What a week. The box office took a huge upswing with a creepy doll and a possibly crazy Ben Affleck. We’re all digging out our Twin Peaks DVDs and burying our 7th Heaven VHS, muscling through a seemingly endless pilot season, gearing up for the east coast’s biggest pop culture event, and, if you’re like us over here at The Buzz, keeping right on with horror month. So without any further ado, here’s this week’s Buzz.
Movies: Everybody is talking about Gone Girl, but nobody wants to say much. A story full of twists and turns (that unlike No Good Deed actually surprise and are totally justified), David Fincher’s newest film has almost no comparison, not even within his either work. It’s not anarchic like Fight Club, creeping like Seven, brooding like Zodiac or even pseudo-scary like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The humor (which it has more of than the marketing would like you to think) is Fargo-esque, but too sparse to be Coen-like in tone throughout. It’s a black comedy (closest in that regard to Fight Club) infused with a great deal of pulp-noir elements, tied up in such a seamless, strategically artistic fashion to have only one true comparison: The Silence of the Lambs.
The film somehow transcends the pulp-y sensations of Flynn’s engrossing novel (something Fincher’s last overhyped endeavor couldn’t do), and perhaps thats due to the film’s absolutely stellar cast. Rosamund Pike seems a lock for a Best Actress Oscar, with everyone from Affleck on down to Carrie Coon and yes, even Tyler Perry prove well deserving of nominations themselves. Indeed, Flynn’s screenplay adaptation of her own work seems to have smoothed out the kinks, and the continuos, uninterrupted narrative of cinema seems better suited for the abrupt reveal mid-story which, in the self-stunted narrative experience most readers have in modern life with regards to literature, didn’t quite land. Like Lambs, the film is dark but enthralling, and never revels in misery, but rather embraces its hyper-real caricatures to make statements about real life. It dares the audience to look upon its story not as fact or caution, but as allegory.
Opening with Affleck’s Nick Dunne posing a question that seems like mere overture to those unaccustomed to married life (or even those on the cusp of it) “What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What have we done to each other?”, Gone Girl rushes forward with a narrative that scares the viewer in just how relatable it is. Fincher masterfully crafted the film like a Frankenstein's monster from his past oeuvre, mixing the squeamish scares of Seven, the brutal humor of Fight Club and the grim procedural tone of Zodiac with his flare for exposing the pathetic and dreadful human monster he so perfectly executed with The Social Network(both films benefit from a hauntingly ambient score by Oscar winner and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor).
The bottom line is that Gone Girl is a must see, and a must see right now, before your idiot friend on Facebook spoils it. Its quite possibly Fincher’s best work (at the very least in the top 3), and easily comes in as the best film so far this year. Perhaps, like Silence of the Lambs, it’ll break the genre ceiling of the Oscars and take home a Best Picture trophy. In truth, it deserves to rival Silence by claiming all of the major prizes as Demme’s masterwork once did (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay, a feat only thus far achieved three times). Get yourself to the theatre, and get to know Nick Dunne, Desi Collings and, of course, Amazing Amy herself.
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Ok, to be fair, this week’s must-own horror blu-ray is only a kind of. Allow us to clarify: last year saw the release of the gorgeous, exceptional 40th Anniversary Director’s Cut of the greatest horror film of all time,The Exorcist. The film is a masterwork, it’s extended sequences flow so perfectly into the piece you’ll be virtually unable to tell what was, for lack of a better word, excised from the original theatrical version, and the 1080p transfer is simply immaculate. That blu-ray is a must own, and the film essential viewing for any serious film fan. This year gives us that same Blu-Ray (featuring both the extended and theatrical cuts) packaged in The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology, none of which live up to the original at all, but provide fans a collection of interesting curios ranging from the dreadful (Exorcist II: The Heretic) to the inventive (the murder-mystery Exorcist III starring George C. Scott) to the merely engaging (Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader’s Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist). Each film is treated to a 1080p transfer, and while admittedly the extras for most are sparse at best, having the entire series assembled does make for some interesting viewing,if only to highlight the singular, all-planets-alined perfection of the unstoppable original.
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TV: “Being friended is not the same as having friends”. At the ten minute mark, ABC’s Selfie has already twice blatantly stated its anti-technology thesis. An adaptation of the Pygmalion that likely has George Bernard Shaw spinning in his grave featuring Doctor Who alumni Karen Gillan and a John Cho who’s eyes seem to say “Easy paycheck, no way this thing is getting picked up past the pilot”, the less said about Selfie, perhaps the better. Never before has a show so heinously attempted to be topical, been so insipid in its delivery and general purpose, so bereft of any real meaning as to warrant this critic actually, audibly saying “F—- you!” to his television.
Gillan plays a social media maven named Eliza Dooley who works at the same company as the wise but cold rebranding expert Henry Higgs, with whom she pleads to fix her by making her less “butt” on the inside and admit it you already hate yourself for reading this far. Selfie may not be the worst new show of the season (Mysteries of Laura and sadly Mulaney give it a run for its money), but its attempts to be “trendy” by referencing anything even remotely current on the internet, a medium that changes vastly in the time it take for one episode to finish shooting let alone make it to air, that the show is damned to an eternity of being seen as a glowing example of everything wrong with this decade. As vapid, bland and insufferable as its main character, Selfie is a brutal piece of programming to try and endure, and its cast deserves far better. Masochists may find it on ABC at 8/7c.
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News: About two months ago, we took great pleasure in reviewing the recently released complete blu-ray box set of the classic television mystery Twin Peaks, singing its praises as a masterwork of the medium, the type of show that was ahead of its time. How would such a show fare, we wondered, in this golden age of television?
Well, we have good news and bad news for you. The good news is, after cryptic tweets from co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, its been confirmed that Twin Peaks will be back as a limited run series. No word who will be back beyond the creators, but who cares? What tanked Peaks in its heyday (besides the general confusion of the viewers) was the absence of Lynch in its second season (he was off making Wild At Heartwith Nicholas Cage). Now the show is free to get real weird, and that’s a damn fine cup of coffee indeed.
Now for the bad: The show is coming to Showtime, the network best known for ruining things you love. Let’s take a look at the things they giveth, only to butcher and taketh away. Remember how much you lovedWeeds, then it ran too long? What about Dexter, which fell to the wayside of history with more and more insipid plot twists and over-arching season-long idiocy? Or Homeland, which won an Emmy before going so far off the deep-end as to [spoiler] throw the drowned baby out with the bath water? Let’s face it, Showtime isn’t the best network for a show that’s original and inventive. This ain’t HBO, this is a network that clearly either gives too much or too little control to its show runners. Whatever it is, its clear from their track record they don’t have things figured out (which is bad news for Masters of Sex fans), and Peaks may suffer there.
How will the new season turn out? Only the log lady knows for sure. One thing’s for certain, though, we here at The Buzz will be waiting with bated breath.
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Short Film: This week’s short, The Little Mermaid, is a great deal more style over substance, but style it certainly does have in spades. The opening sequence is so brilliantly stylized as to instantly draw in the viewer, and the reveal of the haunting mermaid (the biggest applause should be granted to Sarah Elizabeth, Susan Manning, Krysten Merrick and Benjamin Larose for their stunning work) bookend the initial problem of the film, the cheapness of its “audience”. After such a striking exterior shot, hanging a curtain and placing some poorly costumed (and blandly emoting) actors pulls the audience so far out of the film that such a remarkable bit of make-up work has the painful task of re-enthralling the viewer as opposed to placing a sense of gloom or dread like it should have. An atrocious sound mix (noises like a removed glove are much louder than need be, and occasionally fail to sync up with the scene) and some poor visual choices ruin some of the better art directed moments of the film, and deplete a great deal of the sense of ominous tension that a film like last week’s Lights Out excelled at.
As for the story, its as bland and predictable as can be, as though crafted by one who favors creepiness over inventiveness (apparently they have a future with American Horror Story) and the developments can be predicted from the instant the premise is introduced, as though the entire 7 minutes are played out within the first 30 seconds. The film’s sole appeal is in the visuals which, when its on, are striking and impressive, but when it falters it falls and renders some good work pointless. It’s a serviceable short for those who prefer to be spooked rather than truly scared.
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