The Official Movie Thread

Einherjar86 said:
It was the serial killer theme, yes; and there are definitely films I'm forgetting (Zodiac was one of them).

I actually never saw Monster--need to get on that. I used to be big into serial killer films. And I agree with no country, The Pledge is really good (dark as hell).
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Charlize Theron dies at the end, she is sentenced to death via lethal injection. There ya go

edit: I'll give you guys a break and stop it here. Don't want any of you to actually start shedding tears. And next time you guys should try not to spoil parts of a movie literally 2 posts after someone said they hadn't seen it.
 
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Vegard Pompey said:
The best serial killer film I know is "Memories of Murder".
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same tbh. along with perfect blue if that counts. memories of murder is actually a much better version of the pledge in some ways. i think i've said this before but i had an idea for a screenplay that was quite similar to the pledge and had spent a lot of time thinking about that kind of premise, so while in some ways it was very in my wheelhouse, i was also frustrated and constantly thinking of ways i would've improved it. incidentally, there's a hungarian movie (called twilight lol) based on the same source novel which i've heard is really good, i've wanted to see that for a while now.

i don't have too much love for fincher as a rule. he's extremely formally gifted, probably the most legendary perfectionist in american cinema since kubrick, but his choice of material to adapt is dubious to say the least. maybe he's just one of those guys who's more interested in the technical stuff than expressing something, idk. my top 3 for him would probably be zodiac, alien 3 and i guess The Facebook Movie. it's been an awfully long time since i saw fight club or panic room though, and i've never seen the game nor his girl with the dragon tattoo remake (which by most accounts is better than the boring original).
 
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no country for old wainds said:
i don't have too much love for fincher as a rule. he's extremely formally gifted, probably the most legendary perfectionist in american cinema since kubrick, but his choice of material to adapt is dubious to say the least. maybe he's just one of those guys who's more interested in the technical stuff than expressing something, idk. my top 3 for him would probably be zodiac, alien 3 and i guess The Facebook Movie. it's been an awfully long time since i saw fight club or panic room though, and i've never seen the game nor his girl with the dragon tattoo remake (which by most accounts is better than the boring original).
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I think we've discussed this before.

I personally feel that Se7en is a deeply expressive film, but I'd have to reflect on more on it before articulating why/how. Zodiac is a better film, technically and aesthetically speaking--and Fincher is definitely a technically proficient director. I don't care for The Social Network; it feels like vapid Hollwyood sheen substantiated by capable acting. Entertaining, yes, but virtually meaningless.

The Game is excellent, despite all its implausibility. A dark and brilliant film.

If I'm being honest with myself, there are a lot of films I enjoy more than Fincher's work; but he seems to me a consistently capable director.

But his Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was white bread. Meh.
 
South Korean cinema <3 "I Saw the Devil" is another great one.

no country for old wainds said:
same tbh. along with perfect blue if that counts. memories of murder is actually a much better version of the pledge in some ways. i think i've said this before but i had an idea for a screenplay that was quite similar to the pledge and had spent a lot of time thinking about that kind of premise, so while in some ways it was very in my wheelhouse, i was also frustrated and constantly thinking of ways i would've improved it. incidentally, there's a hungarian movie (called twilight lol) based on the same source novel which i've heard is really good, i've wanted to see that for a while now.

i don't have too much love for fincher as a rule. he's extremely formally gifted, probably the most legendary perfectionist in american cinema since kubrick, but his choice of material to adapt is dubious to say the least. maybe he's just one of those guys who's more interested in the technical stuff than expressing something, idk. my top 3 for him would probably be zodiac, alien 3 and i guess The Facebook Movie. it's been an awfully long time since i saw fight club or panic room though, and i've never seen the game nor his girl with the dragon tattoo remake (which by most accounts is better than the boring original).
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I'm not a big fan of Fincher either. My favorite film of his is Gone Girl, though I'm maybe more fascinated with the material itself than Fincher's direction (haven't read the novel, but I assume the film is faithful since Flynn also wrote the screenplay.) The Game is terrible. I'm aware there are people who genuinely like Alien 3 and I assume they're all brain damaged. Zodiac I haven't seen but probably should, some guy on criticker likens it to Memories of Murder.
 
i disagree that the social network is meaningless btw, and i'd argue its vapid sheen serves the themes in the same way as something like the bling ring or spring breakers. some of it may be reaching a bit, but i wrote this back when it came out:

it's zeitgeisty as fuck, this ultra-slick follow up to the bloated, oscar-baiting fluff that was benjamin button, but unlike that crowdpleasing slog david fincher's the social network is a dank, toxic little pool of filth which, although compared by critics to citizen kane, has most in common with paul thomas anderson's foil to that classic there will be blood. it's another film about sex and family (or lack thereof - there are no biological relations and no real women in either of these pictures) wherein rosebuds aren't lost in the snow but pushed away by men too smart, too discerning, too self-preserving to countenance them--perpetually self-cockblocking intellectual giants who bubble with impotent rage and extract their sole joy from copulating with whatever landscape (be it the plains of early 20th century california or the coded jungle of the interweb) best mirrors their barren souls, giving birth to structures that drain everything they touch and fill the holes with their own versions of the same gunk.

there's no overt moralising in the social network, but there seems to me no compassion either for zuckerberg or his creation (screenwriter aaron sorkin of west wing fame has himself expressed distaste), presenting both as the inevitable product of the festering megalomania and smug exclusivity of his (probably not very) caricaturised, microcosmic harvard, in turn holding them up as the ultimate reflection and enablement of our disassociated, narcissistic youth. yes, there's obvious irony in this idea that one of the most revolutionary methods of communication was born out of one man's complete inability to connect with other people, but there's a much murkier concern here about technology being the collective shield for a brittle generation both terrified and disdainful of the vulnerability and responsibility that comes with direct human contact.

more fundamentally, this is a mucky film about apes beating their chests and slinging mud in each other's faces for hollow, bitter gains, where intellect isn't what elevates us above animals but rather the most efficient weapon in the battle for title of alpha male. it asks not for empathy nor explicitly for condemnation, but rather an understanding that social networking is the logical extension of an economic system - hell, a biological system - driven by oneupmanship, and far from bringing us all together, accelerates the devaluing of genuine emotional connection between peers, hastening our slide back toward our dog-eat-dog nature and the accompanying loneliness we try so hard to escape. it's not necessarily that things are getting worse, only that we're getting worse at lying about how things always were, and the internet, a forum where all the information in the world is publicly available, is accelerating that process tenfold.

even more primally it demonstrates how all non-coital creation, structures built in the name of power, innovation or indeed art, are substitutes for real offspring, and so we have a delicious meta-idea analogising zuckerberg's process with that of the filmmakers, backed up by the way fincher's stuffy greys and browns, his cold, hooded gaze, foster a kinship with the rhythms of zuckerberg's bile-black heart. it raises the question of whether we as moviegoers can look down on zuckerberg if cinema, surely the ultimate projection of this generation's collective subconscious, serves as both symptom and cause of the exact same impulses, that same vicious masturbatory cycle.

in there will be blood daniel plainview ends up returning to the childhood home that makes him "sick", drinking himself half to death in disgust at every naive, hollow ideal that house represents; in the social network, we don't see how zuckerberg fares after adding his own rosebud on the facebook that he designed, but it's fair to assume that her acceptance, even willingness to give the relationship another chance, would ultimately leave him no less nauseated and frustrated and alienated than he was when he pushed her away in the first place and failed to apologise in the aftermath. it's zeitgeisty as fuck, this film, but it takes no joy from it; it merely sighs, knowingly standing as a model of this generation of zuckerbergs shooting their load over ms. liberty and her corpse of an american dream, wishing we could all at least head into the abyss together, hand in hand.
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nice, i haven't seen that one. i have a longstanding fascination with muhammad ali and kept hearing this was mann's weakest so i was worried it'd disappoint me, but i'll definitely check it one of these days.
 
I think I've already said this but The Insider is his weakest IMO and even that was still pretty damn good.

Ali has this strange vibe to it, it's hard to put into words but Mann did a good job of conjuring this mood where it's like Ali is experiencing an endless series of awakenings or something. It felt like a very internal film if that makes sense? Because it's a biopic there's not much room for Mann to touch on his usual themes but I thought he did a good job with all the mostly political elements featured in Ali's life and in many ways this might be his most stoic work, especially considering Ali IRL was a pretty good subject for that particular theme. Also it wasn't too sycophantic, it definitely showed the imperfections of the man.

The cinematography is amazing as usual but the real star here was Smith. The whole film could have been dreadful if they cast the wrong guy but they nailed it.
 
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