You Like?
By TIM DAVID HARVEY
(For the first of the New Year, by now you might be familiar with our #SceneStealing feature birthed after 2020's lockdown. One that takes a deeper look at key scenes from movies, but this time splits the latest edition in two...much like that Bateman axe did to the "bone" of Paul Allen's skull. Enjoy!)
WARNING: Contains mild spoilers for 'American Psycho' and 'The Outsider'.
"You like Huey Lewis and The News" (not much...I'm not 'Hip To Be Square')? Batman asks The Joker. I'm sorry. Christian Bale asks Jared Leto. Forgive me. Patrick Bateman asks Paul Allen. New York, 1980's. Displaying the jewel case from his CD rack like "Steve who?" as Jared just slumped on a couch with newspaper all around him looks as bored as he does young. More interested than the whiskey dissipating in the bottom of his glass instead of if Bale is redecorating or not (he's about to...in a shade of burgundy). "Ahh...they're okay," he barely replies in a less than sober stupor to that classic line as the look Christian gives him in return just says, "well you're f#####g stupid". Shrugging it off as he continues what he leant next to his sound system to say. Dialling it to eleven. "They're early work was a little bit too 'new wave' for my taste" the business man says strolling over in oversized Capone pinstripes. But when 'Sports' came out in '83 that's when he really comes into his own like News did. Commercially and artistically. "The whole album has a clear, crisp sound" he continues excitedly whilst heading into the bathroom and grabbing what looks like the shower curtain..."and a new sheen of consummate professionalism". It's not a shower curtain...one wouldn't fit that well. Pills. Cold water. A look in the bathroom mirror on reflection, even icier. Sliding through with the whitest moonwalk you've ever seen, as he runs through Elvis Costello comparisons...WAIT! Is that a bat?! NO! Turns out this Bate's man has an axe to grind over a business card and in a minute nothings going to be subtle off-white about the finishing of this room. NOW Jared's Allen asks about the newspaper, forget the News. "Do you have a dog. A little chow or something", an obnoxious laugh. "No Allen!" "Is that a raincoat?" "YES IT IS!" Bale's Bateman replies, finishing buttoning it up and walking past Leto's slight, sobered protesting, second guessing finger if it wasn't for the two in his glass to continue his Huey Lewis monologue. "In '87 Huey released this (that point as the music plays loud enough for the neighbours to call the cops...they're going to have to), 'Four', their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is (and there's that shimmy and walk), 'Hip To Be Square'" as the song plays like the good ole days. "A song so catchy, people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should". Know why? Because otherwise they'll get chopped in the cranium like wood? Well that and "it's not just about the the pleasures of conformity" too. It's also a personal statement about the band itself. "HEY PAUL!"
"You like whiskey?" Now the answers more definite than Huey Lewis and the News this time. "Yeeah (what are you f#####g kidding me?)!" "I have got a surprise for you". 1950's Osaka and a slicked back Jared Leto with sullen sockets of an older man with the weight of the world is further east. Walking through the Japanese backstreets of diners fresh off the grill and bars on taps. Suited and booted "like a lounge singer", he's cock of the walk until someone really about to go 'Into The Wild' calls his name. "NICK!" "NICK F#####G LOWELL" Emile Hirsch halfway house asks and exclaims as he rises from his table in all his stars and stripes. Leto looks around to see if his cover is blown. "You got to be (same sentiment in epic expletiveness) kidding me!" 'Is that you's' all around in recognition. "You look pretty f#####g good for a dead man," he proclaims. Shove! Leto doesn't play that s###. Woah, Woah. Emile was just kidding. Barrack ball busting. He's on weekend leave. "Let me buy you a drink". Five minutes for an old friend...captain. Where? Okinawa. Bull#### tour of duty after they (America) dropped the first one (you know what we're talking about). That's his mission. Nick's old friend asks him if he has a place out here in Kansai. Sparse reply like the consideration. "You weren't always so calm and quiet", he nicely needles. "You know that?" He adds with more serious warning to his comrade. "Well maybe you just didn't know me so well" comes the retort. Half humor. Half hard heart. All that's left is a few more days leave. Maybe time to come by and see his place. "NO!" No? Five minutes are up. That's how it is. Can't even drink with a guy from your own unit. Even if he rolls out the bills to pay. "F You!" If Emile didn't know any better, he'd think Jared's Nick was dodging court martial out here in the land of the rising sun playing gangs with the yakuza. I wonder what they guys will say when he tells them who he bumped into. NOW his covers blown. "Someone would love to pay you visit" threats. Apologies. Now how about that drink? For old times. I hope he keeps a raincoat at home because this all sounds familiar. Back to the lair. A couple of Buds for his old bud who can see half of Osaka from his apartment and walks back the threat with "secret safe with me" security. Hirsch sees the good thing Jared's got here. Don't worry. "I always liked you." "Jesus man", sucking on suds. What a world. What a life. Here comes the whiskey business of that surprise. "Do your best" Emile says to the last. Oh...he will. That wine opener looks strangely like its switching to something else. Something that could redecorated his apartment from the neck down the way he treats this same vein like a letter opener as Leto gets to work. Message received in the blade of a reply. "I'm sorry." He means it. But revenge is always served this iced out like a few cold ones.
Cinematic callbacks are always classic. Back in the new millennium of the year 2000, Jared Leto's life was a 'Requiem Of A Dream'. Starring in classic movies like this and the iconic classic 'Fight Club' we just can't help talk about like its birthing of the beginning of the twist era. All whilst this Academy Award winning actor made even more hits than he took in that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton movie with his breaking band Thirty Seconds To Mars and their 'Beautiful Lie' that would come a half decade later before all their out of this world 'War', 'City Of Angels' and 'Love, Lust, Faith + Dreams'. But it's his cameo in Christian Bale's crazy coming out party for you squares that exists in the canon...or should we say woodshed. Jared Leto went on to win an Oscar like Matthew McConaughey for the definitive 'Dallas Buyers Club' and play the iconic Batman villain in DC's 'Suicide Squad' villain movie deal that finally gave us Harley Quinn and the actress born to play her, Margot Robbie. The man who previously seldom did movies (who has since changed that stance) even had a compelling cameo in the beautiful blockbuster 'Blade Runner' sequel in '2049'. But for most he's still the guy who got axe murdered for having a better business card than Bruce Wayne. The fact that he played the Clown Prince of Crime a decade and a half later is just classic and meant to be coincidence. But what's more so is what came two years later in Japan the same year he released 'AMERICA' in 30 Seconds. Back in his Osaka apartment, sleazy neon instead of the Empire State in view, Leto gets his revenge for what Bale did to him all those years back. But this time in the amazing atmosphere and fifties Japanese aesthetic of this Netflix movie it's "you like whiskey", not Huey Lewis. Now how's this for news? 'Once Upon A Time In...Hollywood' star Emile Hirsch getting it in the neck worse than he did by 'Dallas Buyer' McConaughey in 'Killer Joe' instead of the business end of a tree surgeon. And his characters name? PAULIE! Now let's see his card. Now let's see Jared's new deal. "We live in a society"...where Zack Snyder has just given his version of The Joker a new cut for HIS 'Justice League' that's about to take it to the max on HBO featuring a Knightmare scene as cool as that coat in the 'Dawn Of Justice' one. "Isn't that right...BATMAN!" Goodbye damaging tattoos and Joaquin Phoenix's outstanding Oscar win kicking him out of Gotham like those puddles on the iconic staircase scene. The joke is back on this supervillain Jared who is also about to play with James Gunn's 'Squad' like Idris Elba instead of Will Smith Deadshot and get his teeth into Marvel anti-hero 'Morbius' as soon as we're done with coronavirus (can't even suck blood these days). What did you want more? Well, if you want a little undead preview than halfway house between Morbius and Manson, Leto's award turn nomination in his latest movie is more than 'Little Things' like the big beard, long hair and lack of sleep in those devilish eyes. In an Oscar winning big three with Denzel Washington and the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' of Mercury rising Queen King, Rami Malek, Jared shows the forthcoming Bond bad how to play a real vile villain. One so creepy, yet undeniably charismatic in his compelling characterization. How can we marvel (no pun intended) at something so menacing ("11 more and you've got a calendar" he replies to Washington showing him a photo of a dead girl he might have murdered), even in this true crime obsessed Netflix age? "Oh poop!" Either way, right now Jared is the s### and this is his year after all the Joker card cuts and whitewashing claims leaving him an 'Outsider'. He got his revenge in said movie from his own home invasion and now creaking back from under the career floorboards he's about to floor us once again. Don't believe us then how about this...you like magic tricks?
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