I was reading your other thread with interest as I only recently saw The Social Network myself.
The Social Network
Se7en
Zodiac
Fight Club
Panic Room
Alien3
The Game
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
As you can see, I rated The Social Network very highly. I was captivated and fascinated by it. As a result, even without seeing Black Swan or The Kings Speech, I think the run of nominees for Best Picture this year was the best for many. Honestly, of the ones I've seen I'd have been happy for any to have won.
Se7en is a favourite film of mine, still above The Social Network, I just think the latter film found it's director at the top of his abilities. I've always been an apologist for Alien3 and I thought Fight Club was incredible. Then a few years after, I saw it again and could barely watch it, possibly due to my dad's death from cancer. I just found it in bad taste. I realise I may not have been in the right frame of mind to handle it then, and I will give it another go, but it did for me expose a weakness in Fincher's direction and choices that I couldn't ignore, regardless of my own feelings.
This was compounded by The Curious Case of Benjamin Button so much so, I almost found it insulting! And then there's Zodiac. Now I really, really have to watch that again. I liked it, but I saw Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone around the same time and it deflated Fincher's film by being better than it needed to be and made Zodiac appear over-produced by comparison. Zodiac was a better directed film, but Affleck showed a better grasp of his story.
The Social Network has been a revelation for me. Its story plays to Fincher's strengths while sticking to the formula he has seemingly followed for a while now, but the film can handle it while being absolutely relevant for once and as a result, it's near-perfect.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is another perfect story for him, so that'll be interesting. It could turn out to be his best film (or his worst if certain elements are overdone or misunderstood) because of how I'm thinking, but of course, it's a pointless remake, which would be ironic. The best David Fincher film has already been made, not by David Fincher!
Despite my love for The Social Network, it does still highlight a lack of variety in his themes and a rigidity in his style. He may well have perfected those elements here, but with a remake next, I don't think he will win that Oscar for a very long time. It would have been poetic and deserved to have got it this year, but I honestly think he might have peaked.
I know you never miss an opportunity to swipe at Tarantino, but why Nolan? Like Fincher, he is favouring a particular theme at the moment, but he's also still relatively young in terms of career and I think he has more potential.
By the way, one interesting fact I picked up on Fincher while watching the documentaries on The Social Network. In an L.A. reading/meeting room, within what I assume would be his offices, he has a large mounted poster on the wall. It is a quote from a review:
"It is an inadmissible assault on personal decency... this film is anti-capitalist, anti-society, and indeed, anti-God.'"The documentary did not reference it and I had to catch pause correctly to read it (thank you Blu-Ray!). It is a review by The Guardian's late critic, Alexander Walker, talking about Fight Club.
As this link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/jul/20/features.review explains, it seems Fincher appreciated the review a great deal. He went up in my estimation that not only did he respond well to a scathing review, he champions it.
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