105 things I love about Gone Girl (that no one talks about), part 1.

Brilliant Alex of And so it Begins let me borrow his awesome idea for things I love about ... that no one talks about again. I did the last one on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and now it's, to surprise of no one, another Fincher's movie, one that is still my favorite film of 2014 (I still haven't seen Birdman or Foxcatcher but I can't see Gone Girl falling from the top place). It turns out that this list grew really extensive so I'm dividing it into two parts, the next one will be posted next Sunday.

The 72nd Annual Golden Globe Nominations

Rosamund Pike, Best Actress in Drama - Gone Girl and Mark Ruffalo, Best Supporting Actor - Foxcatcher

 What did we learn today?

We learned that if your heart is pure (kind of) and you are rooting for the movie (that you haven't even seen yet) and it has your darling Fluffalo in it, amazing things can happen.

Foxcatcher which wasn't even present in most of critics' top 10 and nominations (while Boyhood triumphed, that sound you hear is me vomiting) got a big boost this week with Steve Carell getting both SAG and GG nominations and the film getting Best Picture nomination as well as the inclusion among AFI's top 10 11 of the year. But it did come with a price - apparently where it triumphed, Gone Girl was absent.

But let's focus on what's important - Mark Ruffalo is a double SAG and Golden Globe nominee this year. Oh, yeah!

Soundtrack Wednesday - The Theory of Everything, Calvary & The Imitation Game

Track: A Normal Family

Artist: Johann Joahnnsson

Movie: The Theory of Everything

Screaming Sunday - The Babadook

Movie rating - 80/100
Plot:  A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.
The heroes: The mother and her son. Or perhaps just her son?
The antagonists: The mysterious Babadook
Best scene: It's hard to choose just one in the film so consistent but I'd choose the scene where Amelia gets the book back...with certain creepy additions to it.
Oh-oh something's not right line: Don't let him in.
What makes it so great? This film is easily one of the best and smartest horror films of the last few years - it's not quite as entertaining as Orphan or The Conjuring but it's very psychologically complex, brilliantly acted and executed. The film's best element is the script which much like for example Black Swan is showing the events almost completely from subjective perspective leaving a lot of room for theories and interpretations.

Soundtrack Wednesday - Only Lovers Left Alive

Track: Spooky action at a distance

Artist: SQÜRL

Movie: Only Lovers Left Alive

Stephen Dillane Appreciation

Stephen Dillane

November 30, 1956 (London, England, UK)

I have to phrase this perfectly: I'm just not convinced that the attention we give to creating what we think of as a character isn't actually quite often the means by which an actor overcomes his own terror of standing there onstage and creating a mask to hide behind.

Mark Ruffalo Appreciation

Mark Alan Ruffalo

November 22, 1967 (Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA)

 "Don’t lose your heart, just keep going, keep at it."

Soundtrack Wednesday - Interstellar

Title: Mountains

Artist: Hans Zimmer

Movie: Interstellar

Interstellar

(SPOILERS!)

I remember when Inception was released among all that ridiculous praise it got. Then I remember watching the movie and thinking 'Really? That's it? That's the movie people give 10/10 to'? Interstellar is in comparison so boring, dumb and irritating I would have gladly see Inception three times instead of it.

Hell, I'd gladly make that damn spinning top my screen-saver.

Brilliant acting defined by one look

Brilliant Brittani of Rambling Film had this fabulous idea for a post and then Ruth of flixchatter followed up with her own awesome list. I love that they wrote posts on that - for me the most amazing thing an actor can do is make us see real emotions - disappear into character's state of mind, state of heart, state of soul. While it would probably be impossible for an actor to show this kind of authenticity through entire performance, the best of them can do that in brief moments, just in one look.

Soundtrack Wednesday - Begin Again

Title: Lost Stars

Artist: Adam Levine

Movie: Begin Again

Begin Again

Meet Dan (Mark Ruffalo). Dan's life is not going well at the moment - his marriage collapsed, he can't connect with his teenage daughter, he drinks way too much and he hadn't had a professional success - in his job as a music producer - in 5 years. One evening, after a particularly shitty day, Dan goes to a bar to get drunk. As he is drinking he hears a song. A song sang by a girl named Gretta (Keira Knightley) on the stage. Immediately Dan wants to sing Gretta up. But as things don't go as they planned, the two decide to record a live album in different locations in NYC. As they do that, they start getting closer to each other and finding something that they didn't have in their lives in a long time - joy.

The Ten Best Superhero Movies of All Time RELAY

M.Brown of the awesome Two Dollar Cinema passed me the baton in The Ten Best Superhero Movies of All Time Relay by Bubbawheat, of Flights, Tights and Movie Nights.

Gone Girl

(SPOILERS!)

On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) comes home to find opened front door, shattered glass table and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing. Once Nick notifies the police the investigation and media circus begins and people quickly come to conclusion that Nick had something to do with Amy's disappearance. What happened to Amy Dunne?

On audience's misogyny, Amy Dunne, the Cool Girl myth and the brilliance of Gillian Flynn

(SPOILERS!)

There are so many strange claims about the story of Gone Girl - that it's misogynistic, that the third act made no sense, that Amy is just a 'psycho bitch', that Nick was 'a good guy'. It's hard to write about these people as if they were people who could exist - the story, which people seem to forget so often while they are whining about the third act is a satire. But Flynn wrote these characters in a brilliant way - their actions are unpredictable and heightened to fit the pulpy tone of the story but at the same time given what we know about the characters, their lives, past experiences and personalities  - they all make sense.

Ranking Fincher's films

"Filmmaking isn’t if you can just strap on a camera onto an actor, and steadicam, and point it at their face, and follow them through the movie, that is not what moviemaking is, that is not what it’s about. It’s not just about getting a performance. It’s also about the psychology of the cinematic moment, and the psychology of the presentation of that, of that window."

Well, here we are guys, days before most of you get to see Gone Girl and about 2 weeks until I get to see it (no, seriously, fuck my life) we reached the end of my David Fincher Blog Event. Hopefully you guys liked the series and perhaps it even got you in the mood to watch or rewatch some of his movies.

Fincher, a guy who is nicknamed 'the prince of darkness', is for me the most talented director working right now. And hopefully through one of my lists it was also evident that this guy has a great sense of humour, a knowledge that may come quite handy when you realize just how many hilarious things there are in Gone Girl.

But don't worry, it's still dark, creepy and morally repugnant. Fincher you know and love.

Soundtrack Wednesday - Gone Girl

 While it's still a little over a week till the whole album is released four tracks showed up on soundcloud today. I think this will become my favorite of the three scores Reznor and Ross did for Fincher. Sugar Storm on its own is so gorgeous. I can almost taste sugar and snow while listening to it. Just like You sounds like something straight from David Lynch's movie and I think The Way he looks at me plays in a certain montage that is bound to make everyone lose their shit.

Are you ready to meet Amazing Amy? + 5 essential performances by Rosamund Pike

The first reviews for Gone Girl arrived. Here's what the critics are saying about Rosamund Pike's performance as Amy - my most anticipated performance of the year:

Top 10 performances in David Fincher's films

Whenever there is a new Fincher's movie there is always Oscar talk. Sometimes people do get in but on occasion they're not the ones who most root for to be nominated - what the fuck did Brad Pitt actually do in The Curious Case of the Benjamin Button? Another thing? I was always baffled by Eisenberg being the one who was nominated for Social Network.

Screaming Sunday - Honeymoon

Movie rating - 73/100
Plot:  Young newlyweds Paul (Penny Dreadful's Harry Treadaway) and Bea (Game of Thrones' Rose Leslie) travel to remote lake country for their honeymoon. Shortly after arriving, Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night. As she becomes more distant and her behavior increasingly peculiar, Paul begins to suspect something more sinister than sleepwalking took place in the woods.
The heroes: Paul, who is trying to figure out what happened to his beloved wife.
The antagonists: Something bad in the woods.
Best scene: The chilling scene on the lake near the end.
Oh-oh something's not right line: She's not being herself today.
What makes it so great? The film is genuinely scary - it has a very tense, creepy atmosphere, terrific suspense building up throughout the entire movie and so far it's the best horror film of the year.

Scene of the Week - The Social Network

The Henley Royal Regatta

directed by David Fincher

This is one of the many scenes in the Social Network that are so well directed it just takes your breath away. But it's probably also the most memorable scene for most of the people. Just what the hell is it about this scene? It's not really connected to the main narrative, it's sticks out of the movie but doesn't distract.

Top 10 Music Moments in David Fincher's Films

One of the many things I adore about Fincher's movies is how perfectly the man uses the music in them. He directed music videos before the became the movie director so he certainly understands the rhythm and how to make the footage go perfectly with the music. Not only are the soundtracks for his films brilliant, it's also about those particular songs that fit the movie so well, that frame this particular scene so superbly, you cannot possibly imagine anything else accompanying them. Here are my favorite music moments from Fincher's movies.

Top 10 Funny Moments in David Fincher's films

 One of the most amazing things in Fincher's movies is that as dark as they may be they miraculously manage to have hilarious, sometimes even laugh out loud funny moments. Whether it's Robert Downey Jr.'s character genius lines in Zodiac, Tyler pissing and - doing worse things - into people's soup in Fight Club or snarky Harvard president being absolutely dismissive of his students, Fincher's films have really wonderful moments of humor which I always appreciate.

I hate tonally black and white films - just because something is a thriller doesn't mean you have to sit there stewed in dark tension for 2 hours straight. So let's take a look at some of the funniest moments in Fincher's films.

I'm sure Gone Girl will bring a few of those as well. Tyler Perry's "would you look at this stupid motherfucker incriminating himself?" looks at Ben Affleck are already so funny and we just saw a little bit of that in trailers.

(I didn't bother rewaching Alien 3 for this, though, I'm sure there are some great moments of unintentional humor, Benjamin Button was shockingly devoid of funny bits despite all its warmth, the funniest thing about Panic Room was Jared Leto's acting and The Game, while did have few golden moments of Douglas being disgusted, didn't make the cut)

Hit Me with Your Best Shot: The Matrix

Over at filmexperience there is a wonderful series going on called 'Hit me with your best shot' where you get to choose your single favorite shot from the assigned movie and write the reason why you chose it. Today, it's all about The Matrix. I'm gonna go ahead and post 3 but the main one I'm choosing is this:

10 Actors I Would See In Just About Anything (aka welcome to Fangirl Heaven)

This may be the first blogathon ever that as soon as I saw it I knew I needed to be a part of it. I actually tweeted Mettel to pick me as the next participant, so thank you so much for doing that!

I do realize this is not a blogathon about being a fangirl but I'm gonna make my post about that. Because other than gorgeous, each and every one of these actors is very talented too. So everyone's happy. Am I right, ladies?

Visual Parallels: Zodiac + Se7en

Zodiac and Se7en. On paper they should be very similar - they both deal with the hunt for a monster - enigmatic, evil man killing innocent people. They both have good characters chasing after the bad guy. Finally they are both directed by David Fincher. But although so similar on the surface, and sharing so many visual similarities, they are completely different. And completely unequal.

Performances I Love - Morgan Freeman in Se7en (+ few words about John Doe and the box)

When people talk about Morgan Freeman nowadays they tend to talk about how his laziness is almost up there on the levels of tardiness depicted by Johnny Depp's recent professional behaviour which is quite frankly embarrassing to witness. They talk how he stumbled from the set of Transcendence right to the set of Lucy without so much noticing the difference, or at least so it looks judging by the quality of his performances and the level of interest he seems to have in the projects. And when people talk of David Fincher's Se7en they always, always sing praises for Kevin Spacey, hailing his John Doe as one of the most memorable cinematic killers and nominating his performance left and right, completely ignoring everyone else who is in this movie. Let's break these two patterns, shall we?

63 things I love about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (that no one talks about)

Brilliant Alex who runs terrific And So it Begins has this fabulous series where he writes about things he loves in movies that no one seems to be talking about. Alex has kindly let me borrow this idea for my today's post which is the first one in the David Fincher event I'm organizing here on the site in anticipation for Gone Girl. Over the next two months most of the posts on the site - soundtrack Wednesdays, scenes of the week and performances I love - will be all about Fincher's previous movies.

Rising Stars: Chris Pratt

It's always so cool when things go well for an actor you root for - with Guardians of the Galaxy killing it at the box office everyone is noticing its leading man - Chris Pratt. I am a huge fan of Parks and Recreation, a fantastic show that is still watched by too few and really, everyone should be watching it, where Pratt plays hilarious character of Andy Dwyer. I'm just so happy for him finally having a proper big break into the movie world.

Chris was born on June 21st 1979 (I'm kinda shocked to find out he is not younger, he has such an infectious, youthful energy) in Virginia. His first roles include flicks called Cursed Part 2 and Strangers with Candy, so it wasn't always easy at the beginning. Chris went on to appear on popular series Everwood and The O.C. but it's Parks and Rec that was his big break into getting recognized and finally having a shot at big roles.

Amazing Amy is Gone - Anticipating Gone Girl

 (all the spoilers are written in light font, to read them highlight the text)

"When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The very first time I saw her, it was the back of the head I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head. You could imagine the skull quite easily. I’d know her head anywhere. And what’s inside it. 

I think of that, too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy? The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: 

What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?"

- the opening lines of Gone Girl

Fugitive Pieces

I rarely review older movies here on the site. When I make an exception and do so, it's either because I really like the movie or because it's very underseen and I want to spread the word about it. Fugitive Pieces is a wonderful example of both of these reasons.

Women in Film Blogathon

John Hitchcock, over at Hichcock's World. is running a very fun blogathon focusing on the women in cinema.

Here are the rules:

1. The female character in question should have qualities that make her strong. That doesn't necessarily mean better than the guys, just well-written; we're trying to promote equality here, not reverse misogyny.
2. Unlike my previous blogathon, I'm going to be a bit stricter here and say that each entry should only focus on one character. However, if you like you can write multiple entries examining different characters.
3. If you can, do try to find less obvious choices. There are a few that I can expect are likely to get picked: Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc. If you decide to write about any the "obvious" choices, I encourage you to at least try and find something new to say about them.
4. You are allowed to pick characters from any film from genre or time period you like.

Hit me with your best shot: Under the Skin

 (spoilers)

Over at the amazing filmexperience there is a wonderful series going on called 'Hit me with your best shot' where you get to choose your single favorite shot from the assigned movie and write the reason why you chose it.

Well for my first ever post participating I'm in a luck as even with the amazing amount of stunning shots in Under the Skin there is one that was truly the best one there.

Under the Skin

 (spoilers!)

Let me preface this by saying that I did like the movie a lot. Unfortunately, since I am familiar with book material there's going to be a lot of 'oh, what could have been!' talk here.

It's been a year, more or less, since I read Michel Faber's terrific novel Under the Skin. Since I don't have much time to read fiction, I don't spend my time with books that often. The main reason I usually do is because there is a movie in the works based on the novel and it sounds amazing. So what happens is I read the book, I love it and then I see the movie. And it's not the right way to go. At all.

Against the Crowd blogathon

There's really fun blogathon going on Dell on Movies. It's about letting your readers know what beloved movie you hated and what hated movie you loved.

Visual Parallels: Melancholia + Sleeping Beauty

Two movies that are perhaps not well known but they remain some of the most unique films I've seen. Both quite difficult and similar - not just when it comes to the disturbed heroine but also the way we are shown her life on screen.

About Lady Stoneheart and why excluding her from Game of Thrones would be the biggest mistake on the show yet.

(x)

Yesterday a certain interview appeared online that shook and outraged most of the book readers of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. For yet another time this month those of us who eagerly await to see Lady Stoneheart on Game of Thrones were disappointed or - possibly - lied to. I initially wrote about this in my draft for tomorrow's Rambling Friday but I decided this issue needs a separate article. Because hopefully when we keep asking and keep shouting we will finally be heard.

Maleficent

I was very much looking forward to this movie when I first heard that they are planning on making a film from the perspective of Maleficent, one of the most iconic villains in cinematic history. Unfortunately, after the first trailers showed up it seemed pretty obvious that the film will be yet another cash grab from Disney - just like Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman and Oz - the Great and Powerful filled with useless 3D, atrocious to look at color palette, half assed script and a bunch of random, CGI creatures which are practically indistinguishable from each other when it comes to those four movies.

Game of Thrones 4x10 The Children

When last night a leak from Canadian fans of Thrones came through that they've got to see the episode early and there was no epilogue of book 3 in it, I thought to myself, well, that's it then. For the first time I didn't stay up all night to watch the episode. Maybe it's because I had the whole day to process the unbelievable decision of not ending the season with the best possible cliffhanger before I saw the episode, but to me it seems that The Children, as much as it is a slap across the face for us book readers at times, is one fine episode of the show.

Soundtrack Wednesday - Game of Thrones 4

There is one good thing from Thrones season coming to an end - the soundtrack is getting released. Which means that I now have enough to listen to all year long (seriously). The show has its ups and downs (it is only now that I can laugh about how they screwed up last Sunday's episode) but one thing is certain - that Ramin Djawadi will knock it out of the park with his music each time.