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I imagine that Stallone stopped directing for that period because he was frustrated at having to do Rocky V the way the studio wanted it, rather than the way he wanted. I read somewhere that he wanted Rocky to die in the end, but the studio wouldn't let it happen saying something along the lines of killing him would be like killing Superman. The film would probably have tanked anyway.

I don't believe there has been biopic on Poe before, so this may be interesting.

Cinephrenic wrote:I don't believe there has been biopic on Poe before, so this may be interesting.

That's true. I recall reading a few years back that David Lynch was interested in making a film of Stephen Marlowe's 1995 fictional autobiography of Poe, The Lighthouse at the End of the World. But it never came to fruition, which is a shame, as it sounds like a brilliant and highly appropriate way to tell Poe's life story.

Person wrote:

Cinephrenic wrote:I don't believe there has been biopic on Poe before, so this may be interesting.

That's true. I recall reading a few years back that David Lynch was interested in making a film of Stephen Marlowe's 1995 fictional autobiography of Poe, The Lighthouse at the End of the World. But it never came to fruition, which is a shame, as it sounds like a brilliant and highly appropriate way to tell Poe's life story.

David Lynch, Poe, and that source material sounds like an absolutely perfect combination. I am very disappointed now that this never happened.

Variety reports it so, based on the Charles Burns series of comic books. I admit that when I heard about Alexandre Aja directing this, I was excited, since his style was mostly flash and no brains. But Fincher? Is there such a thing as too much brains?

HURRAY

pianocrash wrote:Charles Burns series of comic books

crap.

pianocrash wrote:Variety reports it so, based on the Charles Burns series of comic books. I admit that when I heard about Alexandre Aja directing this, I was excited, since his style was mostly flash and no brains. But Fincher? Is there such a thing as too much brains?

Fincher having too much brains?
It's not like he's Resnais, here.

Well, I thought 'Panic Room' showed that Fincher's could make an intelligent 'genre film'

('Se7en' and 'Fight Club' and even 'Zodiac' of course kind of transcended their genres because of the intelligence of the themes and structure of the films. But, that's not exactly a bad thing)


Anyway, I want a somewhat intelligent 'Black Hole' movie. How many science-fiction films directly feature the afterlife?

I wasn't saying that Fincher didn't have brains, I was just perplexed by the remark (or question) that he had too much of them.
He certainly makes more intelligent films than a majority of filmmakers in Hollywood, but he certainly does not make intellectual films when compared with others such as Jarmusch.

Next person to use to word "intelligent" in this thread is banned

domino harvey wrote:Next person to use to word "intelligent" in this thread is banned

ha

David Fincher adapting the brilliant Charles Burns? I thought poor Alan Moore had a hard time getting his works treated properly by Hollywood.

I should have said "meticulous". Fincher's obsessive tendencies will be put to good use, I'm sure, but if Zodiac was any indication, I fear his hands may become too busy with being too true to the material. His films feel so overworked and cold, and while Aja is nothing special, at least his point of view would be from an outsider looking in, rather than someone who grew up in America in the 70's and wants to match the texture of a shag rug down to the last fiber. But Burns' style is highly idiosyncratic, so perhaps it'll all be okay, and I should just be quiet and wait for the results instead of trying to predict the future.

domino harvey wrote:Next person to use to word "intelligent" in this thread is banned

Most intelligent comment all day.

i love the original comic and consider it one of the best examples of that medium... but i pretty much hate fincher (with the exception of 'zodiac' and 'seven,' although i have major problems with 'seven.)
that being said, i found 'zodiac' to be a remarkable maturation from his previous work and think that he could actually do a good job with 'black hole,' although the source material might make it a bit easy to slip back into his usual misogyny.

I've never heard anyone discuss Fincher's work as "misogynistic". I'd be curious to hear more of your thoughts on this.

i should clarify something, think.
i don't that a filmmaker being misogynist, or a film being so, means that he w\director or work in question should be discounted.
i just think that, when it comes to fincher, the misogyny is unexamined and boorish.
after all, i love a lot of polanski's work and find much of it to be misogynist as well but i tend to think that the examination of it in the work elevates it to something more and i feel that polanski brings a lot more to the table beyond that than fincher does.
aside from all that, though, the main reason i'm a little tentative to be excited about this project is that i think fincher's style is just usually something that i don't enjoy.

a word bandied around far too often these days, somewhat akin to "nazi" and "fascist" in its common usage...

Now if you had used the word "sexist" you might have had slightly - slightly - more ground to stand on given the thinly-sketched, token female characters in Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac, although you'd then have to explain your way around Alien 3 and Panic Room...

I'm afraid I don't buy a misogyny argument - most of Fincher's films seem harder on the men if anything. They are the ones either setting terrible events in motion as killers or burglars (or by going crazy or becoming paranoid). Either that or they are ineffectual or do not achieve their goals (Clemens in Alien 3, Tyler 'wins' in Fight Club, Mills and Somerset get used in Seven, Meg's husband in Panic Room).

The women in Fincher's films are actually much more pragmatic while the guys get obsessed over trivial matters. The worst that could be said for them is that they may be 'long suffering' and usually their downfall comes from getting too close to the male of the species! (Although one of the interesting things that David Koepp mentions in his Panic Room commentary is that perhaps Meg is too pragmatic and maybe the night might not have ended so violently if she and her daughter had not gotten into the panic room and instead were subdued by the burglars until they got what they wanted.)

The word misogyny is so thoughtlessly used these days that people seem to forget its essential meaning is outright hatred.

Even if that is remembered, tho', this kind of analysis is still the laziest way to make your reading of a film/book seem critical or important.

Donald Brown wrote:David Fincher adapting the brilliant Charles Burns?

Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary are doing the screenplay if that puts you at ease.

Not me considering Avary has been mostly working on faceless video game adaptations for the last few years. And yes, that includes Beowulf.

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:

Donald Brown wrote:David Fincher adapting the brilliant Charles Burns?

Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary are doing the screenplay if that puts you at ease.

That makes it even worse.

So Avary still has a career after the recent disaster? A manslaughter charge stemming from a car accident that happened while Avary was driving under the influence, if you hadn't heard... no idea what's happening with the case now. I like Avary, by the way, and hope he can build enough juice in the industry to make another film sometime, but the story's pretty fucked up. Maybe there's more to it than has been reported so far.