insight, for your editing, for social media stuff that you've been doing. [02:26:31] Speaker B: What social media are. [02:26:33] Speaker A: We can. [02:26:36] Speaker B: You can follow us on the old Instagram at the return slot. [02:26:40] Speaker A: Underscore of horror pod. You got it. [02:26:43] Speaker C: I know it's not as fun. [02:26:46] Speaker A: It's like, the thing is. [02:26:48] Speaker B: Here's the thing, though. I get so excited when I nail it now, and I don't get the response. [02:26:53] Speaker C: Disappointed whenever you are correct. Whenever you fuck up. I am overjoyed. [02:27:01] Speaker A: Now you know what it's like whenever I show my Edgar Allan Poe bust and you guys are like, what does it do? [02:27:07] Speaker C: Charlie Chaplin? [02:27:08] Speaker A: Looks like you should get a new one. What happened to Charlie Chapman's head? Messed up looking. [02:27:23] Speaker B: Also, also just want to. Also, if you go on Letterboxd and you're looking for somebody to follow, you can follow the return slot horror pod on Letterboxd. I've been putting together, curating the films we've done from the first two seasons. Haven't got to season three yet. [02:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And we're also going to be making the leap to YouTube, which is pretty exciting. You might be seeing our faces. People can see it. Oh, no, they're going to be coming into the face. [02:27:59] Speaker C: How terrible that thing looks, how awful it looks. [02:28:06] Speaker B: Now. Right now, listeners, get ready to comment on this bus. We need you to join the team here, okay? It's a Michael's bus that he's so. [02:28:14] Speaker A: Proud of, but it's really cool. [02:28:16] Speaker B: Chris, we partnered with this. [02:28:18] Speaker C: Not you, the store for. [02:28:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [02:28:23] Speaker C: It is from. [02:28:24] Speaker B: But. But the reason we're going to YouTube, the reason we've made this leap is because we have partnered with this kick Ass entertainment company, Red Tower Entertainment. It's like the spooky, fun YouTube channel showing original short horror films, many of which came from their spooktacular film festival. So, hey, listen out there, little filmmakers. People want to get a little notice of their scary films. They are still open for submissions via film freeway, so you can have your film in the spooktacular film festival by Red Tower Entertainment. [02:28:54] Speaker A: So just search for the return slot of horror podcast on YouTube. You can subscribe now and you'll be notified once we're officially launched. We'll be doing a few special episodes for the medium. So you'll get. Like I said, you'll get to see what we actually look like. But more fun is we're going to have an animated intro thanks to production studio dream come true. Well, you can't talk while I say the name. [02:29:24] Speaker B: I understand that, negative kitty. I'm giving you the space. [02:29:29] Speaker C: Give you space with your negative kitty negative. [02:29:36] Speaker A: So thanks to the production studio negative Kitty, who's making our dreams come true and turning us into animated characters, I'm very excited, very excited about that. And if that wasn't enough, we're going to be working with Fangoria. They're offering our listeners 25. 25. Oh, my gosh. This is why we needed. I can't talk. [02:29:58] Speaker C: Do it one more. [02:29:59] Speaker A: I can't talk. [02:30:00] Speaker B: I'll edit. [02:30:01] Speaker A: Start over, start over. Start over. Thanks, Chris. What the fuck did I do? Go for it. Go for it. [02:30:11] Speaker C: Hey, go. [02:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Go to station. Ready? [02:30:13] Speaker A: Go for it. Go to station. [02:30:17] Speaker C: There you go. [02:30:18] Speaker A: We're a go at the station. We're going to station. And if that wasn't enough, Fangoria is offering our listeners 20% off everything in their merch shop. Just use code Red tower at checkout. All one word for 20% off your entire purchase. That's very exciting to be affiliated, anyway, with Fangoria. [02:30:43] Speaker B: So again, yeah, it's dream come true. [02:30:46] Speaker A: So thank you, red tower. Thank you, Allie, for making a lot of this happen. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Mickey. Thanks, Molly. Thanks, negative kitty. Thank you, negative kitty. Thank you, Halloumi. Thank you, Colombo. [02:30:59] Speaker C: No, they don't count. Thank you. [02:31:02] Speaker B: Thank you, Patrick Bateman. [02:31:03] Speaker A: Thank you, Patrick Bateman. Thank you, Paul Allen. The unsung hero. [02:31:08] Speaker B: Thank you, waiter at Texarkana. [02:31:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:31:12] Speaker B: The unsung hero. And most importantly, thank you, Kristen. [02:31:16] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you, Kristen. It's a throwback. We know you're there. [02:31:23] Speaker B: We know you're maybe one of our. [02:31:25] Speaker A: First and most loyal listener. Kristen, we've grown up. [02:31:30] Speaker B: We're going to have animations. [02:31:32] Speaker A: We screwed up. We took one of our listeners and turned them into a guest host. [02:31:36] Speaker C: Up, bro. [02:31:37] Speaker A: Time to time. [02:31:38] Speaker B: A guest host, I know. [02:31:41] Speaker A: That's right. Listener, you too can become a co host on the show. [02:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:31:44] Speaker C: All you gotta do is, all you have to do. [02:31:49] Speaker A: Send us money. [02:31:50] Speaker C: This is like a pyramid, Chris does. You get in, subscribe, you get more listeners, you keep going up, you keep hosting more. [02:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I like to think of it as a reverse diamond. All right, good night. [02:32:10] Speaker B: Thank you. Good night, guys. [02:32:12] Speaker A: I have to go return some videotapes upstairs. [02:32:15] Speaker C: Oh, you got us her phone number. One single phone. Did you know that, Christy? There are no girls with good personalities. I don't think we should teach other anymore. It never was supposed to be. Gotta return some videotape after return some videotape. Did you know I'm out of league? I like that girl that ate some of that brain. Gotta return some video. I'm really late. Don't. I can't stop. Problem? We returning to the updates? I guess I was probably returning to the updates. Close.