FilmQuest 2012 (5/30): 'The Full Monty':

It's been just over a week since I started the emphatically named "FilmQuest 2012" column and I've already seen five of the thirty arbitrarily selected major movies that I had been so woefully ignorant of. This time around it's the turn of 1997's 'The Full Monty' - that small ($3.5 million budget) British comedy that ended up an international box office sensation (earning just under $258 million) and became a surprise rival to 'Titanic' at that year's Academy Awards (nominated for Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay, winning one for Anne Dudley's score).

In Peter Cattaneo's film six Sheffield lads decide to become male strippers in a society where that seems to be the most dignified remaining option. The disintegration of the city's once-booming steel industry casts a shadow over all the characters, from the suicidal Lomper (Steve Huison) - who lives with his elderly mother - to the mill's former manager Gerald (Tom Wilkinson), whose wife has been in the dark about his joblessness for the last six months. Gerald has bought into the middle class dream and stands to lose his ski holidays, tanning bed and various object d'art. Meanwhile loveable hustler Gaz (Robert Carlyle), the brains behind the stripping scheme, is in equally desperate need of income: in danger of losing access to his son (William Snape) if he can't start making child support payments to his ex-wife.

It's amazing to think 'The Full Monty' is now fifteen years old - because it seems like the relic of a bygone age. One that pre-dates the current vicious level of class hate in this country. I can't imagine one of today's films positioning its heroes in a dole queue as this one does for the instantly iconic "Hot Stuff" scene, let alone with such resignation and little sense of either judgement or condescension. Simon Beaufoy's screenplay reminds us of a Britain hadn't yet been weaned off compassion for the unemployed by a decade of Jeremy Kyle and the like.

In fact way back in 1997 Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy (who plays Gaz's portly mate Dave) were not only shown on the dole, but they could even be seen to shoplift VHS tapes (I told you it was old) from ASDA without fear of losing audience sympathies. We route for them and are never encouraged to doubt their good intentions and kindly character, even as they're also shown to turn down several offers of employment considered demeaning.

Gaz rejects his ex-wife's attempts to get him doing unskilled labour for a (pre-minimum wage) sum of £2.50 an hour, whilst Dave is mocked for taking up work as a security guard at the aforementioned supermarket: a job he eventually runs away from, shoplifting as he does so, with the moment depicted as liberating rather than debauched. And yet the film somehow never implies that they aren't serious about looking for work. More than anything all of the characters long for their old jobs back. So much so that a good portion of 'The Full Monty' sees its characters hanging out in the abandoned steel mill, with seemingly nowhere else to go. They are a displaced class of men who no longer feel of use or relevance.

Particularly effective (probably the best scene in whole movie) is the look on Gaz's face when he realises he's potentially sabotaged Gerald's efforts at securing a new job. Tom Wilkinson's public breakdown is one of many tender moments that prevents the film from taking unemployment and its pitfalls too lightly. It's overwhelmingly sensitive and kindly disposed towards its characters. A fact which ensures this comedy is never less than watchable even if (to me at least) the jokes aren't very funny.

FilmQuest 2012 (4/30): 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest':

SPOILERS ahead

The fourth in my series of retrospective reviews bearing the oft-derided (if only by me) name "FilmQuest 2012", this time I'm looking at 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest': the Michael Douglas produced, Milos Forman directed, Jack Nicholson starring 1975 drama set within a mental institution. Funny, sad, disturbing and life-affirming in equal measure, 'One Flew' is one of those rare Best Picture Oscar winners that people seem to unanimously agree is genuinely very good. I guess it would have to be: the other nominees that year were 'Barry Lyndon', 'Nashville', 'Dog Day Afternoon' and 'Jaws' (has there been a better year than that in terms of Oscar?).

Douglas, Forman and Nicholson all won golden statuettes in their respective categories (picture, director, actor), as well as the screenwriters (Laurence Hauben and Bo Goldman) and actress Louise Fletcher, for her legendary portrayal of the uncompromising Nurse Ratched. Yet what really caught my eye, as I sat down to watch the film for the first time, was the revelatory performance of one of its few Oscar losers: Brad Dourif as the stuttering, suicidal Billy Bibbet. Dourif's bright-eyed intensity and haunting vulnerability make the ending all the more tragic. If we hadn't just witnessed Dourif's dramatic fall from newly confident euphoria to pathetic, weepy pleading, Nicholson's subsequent attempt to murder Ratched would play as far less sympathetic. As it is, you are - for those few seconds at least - right there with him.

Dourif's impact on the whole film is made even more extraordinary by the fact that, aside from Nicholson and, at a push, Will Sampson (as the Chief), most of the inmates/patients don't have a great deal of individual screentime - restricted to the occasional (often wordless) close-up. But we feel like we've spent more time with them than we have in reality, no doubt thanks to the uniqueness of the actor inhabiting each small role. Alongside Dourif are the likes of Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Vincent Schiavelli, Sydney Lassick, William Duell and William Redfield: all of whom look and sound distinctive enough as to form an immediate, unshakable impression.

Despite the ultimate, spirit-crushing lobotomy visited upon Nicholson's Randle McMurphy following his strangling of the nurse, one of the really exceptional elements of 'One Flew' is that the institution is not portrayed as malicious for its own sake. Ratched is stern and rigorously enforces her regime - to the detriment of the patients - yet, until the heartless humiliation of Bibbet, her good intentions are never really in question. You get the sense she genuinely believes her methods are the best way bring stability or order to disordered lives. Here (in a refreshing break from the norm) the system, though it medicates patients into docility and uses electro-shock therapy as a punishment, is not depicted as deliberately cruel.

Perhaps (the forced lobotomy of McMurphy aside) Ratched's greatest act of cruelty is subtle and indirect. Though most of her patients are in the hospital voluntarily - and therefore permitted to leave at any time - none of them express even the faintest desire to do so, thanks to her control over them and the relative security it brings. Through her regime Ratched merely seeks to pacify her wards, with little thought of preparing them to reintegrate with society. This horrifies McMurphy who thinks only of freedom. Though clearly a loose cannon, he's not himself mentally ill: he's a criminal who's had himself committed in order to avoid manual labour and serve the rest of his sentence in relative comfort.

This allows him to witness, and experience, the pitfalls of institutionalisation. It is ambiguous whether he fails to escape the night of the illicit party (falling asleep) or simply decides not to - preferring to stay within this new community in which he has become an important member. Either way McMurphy becomes the unwilling victim of a system that seems designed to make people easier to handle, rather than working to enrich their lives. In this respect the hospital is not too dissimilar from the prison Nicholson's character has left behind.

Stray Thoughts: 84th Academy Award Nominations

Don't usually update twice in the same day if I can help it, but the Oscar nominations have come through and I'd like to chat about them a bit. The list of nominees is up everywhere, as are break-downs of who the favourites are and which films have the most nominations, so I'm just going to offer some stray thoughts, in no particular order:

• First up, Stephen Daldry's Tom Hanks starring 9/11 film 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' (which I admittedly haven't yet seen) is perhaps the worst reviewed Best Picture nominee of all-time. Currently it has a 46 on Metacritic and 48 on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm not suggesting review aggregating sites are an infallible guide to the arts, but these are despairingly low numbers for a major, prestige picture.
• 'Bridesmaids' hasn't been nominated for Best Picture despite being overwhelmingly well reviewed and figuring on many major critic's "best of 2011" lists. It's difficult not read this as further proof that Oscar doesn't like comedy. Considering there are 9 Best Picture nominees (including 'Extremely Loud'), this seems like a bit of a joke. By my calculations (and ignoring comedy-dramas like 'Juno' and 'Shakespeare in Love') the last out-and-out comedy to get nominated was 'Tootsie' in 1982.
• It's great to see Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Terence Malick competing for Best Director.
• It's equally great to see 'The Tree of Life' featuring in the Best Picture field, considering it's been overlooked by the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. I'm not the film's biggest fan - I appreciate it more than I like it - but in recent years the big award ceremonies have mostly picked the same nominees and picked the same winners. Oscar gets some serious credibility points here.
• It's really great to see 'Hugo' garnering the most nominations (11), though I suspect it'll be one of those unlucky movies that's nominated in every category and wins nothing. For those keeping score, 'The Artist' (the overwhelming favourite at this stage) is just behind with 10 nods.
• The excellent Rooney Mara being nominated for Best Actress is a nice touch, though Meryl Streep is sure to pip her to the prize for her showy, award-bait impersonation of Margaret Thatcher.
• Despite my earlier bemoaning the lack of attention given to 'Bridesmaids', I find it really odd that Melissa McCarthy has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. A lot of people felt she stole the show but I personally found her to be the weak link. Rose Byrne or Chris O'Dowd would have been better acting choices for that one, methinks.
• I thought 'My Week With Marilyn' was awful - without redeeming quality. So, though I really like Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, I think it's a bit of a joke that they're nominated here - particularly Branagh's scenery chewing turn as Olivier.
• Really pleased to see recognition for Christopher Plummer and 'Beginners'. I think he'll win Best Supporting Actor. It's an interesting field though, Branagh aside, with left-field nominations for Nick Nolte in 'Warrior' and newly svelte funnyman John Hill in 'Moneyball'.
• 'Albert Nobbs' currently has no UK release date, at least according to the usually reliable FilmDates.com. Hopefully its two acting nominations - for Glenn Close and Janet McTeer - will change that? I really hate missing Oscar nominated movies.
• Glad that 'A Separation' is nominated for Best Foreign Film - the only category it could realistically have been recognised in. Just noticed it also got a nod for Best Original Screenplay, which is a major boon. Nice work.
• An odd thing I've just noticed looking at the official Academy Awards site: although Best Picture awards are given to producers, Best Animated Feature Oscars are awarded to directors. Why is that exactly?
• Wasn't 'The Ides of March' supposed to be a big Oscar movie? Only one nomination (for Best Adapted Screenplay). That's two less than 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'.
• I predict the main winners will be: The Artist (Best Picture), Alexander Payne (Best Director, for 'The Descendants'), Brad Pitt (Best Actor, for 'Moneyball'), Streep (Best Streep in a Leading Streep), Plummer (as mentioned above) and Jessica Chastain (ostensibly for 'The Help', but picking up votes for an impressive year's worth of performances, including 'The Tree of Life').
• Finally, I'd like to see the following winners: 'Hugo' (Best Picture), Woody Allen (Best Director, for 'Midnight in Paris'), Gary Oldman (Best Actor, for 'Tinker Tailor Solider Spy'), Rooney Mara (Best Actress, for 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'), Plummer (as above) and Jessica Chastain (ostensibly for 'The Help', but really for 'Take Shelter').

If you want to read the full list, check it out at The Guardian.

FilmQuest 2012 (3/30): 'Vertigo':

We're already at the third entry of my cringe-inducingly monikered "FilmQuest 2012" column, as I right the wrongs of my cinema viewing past by watching 30 big/popular/seminal/oft-quoted gaps in my knowledge-bank. This time it's Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller 'Vertigo' - regularly cited as its director's finest masterpiece. A lofty accolade indeed. Though widely seen as a disappointment at the time of release, its critical stock has steadily risen in the years since, to the point where it's now regularly near the summit of most respectable "best film of all-time" polls.

This rise is evident in the vaunted decadely poll of critics undertaken by Sight and Sound magazine, where 'Vertigo' rated 4th in 1992 and 2nd in 2002. It remains to be seen whether it goes one better, reaching the apex of this year's list, finally toppling regular winner 'Citizen Kane'. In any case its critical stock shows no sign of falling.

SPOILERS ahead

It's not difficult to see why this is, with a dazzling use of colour, some distinctive (still imitated) optical effects and Bernard Herrmann's deceptively simple score (recently the subject of a bitter feud after its use in silent hit 'The Artist'). Particularly outstanding is the film's second half in which James Stewart's acrophobia suffering retired cop John Ferguson totally loses his mind, becoming obsessed with a woman who looks identical to his (apparently dead) lover. Kim Novak plays both the Grace Kelly like Madeleine and her more earthy doppelgänger Judy: two women who turn out to be the same person in one of the film's numerous shocking twists.

For the more sedate first half it seems to be a kind of ghost story, as Ferguson is hired by a wealthy, old school pal (Tom Helmore) to spy on Madeleine, the wife he claims has been possessed by the spirit of a long-dead ancestor. It carries on in this vein for an hour of steadily building detective work, as John stalks Madeleine - providing a stunning tour of 1950s San Francisco along the way. By the end of the first half you just about believe the husband's far-fetched account offers the only viable explanation for his wife's behaviour. Then, in an admittedly clumsy confessional letter writing sequence, Judy confides to the viewer that she was posing as Madeleine the whole time, in order to allow the husband to carry out her murder without suspicion (it seems to all the world as if she has obviously committed suicide as a result of mental illness).

One of the rare voices of dissent against the film from the critical community has come from Tom Shone, who wrote: "Hitchcock is a director who delights in getting his plot mechanisms buffed up to a nice humming shine, and so the Sight and Sound team praise the one film of his in which this is not the case – it's all loose ends and lopsided angles, its plumbing out on display for the critic to pick over at his leisure." (Thanks Wikipedia!). He has a point, in that "the plumbing" is indeed on-show for much of it, with a lot of the twists explained rather more than might usually be appreciated. Yet 'Vertigo' still deserves to ride this wave of ecstatic appreciation, namely for its tight command of theme: for instance that of duality and the tragic danger of obsession.

Not only is Judy masquerading as Madeleine, but John spends the majority of the third act being referred to by his nickname "Scotty", as if he too is now inhabiting another's skin. Visually Hitchcock suggests this with a number of mirror shots, as well as the recurring image of a painted portrait. And whilst the ghost possession story is revealed to be literally untrue, John does end up possessing Judy, and Madeleine - through his obsession with her - ends up possessing John. Meanwhile, John's dowdy (classic Hollywood dowdy, not real life dowdy) life-long friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) is almost equally obsessive over him, driving her to similarly deranged ends at one point; through painting she tries to become Madeleine in order to possess John. I think even Judy's complicity in the murder of the real Madeleine is driven by an obsessive love of the husband.

For entertainment value I'd be more likely to return to Hitchcock's next film, 'North by Northwest', or his earlier 'Stranger on a Train': both feel more tightly wound (even if the former is actually longer) and ultimately make for more satisfying viewing. I also think the ending is a bit of a cop-out, with Judy plunging to her death from a tower (the same one used to stage Madeleine's suicide) after being startled by a nun walking in on her confrontation with "Scotty" John. The half hour leading up to that moment suggested Judy would have to die as a direct result of John's obsession, perhaps pushed from the tower by him - though I guess that's not something audiences would want to see Jimmy Stewart do to a dame.

FilmQuest 2012 (2/30): 'Dances With Wolves':

The second film up on the excitedly named FilmQuest 2012 is Kevin Costner's six-Oscar-snaring 1990 Western 'Dances With Wolves'. When setting out my (arbitrary, hastily curated) list of never-before-seen films, I always knew 'Dances' had to be on there. It was a considerable blind-spot, not only because of its huge awards success and immense popularity. It is after all the film critics accuse James Cameron of ripping off wholesale for his world-conquering 'Avatar'. But, more interestingly, this was the movie that gave Costner permission to do whatever he wanted over the following Hollywood decade - facilitating two of the most notorious and oft-derided flops of all-time: 'Waterworld' and 'The Postman'.

The thing I love about Costner - and I do mean love - is that he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. Yes, his films all carry extremely earnest sentiment, none more so than 'Dances': an unwavering elegy to the death of frontier life and Native American culture. But he doesn't take himself seriously in the way we usually associate with stars like (as one obvious example) Tom Cruise. In 'Waterworld' he plays what critic Nathan Rabin memorably describes as a "pee-drinking man-fish". Literally a man with gills who drinks his own urine. In 'The Postman' he begins the film as a bit of a cad and spends most of it trying to run away from responsibility. In that film the "refusal of the call" lasts about two hours. He begins 'The Postman' performing Shakespeare opposite a mule.*

In 'Dances' he's no different. Lt. John Dunbar is a soldier so indept he knocks himself out at one point, bumping his head on a door frame in the dark whilst some kids steal his horse. In another baffling scene, he tries to introduce himself to future wife Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell - the annoying President from the modern 'Battlestar Galactica') only for an American flag to blow in his face. He isn't one of these guys who has to be THE BEST marksman or THE BEST at riding a horse when in front of a movie camera. Even if he invariably ends up some near messianic figure by the end of his movies, he spends a lot of screentime as an unassuming and humble guy who tries his best to avoid violence and get along with folks.

It's difficult not to be impressed by the film's scope, especially in the big hunting sequence which sees hundreds of buffalo (brought in from across the US to re-create the Great Plains as was) running over vast, open landscapes, whilst men on horses ride dangerously close. It's also hard to fault its epic sense of patience. There is no (or at least very little) meaningful conflict for the first 2 1/2 hours of this 3 hour film. Instead, through scenes of gentle, piecemeal interaction with the Sioux nation, Costner's character spends his time learning and watching prior to his eventual assimilation into the group. His sensitive narration is relentlessly good-natured, with an infectious "can-do" attitude. Naive, perhaps, but disarmingly so.

There are some glaring problems with 'Dances'. For instance, why does it take this white man - a stranger to these lands - to find the buffalo for the Sioux? They've been looking for them for a while and their absence is a great source of concern - so why are they so incapable of tracking them? They don't even seem to be looking all that hard. There is a paternalistic aspect to the film which sits uncomfortably with me and it's generally a little patronising when "other" cultures are depicted as being so unambiguously wonderful. No community or society will be without its own social problems and inequalities.

Yet as two Native American tribes clash at the film's midway point, Costner opines that this is a noble kind of war: not governed by a "dark motive", but fought for control of resources (access to the food supply). Isn't that the case with every war? Isn't the war in Iraq about resources? And when he says taking part in this conflict has taught him who he is for the first time, isn't he romanticising an act of war? And shouldn't that be bad whatever adornments the two sides are wearing? With this considered 'Dances With Wolves' regrettably stoops to presenting an all too colonial view of the Indian as noble savage.

It's peddling the same sort of shallow, consumer-friendly brand of spiritual tourism that sees wealthy, white twenty-somethings visit the world's shanty towns and slums, wearing sarongs and waxing lyrical about how "real" all the people are down there - so free are they from our "westernised consumer bullshit" (along with plumbing, education, healthcare etc etc). Yay for them! No doubt Costner's on-screen epiphany didn't prevent him from going back to his mansion and having a nice hot bath. I very much doubt he now lives off the land, using every part of every animal he slays, gleefully drinking the blood from each still-beating cattle heart as a symbol of his one-ness with the universe and instinct-based macho pride. But I digress.

Overall I liked 'Dances With Wolves'. It's overlong without a doubt, whilst John Barry's repetitive and obvious score grates, but its heart seems to be in the right place even if it's history and morality are patronising. Costner is an interesting and righteous kind of American hero and his choices are sometimes laughed at with little consideration of their bravery. A common thread through all of his movies is that he plays true believers: men with hope in a hopeless world, who invariably come to carry the hope of others on their shoulders. Had I seen 'Dances' earlier it might have irritated me. But seeing it in an age of unprecedented cynicism verging on nihilism, it's refreshing to see Costner's irony-free brand of filmmaking with a conscience.

*Another odd parallel between 'The Postman' and 'Dances With Wolves' that I couldn't fit above: Costner seems to have a thing about widows. In both movies he beds a woman in mourning. God knows why, but there it is.

'Black Pond' review:

An eye-catching debut from co-directors Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe, 'Black Pond' tells the story of a middle class family who are accused of murder after a disheveled stranger comes to dinner and asks them to bury him in the woods. We don't see very much of this event enacted, with most of the drama being split between time before and after Blake (Colin Hurley) dies. Mockumentary style interviews with members of the Thompson family talk us through the aftermath, whilst more straight forward drama sees us through the days prior. There is also an imaginatively shot dream sequence, some primitive but effective animation and a sub-plot involving a friend of the family, Tim (played by Sharpe), undergoing very odd psychological analysis under the care of comedian Simon Amstell.

If this sounds like a bit of an uneven mish-mash of styles, it's because it is - though never less than entertaining and interesting. These different strands don't gel smoothly and the tone is inconsistent, though each isolated sequence is shot with an ambition that belies the film's patently low budget. What binds it together is the entirely consistent and rigorously explored theme, with all the stories - of the Thompson family, Tim and Blake - about the tragic impermanence of life and love. A theme which is developed with subtle humour, brilliantly observed depictions of human behaviour (in particular, middle class family dysfunction) and in a way which is genuinely heartfelt.

Among a uniformly impressive cast, former 'The Thick of It' star Chris Langham, unseen on our screens for several years due to a damaging and widely reported court case, is especially stunning as the father. It's great to have him back. As with his under-siege government minister on that TV political satire, he plays a good-natured blunderer - a sweet man whose shortcomings (in this case his inability to express love to anyone other than the family dog) play as tragic. You get the sense he is always trying his best and repressing any negative feeling at his own expense. Both characters struggle vainly to maintain a sense of order and propriety. Both characters are also very funny, with Langham a master of comic timing who can be relied upon to make the smallest moments count.

Yet the film's emotional centre is arguably represented by Colin Hurley, whose shambling, detached, emotionally distant character is portrayed with the utmost sensitivity. He's slightly weird without ever being dangerous, with Hurley never overplaying the crazy or maudlin aspects of Blake. It's a rounded, sincere and gimmick-free performance worthy of accolades.

Like Ben Wheatley's unsung gem 'Down Terrace', 'Black Pond' suggests the emergence of some exciting talents whose next moves will surely be watched with increased interest.

'Black Pond' is rated '15' by the BBFC. Though given a limited release in November, it's still playing one-off shows around the country.

David Fincher Pantheon: Splendor Cinema Podcast #85

Tomorrow Jon and I are recording our 85th Splendor Cinema Podcast, adding another director to our rapidly expanding "Pantheon" (previous entrants include Kubrick, Kurosawa and Capra). This time it's David Fincher's turn - so we'll be going through his (relatively small) filmography, rating our favourites. Jon wrote a short summary of Fincher's career and style on his blog and I promised to do the same. So here we are.

With the exception of 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (which I saw in 2008 and am in no hurry to see again), I've seen all of Fincher's movies, from 'Alien 3' to 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo', quite recently - many of them for the first time. The first thing I would say about him is that he's not what you might classically call an auteur (if such a thing even exists). He seems to me like a hired gun with a highly developed sense of style - a point seemingly reinforced by the nature of his next project: a big Jules Verne adaptation for Disney.

At one point in his career you might have been able to pinpoint a particular genre that he specialised in (the thriller), but some of his best films don't fit that mould comfortably even if they generate the same tense atmosphere - as is the case with 'The Social Network' and 'Fight Club'. In fact most of his recent choices - excluding the down and dirty 'Dragon Tattoo' - have tended more towards dramatic Oscar-candy, albeit with moodier-than-usual lighting.

Not that I'm complaining about his newer stuff. Personally, I like a degree of light and shade in my movies, so I find some of Fincher's most acclaimed early work near unwatchable (or at least unenjoyable): unremittingly grim, hyper-cynical and mean-spirited. In particular I'm referring to 'Seven', which is at times not even two steps removed from torture porn. The twist is predictable, the characters are no more than recognisable archetypes and the views they express (which are ultimately vindicated by the ending) range from nihilistic to downright anti-social.

Its champions will say it's "dark" - an overused catch-all term that usually assumes instant cachet to anything heartless (or anti-sentimental). But when everything and everybody in a movie is horrible, forgive me for not wanting to spend any time there. Even his take on the determinedly nasty 'Dragon Tattoo' has more heart than 'Seven'. I much prefer his two subsequent thrillers: 'The Game' (great, if implausible, premise and a sense of humour) and 'Panic Room' (great and slightly more plausible premise which uses limited space ingeniously).

But for me his greatest film to date is 'The Social Network': because it sees him marry his grungy vision of the universe and undoubted technical brilliance to what might otherwise have been a filmed stageplay. He elevates already great material, with Aaron Sorkin's Facebook entrepreneur story not naturally cinematic - clever as it is. By combining Sorkin's talky, smartest-guy-in-the-room internet nerds with the atmosphere and look of 'Zodiac', you get a really brilliant, intelligent, gripping movie. A fact not lost on the makers of 'Moneyball', who repeated the same trick last year.

Though even 'The Social Network' is not without Fincher's worst excesses. The slow-motion boat race in the middle may be an example of bravura technique, but it feels out of place and showy in the middle of that movie. This same over the top streak can be glimpsed in all of Fincher's films (perhaps with the exception of the unfairly maligned 'Alien 3'). For instance that pointless zoom inside the keyhole during the break-in sequence of 'Panic Room'. There are a million and one similar moments in 'Fight Club'.

Perhaps the one film where all these visual ticks and grand camera movements work completely is 'Zodiac', which uses lots of CGI (like pretty much all his movies) to allow for extremely elegant, long, otherwise impossible (or at least impractical) tracking shots. The best example of this dramatically tracks a single taxi cab across San Francisco zooming closer gradually from an aerial view until we're inside the car.

To hear Jon violently disagreeing with me about 'Seven' and for a little more depth on some of the films I've skimmed over here (like 'Fight Club'), download episode 85 of the podcast when it becomes available early next week.