Longlegs - Cage at his Cagiest in this artsy fartsy crap

Longlegs - Oz Perkins - 2024

★★-Critics gushed over this? Not as high on it as everyone else. Thought it way overhyped, overrated, and completely aimless. Yeah, I hated it. Never found it remotely scary, more just cringeworthy. 
 
First, this is Nicolas Cage unleashed. Every time he was on screen there was a considerable amount of sighing and laughing. His performance is way out there. Saw this more or less getting universal praise, which is incredible. 
 
The protagonist, FBI Agent Lee Harker played by Maika Monroe, is maybe psychic with a touch of the tism. All that goes nowhere. Sort of like a frumpier Clarice Starling. Monroe is sort of second banana to Mia Goth when it comes to horror it girls. Done some great work as the leads in The Guest, It Follows, Villains, and Watcher,among others. This was my least favorite of her performances to date. 
 
Her mother is played by Alicia Witt. She is pretty out there as well. Her house looks like all the hoarders I’ve ever known. Mostly think of her from her roles in Urban Legend, Cecil B. Demented, Vanilla Sky, and one episode of The Sopranos. Was just wondering whatever happened to her. Doing shit like this, apparently.  
 

The look on my face every time Cage was on screen

Only other person I recognized was the Jack Crawford type, one Blair Underwood, who was the castrated killer guy in Just Cause, which was a great small town murder mystery from the mid-1990s, when this movie takes place. You might also remember him from LA Law or the sci-fi show The Event from a little over a decade ago. It was sort of one of those Lost/24 hybrids that were all the rage back then. He, too, is awful in this movie. 
 
The movie had phenomenal marketing. The trailer made it look like it was going to be amazing. Creep and dread I expected to be top tier, but no. Got a weird, dream-logic flick. 
 
It did look great. Cinematography was the one thing I can praise. Looked like a Fincher film, but was indeed garbage. Basically artsy crap. 
 
Other major problems I had with the movie: It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s slow and confusing. Felt way longer than an hour and 40 minutes, never a good sign. There was also sort of a compelling murder mystery in there. But good luck following all the literal puzzles involved. Technically great, but no substance. Again, hated it. Do not recommend.

30 Days of Night: A vampire's wet dream

 30 Days of Night - David Slade - 2007

★★--Remember the trailer for this film being great. Produced by Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert of Evil Dead fame. Execution wasn’t really there. Kind of glad I waited 17 years to watch it. 
 
Gist is an isolated Alaskan town that experiences a 30-day-long polar night gets overrun with vampires. Hate when that shit happens. Pretty smart of the vampires though. 
 
Director David Slade has mostly done TV including the first three episodes of American Gods (which where great) and several early episode of Hannibal (also great). He did do a few movies though, like Hardy Candy about a young girl that tortures a child rapist/murderer, it’s pretty decent, and one of the Twilight movies (never saw it). 
 
Stars Josh Hartnett whose career was screeching to a halt (my man is back now though), Melissa George (whom I mostly think of as the mother of the kid that get the slap in the show The Slap [both the American and the Australian version]), Danny Huston of the Huston clan, Ben Foster who was who is always solid and is married to my former queen Laura Prepon,  and Mark Boone Junior, who always plays a crazy guy. Personally think of him as the pizza stealing FBI guy in Se7en. He is in most of Fincher’s movies though. 
 
Fantastic premise—vampires in Alaska during the longest period of darkness—but sort of waste it on non-traditional vampires. Should have stuck with the classic variety. These vampires have pointy shark teeth, have a military-based hierarchy, speak Aramaic or some other weird shit (Romulan, maybe), have a feral quality to them, but look and dress like Danny Huston. These are not fucking vampires. 
 
Early in the movie have an awkward Chekhov's scrap metal pulverizer. Speaking of, get a lot of gore, if you are into that thing. Decapitation is the preferred vampire killing method of this movie. Usually with an axe. Sometimes a shotgun. 
 
Again, it’s not the best, but the premise makes up for a lot. However, never lives up to its potential. Josh Hartnett is alright. Ben Foster is really good but not in the movie for very long. Huston is wasted. The end is lame. It also had potential. Overall, just sort of meh. 

David Fincher's 'The Killer': An Existential Masterpiece in the Shadows of Noir

The Killer - David Fincher - 2023

David Fincher is my favorite filmmaker. Every time he makes a movie, it is a gift. This one, especially so. Earlier this year, I said that Oppenheimer was the best movie to come out in my lifetime. Well, it might be the best film of the year, but I'm pretty sure The Killer is my favorite. By the way, this surpasses 2007 as the best film year I've been cognizant of, and these two pictures give me a No Country for Old Men vs. There Will Be Blood vibe. Yeah, that movie that won all the awards was dope, but the other was the best movie of the decade. I'm going on record; it's the kind of film that gets the Academy's attention, doesn't win shit, then years later, everyone collectively realizes it's a classic. We shall see come awards season. 

Based on the French graphic novel series The Killer written by Alexis "Matz" Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. Stars Michael Fassbender as the hitman, also Arliss Howard (who I love), Charles Parnell, Kerry O'Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton. This is the second of four movies Fincher is making for Netflix. The first was Mank, released in 2020. 

The gist: a hitman finds himself in some shit after botching a hit. He's now playing cat and mouse with his former bosses (and himself), who nearly killed his girlfriend trying to get to him. So "nothing like this can ever happen again," he goes on the offensive, globe-trotting, ducking in and out of shadows, insisting that what he's doing isn't personal. Yeah, sure. 

It's this guy's version of self-help. You know, throw yourself in your work, meditate, do some yoga, tell yourself lies, take up existential philosophy, quote some Aleister Crowley (I named a rooster Aleister Crowley, no shit), listen to the Smiths, shoot a guy in the face. Just like mine, except with extreme violence. (I have said verbatim several things this guy says through the course of this film, but never really considered myself a psycho).

The world portrayed is in no way glamorous. This world is cold. The film opens with him prepping for a kill, which is all just mundane shit, part of his day. People that come for you have no names or faces. You don't know who they are, and they don't know you. But that bullet still has your name on it. People don't understand why he is there when he shows up to do his deeds. 

This isn't just run-of-the-mill action. The one choreographed fight scene is fucking brutal, all out, and devastating. As Fassbender walks away, he repeats one of his mantras, "This is what it takes." He's saying this to us, the audience. Fuck.

First watch, I thought it was a masterpiece, but it was a mid-tier Fincher. Now, I have it fourth and rising. Zodiac, Se7en, and Social Network ahead of it. But just barely. Surpasses Gone Girl and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, another of his misunderstood home runs. 

Made me think of Paul Schrader whose work also depicts troubled men struggling through an existential crisis leading to a violent, cathartic event. If you don't know who he is, he's the guy who wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and directed the films  Cat People, Affliction, Auto Focus, The Canyons (the insane Bret Easton Ellis written film staring Lindsay Lohan and porn actor/rapist James Deen who was called "Bill Cosby of porn"), and most recently The Constant Gardner. He got into some shit after the 2016 election for calling the upcoming Trump presidency "a call to violence" and that "we should be willing to take arms. Like Old John Brown." Such earned him a visit from the NYC Counterterrorism Bureau. So that's pretty cool. 

Looked to see if he had anything to say about it. He did. "Is style its own validation in narrative art? Or should it serve another purpose as well? Fincher's film is a masterclass in film style, but there is a pharase (sic) for this in Texas. It's called 'all hat.'" He also called Fassbender's character "the Chatty-Kathy of hit men."

Fincher himself called it a "B-movie." A dressed-up, near-silent assassin film that's sharp, pulpy, and doesn't pretend. Style, cynical worldviews, pessimism, these are things Fincher films ooze. The images of the various nocturnal cities suggest a Dostoevsky nightmare, fragments of artistic tradition to stave off spiritual despair, laden with new-wave references to other movies and directors. nostalgia is very much in Fincher's mind. Fincher gives us many allusions (most notably Le Samourai by Jean-Pierre Melville). Throughout, unorthodox narration (very much a noir trope) demonstrates the ambiguity of human motives. Commodity culture is a wasteland (product placement is everywhere, making his job both easier to perform and harder to get away with). The film is a critical and self-reflexive analysis of contemporary life, a dream image of bygone glamour repressing as much history as it recalls and service of the cinephile and commodification.

Asked several people what they thought this movie was about and got completely different answers, which were also different from mine. That's what makes Fincher a genius. It's different based on where you are and what you're dealing with. For me, it was obviously about the fallacy of control and the lies we tell ourselves. Also, a meditation on what it takes to be great. Also, why give a shit enough for those sacrifices. This is where the existentialist fires up.

"Fate is a placebo," he says at the end. "The only life path is the one behind you." Then he flenches when he says he is one of the many, just like us, the audience. That shit isn't going to last. This whole time, the killer is a political pessimist experiencing existential anguish, erasing his old life and taking up this new one that is the antithesis of everything he says and does. However, he is the ultimate unreliable narrator. At the end, you see a man expressing a passion for the past and present but also a fear of the future. Dreads looking ahead instead tries to survive by the day and, when unsuccessful, retreats into the past, i.e., its erasure. He is one with a lack of clear priorities, experiencing his first taste of insecurity. So he concentrates on violence, perversion, and decay, what he knows. His cauldron of inarticulate rage we get through his noir-like offscreen narration that's highly poetic and ironic, reinforced by his protection and love that we don't see and is likely bullshit. This love, who is stuck with at the movie's end, has destroyed his real identity. Ideologically, deep down, he is a contradiction, and all his talk incoherent. 

Yes, if you can't tell, I love existential art and film noir. A character withdrawing into despair and bitter disengagement that's my jam. Couple that with an atmosphere of determinism and irony, irredeemable evil, exposing the underside of American character, then I am rock hard. "I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck." 

Thriller, mystery, meditation on morality, buddy cop, garbage crime: Se7en is all of that and more

Se7en - David Fincher - 1995

★★★★★-I've written and thought about this movie more than any I've ever seen. It's not often that a film changes my behavior profoundly. Books have done this, but with film, it is rare. Director David Fincher has done it twice, or at least gotten me on that path. With Fight Club, the seeds of anti-consumerism were planted. With Se7en, it was anti-moralism. It's telling that Fincher made two of the best films of this century (Zodiac and The Social Network) and those flicks might not be in his top two all-time, at least for me anyway. 

Gist of it is retiring police Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) teams up with the newly transferred David Mills (Brad Pitt) for his last case before retirement. As they delve into the investigation, they uncover a series of intricate and sadistic murders. It becomes apparent that they are facing a methodical serial killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), who selects his victims based on their seven deadly sin, killing one each day. As the suspense intensifies and they get closer to the final day, Somerset forms an unexpected bond with Mills' pregnant wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is deeply concerned about raising her child in a city plagued by such chilling crime.

That's the surface, though Se7en is a hard film to describe. It's got some gallows humor, but it is dark, and deeply disturbing. Mills indeed has his moments. His wife Tracy says “he is the funniest man (she's) ever met.” His deadly sin, in my opinion, is fashion related though. His ties are truly atrocious. One has a basketball going through a hoop on it. This seems to be his favorite tie. Also, at one point I caught him wearing his watch over his shirt cuff. This is the eighth deadly sin, by the by.

More than anything, this is a dualistic film that eventually morphs into nihilism. There is good and evil, until there isn't. There is extreme good in Tracy, and extreme evil in Doe. 

It's an odd couple cop movie, as well, which highlights this further. One an old, African-American detective just shy of retirement. A cynic that has seen it all. He is methodical, experienced, learned, and patient. He's a philosophy. The other a young, idealistic Caucasian that calls himself Serpico with just a little irony. He is hotheaded, impulsive, and immature. He's new to this city, a Hell-on-earth. They do not get along. But slowly, they become friends. That friendship presumably ends, however, as both are stripped of their meaning just before the credits roll. 

The city they fight crime changes everyone in this world. One of the weird details of the movie is all the unhomed people shuffling around in nearly every scene. Pretty much dystopian. Rains constantly. We are constantly reminded that this world is not “a fine place.” It's a bizzaro version of LA with Virgil showing Dante the ropes. The other cops here, for the most part, don't care at all. If a child witnessed his father murder his mother, it “doesn't concern us,” a detective tells Somerset. He's just happy it's an open and shut case. Tells Somerset that the other “dicks” are going to be happy when he retires, asking them such things. There are more examples of this. Another cop doesn't check vitals. SWAT, the only ones who seem to enjoy what they do other than Mills, relish the violence they impose on the lost souls. It's just a part of this world, the police sort of have to move around these people they supposed to protect, mostly just treating them like they aren't there. 

John Doe, himself, is a dualistic figure as a divinely inspired serial-killer. Doe is a truly evil POS. One of the great villains of all-time. (On a personal level, he ruined marble composition notebooks for me! My first 25 or so journals looked a lot like these, usually duct taped after a while. Got tired of the comparison and now carry Moleskins. Better for reporters anyway. [Speaking of. I used to be a crime reporter. You'd be surprised how close you can get to a crime scene, and how quickly with scanners in every newsroom. And by the by, no reporter has money to pay for information, let alone to pay “well” for it. One of just a few nits I'm able to pick. But if you don't know, you don't know.]) With his death, that dualism is ended, of course, as he becomes nothing. But legacy was what he was after. 

Doe's “work” is kind of performance art. Like the worst kind of art, in general, he simultaneously projects his self-loathing and sense of superiority with an all-out, full-court press of an attention seeking spectacle. Getting people to pay attention, though, is indeed tough. Gotta hit them over the head with a sledgehammer. I'm not sure Doe doesn't mean that literally. When serial-killers barely shock people anymore, in Doe's words, “in a world this sick,” you've really got to do something spectacularly disturbing to become part of the zeitgeist. For every Gacy, you have a Randy Kraft. Every Dahmer, a Arthur Shawcross. Every LISK, a Lonnie Franklin. So forth. Really gotta swing for the fences, I guess. 

His work is one of poetic justice. The concept has been around forever. Hence the “pound of flesh” from one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, Merchant of Venice, probably his most ironic play, which is considered a comedy (I wrote about that, too, a couple of times in college). Goes back even farther than that, though. For example, “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death,” is about as ironic as it gets, working on multiple levels even. 

It's also pretty much how we view Hell culturally in the West. While it's existed likely since the beginning of our days dabbling in concepts of an afterlife, Dante is the one that really fleshed it out. His epic masterpiece, Divine Comedy, the most important work ever written in my opinion, is all about justice and retribution. The souls he sees in Inferno and Purgatorio receive their punishments or cleansings in a manner that either mirrors or starkly contrasts their sins. Called “contrapasso”, it is a word derived from Latin “contra” and “patior”, meaning "suffer the opposite.” Its comes up in literature, theology, and popular culture constantly ever since. Some examples off the top of my head: The Faerie Queene, A Christmas Carol, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, so forth. 

My personal favorite depiction, beside Se7en, of course, is from The Simpsons. It happens in the “Treehouse of Horror IV” segment, “The Devil and Homer Simpson.” Therein, after Homer sells his soul for a donut, he finds himself in the depths of Hell, subjected to being force-fed “all the doughnuts in the world” in the “Hell Labs' Ironic Punishment Division”. Despite the demon's efforts to torture him, Homer revels in the gluttonous experience, even requesting more doughnuts when the ordeal is over. 

No donuts for “the fat boy” in this film though. These tortures are of the most sadistic nature. These poor people. As the attending physician says of the Sloth victim, “he's experienced about as much pain and suffering as anyone I've encountered, give or take, and he's still got Hell to look forward to.” Huge apartment for a shithole that this guy spends his last year in, though. 

Quick shoutout to Mrs. Gould, here. Her husband, Eli Gould, represents Greed. He was an attorney that supposedly got rich by lying to get his clients off. Doe's second victim, he says of Gould, “this is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!” Like the others, he was killed brutally with irony. John Doe broke into Gould's law firm, knocked the attorney unconscious before he could depart for the weekend, and bound his hands together. Doe forced him to cut out a pound of his own flesh on a set of scales. Gould eventually died of blood loss, which was the basis for the “comedy” in Shakespeare's play (See parenthetical below). Doe also marks a photo of Gould's wife with blood, circling her eyes. 

Somerset, in his wisdom, figures out that Doe marked her as such because she's supposed to see something. So they make their way to where she is stashed in a safe house, making this woman hysterical with grief look at her husband's crime scene photos. Mills says to her, “Mrs. Gould, I'm truly sorry. I truly am... I need you to look at each photo very carefully. Look and see if there's anything strange or out of place, um. Anything at all.” When she says no, he asks if she is sure as she sobs like someone looking at pictures her husband's horrific murder. “Please! I-I-I just, I-I can't do this right now!” But she does and find a clue! A painting is upside down, which leads them to fingerprints on the wall, taking them to Sloth. She is a real trooper, this lady. 

(If you are interested, this is whole of the reference. Shylock, a Jewish money lender (only Jews could practice “usury” at the time) has his Christian rival Antonio put a pound of his flesh as a security on the lone. When Antonio defaults, Shylock demands the pound from his heart. But Shylock had no right to any blood, and is therefore charged with attempted murder of a Christian, carrying a death penalty, and Antonio is freed without punishment. Eventually the rival Antonio, whom he obviously hates, commutes the sentence to giving him half of his ducats and converting to Christianity, thus making it illegal for him to make his living. He then leaves the play feeling ill. Hilarious!)

Only Fincher's second film. Also the second one I saw during its theatrical run. Only two Fincher movies I didn't see in the theater were Benjamin Button and Mank, which doesn't count. Pandemic and all. After Fincher's experience on Alien3, supposedly he said he'd rather have colon cancer than make another film, though I can't find an original source. Might just be part of his mythos. 

Anyway, studio wanted a different ending, you know, where a head doesn't end in a box. But as Somerset says, “this isn't going to have a happy ending.” I remember on the DVD there was storyboard of an ending where Somerset shoots Doe, which was really weird. The ending we get is pretty memorable, “what's in the box!” But I'm not sure it couldn't have used a little workshopping. 

My beef with it is that I kind of feel Doe's whole final plan that he is working to doesn't make a lot of sense. He murders a woman, Tracy, who is seemingly innocent of a deadly sin, at least from his perspective, and he makes a big deal about none of them being “innocent.” Right after that, Doe claims himself as Envy, which is nonsense as he likely doesn't feel anything except Pride. Maybe Envy in the classical sense, more wanting one's demise instead of wanting Jesse's girl. But that doesn't seem to be what Doe is talking about. I guess Mills is a victim of Wrath, to an extent. However, he is more of a victim of Doe just being psychotic than him trying to prove anything. Since he invites his work to be studied, I say it's sort of bull. 

Several of the sins are like that, kind of falling apart under scrutiny. In reference to Lust, for example, the threat of death is no defense for murder. That guys another victim. Good luck with intercourse the rest of your life. 

Lastly, there is the library card stuff. Absolutely no one would care about this sort of thing, at least now, post-Patriot Act. Also, I read almost all of the books mentioned or shown in the film in my education as an English, philosophy student. In fact, I played a drinking game my sophomore year where we had a beer every time a book was mentioned, shown, or quoted that we read in the film. My focus for lit was on epic poetry, and took a decent amount of theology in my philosophy studies. So I was completely trashed by the end of it. Since most of these are staples of the Western canon, I would think that Doe would own most of those, especially if he went to a bible college or seminary or something. 

I watch this every few years. Wrote about it in college for a Dante class and grad school for a philosophy course. One of my all-time favorites.

Originally saw it in 1995 in the theater with my junior high basketball team. It was quite the crowd-pleaser, which is insane. A Yoda with a library card that's got some things to say to a bunch of kids that have likely never read a book before in their lives. Practically got a standing ovation. Different breed. Those kids.

Depending on the day, this might be my favorite of his films. Hard to pick between this, Fight Club, Zodiac, and The Social Network. The performances alone are worth the watch. Freeman is at the top of his game, this is Pitt's first really great leading role, Spacey is dark and disturbed (just like in real life!). Mesmerizing and suspenseful with a fantastic screenplay, the film is gruesome and shocking. It also features one of the great on-foot chase scenes. An all-time classic from Fincher, who was just getting started. 

The French Connection - William Friedkin - 1971

★★-Love a grimy, New York in the 70s movie, but I found this one to be astronomically overrated. At some point I realized I saw this when I was around 10 years old. Didn't blow me away then, either. Even back then, neo-noir like this was kind of my jam. Didn't appreciate it anymore this time around. Actually less. 

Stars Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as the detectives trying to get drugs off the street. These are two of the most normal looking movie stars of all time. They look like friends of mine's dads. 

Gist is NYPD detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo pursue the elusive French heroin smuggler Alain Charnier, played by Fernando Rey whom I only recognize from Luis Buñuel's film Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Known as one of the great car chase movies with Hackman chasing a train. It's pretty good, but I feel it's more of a chasing people on foot and then shooting them when they run movie. Anyway, Hackman gives a guy on the street ye old “Police emergency! I need your car.” “How am I going to get it back?” This guy is not going to be happy when he sees the damage after they tow his car to the impound lot for being illegally parked. Probably . Oh, I looked it up. Apparently this cop commandeering a civilian's car in an emergency is legit. This could happen to you. 

Directed by William Friedkin. He did two other films I love, The Exorcist and To Live and Die in L.A. Dig Blue Chips as well. Heavily influenced several movies I hold extremely near and dear, notably Se7en and Munich, two of my all-time faves. David Fincher said that it “had a profound impact” on his life and was why Brad Pitt chose to star in the film. 

Nominated for eight Academy Awards. Won five, for Best Picture, Best Actor (Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, made the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies list, sitting at No. 93 on the 10^th Anniversary Edition. 

I don't really get all the hype. It's perfectly fine, but not the earth-shattering film I've been led to believe. It ends on some real bullshit, too. Basically one long flick glorifying reckless police work which comes to a whole lot of nothing. Was that supposed to be the point?

Alien3 – David Fincher - 1992

★★★-“The Bitch is Back.” Another kick ass tagline. Saw this in the theater with my dad and brother while my sister and mom watched Sister Act. At the time, I thought this movie was pretty great. Rewatched in junior high school and changed my opinion to meh. This viewing I'm watching the Special Edition also known as the Assembly Cut (which David Fincher refused to be involved in [more on that later]). It's 30 minutes longer than the theatrical version. I'll call it a mixed bag. Kind of dumb, but has some potential. Feel like it was a good flick for director David Fincher to get his start and figure out what he wanted from the rest of his career. This, obviously, wasn't it. 

One change of note in this version, I had always been reluctant to rewatch this because it's a dog in the theatrical cut that get implanted by the facehugger. A brutal animal in pain scene I wasn't about. In this version, the alien burst out of a yak like animal that they farm for meat outside of the prison. The dog was part of the studios considerable recutting, which was a weird one. Thankfully, didn't have to watch that shit. 

Back to the basics on this one. One solitary Xenomorph picking off unarmed prisoners that don't stand a chance. In this installment, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor from Aliens after the ship crash lands on Fiorina 161, a wasteland inhabited by former inmates housed on this maximum security prison planet. After, again facing skepticism, Ripley leads the men into battle against the alien. 

Cast includes Holt McCallany who plays Bill Tench in Fincher's incredible Netflix show Mindhunter, Charles Dance who was Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, Charles S. Dutton (title character from the show Roc among other things [bought a lot of stock in that guy]), Paul McGann from Withnail and I, Lance Henriksen (again), and Pete Postlethwaite (Keyser Söze's lawyer, Mr. Kobayashi, in The Usual Suspects). Ripley and the eldest Lannister go to pound town, which is a weird way to introduce sexual encounters into the universe. 

Ripley, among all these rapist and murderers (who have all taken a religious vow of celibacy), is repeatedly told not to go around the prisoners. The warden guy basically says that she will be raped and murdered if she goes around these guys. First chance she gets, she waltzes into the mess hall, trying to show them she's not afraid, I guess, maybe that she is just one of the guys, I don't know. Not a good situation for her or the prison, ya know. When she walks in, the first guy she engages with says, “You don't want to know me, lady. I'm a murderer and rapist of women.” She's like, “alright, well, I'm just going to sit here with you and the other sexual deviants and enjoy my meal like one of the guys.” It's never a woman's fault, but maybe in this very dangerous situation, try to be chill is all I'm saying. 

Which brings me to this fucked up attempted rape scene. This is by far the darkest of all of the films in the series and like all Fincher's work with a few exceptions features psychopaths capable of anything. Though fucked up, I sort liked this aspect of the film. I was all in early... but the movie starts to fall apart in the last third. 

It all starts when Ripley is all, we have to kill it, they can't take the alien and use it as a weapon. You know this speech because she makes it in every movie. Charles Dutton is like, why not? Fuck them, but really, why should we should we volunteer to die here when there is a lot worse shit out there already. He has a point, but then the point is mute because some idiot lets it out because he thinks it's cool or whatever which is my biggest beef with the movie. Really, it's not terrible. At times it's nearly great. But this is so unforgivably dumb. They have it trapped, neutralized. And then no. I don't recall if it is the same in the theatrical version. But I would have really hated this in junior high and it would have ruined the movie. 

Also, dumb and irritating is after Ripley finds out that she has an alien in her chest, she is like everyone has to die now. Call off the medivac team and nuke the bitch. You know, Ripley, this is her one plan for every situation. Now that she is going to die, might as well take everyone else with me. The guy in charge is like, uh, fuck that. Sorry you're going to die, but no. Pretty fucked up on Ripley's part, to be honest.

Then after this weird scene where Ripley goes to kill it and mistakes a pipe for the alien head, she asks Dutton to kill her. But Dutton is like, fuck you, how about you help. She goes, makes her speech again and rallies the troops with an anti-corporate rant with Dutton throwing out some god stuff and they're all on board. 

It kind of comes back around and is exciting at least with a lot of chasing and murdering which culminates in an alien covered in molten lead. When they turn the sprinklers on it, it dies in a satisfying explosion. Spoiler. 

But then it ends on some dumb shit with the return of Lance Henriksen, the designer of the droid that looks like him, who spouts some corporate nonsense and tries to convince Ripley to let them take the queen out of her. It then descends into self-sacrificing nonsense and Henriksen saying shit like “it's a beautiful specimen! You're throwing away the chance of a lifetime.” And Ripley Christ's herself into the fire. The end. I remember the chestburster popping out as she fell, but that doesn't happen in this version. 

So let's get into the production... 

Can't really talk about this movie without acknowledging the legendarily troubled production. Fox, the studio behind the flick, kept pushing the film back and making changes. Supposedly there were something like ten different writers for the film and Fincher was not the first director. Then at some point in1991 they released a teaser that simply stated “In 1979, we discovered, in space, no one can hear you scream. In 1992, we will discover, on Earth, everyone can hear you scream.” Incredible teaser. 

I remember being more than a little intrigued, hence seeing it in the theater at age 10 (my parents didn't discourage the horror/film stuff my brother and I were into and now I'm a sort of successful, sort of well adjusted adult, love you mom and dad). If you haven't seen it, uh, don't get too excited. This trailer came out before the script was finished and as anyone who's seen the movie knows, this shit ain't on Earth. 

Almost immediately Fincher started distancing himself, leaving the project before the final edit was in the can. That summer he said “If I go on to make 10 great ones, this'll probably be looked upon as my first bungled masterpiece.” In 2009 he told The Guardian that “no one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me.” When he made the film he was 29-year-old music video director getting his first picture. Fox more or less had no faith in him and breathed down his neck the whole time, demanding recuts and reshoots throughout. You can read more about it on Film Stories. 

The 10 great ones/bungled masterpiece thing is pretty much exactly what happened as he has 10 more under his belt here in 2023 and most of them are indeed considered great. 

What's nuts is Fincher nearly left the industry after this experience, going back to music videos and refusing to read scripts until Se7en wound up in his lap. Thank fuck he stuck with that shit as he is one of the all-time greats. In my opinion he has three movies in the top 10 of this century in The Social Network (behind only There Will Be Blood for best movies of my lifetime), Zodiac, and Gone Girl. Mank and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ain't bad either. I haven't even mentioned his best two either in Se7en and Fight Club. I wrote papers in college about both of those. Hell, Fight Clubbasically turned me woke when I saw it 1999. It completely changed the ways I look at consumerism and contemporary masculinity. 

Despite all the issues between Fincher and the studio, a lot of the actors working on the film were impressed enough to keep working with him. 

Dance, the love interest in the film, said that while it wasn't the nightmare it's been characterized as, it still wasn't an easy shoot. He explained that the executives back in Hollywood, the film was shot in England, phoned Fincher at all hours of the night, ignoring the time change, just basically fucking with him. For what it's worth, Dance said doesn't regret that he was a part of it and that he'd like to work with Fincher again, whom he considers a genius. “The minute David Fincher first walked onto the set I thought, 'My god, this guy is going to go far.' He was fantastic,” he said. Talk all that for what you will. He later did work on another Fincher film with Mank, playing William Randolph Hurst. 

One of the prisoners (a lot of them sort of blend together) Christopher John Fields is in four Fincher films, Holt McCallany was a henchman in Fight Club and has since gone on to star in Fincher's Netflix show Mindhunter, and Charles S. Dutton also appeared in Se7en. Then again, there are several actors who won't work with him again for what sounds like pretty good reasons. Notably Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, and maybe Mark Ruffalo. Dude is tough to work for, for sure. 

Final thoughts...

My parting words here. This is easily the cutest little alien of the series. Nicknamed it “Bambi”. Running around on all fours. They used a dog in a suit at one point. Not sure it it made it into this cut, but it's pretty adorbs. Just a little guy. Aw. People went wild when Sigourney Weaver buzzed her head. Good look on her. I've historically been kind of into that. And, finally, while not perfect and near the bottom of his films, it does have it's moments, and shows more than a few glimpses of the promise of Fincher's later work. Overall, highly underrated. 

Gone Girl - David Fincher - 2014

★★★★- I just watched this over the weekend. I haven’t stopped thinking about it. What a fucking nuts movie. Towards the bottom of my flicks for Fincher, but still stellar. Love his films.

It’s almost humorous how elaborate the plot gets. Lotta Fincher themes getting explored here and done really well. Narcissistic sociopathy. Check. Scathing media takedown. Check. Trouble relationships with money and power. Check. Extreme misogyny. Triple check there. Amanda Dobbins, whom I love on The Ringer, asks if the film is “a misogynistic summary of all the ways that a woman can falsely accuse a man.“ Also, based on a Gillian Flynn novel. 

The Amazing Amy shit is a really great way to fuck somebody up. She has no real friends, a total sociopath, the only people in her life are her parents and people she’s manipulating (her husband, the dumb pregnant girl, so forth), but she is pretty capable and plays a great victim. Her husband, Ben Affleck’s character Nick, is really gonna have a shitty life. And in the end, they’re back where they started, in a loveless marriage but now there are no illusions, I guess. Here you are raising a child with a woman that was going to kill herself to frame you. That kid is going to be fucked, one of her playthings. 

Loved Tyler Perry. Wasn't a fan Neil Patrick Harris. Structure of the movie is pretty good. One thing I couldn’t really get behind is how the detective and everyone when the gone girl returns after having obviously murdered someone is just like, “meh, it was just a goof.” White people are indeed crazy.