watched fincher's THE GAME for the first time today and, uh, this is the craziest hollywood movie i've seen in a long time? at no point did i have any idea where it was going.
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Saw it in the theater. The scene where they invade the TV cable feed of a business news program to fuck with the dude? Man, that was some major special effects awesomeness, especially for its time.
What troubles me is some of the near supernatural elements to this. Like that TV broadcaster, he seems to be some sort of AI interruption meant to look/sound like the real guy, but this movie is 20 years before we had anything like it.
Then there's the complete vanishing of certain amounts of people like at the Hospital and even the CRS offices... there's a whole host of things that would be just outside the realm of possibility... yet there's ostensibly a real company behind it....
I had a part time movie theater job as a teenager when that film came out and god damn. Immediately on my top 10 list, never to be dethroned. The score is SO excellent, too.
I would argue it's the rare film of its kind that gets better on rewatch. It allows you to key more into Douglas's emotional arc, and it becomes way more moving and satisfying.
THE GAME gets a lot of love these days but IMO people are missing out if they just see it as “paranoia good times, expertly directed”… I find Nicholas’ trip to catharsis to be genuinely moving, and totally earned.
My son woke up one day when I was watching it. He was only about eight. I didn’t realize he was up. He’s 12 going on 13 and it’s one of his favorite movies.
Interestingly, I believe Fincher is on record saying he thinks he didn't quite nail the 3rd act (for my part I love the movie, though I get where he's coming from).
It is if you can watch it with someone who has never watched it before. I love it. No (or very little) CGI. Real locations. Very '90s movie where Hollywood could try high concept, high budget silliness like this.
I helped fund it. It managed to kill off the largest entertainment company in the world at the time, and create Universal's total dominance in music. So...I hate this film. 😁
we saw it in the theatre as kids and walked out thinking it was the greatest movie we'd ever seen, but that we could never see it again and have the same experience
One of the few movies I absolutely cannot discuss with my wife. It caused massive fights for weeks after we saw it in the theater. I absolutely loved it. She hated the ending and felt it ruined the rest of the movie for her.
Truly one of those movies that’s a one of sort of like the Sixth Sense in that once you’ve seen it you can watch it again but it’s not the same feeling.
the difference being, at least for me, as Michael Douglas said of it, it's one movie where you truly can't see the ending. whereas when we saw the sixth sense in the theatre, with the same group of friends i might add, we all looked at each other halflway through and said "he's dead, right?"
A cool counterexample where that is utilized as part of the narrative is the Miyazaki cartoon "The Boy and the Heron" (The anglophone renaming doesn't really reflect the main idea as well as the elegant original "How so you live?")
Set aside a time to watch it twice in a row – completely mindblowing
Just had this same thought! Saw “A Christmas Carol” at a theatre tonight and then finished watching the movie, and they sync up thematically pretty well.
Fincher's most underrated movie. One hell of a ride with a Spike Jonze cameo as one of the EMTs at the end ("It's breakaway glass, but it can still cut you.").
I really appreciated the minor detail, revealed midway through the film, that the Michael Douglas and Sean Penn characters have no idea how to change a tire because (one assumes) someone's always done it for them.
"You can have pictures of me wearing nipple rings, butt-fucking Captain Kangaroo. The only thing they care about is the stock and whether that stock is up or down!"
Extremely underrated movie imo. I’ve been raving about this movie to anyone who will listen for years. (I’m also a “Alien 3 was secretly pretty great” guy, so take that as you will)
This might be my weird fixation but I was so mad at the movie's assumption that they could predict every choice he would make in any situation because he filled out a really long questionnaire
This is the one that had a guy chasing another guy across a rooftop as part of some elaborate prank and the resolution of said prank required the first guy to be scared enough to jump off a roof in a very specific location so as to land on the airbag placed by the second guy?
Totally agree. I couldn't wait to see it, watched it the second it was out and then spent most of the movie wondering if my edible had kicked in weird.
I love that movie! I watched it shortly after I turned 18...one of the first R rated movies I watched alone. I was like "Wow! Movies are so sophisticated!" 🤣😂🤣
The previews to the film showed Douglas in a white suit walking in Mexico. I wondered when the scene would come but then it did. Spoiler alerts weren’t a thing.
I love THE GAME. It's all about the game of deception behind making movies, the images we see on screen. Everything is fake. The perfectly timed rainstorm. The family photos in the background. It's all s game, just off frame. Bonkers good.
Saw it in the cinema when it came out. A wet day in Dublin, I had an hour to kill but no where to go in the rain. The cinema was open, so I went in and sat in the dark for an hour. The film, following the sensory deprivation, blew my mind. I remeber walking back out into reality, and I felt drugged
Oh yes. Its one I recommend if someone's looking for a movie and I tell them, "just watch it. there's so few surprises in the world these days, just watch it and be surprised! "
Me too. I feel really guilty if I watch anything w/ anybody that does the type of things he’s done. Not sure if it’s because I have person experience with being SAd or if it’s just my conscience nagging me. I think I have a hard time separating art from the artist. I love so many movies he was in.😢
I watched it with my mom a few months ago after not having seen it since it was in the theaters. I bought the blu-ray several years ago and was just waiting for the right time.
My mom didn't love it but she respected what it was doing.
I also showed her Get Out without telling her it was horror.
It's a term Hitchcock coined -- if the audience notices a plot hole while watching a film, the story isn't holding them enthralled; if they don't notice until they're getting a snack from the fridge after getting home, then it doesn't matter.
Aside: it's so hard watching Hitchcock movies these days. As his directorial style has become so normal, all his plot holes/suspension of disbelief ideas are completely jarring now.
I remember the marketing campaign for it back in the 1990's, with the puzzle pieces and all. Clever, stylish marketing. But I've never actually seen the movie.
I agree. Despite the fact that, on more than one occasion, they literally told us what was going on. But they also made it easy to believe they were lying.
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Btw, watch it again. There’s easter eggs throughout. Eg: watch Penn’s face when Douglas gets out and checks under the car.
https://youtu.be/z0ZnN4mivGw?si=a0oOw_jUQLUMKcKb
jeeepers
https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieSuggestions/s/BBf4bU36HC
- Michael Douglas
You're old enough to have been around when everyone watched network television in real time. THE GAME was ALWAYS on TV.
so glad to follow you here like I did on twitter
hoping you can follow back when you have a chance (cant hurt to ask, right?)
@larrymark212.bsky.social
Set aside a time to watch it twice in a row – completely mindblowing
love it so much I accidentally bought it twice on blu ray and gave a copy to my bro
‘90s thrillers remain in a league of their own; one of my favorite genres.
Nobody does it like Michael Douglas and Kurt Russell. 🤌🏻
Very underrated movie.
It's been a while since I watched it but I remember having similar thoughts about the movie Very Bad Things
#freddiegibbs
Great movie.
Just…terrible. 😂
This made me emotional. It was a formative film to me (that and the Thomas crown affair but I go to therapy now)
Your hunch the film is inscrutable is seconded. Lol
We chose to ignore Alien 3 as he was a hired gun, brought in to salvage the wreck after most filming was done.
My mom didn't love it but she respected what it was doing.
I also showed her Get Out without telling her it was horror.
We watched both after we watched original Twilight Zone so "twist ending" movies were on my mind.
She's not a horror fan at all but I think she ended up liking Get Out against her will. She got sucked in early on and had to stop knitting.