Until today, I associated Huey Lewis’ name with two thoughts: 1) He was the musical artist behind some of the most annoying pop hits of the 1980s; and 2) he showed his penis in Robert Altman’s 1993 film Short Cuts . But now that I’ve seen him in this Funny or Die American Psycho parody clip, I’m seriously considering forgiving him for giving me a decade-long headache and adding him to my list of secret geniuses. The clip is a real mind-fuck: it’s satirizes a scene that satirized Lewis’ music in a movie that satirized 1980s commercialism and greed, and it also stars master parodist (and longtime secret genius) Weird Al Yankovic in the victim role originally played by Jared Leto . (I’ve included it below for the sake of comparison.) How’s that for meta? Lewis’ aping of Christian Bale’ s performance, while the original scene plays on a TV right next to him, is particularly impressive, and I love Yankovic’s crack about the newspapers covering the floor. And the coup de gras is that the clip is used to promote the back catalogs of both artists. The Funny or Die clip features “I Want A New Drug,” off Lewis’ most successful album, Sports , which turns 30 in September. That single spawned Yankovic’s “I Want A New Duck,” which was not one of his best, and, well, let’s just say he pays for his sins. I swear, you could build an New York University Tisch School of the Arts class around deconstructing this clip. The other secret genius involved in this enterprise: Funny or Die director/editor PatB , who also did the very funny “Oscar’s Best Handjob Award” video, which I’ve posted at the bottom. I hope there’s a feature in this guy’s future. WATCH: Huey Lewis Kills In American Psycho Parody WATCH: American Psycho : The Original Pat B: Oscar’s Best Handjob [ Funny or Die ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Original post:
‘American Psycho’ Parody — Huey Lewis Kills In Funny Or Die Bit
