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Do you think with the dawning of a new era..
That 80's nostalgia
Will become to our culture
In our present clime
What 50's nostalgia became
To the 80's era
Almost to the fault of a crime?
But I find that movies set in the 1980's bear no resemblance at all to the 1980's that I lived through (graduated high school in 1980, college in 1984). Maybe one of these movies will bring some actual memories - who knows?
But why would you expect anything from a Bret Easton Ellis adaptation but pure unrelenting debauchery? Has the man every created a character that's likeable? I might not have lived like the characters in "Rules of Attraction" but that movie completely defines the over-entitled slut bags that were my classmates as a liberal arts undergrad (I think that book took place in the 80's, I was an '03 grad and the themes were all still relevant). Similarly, while not everyone in the 80s were coke-snorting Hollywood types, I believe Ellis was painting a portrait of those types because they were the most prevalent in his peripherals at the time. Not to defend a movie that I've never seen, but as an avid BEE fan, I wanted to pipe up. As you mentioned at the start of your review, it sounds to me that the problem here is the movie adaptation comes too long after its relevance.
The only way you can make a silk purse from the sow's ear that is an Ellis novel is give it a completely different perspective. Hence, the woman-directed American Psycho. The book was one of the worst I'd ever read, but the movie was fantastic.
just...LOL!!!