Mindhunter- Season One (2017)

Created By: Joe Penhall
Directors: David Fincher, Asif Kapadia, Tobias Lindholm, Andrew Douglas
Cast: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Hannah Gross, Cotter Smith

Mindhunter is a Netflix original crime drama series based on the book 'Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit' by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The lead character played by Jonathan Groff is based on John Douglas and the first season is set in the late 70s. As they put it in one of the scenes, FBI is still under the influence of Hoover era good-bad binary thinking while the nascent behavioural science unit is trying to bring some grey perspective into it. What we now take for granted from the point of view of nature-nurture debate, psychological interrogation techniques etc were quite niche back then. I didn't know that the coining of the term serial killer was this recent and they dabble with sequence killer instead through much of the season one.

Charlize Theron serves as an executive producer for the series and David Fincher directed four episodes in total, a couple each at the beginning and end. A usual season for American TV drama series proceeds like a 50 over ODI innings, with fast paced beginning and end, and the middle can be a phase of consolidation. They have you hooked with the big hitters Fincher and Asif Kapadia directing the first four episodes. TV is kind of seen as a writer's medium but you do see the difference in style when it is Fincher and Kapadia directing it as opposed to Lindholm and Andrew Douglas.

Se7en is seen as the first big break for David Fincher as a director and had, *Spoiler Alert*, Kevin Spacey playing God as the serial killer in it. He again had a go at this genre with 'Zodiac', which I reckon is the high watermark for it. Many of these films have super intelligent evil genius characters, like Hannibal Lecter, as serial killers and with Mindhunter, Fincher supposedly wanted a more realistic portrayal. Ed Kemper, the coed killer, features heavily in season one. Fincher has supposedly cast for season two the same actor Quentin Tarantino has cast as Manson for Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. I truly binged it by basically watching all episodes back to back over a nine hour period. Really looking forward to season two.

Rating: 4/5

House of Cards (TV Series-Season 3) (2015)

Creator: Beau Willimon
Cast:      Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly

The third season of 'House Of Cards' follow the Underwood power couple, having become the POTUS & FLOTUS at the end of second season, trying to get things going on the policy front deflecting enemies from their own party, the congress which is stalling them and some geopolitical troubles from the cold war enemy Russia. This season is much more about them looking inwards into their relationship itself rather than it being about them confronting their 'enemies' like in previous seasons. 

So, that is me finishing the whole season within twenty four hours from starting it, and I need some fucking sleep. But Liverpool-Man City game starts around 90 minutes from now and I guess I won't get much sleep after that if Liverpool ends up not losing, and if they indeed do I would have to cry myself to sleep. I digress...The second season ended with Francis achieving his goal of being the President and that was a logical end point for the show with the iconic line: 'Democracy is so overrated'. Well, they didn't stop there and we have got a third season which won't definitely be the last considering how it ended.

Another big question was the fate of Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly), one of my favorite characters from the series, who was fatally wounded at the end of season two. He survives and his is a major plot-line this season, much of it away from Francis Underwood during his recovery. Another major character is Petrov, the very Putin like Russian President, a worthy nemesis for the Underwoods. What is great is that he is portrayed as a complex character which wouldn't do Putin any harm in terms of perception. Even the Pussy Riot band makes an appearance during a state visit and one of their songs feature in an episode's end credits. The main things that Underwood is trying to achieve in terms of his legacy as President is some resolution in Israel-Palestine crisis by deploying a UN Peace keeping force in Jordan Valley and introduction of America Works program, which aims to cut social security spending and divert that money to create jobs for unemployed. Both these sound and are ludicrous when you think about it but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying the show. Claire Underwood is feeling left out in the whole white house shindig and wants to secure her own future by becoming the UN ambassador, just in case Francis don't win the 2016 Presidential nomination. All these kind of end with disastrous consequences for them but still Francis try to win the nomination. 

Overall it is a typical HoC season-at times ridiculous but very much an enjoyable watch nevertheless. I do think it is the least enjoyable of all the three seasons and I don't care whether they proceed to make another season of it. If they do I will end up watching it mind. David Fincher didn't direct any of the episodes and Robin Wright directed two of them. I have read some people complaining about Claire's actions in this season not keeping in with the character from previous seasons. I don't particularly agree since the whole affair about motherhood, abortion, rape etc suggested that she can indeed be impulsive sometimes. Anyway it is only fair that they would undergo some change after achieving what they set out to do. Meechum doesn't have much to do this season and I thought that Seth Greyson would play a much bigger role this season in terms of strategy. At least they didn't go with a cliched route of tensions between the underlings. Season can be summed up by common theme of all of the major characters facing an existential crisis, except for Francis Underwood of course.

Rating: 3/5

                                                                    

Gone Girl (2014)

Director: David Fincher
Writer:    Gillian Flynn
Cast:       Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Kim Dickens

With his wife's (Rosamund Pike) disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man (Ben Affleck) sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent. It doesn't help him the fact that their marriage was in doldrums and he is kind of not unhappy with his wife gone.

Film is an adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel of the same name and she herself wrote the screenplay for the film. Ben Affleck seems to be a hate target these days with him being cast as Batman (I couldn't care less about that) and that would have helped this film since his smugness causes hatred towards him from the media circus who judge him based on his appearance. I had an inkling about the twist which comes half way through the film based on things people posted on FB and all that. So I am not sure whether we were supposed to suspect Ben Affleck's character during the first half but I didn't anyway. It is a very entertaining watch with several twists and turns thrown in with plenty of black humor but I don't think it will be one for repeat viewing. The whole thing about anniversary present with clues and an associated treasure hunt might have been alright in the novel but in the film it looks very silly. The husband and wife are supposed to be some sort of intellectuals with a background in writing and that part is also not very convincing in the film. Still it is a very entertaining watch with a very perverse ending where both of them kind of agree to profit from all the shenanigans. 

It is what you expect from David Fincher these days- a slick one where he adapts things that should be very challenging to edit together with coherence (Zodiac, Social Network). Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) was involved with the soundtrack. Rosamund Pike is getting some high profile roles these days (Jack Reacher) and she was also involved in Edgar Wright's 'World's End'.

Rating: 3.5/5

Zodiac (2007)

Director: David Fincher
Writers:  James Vanderbilt, Robert Graysmith
Cast:       Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr.

A San Fransisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac killer.

I saw the film for the first time some 4-5 years back and thought it was Fincher's best work. I stand by that claim. Many of his films like Se7en does rely on the shock factor which makes them not that interesting on rewatches. Zodiac is the complete opposite with it being a slow burner and still having several edge of the seat scenes. That basement scene was terrifying even this time round even though I knew what was going to happen. The three principal characters the cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), the crimes reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) and the investigating officer David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) become obsessed with the case and the film is also about how the case affected these people. It is mainly based on Robert Graysmith's book and Fincher ordered further re-writes to the script when he came on board since they were kind of implicating a man posthumously  for the murders. Even more research was done and further interviews were conducted with some of the people that were shown in the film. 

The initial cut of the film was over three hours long and some of the cuts were made on Fincher using music popular from those times to show the passage of time between the events. Instead they used writings to indicate the transition. Still one four year passage is shown by reading news headlines from those times against a blank screen. Films concerning news organizations have always been some of my all time favorites like All the President's Men, Insider and Network. The newspaper office scenes in Zodiac would remind one off All The President's Men.

If I were to rank Fincher's films based on what I have seen the order would be:

1) Zodiac

2) Fight Club

3) Se7en

4) Social Network

5) Game 

6) The Panic Room

Zodiac is certainly the best film showcasing his directorial talent but Fight Club is the best representation of his style. 2007 was certainly a great year for films with No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood going head to head for most of the awards.

Rating: 5/5

The Social Network (2010)

Director: David Fincher
Writers:   Aaron Sorkin, Ben Mezrich
Cast:       Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake

Film tells the story of creation of facebook as it is recounted during two lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg, one by the Winklevi twins and the other by facebook's cofounder Eduardo Saverin.

When I saw it for the first time I was not using facebook and found the film to be great. You don't need to give a fuck about facebook to enjoy the film like is the case with Formula One and 'Senna'. The use of lawsuit to do the narration is extremely clever and they manage to make it very enjoyable even for people who are not clued upon internet start-ups, VCs and the importance of leaving monetizing late for such companies to succeed. Sean Parker's perfect analogies also helps. Jesse Eisenberg is perfect to play Mark Zuckerberg. Neither Zuckerberg nor any of the other facebook staff were involved during the production of the film but Saverin had cooperated for the Ben Mezrich book from which it is largely adapted. Fincher was also supposed to direct the Steve Jobs film but dropped out due to differences with Sony Entertainment. It is a shame because Jobs story had all the potential and the film that they finally ended up making looked disastrous based on the reviews.

I was searching for the spelling of Winklevi on Google and it turns out that the expression is in urban dictionary meaning coming second or not being quite good enough. Hehe. Also loved the Larry Summers  character portrayal and the stuff about him being a treasury secretary. Anyways the film is great even though it might be a bit Hollywodized, but who cares, it is the best film about silicon valley so far. HBO's TV series 'Silicon Valley' is also quite good.

Rating: 4/5

Fight Club (1999)

Director: David Fincher
Writers:  Chuck Palahnuik (Novel), Jim Uhls
Cast:      Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter

An insomniac office worker (Edward Norton) looking for a a way to change his life crosses path with a devil-may-care soap maker (Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden) and they form an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more...

This was my third watch of this Fincher film and I had never found it to be all that great in my first two watches. First time I saw it was before I joined for my first job and the second time was after I quit that job to pursue higher education. On first watch I was kind of feeling clever for working out the twist much before we are supposed to get it. Second time, I liked the film but was not really enamored by the central idea of fight club. This time round I realized that I  had missed the point in my previous two watches. The film is not really meant to bamboozle the audience with the split personality twist and the fight club and the fights are only minor part of the story. It is really about the disillusionment with the materialistic nature of today's white collar workers where they are in constant race to own things that they really don't need. As Tyler Durden says things you own ends up owning you. This is one thing majority of the World would realize is happening to their sad lives. Film got plenty of criticism for glorifying the fight club part of the story and some real clubs had spawned after the release of the film. In the film the portrayal of fight club and its members is anything but glorifying. The members who wanted to get freedom from their jobs ends up being Space Monkeys for Tyler Durden's project ready to be sacrificed for the greater good. The film is really making fun of these people especially at their gullibility and inability to think for themselves. What I mean to say is that whilst the film is correct in terms of conveying the feeling and philosophy behind their actions it is not essentially justifying it.

It is really a film that demands to be viewed multiple times. Plenty of clues are there from the beginning for the split personality twist. In the first scene with Edward Norton, where he describes his insomniac conditions, Tyler Durden flashes before his eyes twice. Plenty of other clues are there like the narrator saying all three of Durden, Marla and himself are never in the same room. Only minor gripe is that we shouldn't be seeing Durden when Norton himself is not seeing him when both of them are in the same scene. At the airport scene Durden is seen stealing a sports car when narrator is looking the other way. There are also plenty of subtle references to it being a film. When the Police investigator calls the narrator and informs him that his flat's explosion was due to arson and implies he is a suspect, he goes on a passionate speech about how that flat and its furniture meant so much to him and it was essentially him that got destroyed. He then ends it with a line 'I'd like to thank the academy...'. Also look out for the cock just before the end credits which was inevitable after the explanation of Tyler splicing porno frames into family films. 

I am not a huge fan of David Fincher and this is the only film of his that I think is worth rewatching. I have seen Zodiac once and thought it was his best work but I think I need to watch it again to properly judge. It is a shame that Fight Club bombed at the box office and one major reason for that it was marketed targeting the wrong audience by giving prominence to the fight scenes in the trailer. So it ended up being a favorite for those who didn't realize that it was really making fun of them.

Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Rating: 5/5

House of Cards (2014) (TV Series- Season 2)

Created By: Beau Willimon
Cast:           Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly, Michael Gill

In season two, Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is sworn in as Vice President and he has to deal with the fallout from season one initially as well as a trade war with China, which he engineered to increase his influence over the white house.

All the episodes were released simultaneously yesterday and I have binge-watched them like Netflix wants them to be. One of the main characteristics of the series is Underwood breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience. In the first episode he doesn't do it till the last scene where he goes: '... and in case you thought I had forgotten you, welcome back', which I thought was excellent and had me smiling for some time. I had some reservations about the implausibility of some of the drastic actions taken by Underwood in the first season and we get some of it early on this season with some glaring plot-holes. But the sense of dread that it creates works well in the first half of the season after which it takes a shift to concentrate on Underwood's maneuvers to become the President of the United States. The season is much more darker and more believable as Underwood is not always in control of the situation. The story is set in the present and its great to have the current topics like China's currency war and issues with Japan over the Senkaku islands being used in the plot. Overall it is a very good watch whilst not achieving a status of greatness. Two of the episodes were directed by Jodie Foster and Robin Wright.

The characters Mr and Mrs. Underwood and Doug Stamper continue to be my favorites from the series but one will feel sympathy only for Doug. The character Edward Meechum is also great and he even ends up having a 'Menage a trois' with Mr and Mrs. Underwood. Doug ends up in a limbo at the end of season two and I hope he is alright.

Everyone in the team has signed up for season three and it will be released this time next year. Looking forward to see what Francis Underwood, The President's battles would be.

Rating: 3.5/5

House of Cards (2013) (TV Series Season:1)

Developed By: Beau Willimon
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Kate Mara, Michael Kelly, Corey Stoll

Francis Underwood is Majority Whip. He has his hands on every secret in politics - and is willing to betray them all to become President.

It is an adaptation of BBC mini series of the same name which is based on the novel by Michael Dobbs. Series premiered on the streaming service Netflix where all the 13 episodes were made available simultaneously. This I think will be an increasing phenomenon with the traditional TV broadcasting set for a decline. David Fincher served as the producer for the series and directed the first two episodes.

The characters Francis Underwood, Claire Underwood and Doug Stamper are the highlight of the show. Other characters are not very well written and many just act as plot devices without much depth. The thing is that once you've seen 'The Wire', you judge everything in comparison to it and that is very hard for other shows. I even found 'Breaking Bad' to be not that great having stopped watching after second season. House of Cards is a very watchable show with great performances from Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Michael Kelly. It starts of very well, the middle is not that great but ends rather well setting up nicely for next season. Some of the plot turns are not very plausible and will raise eyebrows. But I am certainly looking forward to the next season.

To end I will quote Francis Underwwod: 'A great man once said, everything is about sex. Except sex. Sex is about power.'

Rating: 3.5/5