My List of The 21st Century’s Greatest Films

So here’s my individual list of the 21st Century’s Greatest Films of BBC’s Culture. In fact, it is if I was asked to do it when they asked many film critics to do this time consuming, hair splitting, gut wrenching exercise.

It is fucking hard to try to pick only ten films out of sixteen years of cinema. The worst thing in this is that I have so many films to catch up that I don’t know how full time film critics who watch many films a day can pick ten. This is beyond me.

At first I looked back at my list of the best films of the decade 2000-2009 as a starter,  then I got back to my ratings of five and four stars and a half.

Finally, I let my judgment and my cinematic memory decide which film has to be on the list and in which position. Sometimes, my tastes got over my judgment and other times it was the overall quality of the film that won it all.

Final words : are haters are gonna hate.

(Click on the links to read my full reviews)

Gone Girl

Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)

With his wife's disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.

With recent success with The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and most notably the Netflix production House of Cards, David Fincher directs the adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s own best-selling novel Gone Girl. Fincher’s previous directing credits in investigations from Seven to Zodiac are more than worth mentioning. They are essential viewings for any film enthusiast.

Starting with a novel of more than five hundred pages and reducing it to more or less two hundred, author and screenwriter Flynn has done a tremendous job in skimming an unique plot and keeping the essential and the most interesting parts of her novel. While the novel has many ups and some downs or lesser parts, in the motion picture we are in the presence of the most interesting facets of the investigation. It is difficult to summarize the plot line because many elements are potential spoilers. However, the author of the novel had to pin point the plot aspects that were helping the story to evolve at a nice pace without compromising her idea and the whole situation it describes. Having read the novel weeks before I saw Gone Girl, I can state that it is one of the best adaptations that is true to the original material and could elevate its better parts to filmic bliss.

Talking of filmic hability, Fincher manages to once again throw a directing job with great mastery at a subtle level of execution. Everything is in the fact that we are leaded by a talented storyteller that doesn’t need any special trick or subterfuge to enjoy this story.

In front of the camera we have now respected as a director but still an actor Ben Affleck with a role that is almost written for him and his apathic presence of good family boy and his weird I want to make you feel okay smile. One thing that Fincher in fact wanted the most from Affleck. When reading the novel, imagining Affleck playing Nick Dunne feels right.
With Amy or Amazing Amy, Rosamund Pike gives a revealing performance of holding back but also complete control over the very meaty part she has to carry.
There are many interesting supporting parts of Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens), Margo (Carrie Coon) Nick’s sister, Desi (Neil Patrick Harris), and Tanner Bolt surprisingly portrayed and mastered by Tyler Perry.

Then you have the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score that follows their previous collaborations with David Fincher on The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Its texture and composition have been trademarks of Fincher excellence but also subtle or very present ambiant music that blends imagery and sound to a unique place. This might be one of the best score from Reznor and Ross just for the fact that it is present without overly taking too much space.

Gone Girl is another demonstration that the thriller genre can still be thrilling and gets into unexpected twists and turns. Genre novels and films need more Gillian Flynn and David Fincher to bring original stories alive and continue to get people’s attention. To be surprise and entertained is more and more difficult since everything is a product from a product that is a copy-paste of the original. Playing with the rules of a genre doesn’t hurt and Fincher seems to really enjoy himself playing into them and stepping on them just enough to get us a new way of seeing it without making a complete mess that would not appeal to a larger public. Not that I don’t like a mess once in a while but I each time I watch a Fincher film it reminds me how much I admire his films.

Fight Club

Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)

An insomniac office worker looking for a way to change his life crosses paths with a devil-may-care soap maker and they form an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more...

From my generation, the 25-35 years old people of today, Fight Club represents one of the Canons of contemporary Cinema along with films like Pulp Fiction, Snatch, Requiem For a Dream, and Donnie Darko. This is a big studio piece of auteur film that challenges some and seduces others. Coming from director David Fincher (with previous films such as Se7en, The Game, Alien 3, and notable music videos), we have a misanthropic view on the post-modern world of lonerism and how it can alienate people who won’t fit into society.

Top films of David Fincher by LMdC

David FINCHER

Oscar nominated director David Fincher directed one of his most interesting films to date with The Social Network in 2010. Here's my top films made by this brilliant American filmmaker.

1. Se7en
2. The Social Network
3. Zodiac
4. Gone Girl
5. Panic Room
6. The Game
7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
8. Alien3
9. Fight Club

The Social Network

The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

This movie is about the story of the most infamous addictive 500 millions + members website: Facebook. Based upon the book The Accidental Billionnaire and brilliantly adapted by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network is more than just worth a look. The central character, Mark Zuckerberg co-founder of Facebook is strongly impersonnated by the young rising star Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and The Whale, Zombieland, Adventureland).

Sorkin's script evolves simultaneously around the two poursuits against Zuckerberg and on the beginnings of the 25 billions dollars enterprise to be. Tighly constructed and perfectly written The Socail Network hits in the middle of the target. It doesn't have a substory where it slows tha pace of the movie. Everything is important in the plot and many elements are crossed-referenced within the film.

David Fincher handles the dark interiors of Harvard with soft warn colors contrasting with the clear cold lights of the glassed rooms of the offices of the lawyers and even in the offices of Facebook themselves.

The character himself, Mark Zuckerberg, is intriguing and many subtilities of his persona are lighted. However, Zuckerberg isn't a very known face to me and unlike a public person like Bill Gates for example, I can't really compare the personification with the real man.

On the popularity of The Socail Network, I think it stands for most part because of the popularity of Facebook, the website. Let's face it, who's not on it?Even bth my parents have their own accounts at 54 and 53.
Moreover, I think the success of The Social Network relies on the clarity and the concise script it stands on. You don't have anything useless. Also the fact that this is a true story based on real events and real poursuits and mostly because this is the story of a successful man living the American Dream in the 21st Century with the methods of the 21st Century.

David Fincher now stands as a major name in filmmaking and his attempt to make his own Citizen Kane proves he is good because it felt personnal and not like an imitation of something else. This is a work of his  own. A must see!