The Concept of the "Hollywood Flop"

[A friend and I were discussing David Fincher and The Social Network, which I haven't seen yet, although I did remark, "Since The Social Network is about the hive-mind, there is a certain creepiness in a hundred critics and groups saying it's the 'movie of the year.' It's a Facebook movie with a lot of Facebook friends."]

I was enamored of Fincher after Zodiac, a little less so after Benjamin Button, which was slick and anonymous in a troubling way. A personal bias of mine is that I have a hard time forgiving directors for making "Hollywood flops" (such as Michael Mann's Public Enemies). They should make their own flops. I use an Altman standard there (but it might as well be a Godard standard, or a Kurosawa standard): If Altman made flops (and you won't get me to admit it, I even like Quintet), they were always his flops, not some studio's. An idea he had may not have worked out, but it was his idea, not a notion of what would sell. That was one reason why I found Martin Scorsese's The Aviator so alarming; It was a Hollywood flop from a director I would have thought was beyond one.

Admittedly, the Altman standard is a high standard, as most directors who work in or near mainstream American cinema will have a Hollywood flop or two: John Cassavetes had Big Trouble, Mike Figgis had Cold Creek Manor, Gus Van Sant had Finding Forrester (after which he found religion and went back to his indie roots), and so on. When Quentin Tarantino says that he cares about "the shape of his filmography," I find that both sharp and endearing, because I think what he means is: No Hollywood flops for me. All my films will be mine.