Super Cool American Psycho Video: A Rambling, Bile Filled Rant

By Knarf Black XIV
Professional Malcontent

Watch this music video from actor/singer/celebrity lookalike Miles Fisher, who is apparently most famous as "Tom Cruise on Oprah" in the instant cinematic classic, Superhero Movie:

Pretty neat huh? He looks just like Christian Bale! (If Mr. Bale and Mr. Cruise had a creepy baby together.)

I'm not going to blame you for having that reaction (and I certainly won't blame you for going "Huh?" if you haven't seen the movie) as I had it too. A few minutes later, I suddenly realized that this was a huge piece of shit with absolutely no reason to exist.

Don't get me wrong, the technical prowess of those involved is not in question. The video is extremely well produced and the Talking Heads cover is... not as bad as it could be, I guess. Okay, so I have nothing good to say about the pitch corrected butchering of a personal favorite, but my dislike of the song is not my real beef with this particular slice of Internet pie.

My issue is that it lacks a soul, or at least a reason to exist outside of "Hey, that'll get us some YouTube hits!" Is there some kind of biting satire in the juxtaposition of David Bynre's love song to a floor lamp and Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis? Possibly, but it's certainly not something that didn't already exist in either of the adapted works of art. The point of a mash up (as far as Knarf is concerned) is a dialectical combination of two disparate works in order to create new meaning. American Psycho and 'This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)' create no dialectic energy together because they are thematically similar. The irony of juxtaposing a simple love for 'home' and the hollow existence of Patrick Bateman can already found in the song's subtly downbeat tone and the film's biting satire. Really the only song more obvious and 'on the nose' for this video would have been 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache' by Roxy Music.

Without irony or dialectic frisson, we are left with the viral video equivalent of a Dane Cook "joke." It shows up on stage, references shared experiences so the audience can feel connected to the performer and each other, then flails its arms in a hollow simulation of entertainment.

Oh, good for you.

As Internet culture continues expanding at a geometric rate, I fear that this is its sad future. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with the endless splintering of niches and subcultures; a full ecosystem of memes can spawn incredible post-modern weirdness that the pioneers of Dada couldn't have even begun to imagine. Example: Selleck Waterfall Sandwich. The risk is that we will mistake breadth for depth, expansion for evolution.

Sure referencing awesome songs and films will garner your YouTube videos a plethora of hits, but at the cost of further calcification of whatever niche(s) you are representing.

My apologies for the lack of teh funnies in this post. Allow me to make amends:

Butts.

The Day I Lost my Faith in Humanity: Cheers To You!

Merton Sussex, Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse





Let me state for the record that this is a real product. It's not an SNL spoof, a practical joke or an April Fool's prank. You can buy this. And I'm sure some people have.

Ladies and Genitals, I present: "Cheers to You."



I don't have the words.

The sort of people who would buy this are the same people who rely on the laugh tracks on sitcoms to tell them when something is funny. The same sort of people who carefully read the directions every time they use a Band-Aid. They're the whole reason why Velcro shoes were invented.

Look, thanks to life and its travails, we all eat a ration of shit once in awhile. Sometimes, more than our fair share. But if you're so hard-of-thinking that a disembodied voice accompanied by curtain-call noises is all it takes to shatter your funk? I'm guessing you could stand to eat just a little more. I'd even be willing to share some of MINE with you, because you're clearly not getting enough.

Oh, and as long as I'm on the subject...Why didn't I think of this?!? I'd have sold you a recording of an ass-load of empty, non-specific sunshiny fluff over clapping people for HALF what these schmucks are getting. Christ, for twenty-five bucks, I'll come to your house PERSONALLY and tell you to your FACE that you're not a loser...even though if you need to pay for a service like that, you automatically are. Toss in a beer and/or a sandwich, and I'll even use your fucking name. Let's see a CD beat a level of personalized service like that! If ANYONE'S going to part that fool and his money, I want a piece of the action.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the makers of these little idiot-pacifying platters are laughing so hard on the way to the bank that they're hemorrhaging blood. Maybe it's just me, but the cheesy little "Hooray for YOOOOU!" that gets Scooter and his surplus of chromosomes up out of that chair at the end there sounds a little Christian Bale-esque, doesn't it?

"Oh, GOOOD for YOOOOOU!"

An Open Letter to Christian Bale

Dear Christian,

Worth a shot, no?

Sincerely,

The DoF Crew

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Breaking News

Hey, Everybody - Christian Bale's a DICK!

In American Psycho, he fascinated movie-goers with his untethered portrayal of Patrick Bateman, the serial-killing yuppie. In Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, he set the Caped Crusader standard. And in the Machinist, he like, got super skinny and stuff. But all of those characters are a mere footnote in the Bale filmography when compared to his most provocative and convincing role yet: World. Class. A-hole.

Per usual, the parasites at TMZ scooped everybody to bring you this exclusive audio recording of Bale in character:

(Click pic for audio. At work? Use headphones. The mean man says some naughty things.)

Indeed, his most plausible performance to date.

Seriously, though, Christian, EAT. A. DICK. In fact, in the words of Merton Sussex, eat ALL the dicks, you insufferable douche bag.

I know it's super stressful playing make believe for a living. THEN, add the indignity of getting paid a meager 10-mil. or so to do it, and well, life has definitely served up a bitter cocktail for you for to swallow. But lemons to lemonade, buddy. Lemons to lemonade. Brush it off.


UPDATE:

An enterprising DJ has already turned this into a nice little ditty.