Visual Parallels: A Simple Favour + Gone Girl

David Fincher's Gone Girl is one of my all time favorite movies. And then last year we had the unexpected pleasure of witnessing Paul Feig's wickedly delightful A Simple Favour. These films have many similar elements so it was very easy to come up with that pair for Visual Parallels. We have a cunning, beautiful woman who decides to make a life for her husband difficult, we have a sweet, naive character who unknowingly helps her with her plot, we have a disturbing murder sequence and we have worrisome past of our cunning villain revealed.

15 best film tracks of 2014

90% of what I listen to is film music, so I had a lot of great thing to listen to in 2014 - it was one of the finest years for film music in recent memory. No matter who wins the Oscar this year - it's going to be well deserved. I'm going to choose the best scores in my huge best of list on Tuesday but for now let's listen to the year's best, most memorable and incredible tracks:

15 best shots of 2014

Welcome to the second Best of 2014 list! There were plenty of movies last year with absolutely stunning cinematography. But this list is a little bit more specific than this. It's about that one perfect image that showed up on screen that I won't be able to ever forget. Whenever thinking of these movies, it's impossible for me not to remember the best shots in them and they just appear in my mind instantly.

10 best scenes of 2014

Here we go - the first of my end of 2014 lists. I have not seen all noteworthy movies - Wild and A Most Violent Year being the ones that I would probably enjoy the most - but I already completed the lists, seeing how I don't think there are any scenes better than those I chose here. The best shots of 2014 list is next in line, but for now I hope you enjoy my choices here:

105 things I love about Gone Girl (that no one talks about), part 2.

Here's part two of my 105 things I love about Gone Girl (that no one talks about) list, based on Alex's original series. (here's part 1)

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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