Gone Girl question (May contain spoilers)

My list:

1. PTA
2. Coens
3. Scorsese
4. Fincher
5. Tarantino
6. Malick

There's no wrong answer here, unless you exclude PTA. I made it a top 6 because that's where the dropoff is for me. Just missing the cut: Wes Anderson, Chris Nolan, Eastwood. Spielberg and Ron Howard deserve recognition, but they've both made a lot of crap in addition to the good stuff.

EDIT: I originally had Danny Boyle, Pedro Almodovar and Alejandro Inarritu as honorable mention, then went back and saw the American qualifier.

 

I'll see anything Fincher, the Coens or Tarantino direct. I don't care what it's about. If they directed it, Im in.

PTA is great, but he doesn't work enough.

Hopefully, that's changing. I know he has one coming out in a couple months.

 

You're right that he doesn't work enough, but look at the entire body of work:

Boogie Nights
Magnolia
Punch-Drunk Love
There Will Be Blood
The Master
(I'm leaving Hard Eight off because I haven't seen it.)

There's just no weak spot there. The low point is probably The Master or Punch-Drunk Love, and just think about that. Holy shit.

 

Alexander Payne probably should be in that mix. Haven't seen Nebraska and About Schmidt was just OK, but Citizen Ruth, Election, Sideways and The Descendents were all excellent.

Hard Eight is excellent, if just for Philip Baker Hall. I liked it better than Magnolia or Punch-Drunk Love, but not as much as Boogie Nights or TWBB. (Haven't seen The Master).

 

1. Fincher
2. Coens
3. Tarantino


If we're going all-time, Scorsese may be at the top. Even his music documentaries/concert films are masterpieces. The George Harrison one was just freaking amazing.

 

Hard Eight is very, very good.

I didn't like The Master as much as I wanted to, but it still is a very, very good film.

 

If nothing else, now I know what I'm doing Thursday night when the World Series is off. Hard Eight time!

 

Going back to Fincher...I like all the movies RecoveringJournalist listed (although I haven't seen Gone Girl yet). I just don't see anything there higher than a B+ movie. He's incredibly consistent, but hasn't done anything unforgettable. The closet he's come to that is Fight Club, which has not aged well (although that has a lot more to do with the subject matter than anything he did).

 

Curious why you don't think Fight Club has aged well. Too politically incorrect?

It's a top 5 all-time favorite for me, so I'm biased.

To me, Se7en and Fight Club are instant classics.

Zodiac is incredible. The Game is fucking genius.

Benjamin Button is a strange movie. Panic Room is one of those that is good, but could have been better.

Taking books like Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl to the big screen and not pissing everyone off is incredibly hard.

 

I think Se7en is pretty damn unforgettable. There might be some Morgan Freeman cheesiness at the end (although one of the reasons wise old Morgan Freeman talking in a voiceover became a cliche is Se7en) but it's a really good film.

 

I love his last line in Se7en. "Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."

 

That's a lot of it. It rang a lot more misogynist to me on a relatively recent rewatch (last 3 years or so) than when I saw it in high school. And it falls into a similar category for me as the Matrix - well-made, fun, good movies with somewhat cringeworthy, too-cool-by-half storylines. That's a personal reaction, as I was between the ages of 15 and 18 when I saw both movies and had what I imagine to be the typical high-school dude reaction to Fight Club (holy SHIT, it's the TRUTH, dude, and the MAN won't let you REALIZE it). It's an extremely well-made film - a very good movie - and a lot of my reaction has to do with how other people view and promote the film, versus what it itself says. But I have a harder time separating those at this point.

As for the other movies you mention, I like them all. Don't get me wrong. You just rate them a little higher than I do, from a half to a full letter grade, by my estimation. We're talking personal opinion here, and we're not THAT far apart. And your point about the pitfalls of adapting extremely popular books is well taken.