David Fincher’s Gone Girl, and Gillian Flynn’s Understanding of Female Psychopathy: A Review

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The very idea of Gone Girl would already suggest one thing, but the actual film suggests another right from Ben Affleck’s opening narration: “When I think of my wife, I always think of the back of her head. I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brain, trying to get answers.” In a story that would traditionally place emphasis on the first-person perspective of the husband, who is also a prime suspect in the murder of Amy Elliott-Dunne, you would want to see him being the victim of mass hysteria. But what makes David Fincher’s Gone Girl so amazing is what it manages to create with this very idea, because it tells you what sort of person Nick Dunne is right before we get to the driving focus of the film. From adapting the writing of Gillian Flynn, what Fincher has managed to create is also one of his finest accomplishments, a film that sets your expectations right from the get go and twists them around at moments when you least expect them. But if that already isn’t the material for a great thriller, I wouldn’t even know what is – because for all I know, this film just carries everything that I love most in watching a film by him.

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Starship Troopers – Review

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Perhaps it’s a tad snooty on my end to say, but I’m amazed that few people seem to really “get” Starship Troopers in this day and age. Although it’s a wonderful sight to see that it has acquired a cult following in more recent years, I would only have imagined that Paul Verhoeven’s name being attached to adapt a novel written by Robert Heinlein – an author I’ve disliked for the authoritarian and borderline fascistic readings into his own text was already in for yet another bite. And knowing where the satire present in RoboCop and Total Recall had leaned, the idea had only hit me as cheeky – and admittedly it was something that even went over my head the first time I saw Starship Troopers. Over repeated viewings, however, the cleverness of Starship Troopers became even clearer – working within the same in-your-face charm that made RoboCop so brilliant.

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