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in a couple of days I’ll show you one thing I’ve noticed that I believe shows how much David Fincher loves to mess with our heads.
Blue? signifies Guilty or Innocent?
Red? signifies Guilty or Innocent?
Which color signifies “trust me” and which color signals: “uh-oh, warning, watch out”?
I need this now.
@John I think a lot of movies suffer because people feel like they didn’t get what they paid for. I remember the commercials and trailers for UNBREAKABLE made it seem like the lead character was going to be
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the Messiah or something. So when they got a superhero backstory they were pissed. I thought it was brilliant but old people were cursing as they left my theater.
Ok yeah I completely agree. The fact of knowing there is a surprise gets my gears turning. I would prefer to remain blissfully unaware, even if I’m aware that in the past such and such director has notoriety for messing with the audience…
Sorry Ryan, I was actually referring to the last paragraph in the comment before…
“BUT. But here’s the thing, for me: If anyone ever says to me: “I can’t tell you what happens because there’s a big plot twist.” ..then I think to myself: “Well if you really wanted to protect my pure virginal experience then you would not have told me there’s a plot twist. Because now that I know there’s a plot twist, I’ll be imagining all the things it could be. Instead of just accepting the story as it unfolds, my brain will be in Plot Twist Detection mode…. So thanks for ruining the movie for me, dickwad.”
LCBasball22, I meant every word of that paragraph too.
it’s like, “I can’t tell you what we’re all planning for your birthday tomorrow. Just wait to find out.”
I don’t know, are they? If it were a court room drama maybe. Personally I enjoyed Anatomy of a Murder far more than Laura…
Are people still clamoring a GONE GIRL directed by Otto Preminger?
Ryan, I can never quite tell when you are being sarcastic or not but if you aren’t then AMEN to that last paragraph, lol. Kane, that’s a brilliant assessment of Fincher. Not to sidetrack this but I feel like Nolan does a similar thing but in a different and perhaps less obvious way? I don’t know, it’s hard for me to explain the differences between Fincher and Nolan who I personally feel are the top two filmmakers of the present. They both have played with similar ideas, genres, and plot devices; they both like to f*** with the audience’s perception, but for whatever reason Nolan is one of my most favorite directors whereas Fincher is merely a well respected director. Almost all of Nolan’s films are in my Top 100 whereas none of Fincher’s are, as brilliant as they are. As much as people complain about Nolan’s films lacking emotional impact, I think Fincher comes off even more cold and distant? Does anyone else feel this way?
Ryan, I can never quite tell when you are being sarcastic or not but if you aren’t then AMEN to that last paragraph
Sometimes I can’t tell what tone I’m trying to strike either.
But that last paragraph I wrote about the clever dexterity and the genius of twists inside of twists inside of twists that Christie and Wilder pull off so brilliantly was 100% sincere.
Ryan, shall I answer now?
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SPO–ahhh forget it…
I’ve always felt Fincher plays with “distrust” in every movie he’s ever made. There’s barely a time when one character trusts another. I feel blue is the color of distrust. It gives off a cold (I don’t just say that because of the color blue) and unapproachable feeling which is also why I feel he picks the digital medium to film on. Red to me doesn’t signify truth…it signifies violence and blood, which holds the truth (our DNA). The blood in Gone Girl is the truth, it’s Amy’s blood, she used it as a weapon to implicate her husband. Red is a more alarming color and makes you pay attention more clearly.
Ok, maybe not quite as marvelous as I recalled…
http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?p=5546675#post5546675
I see I had some of the same sentiments about the film as you do Ryan.
I love Witness for the Prosecution. I had seen it on late night TV years ago, but so long ago that I had forgotten all the plot machinations. When it came out on Blu-ray recently I just reveled in it, wallowed in it. The set design is so gorgeously detailed and looks stunning in high-def. First-rate acting in a dozen roles. Billy Wilder at the peak of his best plateau.
But, nope, the ‘disguise’ and the ‘accent’ that one character pulls out of his or her butt in in the final act ain’t fooling anybody.
Luckily, Agatha Christie doesn’t make the story hinge on that weak link — and, in fact, we have to ask ourselves: did they do it that way so that the audience would say: “aha! I see what’s what now!” — only to have a couple more major surprises flung in our faces after we think we’ve got it all figured out? Genius, the way it’s all handled, just genius and directorial dexterity.
I don’t get it Ryan, are you saying Witness for the Prosecution is a bad film? It’s Billy Wilder directed and I thought it was marvelous…
I like Eric Kohn and Stephen Witty’s comments in that article best. The Gay City News guy makes some good point in the second paragraph of his piece as well
This is an interesting article on the subject of spoilers concerning Gone Girl: http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/survey-can-critics-spoil-gone-girl-20141006
Incidentally in the comments I see that someone else came across a headline with the same giveaway term usage as I did…
Not that this necessarily has to do with SPOILERS. But.
I was just thinking about public perception of this movie before they sat down to watch it.
Aside from those folks who simply find fault in the source material/plot of the book and the movie, I think that those general movie-going folks who went into the movie theater, sat down, and were disappointed by what they saw …… were people who thought they were watching a whodunit and that’s IT. People who wanted to wait and see “if Ben Affleck DID IT and, if not him, who did?”.
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Once people saw Amy in the car, it was almsot like a huge deceipt that this movie was NOT what they expected — hence! — they didn’t like it; and tried findign any reason to say they didn’t like it (“Oh, it was confusing”. “Ohh, it was long and boring”, etc etc etc).
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I can type this because I’ve spoken to several people who felt this way. Unfortunate, but true. There ARE those people, and there are prob some in the Academy too, who don’t want to accept when a movie becomes something they didnt expect. :/
Exactly Kane, a good writer/director can effectively keep you guessing and second guessing your suspicions, thoughts, feelings, etc
Ryan, of course I know heat wasn’t wafted in my direction. If I can inspire anybody to come up with a spirited response, then boy howdy keep ’em coming! I know you enough to know where your writing is directed. Regarding the “When the opening 5 minutes of Gone Girl points all the fingers at Nick being guilty, don’t we immediately KNOW that the twist will be that he’s NOT guilty?”, hasn’t there been any movies where we think the person is guilty, 5 minutes in we are totally convinced he is not and then by the end there’s maybe another twist that says he is? I hate that I have to do this every time I want to spoil a little spoiler but…
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Wasn’t Primal Fear like that? I haven’t seen it in years and years but did we think he was innocent, then led to believe because of his mental handicap he couldn’t have done it only to find out…shazam? To me I was never sure if Amy Dunne was alive or dead the whole time. I felt the twist was going to be in the narrative structure, and to my credit it was, but I thought the twist could’ve centered more on Nick than Amy. I knew there was going to be a massive twist but…my God if you only knew where my mind went in the days leading up. At the risk of being laughed at, or giving a hearty laugh, one thought I had was that Amy vanished, had a sex change and became Desi. Boom. That happened and I was so glad I was wrong and didn’t truly invest in that thought.
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At the risk of being laughed at, or giving a hearty laugh, one thought I had was that Amy vanished, had a sex change and became Desi.
David Cronenberg’s Gone Girl. I love it. I want to see that movie.
hasn’t there been any movies where we think the person is guilty, 5 minutes in we are totally convinced he is not and then by the end there’s maybe another twist that says he is?
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SPOILER for anyone who hasn’t seen Witness for the Prosecution:
As much as I scorn this misplaced idea that Gone Girl is supposed to be a quaint little puzzle that we need solve, like Miss Marple… Witness for the Prosecution is probably the very best example in movie history of the “he’s guilty. no he can’t be, or maybe he is after all, but nah, no way, he’s innocent, but hey wait a minute, whut!? wow, was NOT expecting THAT.” — and that was written by Agatha Christie.
And Witness for the Prosecution also contains one of the most absurdly obviously transparent “person in disguise” scenes in movie history. It’s about as convincing a disguise as Superman disguising himself as Clark Kent with a pair of glasses — and suddenly nobody in the whole city of Metropolis sees the slightest resemblance.
hasn’t there been any movies where we think the person is guilty, 5 minutes in we are totally convinced he is not and then by the end there’s maybe another twist that says he is?
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SPOILER for anybody who never saw a Richard Gere movie.
Richard Gere has made a career of movies that spin variations on that “innocent? guilty? innocent? guilty?” formula:
American Gigolo
Internal Affairs
Sommersby
Intersection
Unfaithful
Final Analysis
Primal Fear
Arbitrage
Every time Richard Gere makes a movie the question is always, Who’s Lying!? And the answer is always: Everybody.
Another guilty/innocent/guilty/innocent guilty pleasure is Fracture with Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins.
Kane, you never need to worry about your theories looking crazy here at the Awards Daily asylum/
I’m going to ask a question right now, and then in a day or two I’m going to write up a little theory about Gone Girl and let everybody see the crazy places where I let my senses roam.
If I asked you: Here are two colors. Blue and Red. Which one of those colors feels like the “innocent” color to you, and which one gives you a feeling that it’s the “guilty” color?
Answer that question, and in a couple of days I’ll show you one thing I’ve noticed that I believe shows how much David Fincher loves to mess with our heads.
Blue? signifies Guilty or Innocent?
Red? signifies Guilty or Innocent?
Which color signifies “trust me” and which color signals: “uh-oh, warning, watch out”?
Fair points Ryan, though I would say I’m hardly ignorant of this genre. I grew up absorbing Agatha Christie novels and my favorite director is Hitchcock. Yes, I’ve read a number of books and seen a number of films where all isn’t as it seems, but I guess that’s the mark of a good author/director. Even if you have your suspicions they can suck you in to the mystery/suspense despite the looming plot twists just around the corner, because mind you there have been plenty of other films where I’ve spotted plot twists from a mile away. So the problem with being spoiled beforehand I feel is that your alertness is heightened and it can make it difficult to allow yourself to get sucked in. Quite frankly the twist in Psycho blew my mind even though I had been informed there was a major twist and even though I had seen both Identity, Fight Club, and other plenty of other modern films that basically copied the basic idea. I guess that’s why Hitchcock is The Master of Suspense…
If there is a modern rival to Hitchcock I would have to agree with others that Fincher is at the top of the ballot, considering that even though I was on high alert going in to the film he still managed to drawn me in and impress with how the film unraveled leading up to the revealing sequence…
“So the problem with being spoiled beforehand I feel is that your alertness is heightened and it can make it difficult to allow yourself to get sucked in.”
LCbaseball22, Exactly! Thank you!
I go off on a lot of wild rambles hammering a point that you guys can summarize in one sentence.
I didn’t get around to reading Gone Girl till this summer, and of course by then I knew that it famously employed the “unreliable narrator” device — so I knew not to trust anything at face value, (and I like to think that I might have have figured that out on my own, because one side of the story seemed to be exceedingly artificial in tone — thanks to Gillian Flynn’s brilliance in nuance).
But even knowing that the road was going to be strewn with plot twists, I was still unprepared for the extent that they would be escalated. So it was still a happy satisfying reading experience.
BUT. But here’s the thing, for me: If anyone ever says to me: “I can’t tell you what happens because there’s a big plot twist.” ..then I think to myself: “Well if you really wanted to protect my pure virginal experience then you would not have told me there’s a plot twist. Because now that I know there’s a plot twist, I’ll be imagining all the things it could be. Instead of just accepting the story as it unfolds, my brain will be in Plot Twist Detection mode…. So thanks for ruining the movie for me, dickwad.”
🙂
Yes, the IMDB message boards are a minefield. I learned my lesson quite a few times and I avoid them like the plague now…
Exactly John, and I would never deliberately spoil a movie if I thought there were people reading through these comments that had not seen the topic of discussion. I certainly wasn’t one during the Harry Potter craze to go around shouting or posting on the internet “Snape Kills Dumbledore” and I have no intention of posting spoiler titled threads on IMDB or any such nonsense like that for Gone Girl or any other film. My biggest fear at the moment is running into a spoiler about Interstellar…
John, if the message board was on imdb then that’s a reason why I don’t scroll to the bottom of any imdb pages anymore.
Anyone who spoils a movie sucks. I read something a few weeks before Gone Girl came out on a message board in which the person purposely wrote the general twist of the movie in the heading of the post for all to see. That person sucks. When I saw Gone Girl, I enjoyed the complexity of what occurs in and around the plot twist that I read. Though I knew what to expect, theres so much more to the film that occurs AFTER the twist. Still ….. Spoiling movies sucks.
Yeah sorry Kane, I forgot quotation marks and I don’t know how to insert fancy quote boxes and such like Ryan does.
And I guess given the picture headlining this article it seemed pretty obvious to me that spoilers will be discussed and nobody who hasn’t seen the movie would be looking here. Perhaps the solution would be to better define postings like RopeofSilicon has?
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/gone-girl-whos-blame-nick-amy/
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/lets-hear-thoughts-gone-girl-spoilers-welcomed/
LCbaseball, sorry if I thought that quote came from you and not Ryan. I read your post and I didn’t see any quotation marks around the referenced quote. I guess that comment goes to Ryan now. My previous comment came from the confusion of me thinking you assumed we weren’t up to speed while giving away plot details and complaining about the spoilers.
Ryan, I done it again. Please put a SPOILER warning at the top of my post pretty please? It’s funny those words femme fatale popped up again as that’s what was posted by somebody a few weeks back. I read those words and it immediately changed my thoughts on the movie before I went in to it. Suffice it to say I was no as surprised as I was hoping to be. But to reiterate your sentiments, Ryan, by getting into a conversation with said person about those choice words I inadvertently gave away suspicions I had, which caused more damage.
LCbaseball’s comment, “Seriously, anyone who thought Gone Girl was going to be about…” is exactly the sort of thinking somebody narrow minded is. I tried my best to avoid a lot of reading on the plot and only went off the basic synopsis and the two trailers, which gave me just enough doubt as to what Nick’s role was in all of it. Spelling things out as clearly as you did to try to make others look like they weren’t ahead of the curve is insulting. That’s worse than giving away the plot, it’s assuming people are up to speed with where you are.
Ryan, I done it again. Please put a SPOILER warning at the top of my post pretty please?
no problem Kane! I will. I did already. But you did nothing wrong. LCbaseball is right to point out that this entire post is marked SPOILER on the main page of the site so anyone who clicks to page 2 to see the full photo and read the reactions in these comments should know what they’re getting into.
So I guess I’m just (over)reacting with surprise that this page has turned into the place to have a discussion about spoilers, but that’s ok. Better here than any other post. Just seemed to me that if anybody knows anything about novels and movies AT ALL, then they know that the women in those novels and movies are usually more than they appear to be on the surface.
The Maltese Falcon, for example. Because all of us were born way way after 1941, it’s very likely that we had all seen many other films noir before we saw The Maltese Falcon. Speaking for myself, I had seen enough films noir to know that any story told by the ostensible ‘damsel in distress’ was not to be trusted without question. In fact, I read the The Maltese Falcon long before I ever found a way to see the movie, because the Blockbuster in my little town didn’t have The Maltese Falcon VHS tape.)
But even if I had not read the book, I know this: in ANY mystery NOBODY is to be trusted.
And beyond that: As soon as word gets around that a movie or novel has a “TWIST ENDING” or “PLOT TWISTS” don’t we all automatically lose the virginal status of having no clue about what to expect? When people heard that Gone Girl had a Plot Twist, what did they imagine? That Amy was an alien reptile disguised as a Girl?
When the opening 5 minutes of Gone Girl points all the fingers at Nick being guilty, don’t we immediately KNOW that the twist will be that he’s NOT guilty?
And then what? DO we think David Fincher has decided to make a movie where Miss Marple finds out that the vicar is a murderer?
From the very moment the words “plot twist” escape onto the internet, I find it hard to believe that most people don’t consider the possibility that the title of the book might be playfully and very obviously misleading us.
Because we’ve all seen movies like this. People who like mysteries with plot twists all know about The Third Man and Laura.
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I do wonder what it would have been like for me if I didn’t know Harry Lime was alive years before I saw The Third Man. But hell, I was opening books and seeing photos of Orson Welles standing in the shadows of doorways since I was 10 years old. I’d have to be thickheaded not to say to myself, “hey, I wonder if Harry Lime isn’t really dead?”
I’ve known Orson Welles was in The Third Man all my life, maybe since the day I was born. And maybe it would have been fun to remain ill-informed and clueless all my life until the age of 17 or so when I was finally able to see The Third Man. Maybe it would have been fun to never even learn that Orson Welles existed before I was 17 so that I could get that one single moment of shock when he steps out of the shadows.
But I made a trade-off. Either be smart and learn whatever comes into my sphere of reference and deal with it. Or else never open a single book about movies my entire life just so I can experience the momentary kick of finding out that Rosebud is a sled. Just so I will truly be SHOCKED at the age of 16 to find out that Norman Bates is dressing up like his mom.
But do I really want to be that clueless?
I chose the path of less ignorance, and I do not regret it.
====
Any of you who ever listen to the podcasts will know that I’m the one who’s always asking Sasha and Craig if we can please go easy on plot details or at least warn the listeners in advance how much of the conversation they should FFW past to be safe.
Ask Sasha — every year I’m always asking if I can go into posts and change a couple of words here and there to try to keep certain things vague.
I care very much about not ruining movies for people.
But I cannot say that Psycho or Laura or The Third Man or The Maltese Falcon were “RUINED” for me just because I knew about those “plot twists” in advance. I can’t say that because I’m not childish about such things.
Kane! Even though you inspired me to write a post that sounds hotheaded, I hope you know that none of that heat was directed at you. You’ve always been very conscientious and careful about anything you’ve ever said about Gone Girl.
Well Ryan, I’ve just been defending my point of view. I guess I felt instigated by your comments…
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LCbaseball, I knew something was fishy about the plot right before I went in to see the movie but when I first heard about the movie I thought we’d only be seeing Amy in flashbacks, which could cover between 1/3 and 1/2 of the movie. Not everyone figured she would be alive and well.
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And while femme fatales can take on a multitude of meanings, in the particular context of Gone Girl such knowledge screams “I framed my husband” Granted it was still interesting to see how it all played out and the 3rd act ‘twist’ was a surprise, though not necessarily a good one. I kinda feel like at the point we switch to Amy’s perspective in the present the story becomes quite contrived with her suddenly becoming a bit careless, needing rescue, and returning to Nick…
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Yeesh, LCBasebal22. Why don’t you just tell everybody the entire ending of the movie.
Is that how it works? You feel “femmes fatale” ruined everything for you, and since you’re the only person who matters, now it’s perfectly ok for you to outline the entire second half of the movie for everybody?
You guys have me running around plastering SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER on comments after the fact, trying to keep up with all the spoilers you’re all dropping willy-nilly without the least bit of consideration for anyone but yourselves, all because of “femmes fatales.”
I can’t be on 24-hour round-the-clock SPOILER PATROL to keep up with all the HUGE spoilers you all spill while you’re crying about femme fatale.
I’ve seen Laura but I don’t recall much of it, so I guess it didn’t leave a lasting impression like other film noirs…
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Seriously, anyone who thought Gone Girl was going to be about a girl who’s so far gone that she isn’t in the movie except as a corpse must have been expecting a pretty boring movie, and the weirdest Best Actress role of all time. What did people think they were going to see? Ben Affleck trying to track down his wife’s killer? woo, that’s original. I’m sure Fincher always wanted to remake The Fugitive.
I honestly didn’t know what to expect up until finding out what type of role she played. She still could have been a large presence through flashbacks…
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I honestly didn’t know what to expect up until finding out what type of role she played. She still could have been a large presence through flashbacks…
And every single time that I have ever talked about the amount of screentime Rosamund Pike has in Gone Girl, I have always always emphasized the flashbacks, because it’s a true and satisfactory explanation.
But now, thanks to your comment, anybody reading this page will know there may be more to it than that.
Nobody who ever complains about the spoilers ever considers that their complaints are themselves often giving away much bigger spoilers when they get into specifics that Sasha and I have never ever mentioned in any post on the main page.
LCBasebell22, if anyone ever had any doubt about what happens halfway through the movie you have certain;ly made it crystal clear to them now. That’s something that Sasha and I never did. Never.
So what are we do about this situation? I can go back and put spoiler warnings on your comment but of course it’s now too late for all the people who already read it.
When I saw Laura I was 14 and did not know anything about it. IT MATTERS on what you feel when you see the film. Especially that one. And the book which I read years later did not have anything in it to make you feel what you felt when you saw the movie without knowing anything about it. And still the plot is roughly the same.
‘If someone hasn’t seen Laura, I’d like to see them try to guess the plot from only knowing that she’s a femme fatale’ I am not sure that comment is relevant regarding the subject : when people mention they feel deprived of something when they have been spoiled, it is not about plot as such but about feeling on how each one feels when he discovers the mystery as it reveals itself without knowing anything.
And maybe Rosamund Pike could have been a Academy Award hopeful even as a victim if smartly done.
But i do agree about GONE GIRL not being about solving a plot but more of an elaborate plot to marvel at, the mystery being hinted at right from the start with smart clues. Though even if you know already too much about it, the cleverness of writing, acting and directing is not to be missed.
I was just on my way out to the store for my wife. She wants a diary, a belt bag, a pregnancy test, and a mop for some reason. But thought I would stop by Awardsdaily first. Well! That Amazing Amy cartoon image has ruined the movie for me. And I have read the book. It is okay putting “Spoiler Alert” at the top of the article, but you went ahead and posted the image anyway. Too late now. I won’t be coming back to this site again.
😉
Laura is a fantastic comparison.
Actually I was spoiled by an article on this site or some other that was simply regarding Pike’s statement for Best Actress…and that term “femme fatale” was used in the headlines/summary. I didn’t even realize who Pike was and that she was playing the wife in Fincher’s latest film until it was too late…
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A femme fatale can meet a multitude of fates. People involved with femmes fatales can be all kinds of people.
Seriously, anyone who thought Gone Girl was going to be about a girl who’s so far gone that she isn’t in the movie except as a corpse must have been expecting a pretty boring movie, and the weirdest Best Actress role of all time. What did people think they were going to see? Ben Affleck trying to track down his wife’s killer? woo, that’s original. I’m sure Fincher always wanted to remake The Fugitive.
Were we not supposed to raise the possibility of Gone Girl being an Oscar-worthy vehicle for Rosamund Pike until after the first 30 million people got to see it? How would anyone think that an actress might possibly be nominated for an Oscar if her big Oscar Moment Clip occured 5 minutes into the movie during her climatic Death Scene?
Spoiler Alert, 1944: Gene Tierney plays a femme fatale in Laura. If someone hasn’t seen Laura, I’d like to see them try to guess the plot from only knowing that she’s a femme fatale. People might guess one thing. Would that ruin Laura for them? If so, then they have a very low threshold for having movies ruined. Those people might want to look into buying a sensory deprivation tank like the one in Altered States.
If there’s a film such as this that I really really don’t want spoiled as I hadn’t read the book, I make a point to see it on the first day of release, which I did. Otherwise, my fault for clicking on links and listening to other people out of curiosity.
“Just hearing that Pike plays a femme fatale is enough to ruin the surprise”
Quite true, still a good film but this part was diminished for me as well. Any time that term is used it’s a dead giveaway. I love femme fatale films but I’ve avoided looking for a list of these like the plague because knowing a film has such kinda ruins the full experience. For instance would I have as much appreciation for say The Maltese Falcon if I had been spoiled the first time I watched it? Maybe, since I have seen it many times and the mystery/suspense is long gone, but with some films I feel you can never surpass that first viewing experience, and when it comes to a ‘thriller’ it’s probably best to be blissfully unaware cause you’ll never get that first time back…
new “Citizen Kane”
are you on crack? Please tell me you’re being flip, glib or arch (you may pick one)
kjbacon,
What Jesus is saying: “at this point it wouldn’t matter if this was the next Citizen Kane, the excitement has unfortunately been spoiled for me”
it’s not glib or arch so much as it’s simply his feelings of resignation and frustration.
Great article Sasha!!! I have Patricia arquette number 1 in my top 5 best supporting actress
1. Patricia Arquette Boyhood
2. Constance Brennerman The Toy Soldiers
3. Cary Coon Gone Girl
4. Jennifer garner Men Woman and Children
5. Laura Dean The Fault in Our Stars
Jesus, do see it. I was pissed off that part of the story was spoiled for me via a Tweet. But after seeing it, I truly marvel at how rich the story is—how complex and nuanced the characters are. In hind sight, the spoiler that pissed me off is nothing but a 140 character memory.
I don’t know why people enjoy spoiling movies. I stayed as spoiler free as I could. I avoided all the articles on this site about GONE GIRL. But I still got spoiled by TV news. For that kind of film it makes a huge difference. Just hearing that Pike plays a femme fatale is enough to ruin the surprise. The film loses in the end. It wasn’t always like that. I saw THE SIXTH SENSE months after it came out and didn’t get spoiled. The internet was around then. So it’s not that.
The internet was around then. So it’s not that.
It’s a little bit that. The internet of 1999 is quite a lot better and worse in every way than the internet of today. Also, now, 15 years after The Sixth Sense, the internet mentality has leaked offline and seeped into TV mentality.
On the internet you have a chance to see warning signs of tip-offs that you’re about to step into something you don’t want to step into. On TV, the TV talking-head blather-knobs jabber like stream-of-consciousness crackwhores. There’s no way to grab the remote quick enough unless your thumb is constantly hovering over the mute button and you’re amped up to hair-trigger tension all the time.
“I’m not watching “Gone Girl”.”
Your loss.
Oh Jesus, I went very spoiled too, but it was still an amazing experience, besides, this post did had a spoiler alert. Go check it out, won´t regret it.
I’m just curious – for people who are offended by spoilers, how do you handle films based on books you may have read or real life events/history? By not reading or watching the news? How about those based on famous plays and musicals that can be between 20 and 200 years old? Pre-defined comic book characters? Remakes? Sequels?
One would have to live an extremely isolated life to keep one’s film viewing in a virgin state and spoiler-free. Choose life – it’s more fun.
for people who are offended by spoilers, how do you handle films based on books you may have read or real life events/history?
easy.
…wait, what was the question?
Sorry but it’s a decision. I’m not watching “Gone Girl”. Been spoiled everywhere, and trust me, I tried hard to not read too much. I don’t mind the film might be the new “Citizen Kane”, I can’t go unspoiled to see it, so… I just may give it a chance when on TV, in the next years.
“Sorry but it’s a decision. I’m not watching “Gone Girl”. Been spoiled everywhere…”
Jesus Alonso
I’m sorry to hear that and wish I could help change your mind.
1) millions of us read the book and we still think the movie takes us to unexpected levels.
2) the second viewing for me was even better than the first, so the more I knew the more I enjoyed it.
3) did you not know about Rosebud before you saw Citizen Kane?
4) the movie is not a puzzle to be solved; it’s an elaborate trap to marvel at.
5) you know those clocks in glass cases that let you see inner workings? do we like to see those clocks so we can figure out how they were put together? or do we just admire the clever intricacy on display for its own sake?
6) what’s better? not knowing what a blowjob felt like before you got your first one? or knowing and anticipating what it was going to feel like before the next 500 blowjobs you got? 🙂
7) Hitchcock said it:
Trust me, Jesus. The intellectual thrill of Gone Girl goes far beyond any tricky ‘mystery’ — and the reason I put ‘mystery’ in quotes is because I don’t think Fincher ever intends for us to accept the story being told at face value. He inserts dozens of cues to let the audience know the whole ‘mystery’ is nothing but a MacGuffin to hum along on autopilot while he encourages us to look past the plotty plot to see the real story he’s telling.