Tag Archives: Panic Room

March’s Failures

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Welcome to my monthly “Failures” column, where I look back at some of the films I could, would, maybe even should have watched last month… but failed to.

Pick your poison for what was the most noteworthy theatrical release in March: Bong Joon-ho’s first film since the all-conquering Parasite, Mickey 17; or Disney’s latest live-action remake and PR mess, Snow White. I know which I’ll be watching first when they make their way to disc and/or streaming. Elsewise, it was quite a strong month for animation, with Oscar winner Flow finally making it to UK screens, alongside the highest grossing animated movie of all time (thanks China), Ne Zha 2, and the latest entry in the long-running Gundam anime franchise, this time pairing up with the creatives behind Neon Genesis Evangelion for the barely-pronounceable Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: The Beginning, released theatrically ahead of its TV series (on Prime Video worldwide from next week. I presume the movie, or an episodic version of it, will form part of that offering). Also occupying screen space were Steven Soderbergh’s second film this year already, spy thriller Black Bag, and a new Jason Statham actioner directed by David “Suicide Squad” Ayer, A Working Man, plus other films I know even less about but had big names in them or just enough of a marketing push that they entered my consciousness, like Last Breath, Opus, The Alto Knights, Novocaine, and The Woman in the Yard. I look forward to next hearing of them when they’re on free/subscription streaming and I automatically add them to my never-ending watchlist.

Talking of streaming, Netflix had an original this month that managed to attract chatter on a theatrical level — albeit for all the wrong reasons, because The Electric State is supposedly slop of the lowest order. I’ll say this for it: it prompted me to buy the book it’s based on, which I hear is excellent. Conversely, attracting no attention whatsoever (as far as I saw) was Prime Video Original Holland, which appears to be some kind of mystery thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, and Gael García Bernal. That interests me on the surface, but dropping it with no fanfare hardly instills confidence. Similar could be said for O’Dessa on Disney+ — yes, Disney+ has some original feature-length content to report this month! It’s a rock musical of some sort, apparently, starring Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink, who the industry seems to be desperately trying to make happen and I have no idea if it’s working or not (nothing she’s led seems to have broken out, but who knows what’s going on with Young People on the TikToks and whatnot).

Otherwise it was business as usual, in the sense that theatrically-released films of various sizes made their subscription streaming debuts. Disney+ de facto leads the way with big-hit animated sequel Moana 2 and unwanted live-action sequel Mufasa: The Lion King. Prime Video was on a slightly smaller scale with Brit flick The Critic and second Hellboy reboot Hellboy: The Crooked Man, though I bet I watch at least one of those before I watch either of those Disney offerings. The best Netflix could muster was Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which may or may not have already been on NOW, I can’t remember, thus showing how much I care for that franchise at this point. And as for NOW, their slate included litigation-provoking adaptation It Ends With Us, one-quarter of an epic Western in Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (has Chapter 2 come out yet? I forget), and AI horror Afraid (aka AfrAId, geddit?)

Back catalogue additions that particularly caught my eye included two titles on Prime I’d never heard of before: The Black Watch, aka King of the Khyber Rifles, a 1929 John Ford movie co-starring Mrs Thin Man, Myrna Loy, which doesn’t have a great score on IMDb but, hey, what do they know; and Knight Chills, a TTRPG-related slasher movie, which looks low-rent but perhaps fun. Hey, it can’t be worse than Mazes and Monsters… probably. iPlayer filled a gap by offering the first Harry Palmer sequel, Funeral in Berlin. The others are on Prime, so now I can watch them all, for good or ill (I figure there’s a reason most people have only heard of The Ipcress File). MUBI are encouraging me to give the work of Jacques Tati another go by adding a bunch of his films. I saw M. Hulot’s Holiday and Playtime at uni (and reviewed the latter) and didn’t care for either, but my taste has broadened since then, so who knows now?

As ever, I could spend many paragraphs rattling through all the other streaming additions, but (as has become my habit recently) let’s focus on ones I already own on disc. For example, Se7en cropped up on Netflix, thus giving me an excuse to mention it for the third month in a row and hopefully push me to watch the 4K disc I bought. It could be worse: How the West Was Won is on iPlayer, and that was one of the first Blu-rays I bought, so it’s been sat on my shelf for 15 or so years. Could be worse: I own Orson Welles’s Confidential Report on Criterion DVD, and look, there it is in HD on Prime. At the other end of the scale, a recent ‘mistake’: I imported the US Blu-ray of The Last Voyage of the Demeter because there was no sign of a UK release, then didn’t rush to watch it and now there’s been a UK release, a 4K release, and it’s streaming ‘free’, and in 4K to boot. Dammit.

I could go on in this vein, but let’s instead to transition to future stars of my “regrets” section: all the new stuff I’ve bought on disc! Lots of 4K titles this week, from brand-new releases like Gladiator II, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, and Megalopolis, to lavish new editions of older titles, like a pair of David Cronenbergs from Second Sight, The Brood (which I’ve never seen) and Scanners (which I have and rather loved); a pair of Akira Kurosawas from the BFI, Yojimbo and Sanjuro (both great, though most praise tends to be aimed at the first whereas I have a soft spot for the second); the first in Hammer’s attempt to highlight some of their lesser-known titles, Four Sided Triangle; and, though I am usually loathe to pay full price for a Criterion, I wanted to support them releasing films like Godzilla vs. Biollante.

(If you’ll indulge an aside into some semi-informed analysis: Godzilla vs. Biollante strikes me as a telling release, in that Criterion putting it out by itself at this point suggests there’s no chance of the hoped-for Heisei Era set coming as a companion / followup to the Showa Era one they released as #1000 back in 2019. Sure, they released the original Godzilla as a standalone title before the Showa set, but that’s a different kettle of fish: the original will interest some people who don’t care for the franchise as a whole, whereas Biollante is nothing so iconic. The fact it’s only the second Heisei film leaves me hopeful the ones that followed will also get the Criterion treatment; at least the next two would be nice, as their previous double-bill Blu-ray release is currently $195+. Or maybe I’m looking at it all wrong — maybe they’ve got access to all these films in 4K and think a 4K box set would be prohibitive. But I think the fact they haven’t started with the era’s first film, The Return of Godzilla (aka Godzilla 1984), doesn’t bode well for that presumption. As always, time will tell.)

Also, I begrudgingly bought the Steelbook release of Panic Room. I’m not a huge fan of Steelbooks (unless they’re doing something clever or have exceptionally nice art, which they so rarely do), especially as nowadays it just seems to be an excuse to gouge an extra £10+ from the customer; but you can no longer guarantee that the Steelbook won’t be the only 4K release of a title (look at all those Disney+ series, and I guess that model works because Warner recently copied it for The Penguin), and, like many people, I’ve been waiting on Panic Room in HD (never mind 4K) for what feels like forever, so I didn’t want to miss out. It’s a particularly ugly Steelbook too, so I can’t even console myself with “at least it looks pretty”. If they do put out a regular edition soon, I’ll be miffed; but while there’s no sign of one, hey, at least I finally own it in HD.

Slipping down to regular ol’ 1080p Blu-ray, the boutique labels continue to dominate my spending. This month’s inevitable Radiance haul included new releases Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau (containing Police Python 357, Série noire, and Choice of Arms); French sci-fi romance Je T’aime, Je T’aime; a pickup from a previous wave, Italian newspaper-based thriller Slap the Monster on Page One; and, from their partner label Raro Video, poliziotteschi Rulers of the City. How am I meant to resist when they’re putting out stuff in some of my pet favourite subgenres? The same goes for Eureka releasing a double-bill of Venom Mob films, The Daredevils and Ode to Gallantry. I’m not even a fan of the Venom Mob films I have seen, but I see something classic from Shaw Brothers Studio and I struggle to resist. Maybe these will be the ones where I understand what makes the group so popular.

Okay, so, yeah, I should probably cut back on purchases like that. Will I ever learn? Well, news came at the end of the month that may help: HMV have ended their 20% “first order” discount, which has long been usable on as many orders as you like if you knew what you were doing. The scheme had been running for a couple of years, meaning big purchasers racked up hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of savings. I dread to think exactly how much I saved (because it would mean I spent four times more), but it was a significant factor in my purchasing decisions. Now, I guess I’ll end up spending about the same but get less for it, and spread my purchases around other stores too. We can’t exactly complain (we got far more out of it than we were ever meant to), but I can’t help but think that if HMV are expecting their gross sales to increase by 25%, they’ve got a nasty surprise coming.

The end of David Fincher Week

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You may have noticed that a week ago last Friday I posted a little piece called “David Fincher Week”. Well — 10 days, 8 films, 1,090 minutes of viewing and 9,375 words later (never mind about a month’s worth of personal anticipation beforehand) — said Week is over.

Fincher dominanceOne thing this week has achieved is re-confirming that Fincher is one of my favourite directors. Another is to remind me that I’ve not seen a single one of his films at the cinema.

A third is to have helped me consider each of his films in the context of his others, in order. I would attempt to summarise what I’ve learnt (if anything), but why do that when I can plagiarise myself? So, as I’ve rattled through the films and reviews this week, here’s a little linked-up summary of them all, highlighting where possible quotes that discuss the films in the context of Fincher’s others.


#14
Alien³: Special Edition
(1992 / 2003)

Even though [Fincher] had limited — often, no — control over much of the project, there are still signs that link it with his later films. It’s stylishly shot for one thing, most of the locations either soaked in shadow or cold light, with an often fluid camera. Darkness litters the film thematically too: setting it on a prison colony for murderers and rapists, the violent attempted gang rape of Ripley, the death and autopsy of a 10-year-old girl… Then there’s the Alien itself, from its ugly birth to its violent murders. Fincher may have not turned so explicitly to horror since, but that brand of darkness does flow on into most of his best films: Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac.

It’s also, perhaps, interesting to remember this being Fincher’s first film. He might seems like an odd choice, a first-timer paling beside the experienced hands of Scott and Cameron. But that would be to forget that, for both, their Alien films were only their second time helming a feature; and while Cameron’s previous had been sci-fi (The Terminator), Scott’s was period drama The Duellists. A first-timer — especially one versed in commercials and music videos — isn’t all that different, really, and Fincher has certainly gone on to show his worth.

Read my full review here.


#14a
Se7en
(1995)

the cinematography [is] an aspect Fincher put a lot of work into both originally and then again to make it look right on the DVD re-release. This may well be because the film is incredibly dark. Black seems to be its default position — everything else is cut out of the darkness with as little light as possible. Often backgrounds and locations are better lit than foregrounds or actors, making the viewer focus on silhouettes with minimal light offering splashes of detail. Even the scenes that occur at daytime (most, anyway) do so in the middle of ferocious, ceaseless rain that ensures it never gets too bright.

Read my full review here.


#15a
The Game
(1997)

The Game stands out in Fincher’s filmography as not being particularly Fincher-y. He’s made equally as mainstream-friendly fare since — Panic Room, Benjamin Button, The Social Network — so that The Game doesn’t have as shocking a kick as Alien³, Se7en or Fight Club is not so unusual. More so, It’s not as stylishly directed or shot as any of his other films. It’s not badly done at all, but the cinematography is unremarkable and the direction is good without being any more. Many other competent directors could have been responsible — there’s no sign of his unique touch, probably his only film (that I’ve seen anyway) not to display that. To sum up: well-made, just not distinctive.

Read my full review here.


#16a
Fight Club
(1999)

Another point that interests me here is the audience’s reaction to a filmmaker who uses twists. As we’ve seen, Fincher produced three films in a row that had considerable twist endings; two of them often number in lists of the best movie twists ever. So how is it that he didn’t gain a particular reputation for twist endings, whereas M. Night Shyamalan gained one after… well, one film. I’m not complaining about this — the constant need to provide a shocking last-minute rug-pull has gone on to scupper Shyamalan’s career — but the difference of reaction/public perception is intriguing. I’m sure there are reasons — the sheer size of The Sixth Sense’s twist relative to those in Fincher’s films (it’s only Fight Club’s, his third such film, that changes everything we’ve seen in the same way); the way Shyamalan appeared to court the reputation; and so on.

…Fincher’s films often look great, but Fight Club is surely the most visually inventive. A list of exciting spectacles could be endless… To top it off, the ‘regular’ cinematography is grounded in Fincher’s trademark darkness, as if every shot was conceived as just black and he added only what light was necessary.

Read my full review here.


#16b
Panic Room
(2002)

it’s still clearly a Fincher film thanks to the visuals. So it’s quite dark and stylish, of course, which at least one review I’ve read credited much more to dual cinematographs Conrad W. Hall and Darius Khondji. Not to dismiss either man’s influence and skill, but, piss off. You only need to watch Fincher’s previous films (one shot by Khondji, the other three by three different DoPs) to see that this is a director who knows what he’s after visually (as if his reputation for shooting an obscene number of takes for every little shot didn’t suggest that well enough). To say it’s only thanks to Hall and Khondji that Fincher could produce such a good-looking film does the director a disservice.

Nonetheless, his style is even more evident in the distinctive, physically impossible swooping camera shots.

Read my full review here.


#16c
Zodiac: Director’s Cut
(2007 / 2008)

there are still some properly chilling scenes. Best — by which, all things considered, I mean “worst”; or, rather, “most scary” — of all is Graysmith’s visit to the house of a suspect’s friend, Bob Vaughn, at which point a series of revelations question who exactly should be under suspicion… Another review describes it as “one of the single most chilling scenes ever committed to film” and I’m inclined to agree.

Another triumph of direction comes in how effectively Fincher conveys the time periods the film crosses using relatively subtle means: popular music, appearing in snatches in the background rather than blaring out at us; the actual passage of time with time-lapse shots of a skyscraper being constructed or an audio montage of the major news in a skipped period; and place-and-time subtitles too, but hey, sometimes you need specificity.

Read my full review here.


The visuals may be Benjamin Button’s strongpoint, holding up a variety of era-evoking colour palettes and other design elements as it passes throughout the 20th Century. Flashback-like asides are conveyed in older film styles — scratchy prints for instance, or with a silent movie aesthetic — that on the one hand could seem an inappropriate indulgence, but objectively work very nicely. For a director who has a reputation in some corners for exhibiting excessive flair with swish shots and effects, Fincher shows steady restraint here — as he did in Zodiac, and Se7en, and all the moments in his other films where it was appropriate.

…Viewer awareness of time passing in the narrative is left to the odd snippet of dialogue or obvious jump; aside from a few clear points, there’s a less convincing sense of era than Fincher evoked in Zodiac. Whether this matters or not is debatable — Button isn’t a chronicle of the 20th Century through one man’s eyes, but is rather the story of a (somewhat unusual) life lived during that timed period.

Read my full review here.


it is indeed marvellously directed. As ever, Fincher knows when to keep it simple and when to jazz it up. Witness the incredible visuals in the Henley Regatta boat race, for instance — not brand-new techniques, but the combination of them with the editing and music makes for an outstanding sequence, 90 seconds of pure cinematic perfection.

Conversely, look at all the film’s conversations. Let’s draw on one that’s discussed in the making-of material, the scene between Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker in the club: as Fincher says, he could’ve had a Steadicam endlessly circling them or something similar to make it seem Fast and Hip, but in reality you need to see the conversation, and especially Mark’s reactions, so instead it’s just a good old fashioned shot-reverse-shot. For all his visual prowess, it’s understanding this need for simplicity and (g)old standard techniques when appropriate that Fincher has had a handle on throughout his career.

Read my full review here.



Fincher’s next “gift to us” (as Andrew Garfield put it at the BAFTAs), his ninth film, will be an English-language adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, currently scheduled to reach UK cinemas on 26th December.

I expect I’ll catch it on Blu-ray sometime in 2012.

[P.S. 30/9/2014: I’ve still not watched it. I am a failure.]

Panic Room (2002)

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2011 #16b
David Fincher | 107 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Panic RoomPanic Room stands out as (arguably) Fincher’s most atypical film. Whereas his others are all epic, in one way or another, this is the exact opposite. It’s very contained, virtually the entire running time spent on one night in one house, alleviated only by brief outside bookends and a guided tour of the house at the start. Fortunately, it’s still an outstanding little thriller.

For a start, it’s still clearly a Fincher film (much more so than The Game) thanks to the visuals. So it’s quite dark and stylish, of course, which at least one review I’ve read credited much more to dual cinematographs Conrad W. Hall and Darius Khondji. Not to dismiss either man’s influence and skill, but, piss off. You only need to watch Fincher’s previous films (one shot by Khondji, the other three by three different DoPs) to see that this is a director who knows what he’s after visually (as if his reputation for shooting an obscene number of takes for every little shot didn’t suggest that well enough). To say it’s only thanks to Hall and Khondji that Fincher could produce such a good-looking film does the director a disservice.

Nonetheless, his style is even more evident in the distinctive, physically impossible swooping camera shots. The best known starts with Jodie Foster in bed at the top of the house, before plummeting down several storeys to find the burglars arriving outside, then following them around the house (on the inside) as they try to find a way in (from the outside. Obviously.), Shh!all the way squeezing the camera through banisters, coffee pots, and other assorted obstacles. There are several such shots, the majority early on (though not exclusively — witness the Hitchcockian transparent floor, for instance). This is presumably to help enliven the relatively slow build-up; later, the story’s inherent tension largely takes over.

That said, the story gets going quite quickly, and never drops the ball in the way such contained movies usually do. Even entertaining examples, such as Exam, tend to wind up with moments where you can feel the filmmakers stalling for time; Panic Room has no such scenes. As well as staving off audience boredom, it keeps the film tight, the action constantly pushing forward.

And talking of action, no review of Panic Room is complete without mentioning the slow-motion sequence. Other action scenes in the film are Burglars threeperfectly well staged and suitably tense or exciting as required, but Foster’s slow-mo dash for her mobile, and back into the panic room as the three burglars come pounding up the stairs, is one of those sequences that transcends the film it’s in to become a stand-out example of the form. Any skilled action director could have produced a good sequence at full-speed from that setup, but by switching to slow-motion Fincher stretches out the tension like an elastic band ready to snap, putting us on the edge of our collective seat as we urge Foster on through air that seems as thick as treacle.

Similarly, one must mention the title sequence. I like it well enough, but have never understood why it attracts so much fuss and attention. What’s so exceptional about it? Though I must confess to enjoying it more than I used to, which may just be years of being told how good it is.

Good thief, bad thiefOne other particularly interesting element is how we feel about Forest Whitaker’s character. This isn’t Ocean’s Eleven or what have you — the thieves are clearly the villains, and two of them are properly villainous, even if they’re also ultimately shown up as amateurish and a bit useless — but Whitaker’s character gains our sympathies; not as a charming rogue (see Ocean’s Eleven again), or in some kind of honour-amongst-crooks way, or even a wrong-place-wrong-time way, but genuinely as a human being. It helps make things a little different, a little more interesting. Especially at the climax, though I won’t spoil why.

Panic Room doesn’t have as much to say as Se7en or Fight Club, or even The Game, and it feels distinctly low-key after the lot of them — indeed, as Fincher seems to have followed it with a series of genuine epics, it’s increasingly the sore thumb in his filmography. Which probably does it a disservice because it’s a superbly made and entertaining thriller. Whereas before I would’ve happily shoved it to the lower end of Fincher’s work, I felt it had greater re-watch value than The Game and I now like it a lot more than I used to.

4 out of 5

Panic Room is on Film4 tonight, Friday 3rd October 2014, at 11pm.

I watched Panic Room as part of a David Fincher Week. Read my thoughts on all his films to date here.

David Fincher Week

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David FincherDavid Fincher’s multi-Oscar-nominated latest, The Social Network, hits UK DVD and Blu-ray a week from Monday (and we’ll find out what, if anything, it’s won just two weeks later). As Fincher’s one of my favourite directors, and is responsible for several of my favourite-ever films, I’ve decided to mark the occasion with a David Fincher Week. The title of this post may’ve given that away.

Unfortunately Fincher has directed one too many films to make a neat week. Normally Alien³ would be the obvious candidate for elimination, what with its production troubles and Fincher leaving the project before editing began, but the ‘Assembly Cut’ included on the Quadrilogy DVD, and now Anthology Blu-ray, is closer to his vision (“closer” being the operative word). Besides which, I’ve not seen it, so it can have a new number, something Panic Room can’t. Neither can Se7en, The Game or Fight Club, but I have two of those on Blu-rays I’ve not yet watched and I’m rather fond of The Game.

But I’m going to include Panic Room anyway, because it’s nice to be thorough, and so just have a David Fincher Week-and-a-Day. Or slip the review in on the same day as the Zodiac Director’s Cut, because I’ve already reviewed that film and I doubt the extra, what is it, four minutes of footage makes much difference.

David Fincher poster collageMy viewing starts tonight, for a week running Friday to Friday — I’m relying on HMV to get The Social Network to me in timely fashion for that to work. I intend to start posting reviews on Sunday night — technically, Monday morning — which gives me a couple of days to write them, for a week running Monday to Monday. Neatness in both watching and reviewing, then.

For those unfamiliar with Fincher’s body of work, or who just fancy a handy reminder, here’s a handy timetable of when I intend to post my reviews:

Alien³: Special Edition Monday 7th
Se7en Tuesday 8th
The Game Wednesday 9th
Fight Club Thursday 10th
Panic Room Friday 11th
Zodiac: Director’s Cut Saturday 12th
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Sunday 13th
The Social Network Monday 14th

Alien3So the week begins with a film I’ve seen in a cut I haven’t, ends with two films I’ve never seen, and along the way takes in several of my favourite-ever films. Lovely.

Right, I’m off to watch Alien³. See you Monday.

Well, Sunday, at midnight.

Hopefully.

My end-of-the-week summary can now be read here.