Born with a Weak Heart? You Ain't Whistling Dixie

Monk put Cashback on the telly tonight. Aside from being one of the best films ever made on the subject of using time control to get a look at Keely Hazell's goods, it reminded me of how people can grow over time.

Until about a month ago there was a particular tune that, if I were to hear it, would make me feel physically ill. Psychologically, it was the equivalent of giving Superman a Kryptonite suppository. It used to be one of my favorite songs, full of nothing but good feelings and warm fuzzies. Funny how such a simple thing as a song on the radio can flip around and do a complete one-eighty like that. So the years passed, and the song remained forbidden to traipse across my cochlea under any circumstances.

It was verbotenmusik.

Then at some point in the second half of this summer, it all changed. It was a cover of that song, a radical departure from the old familiar tracks beaten deep and detailed into my neural pathways. I don't think that this alone would have been enough to tip the scales, but it turns out that the music video is slightly kind of awesome.

It's a picture-perfect homage to the feature film version of American Psycho.

Now, everybody has a pretty good recollection of what American Psycho looks like. Limousines, whores, that scene with the see-through parka. The video for Miles Fisher's cover of "This Must Be the Place" touches upon them all, and with an incredible eye for detail.

This is the video I'd make if I had to remake American Psycho and had nothing else better to do.

I took the liberty of doing some shot-for-shot comparisons of the actual film starring Christian "I Loved You in Empire of the Sun" Bale and Miles Fisher's loving homage. As I was making these shots I started to lose track of which shot had which origin.

In the original film, Patrick Bateman works out while watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In lieu of getting sued, they did a really nice replacement for what's on Fisher's TV.

Patrick loves to analyze contemporary music, to the point where you'd swear that Phil Collins was some kind of bard, a touchstone of whimsy and poetry unrivaled by Shakespeare or Byron. Fisher has a similar love for deconstructing the influences of David Byrne's early works, but in contrast to the ultra-wealthy Bateman, he must use the same stereo in his living room as he does in his bedroom when it's time to videotape some whores.

And who doesn't like a good double decker?

Note that instead of blood, they've used crimson ribbon. You know, because the original subject matter's trifecta of being decadent, homicidal, and gory was just a tad too much to roll into one music video.

In all, I was pretty much blown away by this video. Not because it was clever or well-crafted, but because it carved out a totally new channel inside my head and made an unlistentoable song listenable to once more. (It's a word. Look it up.) I give it seven thumbs up for that alone. Plus, it makes me want to watch American Psycho again.