What’s good, my fellow birds? This week, we decided to talk about another new film that we both thoroughly enjoyed and do our second power ranking session for a director and filmmaker that we consider to be one of the best working today, David Fincher. Calling all Finch-heads! We both got a chance to see his new film, “The Killer” starring Michael Fassbender and wanted to talk about it. So, hop on over to Netflix and watch the film before today’s episode because we don’t avoid spoilers this time around… then come back and enter the Fincher Zone with us.
Word of “The Killer” has been rattling Hollywood around since 2007 and, finally, it saw a wide release on Netflix this past Friday. Written by Andrew Kevin Walker and based on the French graphic novel series "The Killer" written by Alexis "Matz" Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, this movie was both exactly what we expected and totally not what we were expecting from Fincher’s next offering. It’s a subversive and surprising film that revels in challenging expectations, unreliable narration, portraying subjectivity, and the conflict between tactical precision and unavoidable misstep. It is truly fascinating. And rips. It’s great. Fassbender is awesome. The supporting cast members, specifically Tilda Swinton, are also fantastic. The action and violence are explosive, contrasting with the mechanical restraint of the rest of the film. It’s a comedy of errors done in the way that only Fincher can with a wicked soundtrack. It’s methodical and precise both technically and thematically and somehow it still leaves you with more questions than answers. Is the killer actually good at his job? Is he truly able to remove emotion and forbid empathy? What is his goddamn problem? Why The Smiths? Today, we cover it all.
Then we get into the power rankings of Fincher’s filmography. Surprisingly, we were able to agree on pretty much everything but this leads to some discussion on the various eras of Fincher’s career, the lack of wider respect (outside of cinephiles) towards some of his most underrated films like “Zodiac” and “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, Fincher’s visual style and cinematic language, modern auteurism, and Otis concedes to PALMREADER that, yes, “The Social Network” is in fact an S-tier film. We love David Fincher and had a lot of fun doing this episode. Tap in and chill to the maximum with us.
We’ll see you next weekend!
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