Less Than Zero is obviously bad, and we don’t need to talk about why that didn’t work. And American Psycho—that is, I think, an impossible book to adapt. But whatever, it was the greatest hits from the book, more or less. Mary did a very good job of keeping that movie together, as did Christian Bale, and I think Roger did a terrific job. And with The Informers, I think there is really an outstanding movie floating out there somewhere, and I hope one day people might be able to see it. But it’s very interesting. I am not comparing The Informers to The Godfather on any level, but there’s that famous story where Paramount asked Coppola to cut like an hour out of the movie, because they didn’t want to release a three-hour movie. And Coppola did, and showed it to the executive, and it was terrible. It moved very slowly at two hours. And then when he put the other hour back in, it moved very quickly. And that’s all I want to say about The Informers.
Scott Tobias has a very interesting interview with Bret Easton Ellis at the A.V. Club, in which the author/screenwriter of this week’s The Informers admits to not liking the cut of that film that’s being released, and assesses the other filmic adaptations of his work, concluding that Roger Avary’s The Rules of Attraction is the only one that “fully works.” He also describes the upcoming American Psycho musical as “like a multimedia rave situation,” so take that for what you will…
In better news for the legacies of Andrew McCarthy and James Spader, there’s a new Pretty in Pink video game, and it’s apparently awesome. Or, at least, better than a Clueless video game made by the same people. It also allows complete lunatics with a thing against upward mobility to rewrite history by having Andie end up with Duckie instead of Blaine. Insert mid-80s version of “FAIL” here.
A bit of context from the same interview:
BEE: I learned that you really don’t have any control as a writer. Waah, waah, waah. [Laughs.] Big deal. Unless you’re the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don’t have a lot of control. As someone who’s just writing scripts, you just kind of have to shrug. I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general. It is what it is. It seems that I’ve had some issues about this particular project. I think it stems from the fact that I’m much more sensitive because it’s based on a book of mine. And also, it is the first script I’ve written that has actually made it to the screen. I’m very touchy about it. Someone told me yesterday, “Oh, you know, it’s on the ’net that you really hate The Informers,and you’re really down on it.” And I had to look this thing up. The headline was, “Does Bret Easton Ellis hate The Informers?” Because of some online interview I did, there’s this suggestion that I’m not truly happy with the movie. But no, that’s not true at all. I’m friendly with Gregor and the producers and…
I actually like Less Than Zero as a movie. Grant it, there were some things that could have gone a little smoother, a stronger story line. For the time it was made, it worked in my opinion. I just watched it last night actually.
American Psycho, well that was a fabulously crazy movie. It was very interesting and confusing .. and like Fight Club, every time you watch it you see so much more.
Rules of Attraction was very strange. I liked it and I can see how Ellis likes it the most. This one has more of that true grit, no classic movie magic..
I have yet to see the Informers…
The 80’s rocked and Downey, Spader, McCarthy and Gertz were amazing actors of their time.