American Psycho (2000)

Look at this blog post. The font is Times New Roman, set by Google Chrome's advanced settings.  It is an easily readable font in a decent size.  The background is pink, dainty and feminine.  It is exquisite.  My god, it even has a timestamp.

That is one of the few things Patrick Bateman cares about.  He notices that he is human in every way, except he believes he is void of most emotion.  However, he does have emotion. He has greed, rage, and in the end, panic. What he lacks is empathy.  Bateman is a textbook case of psychopathy (or what we would call a sociopath).

Bateman is trapped in the sterile, materialistic world of the yuppies in the 1980's.  The only thing they do is make reservations for various restaurants, and party in nightclubs. Their lives are shallow and meaningless, and Bateman cannot cope in this environment.  His desire to kill and destroy becomes stronger and he eventually becomes careless.  Although, there are few things hotter than seeing him run butt naked down a hallway brandishing a chainsaw.

Even after confessing to all these murders, no one cares.  He goes to one of his victim's homes, and it has been scrubbed clean and being shown to potential tenants.  No one cares if someone died there, they just want to own the beautiful apartment in a great location. Again, Bateman cannot escape the cold cleanliness of his world.  He gets no rush from the killings.  He received no catharsis from confessing.  Nothing changed.  Nobody will miss the victims, and no one acknowledges the murders.  And we are left feeling as empty as Bateman does.  This film receives a 6/10.

The Bank Dick (1940)

Today's film is the equivalent of a Three Stooges movie with hardly any violence.  It accomplishes this by being a slapstick comedy (short of slapping each other all the time) and having similar puns and gags throughout. Also, there is not really a plot. And Shemp's in it too!

So Souse (with an apostrophe on the e because that's important) drinks a lot, then directs a film because the real director is too drunk. He then accidentally catches a bank robber and is hired as a "bank dick" to guard the bank. Thus the first part of the plot is forgotten.  However it is very quickly remembered at the end.

When the bank inspector gets "sick", Souse calls in his doctor friend. He gives him a bottle of pills which are actually ping pong balls and tells him to take them. The inspector mentions he has a daughter and Souse says, "I like children...girl children, between 18-20".

The acting is terrible, but they do have good comedic timing. Especially when Souse punches that guy in the face and he crashes through the window because he lied about the stocks.  It's a very visually comical movie. I will give it a 5.5/10.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

This movie was spectacularly creepy. First, it opens on the narrator's death scene, so you know it can't bode well for him. Sometimes throughout the movie, I thought, "I wonder if he's going to die now, but probably not, not until the end of the movie."  I was upset by the lack of blood. He was shot at three times. There was no blood on his clothes, and no blood in the water when he fell in. I'm missing the blood here.

This is Norma Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson, a former silent movie actress.  I like how they got someone who actually starred in silent films to play a silent film star. This kind of makes her an expert on the whole thing.  At times, Norma is manipulative and over-dramatic, but mostly I feel sorry for her. She is trying so hard to hold onto her past as a well-loved star.  When the technology of film changed, she was left behind. She never moved to talking pictures and faded into obscurity. She still believes that she's well-loved and famous, and it doesn't help that Max, her butler, is feeding her delusion. He even writes her fake fan mail so she has someone to write to. Her story reminds me of the beginning of "Sorrow" by Pink Floyd:

He's haunted by the memory of a lost paradise

In his youth or a dream, he can't be precise

He's chained forever to a world that's departed

It's not enough, It's not enough

Let's talk about Joe, the broke screenwriter. He sneaks his car onto her property to hide it from the repo men. It is fate that he met her and decided to help edit her crazy long silent film about Salome.  In no time at all Norma becomes his sugar momma and he gets all sorts of nice clothes and trinkets. It helps that he is really good looking.  She throws a New Year's Party for just the two of them complete with cake and musicians, and it is incredibly creepy.  Eventually he decides to leave and have a normal life as a screenwriter once more.  Staying with her for the money was nice for the time being, but he doesn't love her.  Also she is crazy.

There are several meta moments in this movie.  For example, Joe and Norma watch her old films in the living room.  They are actually watching Gloria Swanson's silent films.  So we are watching Norma's films with Norma really in it while we watch Norma watching the films.  In another scene, Betty is criticizing Joe's writing, saying he doesn't need all this psychological stuff about being in the killer's mind.  Joe likes that kind of stuff.  However, we know that Norma has severe psychological issues and will eventually kill him.  So meta I can barely handle it.

Then Norma completely loses her mind when Joe tries to leave for good.  That's when she finally kills him. So the police and reporters show up, and for the first time in years, she sees cameras focused on her.  She dresses in her Salome costume and goes downstairs to greet the cameras.  The police encourage her as they want her to go downstairs so they can arrest her and take her to jail.  But all Norma cares about is all the attention she's getting and smiling for the cameras.  This is all she's ever wanted, and she finally got it.  I'm giving this movie a 10/10 for being one of the best films I've seen all year.

His Girl Friday (1940)

Today's film is His Girl Friday. It's...okay.  It's not great nor groundbreaking. If it were a paper written in class, the teacher would put a smile face sticker with the words "good effort" on it.

 

Rosalind Russell was great as Hildy, but what did they dress her in? All the stripes go every which way! Whoever designed this outfit should be ashamed of themselves.

 

 

So basically what happens is Hildy marches into her ex-husband's office to announce she's marrying a lame insurance salesman and quitting her job.  Hildy and her ex-husband both work for the newspaper. But as a case breaks out surrounding a condemned man and an upcoming election, we slowly realize that Hildy and her ex, Walter, are exactly alike. They have the same drive and same personality. Normally we assume that opposites attract, but in this case alike attracted. That's probably why she became so irritated with him.

 

I knew she wasn't really going to go away with Bruce the insurance agent.  Especially when I heard they were going to live with his mother.  If any man every asks you to move in with his mother, you run.  Run away as far as you can.

 

Cary Grant was okay in this movie. I kind of feel like this is the same character he played in The Philadelphia Story, only he's in a different environment.

 

When I watched this, I had to turn the subtitles on, because they talk way too fast.  It was the only way I could understand what they were saying. I feel I missed out on most of the jokes because they were talking so fast. One of the main parts of comedy is timing, and certainly no one in this movie had that. I'm going to give this film a 5/10.

Repulsion (1965)

The first half is like so boring. Seeing a blonde girl walk around while jazz music plays is not how character development works.  Then I started to realize that she doesn't like men.  She really does not like men.  It doesn't help that her sister/roommate is dating a married man.

Her sister goes off with her boyfriend on vacation, leaving Carole, the blonde girl, at home.  She only has to do two things: go to work as normal, and drop off the rent money.  She fails at doing both.  Eventually she locks herself in the apartment and breaks down.

Question: Is the cracking of the walls supposed to represent the cracking of her fragile psyche? Because that is just way too literal a way to emphasize this. I did not like this at all. 

It's just a crack in the sidewalk. The director allows your
dirty mind to figure out what she's really looking at.

This film stands out as it portrays a character with mental illness from their point of view. We can tell she has suffered some form of abuse as she is untrusting, even afraid of all men, even ones who care about her.  This is confirmed by the photo at the end of her as a child glaring in quiet rage at her father.  I will give this film a 6/10.

Flaming Creatures (1963)

Huh. I did not know anyone could film a movie with a potato.

  

This was listed as an "experimental" film, which means it should be innovative. What is innovative about this film? Certainly not the camera technique. That was the equivalent of me handing my two-year-old a camera and letting her run wild around the house. Most of the movie made me feel very dizzy. I do not like feeling this way.

When I say "filmed with a potato", this expression doesn't even come close to describing how blurry and unfocused the footage is. They must have bought the cheapest camera they could find at K-mart and made this movie.

What is this movie about? Good question. The first part is an instructional video on how to put on lipstick. Then we see some penises. And maybe a few boobies, but then mostly penises. I was unable to get a proper head count (lol penis joke) because the footage was so grainy.  There is no story at all, just a few sexual acts and people with bad makeup jobs and naked guys. Kind of like college.

The only reason this film ever got any notoriety is because it was seized by the police for being indecent. They should have just seized it for being awful. I'll give this film a 3/10.

Animal Farm (1954)

First of all, this is not a cartoon for young children. I can see it being shown for a History or social studies class for middle or high school.  It's not meant to be strictly for entertainment, but was okay.

Here's what happens: the animals of a farm unite and overthrow their farmer/master, who is a drunk loser.  The animals agree to have an autonomous commune and live in peace working together. The pigs, who are legitimately the most intelligent and human-like of the group, start using their intelligence to their own advantage. They take control, and eventually move into the farmhouse, becoming more human-like as the days go on.  Eventually the animals realize that the pigs are no better than the farmer they kicked out!

The movie is an allegory to communism/socialism or something. I didn't read the book in school and I don't intend to now.  I feel really bad for Boxer the horse.  He worked so hard to help everyone, and when he was injured, instead of calling the veterinarian, the pigs sold him to a glue factory.  That is hardcore cold.

What did I learn? The communist system cannot work because some people are naturally leaders and others followers.  People with more ambition and intelligence can use this to their advantage against other people. For example, I spent 15 minutes today explaining to a client that the second floor is above the first floor.  Some people are corrupt and want power and can hurt people to gain this (like the pigs who take control of everything). This film has some interesting concepts, and it's decently drawn. So I'll give it a 6/10.