Let's Anticipate David Fincher's THE KILLER

Tilda scene was compelling, Brute fight was thrilling (their completely different skill sets created tension amplified by the blocking / editing), Sub Pop billionaire actor was fantastic

If this was based closely on the first book, I can’t imagine how following the character in subsequent adventures can be satisfying

she only smells the first one: no way the rest are single malts.

She got more nervous as she got drunker; also, she can afford them. You might be right.

Wasn't that restaurant lit beautifully?

I'm with Morbs, who if memory serves held Fight Club, a funny movie about how dumb men are, in high regard and the rest pretty much not.

I don't regard Zodiac as highly as clemenza, but it's his most realized film -- and funniest.

I think what you and I just proved rn is that Fincher is very much not funny.

Speaking for many here: this can no longer be ignored.

Glad it's been finally brought to light

Side note: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/fight-club-far-right-incels-david-fincher-responds-1235773001/

“It’s impossible for me to imagine that people don’t understand that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) is a negative influence,” Fincher added. “People who can’t understand that, I don’t know how to respond and I don’t know how to help them.”

(Narrator: "Morbs somewhat identified with Tyler Durden.")

For a long time one of my core challops was "Alien 3 is the only Fincher good movie", because at least it had the conviction to actually admit that it was just silly pulp fun

"fun" isn't what I would associate with that movie, though it wasn't like...the abortion people said it was. wouldn't say I like it much though.

Those abortion people can be such harsh critics

lol

Saw this via Alamo MoviePass: slick, pretty much No-Moral Theater. (I know nothing about the comic it's based on? So who knows how much of this is really Fincher or just the source material.) The two things I was amused by:

* That's how to dispense with opening credits, just, quick, done. (Reminds me of the first and the McQuarrie Mission: Impossible films in that regard. But then again the whole Paris sequence in Fallout was rather more interesting than the one here.)

* All kinds of Gen X music in the film beyond a certain warbler's old band -- the Portishead drop at the house, the one dude at the end with the artfully distressed Sub Pop shirt -- and again not knowing whether it was in the original text I was amused in thinking about how either it meant our lead bro was either a nostalgist who chose to listen them 'before he went bad' or absolutely embraced his current assholery and indeed does not give a fuck. But if Fincher wanted to use 80s music on Sire let's see him rescore the whole thing with selections from Like a Prayer instead and have the botched effort at the start soundtracked to "Express Yourself" for the full self-referential LOLs.

Fantastic.

I don’t understand the Equalizer or John Wick comparisons. I prefer The Killer’s lack of “lore.” If anything, it reminded me of Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here.

Didn't like this at all. Found it totally inert. Arliss Howard and Kerry O'Malley (Dolores) played recognizable human beings; everyone else was a chess piece or scenery. When was the last time Tilda Swinton actually acted in a movie, instead of showing up spotlit like the director's nudging you in the ribs and shouting "Look! Tilda Swinton! Isn't her hair incredible?" As far as the actual direction, except for the masturbatory Hitchcock/De Palma stuff at the beginning, it felt like Fincher trying to make a Soderbergh movie and failing. Soderbergh's pulp movies (Haywire is an obvious antecedent, but Side Effects and Kimi too) leave this thing in the dust.

But her hair was incredible.

Max Read has a really excellent read of this in his newsletter, the first thing I've read that makes me want to see it (basically Fassbender as sigma male/'loser internet' avatar).

Didn’t like this - less John Wick and more like Dexter, right down to the self-righteous voiceover being constantly interrupted by the protagonist’s own fuckups

Fincher making fun of himself should be better than this

When was the last time Tilda Swinton actually acted in a movie,

Memoria

Which is way fucking better than this, obviously.

Which is way fucking better than this, obviously.

I’m confused. Has Tilda ever NOT acted in a movie?

in Last and First Men she's just a voice, but a magnificent voice

btw not going to watch this shite if you pay me to!

Jean Hitman, 23 Calle de la Playa, Santo Domingo

Cast some real Dominicans next time? Or at least ones that can act. Yeesh.

I’m preparing myself to hear that cutting-in-and-out trick they do with The Smiths on the soundtrack, everywhere for the next five years.

The Swint scenes were great* and yeah it looked absolutely fantastic. DF says Netflix had no qualms stumping up big cash for very expensive effects.

*SPOILER I didn’t notice she had a little dagger in her hand after he shot her, but I’ve read same.

(xpost) I found that incredibly annoying...not even a band I particularly care for.

Think I like Fincher more than most here, but this was pointless. Repetitive scenes, ponderous VO, and inferior to several similar movies y'all have named. Like clemenza, I found the music cutting in-and-out annoying and distracting, really hope that doesn't become a trend. I did like Swinton's scene, the movie needed more characters like her

Mank was also pointless but at least it felt like a stretch for Fincher. this feels like Fincher made by AI

To paraphrase Deep Throat in All the President's Men, Fincher got me feeling sorry for the Smiths--I didn't think that was possible.

I hate not to use my MUBI GO ticket but you guys are making me not feel so bad about this.

In this case, I meant to say.

I liked it but don't care enough to defend it

When was the last time Tilda Swinton actually acted in a movie

can't recommend the eternal daughter (2022) highly enough, and she plays 2 leads

yeah, unperson, you are WAY wrong about Swinton. She's been marvelous in Joanna Hogg's last several films.

I liked it but don't care enough to defend it

I liked it but don't care enough to defend it

^^^

So this was exactly like Dexter if Dexter took itself seriously and never did anything fun.
The deadpan voiceover, repeating the rules, until the "oh shit" record scratch. Kept thinking it was going to subvert the trope at some point but... nope.

That said, I kinda liked watching it, esp the recycling bin bit, but will forget it in a week.

Didn’t like this - less John Wick and more like Dexter, right down to the self-righteous voiceover being constantly interrupted by the protagonist’s own fuckups
Fincher making fun of himself should be better than this

Fiona Bruce's voice at the start of the big fight was amusing

I didn’t hate it but … kinda don’t have anything to say about it.

Even the idea that this is a metaphor for the director’s career long journey doesn’t make this any more interesting

massive meh from me. I keep dozing off and am not sure I have the energy to go back and see the bits I missed near the end.

yeah, unperson, you are WAY wrong about Swinton. She's been marvelous in Joanna Hogg's last several films.

no shit, all three are some of my favorite movies in recent memory and she is exceptional in them

the cliched voice over is just...so fucking awful. i too thought there must be some hidden reason that this guy is just spewing cliche after cliche and I don't think there was. it's just bad writing.

every John Wick movie has better dialog. As far as revenge movies go, this pales next to Pig.

every John Wick movie has better dialog. As far as revenge movies go, this pales next to Pig.

every John Wick movie has better dialog. As far as revenge movies go, this pales next to Pig.

"The Killer" tears down the great, civilizing art of The Smiths. But he didn't have the wit to use "Meat is Murder." It would expose his lunacy. That makes David #Fincher the Hollywood equivalent of the Taliban. #TheKiller

You get one guess as to who wrote that.

can we stop linking to him? He qualifies as a hate group at this point.

"...the civilizing art..." ?? wtf kind of language is that

i think this movie has been fucked by being a netflix release (ie not getting a real theatrical run) and it being more of a satire than an action movie

Saw this in a pretty full theater in late October, and laughing together was definitely part of the experience. And of course it looked/sounded great on a big screen, even though the close-quarters fight was in murky half-darkness. (Saw May December a few weeks later at the same theater.)

It felt like Fincher trying to make a Soderbergh movie and failing. Soderbergh's pulp movies (Haywire is an obvious antecedent, but Side Effects and Kimi too) leave this thing in the dust.

Enjoyed The Killer while it was happening, but as far as auteur hitman movies prefer and remember Haywire and Collateral more.

Also FYI for Chicago ILXors: the restaurant/hotel with Tilda Swinton and its surrounding exterior was filmed along the Fox River in St. Charles, IL.

My own private challops, because I work in a field adjacent to this, but I see Fincher talking about 'Sound Design' a lot and how if you're ignoring it and not somehow maximizing its potential then you are a bad filmmaker and should be destroyed. I do not agree and I don't know why this one is so overdone, perhaps the lack of dialogue.

Scene after scene of field recordings, textures, and foley, all of the backgrounds about 30% too loud, and all of them screaming 'Hey check out the exquisite detail in all these subtle layers and perspective changes, aren't we fabulous and meticulous?' When really, imho, it's just distracting and hokey.

I just wanna watch a film, not listen to an expensive sound library, it's like how the ambience in Mad Men was pumped way up because they'd put so much time into period typing pool sounds and the exact right type of car engines down on the street and somehow it just ended up sounding like a jet engine.

I know I sound like a niche crazy person hating on overcooked/overthought sound design, so forgive me but things like Fassbender sticking in his earbuds with this daft and unnecessary, inside-the-head scuffing, it was a complete eyeroll.

And what's sad is I didn't even notice any of that (watched the movie on a laptop wearing Sony MDR 7506 studio headphones). Probably because I've been deafened by the gunfire in Michael Mann movies.

I just wanna watch a film, not listen to an expensive sound library

I'm rewatching House of Cards right now, and ditto, I'm finding it annoying that every time there's a scene at the Washington Herald office, they make sure they have phones ringing in the background--almost mathematically spaced out every few seconds--for the sake of authenticity. Once you notice something like that it's impossible to unnotice, and it becomes a distraction.

(Which is a Fincher project too, come to think of it.)

XXP - Oddly, I watched it on my Macbook with the same model of headphones.

https://images.thedirect.com/media/photos/4arlisshoward.png
https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8f0d746/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1905x2540+953+0/resize/720x960!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FzYCwlJ4gHypjPKDS5Od66jxJon8%3D%2F0x0%3A3810x2540%2F3810x2540%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281867x862%3A1868x863%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F22828148%2Fmerlin_100313174.jpg

WWJWBD

A parody, cut from last night's Saturday Night Live for time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrG0NHLa0zE

so i havent read the thread and i liked this but is the presumption that fincher just thinks that professional killer is a very silly job probably filled with deeply unserious people

i note immediately that people hated the voiceover but enjoyed swintons bowie impersonation

hm

i thought, re the voiceover, that every time he repeated it he fucked up/didnt follow one step earlier each time

also, he went home after a botched job but the damage we/he cared about was already done

but

our other two killers /also/ went home after their botched job and our lawyer/secretary went to work after their botched job and nobody even....changed routine even a little bit....?

admittedly ive no idea why bother visiting billionaire at the end and then not killing him tbh

but in a movie about a guy who constantly reiterates process and principle and les regles du jeu, i really doubt the guy who made zodiac has put all that out there for a face value ilx movie thread analysis to be "lord he just made a movie about a cool hitman"

lazy thread 4/10 would not read again

also

someone watched it and _missed Tilda's slip and dagger_

i mean tbh lads im not sure at all at all at all

and lastly

My own private challops, because I work in a field adjacent to this

this post promised a lot but it turns out the poster did not mean contract killing

We are perhaps simple creatures

Taking this opportunity to say darraghmac otm.

deems have you ever watched Dexter

nor will i