draketj98

I appreciated your detailed insight with regard to the ambiguity of reality around Bateman’s actions in the film. The moment in which I believe this becomes most apparent is the point at which Bateman is using an ATM machine that orders him to feed it a cat. Up until then, his actions were far-fetched but at least plausible for the most part. But once the ATM comes up, asking for one of the tell-tale signs of a budding serial killer (animal abuse), reality takes a step back. From that point on in the film, everything is questionable.

At first, I was surprised and a bit puzzled by the show’s addition of a Bates family member via Dylan. Since the inception of the show, though, he’s become just as interesting as Norman in many ways. Perhaps he represents the person Norman could’ve been had he not been under the domineering pressure of his mother. He serves as both a dramatic foil and a loving companion to Norman and even intertwines in possible romantic relationships at times. It interests me to see where the show will take Dylan. Maybe he’ll end up in the bottom of a swamp as a retcon for his lack of being mentioned in the original film, or maybe the show will take him all the way and mold the character for their own.

I found Full Metal Jacket to be profoundly interesting during the first act in the boot camp, masterfully insightful into human nature and the nature of war as “Gomer Pyle’s” spirit is broken in basic training. However, the second act of the movie, in which the men actually dare to venture into the war itself, seemed amorphous, distracted, and somewhat cheesy. It could essentially be equivalent to watching two separate movies were it not for the running times and the connection of Joker and the thousand-yard stare.