CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing (He/They)
I know, I know. I gotta fix that.
The First Rule of David Fincher is You Don't Rank David Fincher
- Thread starter Snarf Zagyg
- Start date
payn
Glory to Marik
Just jokin. Mank is pretty great, but its one of those films if you dont care about its subject and get the context it will likely bore you to tears. Which, is just like its subject matter Citizen Kane.
Vael
Legend
I'm only at 4 ... and I just saw Alien3 this last week. (Others being Social Network, Seven and Fight Club)I’ve only seen 2 of the listed movies.
I would strongly disagree with the italicized portion, personally, both as a creative and as an analyst.
Focusing just on the latter stance, there’s definitely works that, if you’re missing the message badly enough, you’re demonstrating serious intellectual deficiencies.
Ehhhh…most of them simply didn’t kindle a desire within for me to see them, so I didn’t. Even having read intelligent articles and discussions about some of them hasn’t really warmed me to the point of true interest.
On a certain level, it’s because film & tv don’t engage me the way music, written fiction or art do. I don’t seek out movies based on who made them like I would albums, books or paintings. If the film’s advertised premise & visuals don’t grab me, I don’t go. If they pop up on TV against something I prefer, I don’t watch them.
But that said, I do keep them in mind. I may eventually fill some Fincher gaps.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Sure, it’s not like you can use irony, satire and sarcasm for comedy, just to amuse people.
This thread made me realize: I think I may not like David Fincher. Before, I would have said that he's a pretty good director, but I'm starting to question that now.
Let's Get This Out of the Way Tier:
Benjamin Button - Whatever.
Alien 3 - I think this movie gets crapped on a lot more than it deserves. As a 2nd sequel to an 80s horror flick, its actually quite watchable. But it is also very blatantly the low point of the franchise, and fails badly on a number of key fronts. So, ... yeah.
Bleh Tier:
The Game - @Snarf already mentioned the Shyamalan-style silliness of this movie, and I agree. But I think it goes beyond that. This movie is fundamentally flawed in the same way Lost, The Name of the Wind, and Order of the Stick are. The problem isn't just that the ending is bad, and the problem isn't necessarily that the rising action is bad (although it has issues). The real problem is that the main meat of the plot is written in such a way that there's no possible ending that could work. It's the opposite of painting yourself into a corner. It's opening up so many things and being detailed enough in unfortunate ways that there is literally no conclusion that could ever be satisfying to the story you started telling.
Panic Room - IMNSHO, both The Game and Panic Room would have been much more successful if you cut the budget to roughly a third of what they got and forced the story to be told on a much smaller scale. Bigger is often your enemy. It really shows here. This story could have worked, but the movie hyped itself up to the point where it didn't. "Don't Say a Word" is another contemporary of this with the same problem.
Mid Tier:
Seven Se7en - I appreciate this movie for what it is: a well done procedural cop movie with a good bit of extra edge to it. But it is often massively overhyped, and gets thrown into genres it doesn't belong in (i.e. horror).
Fight Club - It's very timely to discuss this because Snarf recently posted updated remarks about Asteroid City having "incredibly deep layers" in the Wes Anderson thread, and Fight Club was exactly the film I was going to compare Asteroid City to in that regard. So, I will make my analogy here instead.
One of my big problems with Fight Club (and Asteroid City) is a problem with mirrors, and the limits of reflection. People who write books like to write about books, people who make music like to sing about music (how many rock and roll songs are about rock and roll?), and people who make movies love to be self referential about movies. In many ways, I respect this. Holding up a mirror and taking time for reflection is a great way to get perspective. Interior decorators will put up huge mirrors to add depth and make rooms seem larger. But it's critical to remember that the depth and perspective provided by the mirror isn't real. It's an illusion. And, most critically, it's an illusion provided by the viewer themselves, not by the artist. It's great as part of a story, part of a view, and part of a room, but it is not a substitute for substance.
Where Fight Club really fails for me is that it's not just one mirror. I see it as the cinematic/literary equivalent of a mirror placed face to face with another mirror. It's a violent consumerist movie about consumerism and violence that references violence in movies and consumerism in movies and makes people think about consumerism and violence and questions violence and consumerism in movies but ultimately comes back to standard consumerist violent movie tropes about violent movies and consumerism. Also, a lot of sex.
IMNSHO, that's not depth. That's the illusion of depth. That's actually deceptively shallow. The reason why so many "just don't understand" what Fight Club is about is because the movie ultimately doesn't say that much. People see what they project onto the movie and mistake it for something the movie says. Which you can do with any movie, but this one actively encourages it.
Asteroid City has this problem to somewhat less of a degree than Fight Club, but suffers the same base problem of being overly self-referential while also dealing with Anderson's typical struggle with the style:substance ratio. And, to repeat a point I made in the other thread, the movie is often indistinguishable from someone doing a Wes Anderson parody.
I appreciate both movies for the parts they do well. The cinematography is skilled, even if I don't find it pleasing. The acting is good. But at the end of the day, Fight Club is my go-to example of a pizza cutter movie. I will also admit, to Snarf's point, that I haven't seen this film in a while. But I have seen it more than once and have to temper this with the fact that I didn't really enjoy it enough to feel like watching it again.
Quite Good Tier:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - A hard book to turn into a film with the care and nuance needed, and I think Fincher did a good job. However, I'm also worried I'm getting versions confused in my brain. I definitely would have said I remembered Noomi Rapace in this movie, but apparently that's the Swedish version?
Zodiac - A very good job of dramatizing real events that don't have a satisfactory real-world conclusion into a solid movie.
Is that it in this tier? Huh. I would have suspected more.
Not seen:
Social Network - The main one I have a strong desire to see but just haven't.
Gone Girl
Mank
The Killer
Let's Get This Out of the Way Tier:
Benjamin Button - Whatever.
Alien 3 - I think this movie gets crapped on a lot more than it deserves. As a 2nd sequel to an 80s horror flick, its actually quite watchable. But it is also very blatantly the low point of the franchise, and fails badly on a number of key fronts. So, ... yeah.
Bleh Tier:
The Game - @Snarf already mentioned the Shyamalan-style silliness of this movie, and I agree. But I think it goes beyond that. This movie is fundamentally flawed in the same way Lost, The Name of the Wind, and Order of the Stick are. The problem isn't just that the ending is bad, and the problem isn't necessarily that the rising action is bad (although it has issues). The real problem is that the main meat of the plot is written in such a way that there's no possible ending that could work. It's the opposite of painting yourself into a corner. It's opening up so many things and being detailed enough in unfortunate ways that there is literally no conclusion that could ever be satisfying to the story you started telling.
Panic Room - IMNSHO, both The Game and Panic Room would have been much more successful if you cut the budget to roughly a third of what they got and forced the story to be told on a much smaller scale. Bigger is often your enemy. It really shows here. This story could have worked, but the movie hyped itself up to the point where it didn't. "Don't Say a Word" is another contemporary of this with the same problem.
Mid Tier:
Fight Club - It's very timely to discuss this because Snarf recently posted updated remarks about Asteroid City having "incredibly deep layers" in the Wes Anderson thread, and Fight Club was exactly the film I was going to compare Asteroid City to in that regard. So, I will make my analogy here instead.
One of my big problems with Fight Club (and Asteroid City) is a problem with mirrors, and the limits of reflection. People who write books like to write about books, people who make music like to sing about music (how many rock and roll songs are about rock and roll?), and people who make movies love to be self referential about movies. In many ways, I respect this. Holding up a mirror and taking time for reflection is a great way to get perspective. Interior decorators will put up huge mirrors to add depth and make rooms seem larger. But it's critical to remember that the depth and perspective provided by the mirror isn't real. It's an illusion. And, most critically, it's an illusion provided by the viewer themselves, not by the artist. It's great as part of a story, part of a view, and part of a room, but it is not a substitute for substance.
Where Fight Club really fails for me is that it's not just one mirror. I see it as the cinematic/literary equivalent of a mirror placed face to face with another mirror. It's a violent consumerist movie about consumerism and violence that references violence in movies and consumerism in movies and makes people think about consumerism and violence and questions violence and consumerism in movies but ultimately comes back to standard consumerist violent movie tropes about violent movies and consumerism. Also, a lot of sex.
IMNSHO, that's not depth. That's the illusion of depth. That's actually deceptively shallow. The reason why so many "just don't understand" what Fight Club is about is because the movie ultimately doesn't say that much. People see what they project onto the movie and mistake it for something the movie says. Which you can do with any movie, but this one actively encourages it.
Asteroid City has this problem to somewhat less of a degree than Fight Club, but suffers the same base problem of being overly self-referential while also dealing with Anderson's typical struggle with the style:substance ratio. And, to repeat a point I made in the other thread, the movie is often indistinguishable from someone doing a Wes Anderson parody.
I appreciate both movies for the parts they do well. The cinematography is skilled, even if I don't find it pleasing. The acting is good. But at the end of the day, Fight Club is my go-to example of a pizza cutter movie. I will also admit, to Snarf's point, that I haven't seen this film in a while. But I have seen it more than once and have to temper this with the fact that I didn't really enjoy it enough to feel like watching it again.
Quite Good Tier:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - A hard book to turn into a film with the care and nuance needed, and I think Fincher did a good job. However, I'm also worried I'm getting versions confused in my brain. I definitely would have said I remembered Noomi Rapace in this movie, but apparently that's the Swedish version?
Zodiac - A very good job of dramatizing real events that don't have a satisfactory real-world conclusion into a solid movie.
Is that it in this tier? Huh. I would have suspected more.
Not seen:
Social Network - The main one I have a strong desire to see but just haven't.
Gone Girl
Mank
The Killer
Last edited:
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing (He/They)
Tangent, and unpopular opinion: this is how I feel about "Field of Dreams."
