American Psycho: One Of My Very Faves AND #DirectedByWomen
Today is the 3rd day of the Directed By Women Worldwide Viewing Party, and I thought today's post (the rest of my Directed By Women posts are HERE) should be a simple one about one of my very favorite movies of all time, American Psycho. I actually didn't even know this was #DirectedbyWomen (like how I used the hashtag?) for years. I watch the shit out of movies, and make movie, and talk about and write about movies a lot, so I guess you might call me a movie buff. However, I am in no way one of those movie buffs that remembers directors and actors and quotes and passes movie trivia back and forth with my friends (except for a select few, their brains don't really hold that kind of trivia either). I have slowly, over time learned some names I can remember off the top of my head, but honestly that's not the info that I first seek about movies or the parts about movies that stick in my head.
So after years of loving that movie, I was happy to learn the director was Mary Herron and get that strange irrational pride that one gets when his/her people do well - my people being women, I guess...which is really too large of a group to be my people, but it makes me full of pride none the less.
I could write a lot about why I love American Psycho, but I don't really want to think too hard right now. What I will say is that it's truly a solid work with a lot to bite into, and on top of all that, it's incredibly entertaining to me. It also came to me at a time in my life when I was being entranced by movies in that sorta unique way that people moving into adulthood can be entranced by movies. It came out in 2000 when I was a sophomore in college and also when me and the AnC Movies crew were really starting to dig into making movies together. So the movies that struck me at that time just had more sparkle somehow, and they will always hold a special place in my heart; movies like Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut, The Royal Tenenbaums, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, Snatch, and in the top part of that list, American Psycho.
So to Mary Herron, who directed a movie that jerked around parts of my brain that hadn't been shifted before and made me think more deeply about the craft of movie-making, thank you. You made a kick-ass movie for sure.
Check out The Notorious Bettie Page and I Shot Andy Warhol (which I also really love) from Ms. Herron too!
Also, for fun, the American Psycho trailer