DaveyJoe

I don't have to be reasonable, I'm a person on the internet. Fincher directed a movie that wasn't very good. I wish I could disown my work when it turns out poorly.

Guru Askew

You can. Anyone can. Chances are if you do your name is still gonna be on it. Like Fincher's is on Alien3.

rocket1312

There's a difference between acknowledging that Fincher made a bad movie (which he did), and demanding that he change this one particular story point. For whatever reason, Newt and Hicks weren't going to be in Alien 3. That was decided long before Fincher was involved. Could there have been a way to write them out of the story without pissing off the fans? I don't know. Maybe. That little detail is so far down on the list of reasons why that film doesn't work that I don't think it would have really mattered anyway.

DaveyJoe

I was only half-serious about the Hicks/Newt thing. Here's an interesting article about the various scripts of Alien 3, the initial Gibson script actually had Hicks as the main character:

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/20...of-newt-hicks/

RichC2

Me neither, but man was that an entertaining movie.

Sean O'Hara

The Gibson script is just as much of a mess as what we got in the finished film. And the fact that it contained Space Soviets means it would've been outdated before it even premiered.

The problem with Alien3 isn't that it killed Newt and Hicks, but that it did so before they woke up from Aliens, completely negating everything the previous film built up. If they'd gotten back to Earth and had a chance to live, then went back to face another outbreak, it wouldn't have been a problem.

DaveyJoe

I agree.

musick

Memento and The Prestige are better than anything Fincher has done
but I enjoy and dislike works by both of them ..... can't say I have a favorite

GreenVulture

I voted The Thing.

inri222

Memento and The Prestige are probably Nolan's best films, but IMO there is no way in hell are they better than Zodiac, Fight Club or Se7en.

RichC2

I still don't completely understand the love for Zodiac. It's a well done procedural, but never struck me as particularly exceptional.

The Prestige is Nolan's finest film making, I still have some hang-ups about the ending though. Still one of my favorites by him.

Solid Snake

What are the hang-ups for ya?

fumanstan

Kind of along the line of the book adaptation concern I had for Fincher, I enjoyed Zodiac a ton but hearing the liberties taken with the story, the suspects, and the main characters actually lowered my enthusiasm for the movie a bit.

RichC2

It just never pulled me in, several scenes that should have been tense are relatively limp and a few are actually a bit corny.

<object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/p2esJ_ypn7Y?hl=en_US&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/p2esJ_ypn7Y?hl=en_US&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

This scene was Fincher firing on all cynlinders. But there was next to none of it in the movie. And I get it was a procedural, not a thriller, but I just didn't find myself really loving it.

inri222

This guy says it all :

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/tX0pE6QCgqc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

JumpCutz

bootsy

I don't either. I like the movie and own it on Blu but everytime a list is made for ranking Fincher's movies Zodiac is always at or near the top. I would rank it definitely behind Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network and probably even with Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I'm also shocked by the results of this poll. I can't believe that many people like Fincher over Nolan. I thought it would be a lot closer.

Why So Blu?

Fucking Stuckman. Dude came up on social media. I remember when he was a nobody. How does he have clout now?

inri222

He has about as much clout as anyone here. Doesn't mean that his opinion is false.

rocket1312

See, I don't get this at all. The film's not a documentary. Why should it matter if the script takes liberties with the truth? Does the film work on it's own terms is all that should really matter.

My only real complaint with Zodiac is that in the end, it really isn't "about" anything. You could make an argument that the film is interested in how/why a man can become obsessed with solving this sort of unsolvable crime. However, (like Nolan) Fincher's style oftentimes leaves us with a sense of detachment from the characters and their circumstances. We never get too invested in Gyllenhaal's quest because we're never really given any sort of reasoning why he would just abandon his family in order to pursue this thing, beyond "he likes puzzles." A film like JFK handles this aspect much better. Ultimately the film is just a really well done procedural. That said, it's a really, really well done procedural and the way it denies the audience the payoff they might be looking for is frustratingly wonderful.

dhmac

Maybe because Chris Stuckmann does a pretty good job reviewing movies in his videos, plus he frequently creates new content on his channel. I actually admire how well he uses the Internet to build a following as a film critic.

(And Chris Stuckmann's reviews are about a billion times better than reviews by Harry Knowles, who also built his career as a movie reviewer online some years earlier, despite his reviews being just terrible fanboy crap.)

Why So Blu?

I'm familiar with Stuckmann, because he started out syndicating his clips with us back when he was in his parent's house. At least it looked like his parent's house. I stopped watching his clips when he had some issues and cryptically said that he was giving up reviewing and what not. I know he came back and reinvented himself or something but by then I didn't care. I'm just surprised that he managed to rise up after he mysteriously dropped off.

I'm no Knowles fan either.

fumanstan

For me, I'm just not a big fan of those "based on a true story" type of movies that make significant changes. If the subject matter is interesting enough, there shouldn't be a need to go and re-write history and portray it as real. Social Network, while I also liked it, does the same if I recall. Don't get me wrong, both movies stand on their own but they could have just as easily been about fictional characters and events.

dhmac

Screen Junkies did a "Best Christopher Nolan Movie" panel (not including Interstellar though):

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3Q2SrzH5LvQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The results are pretty much as expected

gp1086

I love Fincher, but still am more of a Nolan fan.