American Psycho is like the gayest book ever written and I said it is pretty gay because Patrick Bateman is so fuckin' gay In the 1980s and 90s novelist Bret Easton Ellis captured more fully than anyone the excitement and ennui of a wealthy and smug America that was stumbling without knowing it into a new century filled with terror, disruption and generalized hostility
In the book and movie versions of Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction and American Psycho Ellis dissected what happens to a society in which depth of feeling becomes synonymous with failure to thrive Fuck you! In this century Ellis is back in his hometown of Los Angeles writing and producing movies with the likes of Lindsey Lohan and porn star James Deen whose shambled personal lives might as well have been scripted by Ellis in one of his most darkly comic moments He's also putting out one of the most engaging and insightful podcasts available on Pateron talking with everyone from Kanye West to Rose McGowan to veteran writer/director Walter Hill about the ways in which the entertainment industry is built upon an unstable foundation of economic, sexual and political hypocrisy Corporate culture is the reason why James Gunn got fired Not Mike Cernovich and not, like, no
It is corporate culture Reason talked with Ellis in his LA condo about the ways in which Hollywood is failing to come to terms with ever changing methods of production and distribution What he sees as the excesses of the MeToo movement and our rapidly changing online public discourse I think the Mark Duplass apology is one of the most depressing things that happened in this year How can someone you really like and you had a good time with and he's one of the good ones over there, whatever Mark Duplass said, 48 hours later be a racist, homophobic, piece of shit, jerk
We'll also get to the undeniable appeal of Donald Trump not just in small town America, but to denizens of Beverly Hills And we'll talk about the aesthetic and political implications of a world in which American movies are increasingly made with an eye towards pleasing audiences and governments in foreign countries
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