Gone Girl (2014)

Gone Girl (R) - Review

"Little Red Lies"

A seemingly happy man one day finds his wife missing and himself as the most likely suspect in her disappearance.  As the blood-thirsty media and local police begin digging through his trashcans and personal baggage, the husband tries to piece together what happened to his marriage and keep his life in David Fincher's film adaptation of the popular novel Gone Girl.

Leaving the icky gender issues aside (the story not only reeks of feminist empowerment but also misogynist feminine tropes but lets not get into that can of worms), the main bone of contention with Gone Girl is that it's main characters are so unlikable and frankly unbelievable in their motivations by the end.  The situations and drama are tense and fraught with peril thanks to master filmmaker David Fincher's visuals (Fight Club) and aided by Trent Reznor's low-key edgy music.  In fact, if it wasn't for the constructive Fincher-ness of the film it might have been a complete dud.  It's the creeping dread of a marked man, of the competitive cat and mouse games, the fear of a woman scorned that fuels this film, which consequently further stokes the gender bias fires (the ones that we aren't talking about).  Rosamund Pike (The World's End) delivers a wonderfully chilling performance as Amy Dunne and is the center piece to the whole movie, but is it enough?

What is this movie anyway?  Besides being a series of professionally crafted and lovingly lit images created for our mutual entertainment?  Gone Girl's plot is, to it's core, a Revenge Porn for and by women, troublingly fused with victimhood fantasies and lousy with grrrl power nonsense (not that there's anything wrong with that).  Luckily the performances are top notch (particularly the side characters like Tyler Perry adding some easy charm); even Ben Affleck comes across well while simultaneously managing to be utterly loathable dim-bulb man of the house Nick Dunne ("he likes to sit around and play Playstation??? what a looooser right" the film half heartedly sneers but still fits Affleck's smugness to a tee).  The story's veins are blood-filled and yet oddly soulless, much like Neil Patrick Harris' sacrificial lamb of a character, just aching to be spilled,  It's almost as if Fincher himself wasn't that enamored with the source material and if anything it reminds one most of Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, for Gone Girl too seems to have a European sentiment to sex & violence while moaning over America's obsessions.  But the sheer artistry on and off screen still make it not only watchable but somewhat enjoyable (not just the movie but Affleck too, surprisingly), but the muddled messages and questionable choice of ending (it is thematically on-point but also completely ruins its own credibility, because no no, no wasn't going to talk about it, shutting up) will leave this Girl Gone and hardly missed.

6.5 Novel uses for Wine Bottles out of 10 (GOOD)

The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network (PG-13)

"Omelette Analogies"

 Much like the internet it lambastes, it is kind of shallow, is engrossing and entertaining, has beautiful moments and exists due to the profit margins of ego centric nerds.  Iffy history and some bad CG mar an otherwise great flick.

7  Zuck Bucks out of 10 (GOOD)

Zodiac (2007)

Zodiac (R)

"What's your sign?"

Chronicling the real life crimes, and ensuing panic and decades long manhunt, of Northern California's famous 1970s serial killer, the Zodiac.  A true crime police procedural and slice of life investigation, Zodiac is the most entertaining and realistic serial killer thriller ever made, especially considering the anti-bombastic nature of the crimes and the unsenstionalized nature of the film.

The visuals are pristine, yellowed like vintage  Polaroids.  Time passes unerringly, the Transamerica Pyramid is built, tastes in music changes; the film is a reconstruction of the life and times of another time steeped in classic Bay Area lore.  The crime scenes and events are meticulously recreated, almost obsessively so (much like many of the investigators inside the real story).  This is a credit to Director Fincher (Fight Club), who is obviously very interested in the subject matter that wracked his own actual NorCal childhood.  Using Robert Graysmith's book (portrayed by Donnie Darko's Jake Gyllenhall) as a template, Fincher and company re-investigated all they could, made former victims into film consultants and put it all into a thrilling script with a chillingly real motif.  Some may nitpick small details, quibble left out information (the internet has been obsessing about Z since before it's invention), but the film captures the paranoia filled frustration of the real case wonderfully.  The killings aren't glamorized or action-movied, the investigation is years long and complicated with many red herrings and suspects.  The audio and soundtrack drive the tension to great lengths, you'll never hear Donovan the same way again.  The cast is strong from all angles, with even the voice of Roger Rabbit, Charles Fliescher, lending to the creep factor at a critical moment.

Zodiac's nostalgic visuals and fantastic cast of grounded actors and characters shine into the murky morass of this modern mystery like a Maglite full of Evereadys.  What it's beam falls on is illuminated in srark relief, but it leaves just as much lost to the outlying shadows, forever in the dark.

9 Well, Do Ya, Punk!? out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)

Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club (R) - Review

 "I am Jack's grinning pleasure center"

 Chuck Palahniuk's anarchistic realworld prose, David Fincher's exacting hand on the aesthetics, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton's mutually bipolar appeal and a revolutionary male-centric message filmed using still state of the art visual effects, story telling, electronic music and dynamite sound effects, Fight Club is THE penultimate movie to define the 90s (and subsequent decades') corporate culture, consumerism and politically correct male-bashing (literally)! It documents the breaking point of the American Male's psyche, an image so warped by its own repressed masculinity that's so crammed into pinching DKNY dress shoes 40 hours a week that anarchy might be a viable option.

Everyman Jack (Norton) has a boring job that allows him to travel, shops the Ikea catalogue while on the can, has no personal relationships beyond those with his boss and couch, and can't sleep.  Jack has insomnia, which he seeks to cure by attending support groups in church basements, a tourist in cancer-town.  His new found serenity is broken when Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) shows up and muscles in on his scene.  When his condo is detonated while away, Jack calls newfound single serving friend Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) for a ride and ends up staying with him in a dilapidated house indefinitely.  They forge a friendship (and an underground homoerotic-tinged boxing club) that soon blossoms into a antisocial cult that spirals out Jack's control, as does his love triangle with Tyler and Marla, and his own self identity.

David Fincher's anti-movie is the perfect translation of Chuck's book; like the chiseled bodies of its stars the story has been trimmed of all the fat, gone is the cookie dough confusion and fizzled twist reveal of the novel.  Cut down to effective fighting weight, Fight Club rages off the screen with bloody knuckled repartee intact.  Norton and Pitt's bromance is used to great effect, obfuscating a heavily anti-corporate message (heavily accented by a young post-advertising career Fincher) that even Jack blanches at in the end.  Special effects used effectively to progress a mood or joke or style (unlike 1999s previously released sfx laden letdown Star Wars Episode I, ironically where Fight Club first advertised to the masses) and electronic soundscape of the Dust Brothers banging the surround stereo track, Club is a 15 course banquet dinner (without the soiled clam chowder).

10 Gallons of Nitro Glycerine out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)