13 Days of First-Time Frights: American Psycho

13 Days of First-Time Frights is a series of reviews for October 2019 where Douglas Laman, in the spirit of Halloween, watches and writes about thirteen horror movies he's never seen before. These reviews will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday as well as the last three Wednesdays of October 2019.

Entry #12: American Psycho

Christian Bale flew up to the status of super-stardom with portraying the titular superhero in Batman Begins, but much like future Batman performer Robert Pattinson, Bale spent his pre-Batman days doing a variety of bold smaller-scale films working with acclaimed filmmakers. For Bale, this meant getting to act under the guidance of names like Todd Haynes, Lisa Cholodenko and Jane Campion and also included the 2000 Mary Harron directorial effort American Psycho. This grisly social satire, adapted by a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, showed off the kind of acting chops that Bale would become famous for while also demonstrating Hanlon's knack for an insightful skewering of toxic masculinity.

Thoughtfulness And Gorgeous Visuals Are Very Much In Supply With Blade Runner 2049 (SPOILERS!!!!)

Discussing Blade Runner 2049 in any kind of detail requires spoilers, so be forewarned, this entire review is lathered in spoilers. Want a spoiler-free reaction to the movie? Then I shall tell you this is a great movie with beautiful visuals and thoughtful ideas. If you want to hear me get more in-depth then that, then read on but BEWARE OF SPOILERS

Requiem For A Dream Is An Uncompromising Slow-Burn Look At Addiction

Director Darren Aronofsky loves to put the characters in his movies through pain. Not just through conflict, he loves to toss the assorted individuals in his stories through a meat grinder of agony and then proceeds to hold the audience's eyes wide open as they witness these characters being incinerated. Keeping that in your mind, it should be no shocker that that Aronofsy's 2000 effort Requiem For A Dream (his first film to garner any sort of Oscar recognition) is entirely oriented around the process of destruction that, for varying reasons, consumes the lives of four different people in drastic ways.

J.K. Simmons Gets On Zack Snyder's Tempo, Will Play Commissioner Gordon In Justice League

After numerous false starts (one of which, back in 2007, even had George Miller onboard to direct!), a live-action Justice League movie is on the way from director Zack Snyder, with filming set to start on April 11, 2016. In terms of new characters in the film, there's no official word on who the bad guy of the production is, but some imagery from the Batman v. Superman promotional materials explicitly spells out the idea that Darkseid will factor heavily into the plot. But we do have word on another new character that'll be in the film, Commissioner Gordon, who will be played by J.K. Simmons in the film, and presumably will reprise the role in future DC Comics features like a solo Batman movie.

The First Photo of Jared Leto As The Joker Has Arrived!

With Batman v. Superman coming out next year, it's hard to remember sometimes that, hey. there's another DC Comics film headed your way as well! That other feature is the Suicide Squad, which centers on a group of various supervillains, including Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who do government issued missions. One member of the films cast is The Joker, played by Jared Leto, and you can see the first photo of him (which David Ayer, director of the movie, tweeted out tonight) below!

Full Suicide Squad Cast, With Tom Hardy, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie and Will Smith, Announced

The first post-Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice project for DC's new cinematic universe will be the David Ayer directed feature Suicide Squad, which centers on a group of supervillains hired by the government to embark on dangerous assignments. Rumors of casting had abounded for a while now, but the official cast has just been announced!!

Suicide Squad Casts Margot Robbie As Harley Quinn, Maybe Jared Leto As The Joker

The first DC Comics feature after Batman V. Superman will be Suicide Squad, which will be released on August 5, 2016. The film involves a group of supervillains who are recruited by the government to go on dangerous missions. It's the project I'm most excited for out of DC's forthcoming movies (even if I wasn't crazy about the last film, Fury, from the director of Suicide Squad, David Ayer), and now it looks like the cast is taking shape.