What's in the box?

Calm as Hindu cows

The Social Network (2010)

David Fincher always brings a high level of excellence to each project he is working on. Even if it is a potboiler like Panic Room or the misfire of Curious Case of Benjamin Button, they all have one thing in common: impeccable craftmanship. This film is no different. Fincher's style has recently been internalized and is letting the content drive the story. The flash and flair of Se7en and Fight Club may not be there visually, but the tone has sure creeped into it.

I was weary of a film about facebook. But after hearing Fincher was attached and seeing the well put together trailer, it peaked my interest in the material.

Fincher spins a web of betrayal, blackmail and deceit around the characters. The primary being Mark Zuckerberg, now the world's youngest billionaire. Mark is a man who is possessed by the possibilities of social interaction online. Yet as the gap widens online, the barrier for human interaction closes in on Mark. What I found just as riveting were the secondary characters. The characters of the Winkervoss twins and Mark's friend Eduardo made for dynamic storytelling.

Aaron Sorkin's script and wordplay are one of a kind. The rapid fire dialogue will coil around you and strap you into your seat. It's not like we are seeing cracks in the Zuckerberg armor as the film goes on. The flaws rear their ugly head from scene one. In it we are introduced too Mark as he "sets a landspeed record for talking" when discussing getting into clubs to a girl. The use of intercutting between depositions gives this material a narrative pull and makes the bridge between past and present structurally sound. But more than that, it's a comment on both exclusivity and just how easy it is to get caught up in the business of getting their first.

Being a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails, I was elegaic when I heard Trent Reznor was scoring this film. The score never screams attention to itself when taken in context with the whole. It moves the scenes along with a natural rhythm. It's a soundtrack I'll be definately purchasing.

Zodiac, two films prior to this one, drew upon a theme of obssessiveness. The protagonist Robert Graysmith had a quest to find the true identity of the Zodiac killer. Yet, his quest ended up overtaking his life with his wife & child. Mark Zuckerberg's quest is completely different but he is still just as obssessive as the protagonists in Fincher's previous films.

5/5

For within each seed there is a promise of a flower.

The Social Network will soon be upon us, so I decided to bring up a film in Fincher's catalog that is the most troubled production of his....


ALIEN 3













The Alien franchise is unique beast. For one, each of the four movies were done by a different director who brought their own vision to the project....Even though one of the visions failed. Fortunately, Alien 3 is not that vision. Secondly, each film has a different tone. Alien is a horror movie wearing scifi clothing, Aliens is an action movie, Alien 3 brings back the horror, albeit in a more nihilistic form, and Alien: Resurrection is a mess.

Now to get down to brass tacks as to why Alien 3 is viewed as a mediocre entry in the franchise.

Viewers who sit down and watch Aliens and afterwards watch Alien 3 are going to get a punch to the face. All the expectations from Aliens are dashed in the opening 5 minutes. The characters we've come to love (Newt & Corporal Hicks) are killed off. But I also love Hudson, Brett and Vasquez. What needs to be realized is that people die in Alien movies. Expectation is the key word audiences are consumed by when it comes to sequels. One can't possibly top Cameron in the action department or for that matter, the tension and suspense that Ridley Scott brought to the first one. So the question people are left with, is who is going to take on this franchise?

Enter David Fincher. Having cut his teeth on the music video scene, Fincher brought a dark, brooding vision to the franchise. This did not go down well with the corporate suits at 20th Century Fox. Submitted for your approval are some quotes from Fincher in regards to working on Alien 3:

FINCHER: You learn very quickly with movie studios that the reason there are so many people working there is to deflect blame and to spread culpability. It just became this morass of one person says this, two days later tht idea gets shot down because of it content, somebody else says go ahead and try this, the writers that you want for some reason aren't returning calls to the studio -- I wanted to get Gregg Pruss on, but he wasn't enough of a name for them at them time, but he was fine when it was Vincent Ward, it was all this kind of double-talk and it just continued from two and a half years. It was a really stupid experience, because we had a a lot of really talented people who could do much better work than they were allowed to do. It was just kind of a process of attrition. Composer Elliot Goldenthal had like nine days to write a score, it was just like "Get it out". It was just such a disaster on every front, we never had the material, we never had the support.

FINCHER: When the studio hires you, executives are trembling and sweating for months and months. A lot of finger-pointing is going on and people are trying to cover up. I learned that the people who have made the largest investments in a project, the ones who have the most at stake, are the ones you can trust the least to salvage a film. The whole process is designed around a system where they set up hurdles for you that you can't possible achieve. Inevitably you fail and the executives say "Okay, let's go with what we had initially set out to do.", but instead of really sticking to the original plan, they no force you to do the same thing with half the original budget, and it jest keeps going on like that.


FINCHER: The lession you learn is that you can't take on an enterprise of this size and scope if you don't really have a movie like THE TERMINATOR or JAWS behind you, because in the end the guy in charge of the studio has to look you in the eye and say "Is this extra $2 million worth it?" and it's very difficult to engender that sort of confidence...It's very nice to say "This is the guy who directed the biggest grossing movie of all time, sit down and shut up, and feel lucky you've got him" -- it's another thing when everybody's wringing their handkerchiefs and sweating and puking blood because of the money that's being spent.




The progression of the Ellen Ripley arc from Alien to Alien 3 is, if anything, tragic. This third entry acts as a solid closing to the series. Now there are a fair amount of things I had problems with when I first saw it. For one, I always wanted to know what happened to Golic, the crazed prisoner who saw 'the demon'. Two, the CGI is dated. Needless to say, in 2003, the problems I had with the film were answered (although that CGI is still there, which brings the film down a notch). The film got a special edition where 30 minutes were incorporated back into the film by editor Terry Rawlings. It seemed alot smoother. The only minor quibble with the new footage would be the decision to have the alien inside of a ox as opposed to the dog. But these are mere nitpicks. Looking back on it, I think it's fair to say that Fincher learned a fair amount on the production of Alien 3. Because he certainly knocked us on our ass three years later with a little old film called Seven.

Coming Attractions: Fall Season

Also anticpating:
Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life- This is at the top of my list and has been for a while. Premise: the tale of a Midwestern boy's journey from the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as a "lost soul in the modern world", and his quest to regain meaning in life.

True Grit- The Coen Brothers do a western. 'Nuff said. Release date: 12/25. As good a Christmas present as any I'll receive this year.

Zodiac (2007)

Deciphering the Zodiac

Amongst film circles, the year 2007 was known for 2 films that garnered major critical attention: No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Both films are strong entries into their resective director's catalogs. But in early March of that year, another film came out that should be held in the same regard as those two. Zodiac, the 5th film by David Fincher centered around the case of the Zodiac killer. Taking place in the 70's and in the San Fransisco Now before the film even coming out, I admit, I was a bit disapointed Fincher was going to be treading the same ground here. Se7en is already one of the most effective films of its genre so why would her try to recapture what he had created in 1995? When I walked out of the theater after seeing Zodiac, I realized I couldn't be any further from the truth.

Movies are all about structure. You have three acts to fufill certain desires and expectations. That's what I love about them. Then every now and then you run across a film like Zodiac that's not interested in doing what already has been done or give you that immediate satisfaction. Because in reality, the detectives that were on the case weren't getting that either. It stays true to the beats of the case and offers up the compelling procedural aspect of it. Now the film thats always gonna be mentioned alongside it in that regard is All the President's Men. A film that goes to many lengths to get as many details and facts right. You can see Redford & director Alan Pakula were just as aware as Fincher is in not straying from the factual aspects of the case it was portraying. And it's a valid comparison because Fincher even brought back composer David Shire, the one who scored All the President's Men to score this film.

The acting is stellar throughout the film. From Jake Gyllenhaal to Robert Downey Jr. to Adam Goldberg who comes in for three scenes. Everyone is absorbed in their characters and their purpose. The ensemble is really impressive.

Another thing critics and people talked about was the pacing. It is different from your average 3 act structure. The first hour and a half takes place at the height of all the murders. There are several scene throughout that evoke tension and suspense like few films have in the past decade. Who can listen to Hurdy Gurdy Man the same way again after seeing that opening? The murders are cold and brutal and just as effective as anything we have seen in Se7en.

The second half is structured along the lines of a procedural with detectives and one of the biggest aspects of the film comes into play: detail. Most films and filmmakers take a historical subject and pair it down to its core elements. While that's all fine, I still feel like something is missing after having seen it. Zodiac presents its subject matter in as honest detail possible. Compiling massive amounts of information and honing it down to a 2 and a half hour film that is riveting from beginning to end. In essence, this is not a film about a serial killer so much as a film about obssessiveness. It's about a newspaper cartoonist named Robert Graysmith who would not let the case go.

From a stylistic standpoint, this is Fincher at his most restrained. Which is interesting, because when looking at a number of negative reviews on the film, this is what they seemed to have a problem with. When Fight Club and Se7en came out they became major influences in filmmaking and how people were lighting their films. Fincher knows this and what makes him a great filmmaker is the interest in moving away from what's done before. Zodiac's asethetic is more along the lines of The Game, where Fincher got out of the way and was telling a story. You feel like you're on the case the whole time. It was almost shot in the same way films of the 70's with an exception to the use of CGI and visual flourishes. In a day and age where CGI is exploited in every possible way, the most impressive uses of it are when you don't even realize it. One great example is the passing of time with the TransAmerica tower being built. This is CGI when it looks absolutely real.

Zodiac is an important chapter in the career of David Fincher and shows him on his A game. This is not a three layer cake. This is a three thousand layer cake. Making a complicated process look simple and a film you will get completely lost. Usually on first watch you are enjoying the technique but in Zodiac's case, it's going to take at least 3 or 4 viewings to really look at the details and flourishes which service this story.