Gone Girl (2014)

[Fancyarcher]

I thought this was fucking amazing. Everybody from Affleck to even Tyler Perry to especially Pike gave a great performance, and the plot and twist are extremely well done (I never read the book). There was even some great dark humor in the film too.

David Fincher's done it again. I think I might see the film again in theaters if I get the chance.

 

I also loved how the film's satire and it's commentary on marriage. Just great!

 

9 / 10

Edited October 12, 2014 by Pokearcher

[AniNate]

Men's rights activists? Exactly what rights do men have yet to acquire?

 

Activists are probably idiots, but let's not outright dismiss the very real difficulties men can face. As the film showed, just accusing a man of rape can pretty much destroy their livelihood.

Edited October 12, 2014 by tribefan695

[The Futurist]

I find it interesting that you're swooning and raving about "Amazing Amy" 24/7 even if her internal movie rant against "cool girls" is a jab at all the Jennifer Lawrence out there...

I just love that she is super smart in her plans, nothing more. She s like the Hannibal Lecter of all housewives, ten times clever, colder and ahead than her clueless husband and the feds. She wins in the end like all great evil characters that we love to hate or hate to love.

She s Amazing Amy, what s not to love about her ?

To be honest, I don t remember her rants against all the cool girls that you are referring too, she seems to be furious at her husband on all counts and is distrought because she couldn t become the perfect cool girl, the Amazing Amy that her parents wanted her to become and she puts the blame on batfleck for it and kinda looses it just a bit.

She just wants the perfect fake marriage and that s what she gets in the end. No problem she had to kill ,torture herself, and lie about everything to everybody to obtain her goal.

Edited October 12, 2014 by The Futurist

[boomboom234]

Great movie all around best I have seen in a while ( liked it better than boyhood) I hope for a  lot of nominations

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

Saw it for a second time today: 


Some thoughts: 
1) Gone Girl is the perfect theater movie. Hearing everyone gasp, laugh, and so forth is just awesome. 
2) I found the ideas to be more sound this time around. I love how Fincher skewers marriage, middle America, and the media in the film. 

3) I liked the characters more now. 

BUT
4) I must admit, knowing the twist takes away a lot of the tension in the beginning of the film. You can still admire the technique, characterization, and acting, but the tension just wasn't there. The movie really picks up in the 2nd half when it becomes less about mystery and more about its ideas, its characters, and its humor. 

Grade: Either a B+ or a B

[dashrendar44]

I just love that she is super smart in her plans, nothing more. She s like the Hannibal Lecter of all housewives, ten times clever, colder and ahead than her clueless husband and the feds. She wins in the end like all great evil characters that we love to hate or hate to love.

She s Amazing Amy, what s not to love about her ?

To be honest, I don t remember her rants against all the cool girls that you are referring too, she seems to be furious at her husband on all counts and is distrought because she couldn t become the perfect cool girl, the Amazing Amy that her parents wanted her to become and she puts the blame on batfleck for it and kinda looses it just a bit.

She just wants the perfect fake marriage and that s what she gets in the end. No problem she had to kill ,torture herself, and lie about everything to everybody to obtain her goal.

 

 

 

"Amazing Amy" is just the caricatural side of the same coin as Psycho Bitch Amy which is also a caricature in the end. I don't really know who is Amy as an individual being in the end except she's your supervillain sociopath of the week because the satire is grand-guignolesque, not a deep psychological study of realistic characters (what it seems at first glance until it throws everything out the window for run-of-the-mill thriller pulpy twists without any sense of realism).

 

Her rant about "cool girls" feels just like that rant Norton's character is having in Fight Club against society and the state of masculinity as the cause of his existentialist crisis where in fact the problem stemmed mostly from him (even if both like to blind themselves conveniently thinking they're the self-righteous) and his skewed POV, his failures as a human being to cope and deal with life and relationships in today's society, feeling like he's above all the pretending and pathetic aspects of life acting all misanthropic but a psychotic asshole full of self-hatred and anger projecting onto others his shortcomings to model the world around as they see fit.

 

(In the movie, we're led to believe that Amy acted that way because Nick was an ass to her, that she was forced to comply to his plans without even being consulted, that she was forced to being that Amazing Amy everyone loved so we may think her revenge is really motivated by being denied. Until we learn that she's totally unreliable, she might have invented all those alibis and she's always been a psycho bitch before she met Nick as she already ruined one of her ex by falsely accusing him of rape. So what is left when you remove all the bullshit? A basic psycho bitch.) I don't think she's distraught at not being a "cool girl", she hates the cool girls and how boys want to mold her to become one fitting their perfect idea of a woman.

 

That's what "Amazing Amy/Psycho bitch Amy" feel to me, Tyler Durden as a desperate housewive satiristic in appearance that ultimately please men.

Edited October 13, 2014 by dashrendar44

[The Futurist]

"Amazing Amy" is just the caricatural side of the same coin as Psycho Bitch Amy which is also a caricature in the end. I don't really know about who is Amy as an individual being in the end except your supervillain sociopath of the week because the satire is grand-guignolesque, not a deep psychological study of realistic characters (what it seems at first glance until it throws everything in the window for run-of-the-mill thriller pulpy twists without any sense of realism).

 

Her rant about "cool girls" feels just like that rant Norton's character is having in Fight Club against society and the state of masculinity as the cause of his existentialist crisis where in fact the problem stemmed mostly from him (even if both like to blind themselves conveniently thinking they're the self-righteous) and his skewed POV, his failures as a human being to cope and deal with life and relationships in today's society, feeling like he's above acting all misanthropic but a psychotic asshole full of self-hatred and anger projecting onto others his shortcomings to model the world around as they see fit.

 

(In the movie, we're led to believe that Amy acted that way because Nick was an ass to her, that she was forced to comply to his plans without even being consulted, that she was forced to being that Amazing Amy everyone loved so we may think her revenge is really motivated by being denied. Until we learn that she's totally unreliable, she might have invented those alibis and she's always been a psycho bitch before she met Nick as she already ruined one of her ex by falsely accusing of rape)

 

That's what "Amazing Amy/Psycho bitch Amy" feel to me, Tyler Durden as a desperate housewive satiristic in appearance that ultimately please men.

That s what great movies are, they re the ones where we see see different´things in it, let s agree to disagree here.

I really don t care if the character is cliche realistic or satire, I just think it a great creation from the writer, to come up with such a character, you must have a vivid imagination and that s what I want in art and movies, see things that I don t experience in our mundane, day to day routine.

And you say Amy is designed to please men ? She s getting insulted on every websites of the world, men hate her and label her a psycho bitch as expected.

Me, I heart Amy, she s just fab. Like I said, I like Amy like people like Lecter, the Joker or Vader.

[Klingo]

Saw it for a second time today: 

Some thoughts: 

1) Gone Girl is the perfect theater movie. Hearing everyone gasp, laugh, and so forth is just awesome. 

2) I found the ideas to be more sound this time around. I love how Fincher skewers marriage, middle America, and the media in the film. 

3) I liked the characters more now. 

BUT

4) I must admit, knowing the twist takes away a lot of the tension in the beginning of the film. You can still admire the technique, characterization, and acting, but the tension just wasn't there. The movie really picks up in the 2nd half when it becomes less about mystery and more about its ideas, its characters, and its humor. 

Grade: Either a B+ or a B

Not really worth watching the 2nd time.  Great to watch first time.

[Ozymandias]

Men's rights activists? Exactly what rights do men have yet to acquire?

 

None, thats the point, the war on men has begun.  We men must be vigilant and stand up to the feminazis.

 

[dashrendar44]

That s what great movies are, they re the ones where we see see different´things in it, let s agree to disagree here.

I really don t care if the character is cliche realistic or satire, I just think it a great creation from the writer, to come up with such a character, you must have a vivid imagination and that s what I want in art and movies, see things that I don t experience in our mundane, day to day routine.

And you say Amy is designed to please men ? She s getting insulted on every websites of the world, men hate her and label her a psycho bitch as expected.

Me, I heart Amy, she s just fab. Like I said, I like Amy like people like Lecter, the Joker or Vader.

 

She's a female Joker, an unreal pure force of evil embodying an idea of what can be rotten in marriage pushed to extreme. That's okay, it's fiction riding the coattails of corrosive and satiristic thriller wave. But people starting to idolize those characters and taking their rants/world views for granted like Tyler Durden, omitting the little fact that they're the ramblings of psychotic unstable sociopaths, that's a tad too overzealous...

 

When I say she pleases men, she's comforting the part that always say "LOOK, WOMEN BE BITCHES!" while she's taking jab Tyler Durden-style at other women for pretending to be cool girls or being perfect housewive (stupid bitches!). (The fact that Flynn tones down Nick's fakery, inherent mysoginy and violence issue from the book for a slight portrait of a NYC handsome charming douche turned midwest schlub with a mistress in favor of machiavellian manipulative psychokiller Amy doesn't help. It feels like the poor Nick is trapped like a mice by the psycho bitch like he might have committed adultery but he doesn't deserve any of that. In the book, they deserved each other as Nick's behavior toward women in general was coming back to bite him like a boomerang and that Amy was the only kind of woman that could top him and makes him a sick puppy begging for her to return even if he hated her and kinda wanted to kill her for real at the end. But he liked that as he stopped pretending for a slight moment in this twisted game of pretense and conniving giving her what she wants. Adding the kid blackmailing getting him by the balls to stay and comply as giving up to expose her, that's how fucked up he was).

Edited October 12, 2014 by dashrendar44

[boomboom234]

How can anybody be team Amy, sure it was an outstanding performance but she is legitimately scary, if I were nick I would have killed her not simply pushed her into a wall. Nick may have cheated but wouldn't anyone cheat/ try to escape if they were married to Amy. I don't get this whole Nick is a bad human being nonsense, he didn't abuse her, he tried to make the marriage work he asked for kids she said no. If anything Amy's parents were the worst human beings in this movie ( though this is covered more in the book)

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

The comparison between Amy and The Joker is perfect (as is the comparison to Tyler Durden from what I've heard about Fight Club). Both Amy and Joker are insane psychopaths, but they also are thrilling to watch. Both have ideologies that are rooted in some truth (Amy hating how men force women to be cool; The Joker hating the way that people try to convince themselves that they are good), but which when taken to the extreme the way that these characters do, are ultimately agendas to be rejected.

And yet, somehow, people don't reject such ideas, but embrace them. Whenever someone tells me that he or she agreed with The Joker's views in TDK, I get so annoyed.





 

[Deep Wang]

Men's rights activists? Exactly what rights do men have yet to acquire?

 

You don't want to go down that rabbit hole.  

 

Activists are probably idiots, but let's not outright dismiss the very real difficulties men can face. As the film showed, just accusing a man of rape can pretty much destroy their livelihood.

 

No.  As a white male, I have had ZERO difficulties in life.  Not that I haven't had difficulties in life, just not any because I am a man.

 

Were men ever denied rights for anything?  No.

Do men on average get paid more than women?  Yes.

 

I am just going to stop there because it's silly to even discuss it.

[boomboom234]

The main problem for men is the issue of accusation of rape/sexual abuse which can ruin lives when not true a la the duke lacrosse team. The problem of custody in divorce where even if the mother is clearly unfit she will still usually receive custody

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

Tbh, masculinity presents a lot of double standards for males, imo. Otherwise, I don't feel like there are many problems men face due to their sex/gender. Rape accusations are an issue, but they're not as big of an issue as the rape culture women face. We don't have to worry about equal pay for equal work. We don't have to worry about the government telling us what to do with our bodies. And so forth and so forth.





 

[John Marston]

why talk about social issues in a review thread? Can some mod end this conversation and steer it back on track?

Edited October 12, 2014 by John Marston

[CJohn]

Guys, WTF is going on here? Do I need to go full Tele, lock this shit and clean the thread?

 

Please, stop this discussion right now and go back to discussing Gone Girl.

[Goffe]

this is exactly what I needed, a great film in my life. I fucking loved the ending. 

90/100

This year, only DOFP is better.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Goffe R Swanson

[AniNate]

Guys, WTF is going on here? Do I need to go full Tele, lock this shit and clean the thread?

 

Please, stop this discussion right now and go back to discussing Gone Girl.

 

I'm not sure what went on here (I assume more than what's left of it now), but gender-based social issues are pretty much at the very heart of Gone Girl's thematic content. It's worthwhile and relevant to discuss them here, and I'm sure promoting the conversation was the whole point of the novel.

Edited October 13, 2014 by tribefan695

[AniNate]

Tbh, masculinity presents a lot of double standards for males, imo. Otherwise, I don't feel like there are many problems men face due to their sex/gender. Rape accusations are an issue, but they're not as big of an issue as the rape culture women face. We don't have to worry about equal pay for equal work. We don't have to worry about the government telling us what to do with our bodies. And so forth and so forth.

 

Just because we don't face the same kinds of problems women do doesn't mean we can't still be concerned about them. That's like saying I'm not allowed to complain about being underpaid at work because there are others barely able to scrape by with a dollar a day in Africa and Asia.