David Fincher makes heady, twisted dramas about very dark things, so we’re amped to see his long-in-the-works sequel to World War Z, despite being mostly lukewarm on the original. That is, of course, if it actually happens. There’s been numerous delays and, last we heard, Fincher had set it aside in favor of a second…
It’s become widely accepted that a movie adapting a novel should use its source as a guide rather than a strict blueprint. If a change would improve the film, then that change should be made. The book isn’t sacred, nor should it be. This becomes more complicated when it comes to nonfiction. It’s one thing to tweak the…
David Fincher is a notorious perfectionist. Any actor who has worked with him will tell you that the man likes to do a lot of takes and there are dozens of video essays on YouTube that can attest to the precision of his cinematography. But, in a recent group interview at Vulture Fest, the cast of Netflix’s Mindhunter…
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. The summer movie season is upon us, which means it’s time for a semi-annual tradition: singing the praises of the most unloved, underperforming, or simply forgotten summer blockbusters.
David Fincher’s World War Z was a fairly big hit, but Fincher, Paramount, and original star Brad Pitt have had a surprisingly difficult time getting a sequel off the ground.For one thing, the original came out in 2013—which is like 12 Marvel movies ago, if that’s how you keep track of time—and the sequel burned…
Welcome to Stream And Stream Again, a monthly column highlighting films and TV series new to streaming catalogs that are of special interest to The A.V. Club’s staff—and hopefully to you, our readers. Here are five new titles streaming this April.
Anyone going to see a movie that’s supposedly “based on true events” knows that what they’re actually getting is the Hollywood version of events. That means certain elements or characters have been cut, the timeline has been reordered, and things have generally been made more dramatic to serve the narrative. But for…
All of you clamoring to @RealDavidFincher and let him know that, actually, Alien 3 is better than it had any right to be will now have to face up to reality. The director and producer has issued news that he will not, in fact, be joining any social network in the near future.
While you’d be forgiven for thinking that the story of a betrayed woman getting elaborate revenge on her cheating husband is a pretty common trope, some stories are more similar than others. And some, as though we needed reminding, can spur lawsuits.
Pop music has long served to elevate key moments in film, but it can also serve as a crutch emblematic of Hollywood bloat, especially of late—“Putting ‘Fortunate Son,’ ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil,’ and ‘Spirit In The Sky’ in the same movie has to count for some kind of record,” we wrote in our review…
Showing the same resilience of a reanimated corpse, a sequel to 2013's World War Z is still kicking around. This, despite an onslaught of bad news, including preproduction squabbles between Brad Pitt and the screenwriters, departing directors, as well as the film’s removal from Paramount’s upcoming releases. But fear…
Computer-generated imagery tends to get a bad rap among cinephiles for the way its digitization can shatter the illusion of reality or distract from the action. Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It, for example, probably would’ve been that much scarier had Pennywise’s gaping maw been rendered with…
Clayton Purdom: Mindhunter was just compulsively watchable, at least for me. It hit the perfect mid-October note of derangement and morbidity while still being funny, quick, and tightly produced. I loved it. But it was an odd show, wasn’t it? The show shirks a traditional antagonist in favor of raw, procedural action…
Netflix’s new drama Mindhunter explores the early days of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, as investigators interview imprisoned serial killers in an effort to understand their motivations. As is common for Netflix shows, Mindhunter seems to breed endless discussion and debate. The A.V. Club recently sat down with…
The final episode of Mindhunter’s first season depicts a pyrrhic victory. Holden Ford, the Behavior Science Unit’s boy wonder, gets a confession out of a man who raped and murdered a 12-year-old girl and becomes a media sensation overnight. But the fallout from both the attention the case brings on the BSU and the…
For the Behavioral Science Unit, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The penultimate episode of Mindhunter Season 1 shows the team operating at the peak of their powers, working in in tandem to create the term for which they’ll go down in history: “serial killer.” It also depicts faultlines forming…
David Fincher is a reasonably acclaimed director who could probably get any kind of gig he wants, but lately he’s been trying to make it very clearly that he absolutely does not want some gigs. Specifically, Fincher doesn’t want to make Marvel or Star Wars movies, telling The Financial Times recently (via Collider)…
David Fincher’s patient, almost essay-like Netflix show Mindhunter is driven by a series of long-playing interactions with monstrous serial killers. The first major one is also perhaps the show’s most indelible: The hulking, conversational sociopath Edmund Kemper, who, in between joking asides and bites of pizza,…
“[David] Fincher is meticulous,” John Carroll Lynch, who co-starred in the director’s Zodiac told us during a recent Random Roles interview. “He’s after something. And it takes him 50 takes to get it.”
Twitter is a portal straight into hell, but every so often a li’l angel of insight manages to spread its wings and fly out of its maw. So I offer a sincere thank you to the twitter user who put into words something I might not have been able to put my finger on otherwise: The more like a procedural Mindhunter becomes,…
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