Rave reviews (WEEK 5):

American Psycho's Review: 

"American Psycho" is the story of Patrick Bateman, a rich, arrogant, twenty-something yuppie in 1980’s New York, who also happens to be an insane serial killer. He is the quintessential citizen of consumer society who consumes the victims of his insanity, all with the same disengaged obsession he uses in choosing outfits. There is no real plot, no consistent timeline, rather it is told as a series of events from Bateman’s point of view. Furthermore there is no real character development; Bateman does not seem to see his “friends” or acquaintances as people, instead, he observes them as objects. He does not describe those he comes across by their physical characteristics or their personalities, but rather by what they are wearing and who designed it. At times these descriptions can get downright tedious, but I believe that this is the way Bateman perceives everything… as blatantly boring. His only concerns seem to be his appearance, women (hard bodies) and the murderous things he wants to do to them, how much items cost, the videotape rentals he has to return, and what was on the Patty Winters Show that morning. 

(Extracted from the webpage: https://americanpsychoandcensorship.weebly.com/summary-of-american-psycho.html).

• Review: Having read the novel by Easton-Ellis a year ago I was intrigued to find out how it could be made into a movie.
  
  Whilst turned off by the totally unnecessary details of Bateman's crimes in the book, I felt that Easton's insight into superficial 80's yuppie culture made it a classic.
  
  Who could play a credible Bateman? Leonardo Di Caprio? I think not.
  
  How would Mary Harron deal with those controversial torture scenes?
  
  What we got was one of the finest movies I have seen for some time. Of course, those of closed minds will slate this film without even bothering to see it, simply because of the book's notoriety.
  
  I was impressed to see how closely Harron followed the book, replacing the un-filmable scenes with a suggestion, aka ear-cutting scene from reservoir dogs so that you believe you have seen more than you have. There are more parallels with Tarantino, such as the use of classic (& non-classic) 80's pop to create a stylised feel to the movie, that has not been seen since Pulp Fiction.
  
  The casting was superb, with Cristian Bale giving the performance of a lifetime, We, the audience, saw the soulless monster within, Bateman's superficial acquaintances, saw another faceless human being.
  
  Just like the book, you are never sure whether Bateman's crimes are real, or just imaginary, but his slide into insanity is clearly real and paced expertly by Bale.
  
  Reese Witherspoon as Evelyn was disappointing, "Election" showed what a great actress she is and although this role called for an airhead performance, it was clear that she was cruising.
  
  Mary Harron deserves the credit for creating an excellent film, that could have so easily been just another slasher movie.

 (Review from the page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/reviews).

This review compares the book with the movie, something that always worries the audience. In this case, the movie follows the order and all the details described in the novel. The cast is right for this movie, and the crime scenes, the strongest, are also very successful. The author of this review also compares scenes from this film with some scenes of Quentin Tarantino's films. This review is very good, with a clear language and vocabulary and hooks to watch the movie.

Finally, this week I started reading a book in English called "Dead Famous", written by Ben Elton. The novel is about a murder that occurs on a reality television programme called House Arrest, which is very similar to the program Big Brother, and the efforts of three police officers to identify the killer by watching all the video recordings of the ten housemates while the remaining housemates continue the reality television show. The novel jumps back and forth in time to show the events in the live video recordings, leading up to the night of the murder, where the remaining eight housemates at the time had to remain in an Indian sweat box- an old-style sauna with a pitch-black interior, the intention being to prompt the housemates to have sex-; the victim left the box to go to the toilet and the killer apparently left the box wrapped in a sheet to conceal his or her identity and stabbed the victim twice in the neck and head.

Later, a note is found in an envelope that had been sealed weeks previously that says that the victim will be dead by the time the housemates read the note and that one of the three remaining housemates will be murdered. The police have to catch the killer before he or she strikes again.

The killer is revealed on the final night of the show to be the show's producer, who had set up the murder to attract increased ratings for the show, faking the video footage of the killer leaving the sweat-box with the aid of her deputy producer; Detective Coleridge, an amateur actor, provokes a confession by creating fake video evidence of the producer's rehearsal murders.

LORENA CONESA MARTÍNEZ.