American Psycho [2000)

This is a terrifying movie.

A sick joke.

It’s funny, in parts.

And dripping with irony.

But the overwhelming characteristic of it is the disturbing nature of what is represented on film.

Indeed, American Psycho suspends disbelief (the jokes not withstanding) to inflict psychological terror on those who see this film.

Some viewers may not seem to be bothered.

They are either masochists.

Or they lack imagination.

But let me tell you my own frame of reference:  pizzagate.

Go ahead.  Look it up.

It is going viral on several media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube.

And it is just what I was talking about prior to the U.S. election.

Pizzagate is the theory that John and Tony Podesta, along with James Alefantis and his Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., are involved in a kidnapping and child trafficking ring for pedophiles who rape and then murder their young victims.

Another pizzeria ostensibly used for ritualistic sex murders might be the neighboring Besta Pizza (besta, as in beast).

There is an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence which points to the above being true.

But I cannot outline the entire conspiracy here.

Suffice it to say that dead babies, dead children, dead teenagers were potentially the fruits of these incredibly strange and evil proceedings.

As I have mentioned in the past, the organization through which this pedo ring is likely being run is the Clinton Foundation.

There are further revelations which seem to tie Department of Justice employees Andrew Kline and Arun Rao to this Satanic pedo ring.

Mr. Kline owns Besta Pizza.

[Update 12/16/16:  The ownership of Besta Pizza is in question.  There seems to be two Andrew Klines at issue.  Further, it appears that other persons may share ownership in this establishment.]

Mr. Alefantis was lovers with David Brock of Correct the Record and Media Matters.

And that’s where George Soros comes in.

Soros has given five-figure donations to Comet Ping Pong on multiple occasions.

And we can’t forget Jeffrey Epstein who used his plane (the Lolita Express) to make jaunts to his own private sex slave island in the Caribbean (I belive it’s in the Virgin Islands).

Bill and Hillary Clinton took multiple trips on Mr. Epstein’s Lolita Express.

Mr. Epstein is a registered sex offender.

Then there’s the Haitian angle.  When Laura Silsby was charged and jailed in Haiti for child trafficking.  Ms. Clinton was very interested in this case.

Put most simply, the information leaked by WikiLeaks has given researchers a cache of U.S. government documents written in a very strange code.

Pizza means girl.  Hotdog means boy.  Cheese means little girl.  Pasta means little boy.

Walnut means person of color or girl with undeveloped genitalia (uncertain).

Map means semen.  Sauce means orgy.

There are other codes involving handkerchiefs.  Indeed, there appears to be a long-standing code called “the handkerchief code”.

What I’ve written doesn’t even begin to describe the more lurid (and convincing) aspects of this citizen investigation.

But it did put me in the mindset to watch American Psycho.

I must say, this is a truly demented film.

I must have had two panic attacks watching this thing.

Because my mind keeps moving.

I certainly don’t want pizzagate to be true.

I hope it’s not true.

Because the carnage and evil wrapped up in it is almost unimaginable.

It’s sickening.  Disgusting.  Terrifying.  Revolting.  Terribly sad.

And those same words describe American Psycho pretty well.

In a technical sense, Mary Harron made a very fine film.

But I question her motives for doing so.

The sheer level of violence in this film is shocking.

In fact, it appears that the Hollywood mechanism is to make young people think killing is cool and normal (even gory ax murders) and make them think this by lacing the drama with humor and laughs.

It is a bizarre, insidious concoction.

I’m failing to see the connection to the art horror films of Alfred Hitchcock.

Something more sinister is going on here.

Set in 1987, Christian Bale is the psycho.

But he also (no doubt) represents white people in general.

He represents the conservative element in America.

The propaganda, then, is that conservatives are really (deep down inside) psychopathic, cold-hearted serial murderers.

What is REALLY ironic is that the Clinton pizzagate is (so far) populated solely by liberals.

And Hollywood is thoroughly liberal.

And so there’s a strange message being set up here.

We question the inspiration for this film.

And the characters who came to give the story life.

The acting is fantastic.  Christian Bale is great.

But I don’t see the point in making this film.

What could an actor possibly get out of playing such a role?

What could a director get out of directing such a film?

Is it really just for money?

Perhaps Hollywood knows that the American viewing audience is very desensitized as a result of decades of ultra-violent movies.

And so this one had to ratchet it up a notch.

The story is fundamentally sound.  [barring a few truly questionable scenes]

Hitchcock would have made a masterpiece from such a story.

But American Psycho just leaves me sick.

It’s a sick sense of humor which Hollywood seems to share.

That death is fun.  That killing is liberating.  It’s truly a psychotic ethos.

And so I leave my readers with a warning (for the first time ever).

See this film only in the practice of opposition research.

Furthermore, exercise extreme caution in watching this film.

It is engineered to make you psychologically and physically ill.

I’m glad to be more informed, but I never want to see this gratuitous filth again.

 

-PD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top Secret! [1984)

And so we come full-circle.

As in the olden days.

When we first started.

Writing about spy spoofs.

And this is a doozy!

Val Kilmer’s first film.

As Nick Rivers.

Very much Elvis, but equally Beach Boys (at least on the opening number “Skeet Surfing”).

I would call this style of filmmaking “kitchen sink”.

It was a particular type of American comedy in the 1980s.

Fast jokes.

Set pieces.

Elaborate puns.

General silliness.

The setting is East Germany.

In the time of Markus Wolf and the Stasi.

Wolf retired in 1986.

The year after this film (1985), Vladimir Putin started his KGB career in East Germany.

But let’s talk about more important stuff…like how beautiful Lucy Gutteridge is!

A girl and a gun, said Godard.

And for a sequel, another girl and another gun…

Said I.

Port Said.

Fuad II.

Yes, Ms. Gutteridge plays the stunning Hillary.

Which roughly translates to “she whose breasts defy gravity”.

That’s a direct paraphrase.

What?

We almost get the Lawrence Welk Orchestra doing “Sister Ray”, but Nick Rivers and “Tutti Frutti” is close enough to alienate the visiting Russian operatic singer and his caricature faux-Nazi patron.

General Streck.

Not to be confused with Colonel Sturm or Sergeant Drang.

Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers (David and Jerry) strung us along the whole time.

And they directed a fairly decent film here…the triumvirate.

The Nutcracker turns out to be a ballet of literal protrusions.

The prop room is equally literal.

It’s both Joycean and daft.

But I had some genuine chuckles during this film.

They execute a priest as a demonstration.

And his Latin is a knee-slapping litany.

A greatest hits of that dead language.

Legal.  Medical.  String it together.  Make it flow.

Pig Latin.  Cow Latin.  Pidgin Latin.

Yes Elvis.  Yes Beach Boys.  And yes Beatlemania.

Sullivan.  Hysteria.  Hip sway.  Swooning.

Is it a bit of Fritz Lang with the magnifying glass?

Certainly prefigures the backmasking of Twin Peaks.

Swedish as a backwards language.

Like those hidden messages on (back to the) Beatles records.

I want to live in that loft of that Swedish bookstore…

clutching a volume of Strindberg and holding a Ms. Gutteridge.

How could anyone dream of more than two fireplaces at the top of a firehouse pole?

Many references.  The Blue Lagoon.  When Brooke Shields was just 14.

Like the Podestas, we end up next in the script at a pizza restaurant.

(!)

“Straighten Out the Rug” pulls out all the stops…and all the rugs…like Pejman Nozad on vitamins.

An incredibly detailed mock-up of the prison grounds complete with a toy train.

Bovine infiltration.

Eggs Benedict Arnold.

When instead of hollandaise, they’ve secretly replaced the sauce with Folger’s crystal gravy (on loan from the struggling PepsiCo).

While Trump protestors boycott every snack and cranny of this MNE.

But the dénouement is the underwater saloon brawl.

It is actually artful.  Postmodern.  High art in spite of itself.  Dodoism.

We must not forget the yeoman efforts of the great Omar Sharif in this film.

Sadly, Mr. Sharif passed away just this past year in his home country of Egypt.

At least he did not (presumably) need two hours of surgery to wipe the smile off his face.

“Who do you root for in the Virginia Slims tournament?”

“I always root against the heterosexual.”

“Do you know any good, white basketball players?”

“There are no good, white basketball players.”

All of this from the “Match?  Lighter.  Better still.” line which Robert Shaw sweated out of someone to fool his way into James Bond’s presence and trust for a short time…before he chose fish with red wine.

One wonders whether the East Berliners had the jelly-faced joy of seeing this arrogant Hollywood slap at the time of its release?

Most importantly, “kitchen sink” was the style of the ZAZ directors mentioned previously:  Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker.

Kentucky Fried Movie.  Airplane!  The Naked Gun films (with the exception of the last).

This really is a cute film.

And while most of it would have pushed the envelope for 1984, it would almost be a G-rated movie by today’s standards.

Still, there are some jawdropping moments…such as The Anal Intruder (with the Cuisinart on the shelf [in the jailhouse now]).

Turns out the Christopher Atkins character (played by Christopher Villiers) had gotten all the joys of the Russian sailors who rescued him…including sodomy, Karl Marx, Lenin, L. Ron Hubbard, and one more bloke.

And so we wonder…couldn’t the Butthole Surfers have made it into this film?

Just barely.

Three years later they would drop the masterpiece Locust Abortion Technician.

Ah, the Reagan era…

 

-PD