I've just been watching Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom. I really cannot recommend it at all. It does require an extremely strong stomach in places, which got it a lot of notoriety, but frankly it was all rather turgid and badly put together, and then it just ends abruptly at a most odd point in the film. Essentially misses out "the ending" part of the story.

Not even to know what the internal bleeding dance is?

The Yank reviews were awful. It's out soon here IIRC.

Gone Girl - A deliberately obtuse, 'look at our social commentary' version of those female psycho films from the 90s. It has the most obvious 'twists' you'll ever see and the side characters have to be likeable because even the leads know they should be punched in the face. It has some of the most unlikely scenes this side of a bad dream, no joke.

As a side note, if you're one of those people who wishes Ben Affleck harm (I'm not), this film is incitement to murder. Someone actually tells him he's wooden in this.

What's hilarious are the people trying to claim it's a commentary on marriage, feminism and the age we live in. Apart from the pseudy bollocks, these people can't have consumed too many films or books, much less real life. And the critics really have no excuse. I suspect if it hadn't been directed by Fincher it would have been laughed out of town. The truth is it could have been anyone's name on that sort of film, it wouldn't have made much difference to the final product.

You know it's based on a book right?
Few people at work have seen it, really rate it, and they're pretty well read.
I need to see it I think.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned books. It didn't do anything I haven't seen a hundred times before, though I believe Fincher changed the ending. But for Christ's sake, some of it's more like those erotic thrillers Five used to show

Have you read the book?

IIRC I read the Kindle sample, and like CW said of the film, it started well enough. The problems kick in when you're expected to care for two people who are pretty reprehensible in the context of a ridiculous plot!

And there's nothing really wrong with the acting in the film (I mean you know what you're getting with Affleck), it's the way the director has told them to behave in the scenes that makes it overblown - more subtlety was needed IMO.

The film was the first time in ages I've seen couples staring at each other as the credits rolled, like 'Er, what did you make of that?'.