BBQ Films' Gabriel Rhoads: The Culture Brats Interview

When it comes to movie madness, cinephiles have a wide array of celluloid maniacs to choose from. It's hard to believe then, that only a little over 13 years ago we shuffled into the theater to meet Patrick Bateman, the chainsaw wielding godfather of the original soulless yuppie murder spree. It didn't take much to set him off (Was your apartment in a better location? Were your business cards printed with better quality ink?) and getting a bad table at an exclusive Manhattan restaurant could reduce him to tears, but there was something hauntingly familiar and funny about a guy who could wax poetic on the musical merits of Huey Lewis And The News or Whitney Houston before burying a hatchet in the back of your skull.

We recently spoke with Gabriel Rhoads of BBQ Films, a company that have a talent for resurrecting the movies we love with accompanying fan fare, touching a nerve with a movie-loving culture that's come to embrace and revere the films that captured a moment in our lives. In what promises to be one of the best, albeit perhaps the most unhinged, birthday events of the year, this cutting-edge cinema social club is hosting an no-holds barred 27th year celebration for Patrick in honor of his very important birthday. We expect every bit of '80s decadence you could possibly imagine when we roll back the clock at the Tribeca Grand Underground to give the man his due.

I want to start out talking about the BBQ Films event that's coming up celebrating Patrick Bateman's 27th birthday at the Tribeca Grand Underground with a screening of one of my all time favorite movies: American Psycho. Can I ask you to give our readers an idea of what attendees can expect when they get there?
Absolutely. What BBQ Films does is, we take a film and we create an immersive experience for that film. So everything from '80s VIP, just like Patrick Bateman's world, is how folks are going to be welcomed into the event. The velvet ropes, I don't know if you've ever personally been to the Tribeca Grand Underground, but it's a fabulous space down there, which when well lit looks very much like 1980s. It's very LUX down there. All of our guests are going to be in for a treat. We do many of these in warehouse locations in Brooklyn but this is going to be a luxury club so folks are going to walk in the door, they are going to have, obviously, time-relevant music like Huey Lewis And The News, Genesis and of course Whitney Houston.

There is going to be a theme performance by The Silent Drape Runners who will actually break down a Whitney Houston song for us. We'll have a 1980s themed photo booth with Robert Palmer themed back up dancers dancing for you, Pierce & Pierce employees and secretaries interacting with you while you grab your cocktails and explore the space. Oh and we always, always have our gourmet BBQ Films popcorn.
We believe very much in the experiential immersion in film so we always have our twenty five dollar ticket for folks to come and immerse themselves in the experience and view the movie but we also have seating in the private screening room as well. That's a few extra drinks and a really nice seat. We also have the higher priced ticket which we call "The Tunnel" where you get bottle service and you are treated just like Patrick Bateman. Oh and we introduced the thousand dollar floor level tickets called the "Indochine." A limo will pick you up at your location anywhere in the five boroughs and you stop by to pick up one of our actors for an immersive theatrical experience. You are in a private room with a private security detail, bottle service, full meal, and all sorts of surprises.

That one sounds delightful, but a little scary. Do you get a chainsaw and white sneakers with that package?
Actually, funny you should mention that. We introduced the "Dorsia" level, which is everything that you get in the other levels plus a custom Valentino suit and a chainsaw! Unfortunately, the Dorsia is unavailable. I'll let you in on a little secret, it was never available.

Bret Easton Ellis: Famed Novelist, Screenwriter, And Nasty Tweeter

Ever since I heard The Canyons was going to be made, I have been out of my skin excited. The idea is pure Bret Easton Ellis, the casting is both genius and ironic, and now it seems the filmmakers are creating a meta-awareness of making a movie about Hollywood. Originally billed to be a dark drama, this current trailer goes the way of a pulp story.

I first read American Psycho in 1998 when I was still in college, and it blew my mind. I was a women's studies major, so I was conflicted with my obsession over this novel. One of the most violent, misogynist, graphic novels ever suddenly made me fall in love with literature. The author, Bret Easton Ellis, became a literary sensation at age twenty-one with the nihilist, depressing Less Than Zero, which established him as the author with the monopoly on writing about the empty, self-loathing of the incredibly wealthy and good-looking. I quickly devoured his four other novels, chastising myself that it took so long for me to discover my literary god.

However, after his 1998 novel Glamorama, there was a stretch of seven years before his next novel, Lunar Park, was published. The late nineties was still at the beginning of the internet, so not much was known about Ellis, and I always wondered how such a person could have such a sick, twisted, but brilliant mind. I mean, if you couldn't find anyone on the internet, they may as well been a recluse.

Fast forward fifteen years and the rise of Twitter, which Ellis seemed to latch onto and has never looked back. His tweets are equal parts bitchy, honest, controversial, intellectual, and sardonic. For a while, he was incessantly tweeting about his desire to adapt the most famous mommy-porn book in the world, Fifty Shades Of Grey, and shared his stream of consciousness and most recently, expressed his annoyance at the selection of writer Kelly Marcel to adapt the screenplay:

The Canyons is Already My Favorite Movie Of All Time

Sometimes I feel like films are made to satisfy the mindless drones of America, who will ingest anything based on a child's toy or breakfast cereal. Once in awhile, a film is produced that seems to be custom made for me. And that film is The Canyons.

Firstly, it is written by Bret Easton Ellis, the '80s Wunderkind who introduced the world to making literature out of the lives of emotionally empty, morally corrupt, disgustingly rich youth with the novels Less Than Zero and American Psycho. Ellis's work is not for the weak of soul or the weak of stomach, but it is brilliant and oft imitated, although not successfully. His later novels have not garnered the same critical success, but Ellis has taken his gift of the word to Twitter, where he shares many of his unpopular opinions and blunt critique of today's culture. He's like a bitchy version of This American Life.

Many have tried to adapt Ellis's novels into films, but it is a nearly impossible feat. (Rules Of Attraction was the most accurate adaptation but completely underrated and misunderstood.) For The Canyons, Ellis is writing the screenplay; this is his first. Instead of going the route of a major studio, he and director Paul Schrader have jumped on the Kickstarter bandwagon to raise funds. According to the Kickstarter, the film "documents five twenty-something's quest for power, love, sex and success in 2012 Hollywood." Sounds like the perfect job for Bret Easton Ellis.

And in one of the most exciting Hollywood casting announcements, he tweeted that Linsday Lohan and James Deen have been cast as two of the leads. To me, this was like Christmas, Hannukah, my birthday, and Labor Day all in one for me.

First of all, I have made it my life's work to defend Lindsay Lohan. I am about two DUIs away from making a YouTube video where I scream "Leave Lindsay alone!" Seriously, don't people realize that she has such a troubled life because the public keeps crapping all over her? She can't win. If she puts herself in rehab, there's scorn. Her every move is criticized, not to mention that her horrible excuses of human beings, her parents, have been exploiting her fame and using her as a pawn in their own pursuits. I know Lindsay has talent; we all loved Mean Girls. She just needs the right role, the right part, and she'll have an indie comeback bigger than Travolta in Pulp Fiction. This role is perfect for her. She's LIVED it. And Ellis wrote the role with her in mind. This is it, guys. You're about to take back all the Lindsay hate.