Director David Fincher was born in Denver, Colorado in 1962, but was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18-years-old, he went to work for filmmaker John Korty. But within two years he’d been hired on at Industrial Light and Magic, becoming a key player on the visual effects crews for STAR WARS: EPISODE VI – RETURN OF THE JEDI and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. In the later 1980s, he began directing TV commercials as well as music videos for such stars as The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Aerosmith. His Madonna video, "Express Yourself" is commonly acknowledged by critics and music writers as one of the best, most popular music videos of all time. Fincher started his feature film career when, in pre-production, he replaced Vincent Ward as director on ALIEN 3. Since then his feature film output has produced one critically-acclaimed work after another, including SE7EN, FIGHT CLUB, PANIC ROOM and ZODIAC. We’re thrilled to welcome David Fincher in-person for a sneak preview of his latest, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON.

Wednesday, December 10 – 7:30 PM

Sneak Preview! David Fincher In-Person! SOLD OUT

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, 2008, Paramount, 165 min. "I was born under unusual circumstances." And so begins this adaptation from the 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man (Brad Pitt) who is born in his eighties and ages backwards. A man, like any of us, but unable to stop time. We trace his story set in New Orleans from the end of World War I in 1918 into the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man’s life can be. Directed by David Fincher, this is a time traveler’s tale of the people (amongst them Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Elias Koteas) and places he bumps into along the way, the loves he loses and finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death…and what lasts beyond time. (Screened from a digital source.) Discussion following with director David Fincher. Trailer

Thursday, December 11 – 7:30 PM

The Director’s Cut!

ZODIAC, 2007, Paramount, 162 min. David Fincher’s acclaimed thriller is based on the actual case files of one of the most intriguing unsolved crimes in the nation’s history. As a serial killer terrifies the San Francisco Bay Area and taunts police with his ciphers, investigators in four jurisdictions search for the murderer. The case will become an obsession for them as their lives and careers are built and destroyed by the endless trail of clues. Editorial cartoonist Jake Gyllenhaal becomes fixated on deciphering the Zodiac’s cryptic letters and begins his own investigation in league with dysfunctional crime reporter Robert Downey Jr. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards are two San Francisco homicide cops on the case, and detectives Elias Koteas and Donal Logue handle work in outlying jurisdictions where some of the murders have occurred. (Screened from a digital source.) "Rarely has a film with so much blood on its hands seemed so insistently alive." – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times; "Firing on all cylinders as a creepy thriller, police procedural and ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN-style investigative newsroom drama, the smart, extremely vivid production oozes period authenticity." – Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter Trailer

Friday, December 12 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

FIGHT CLUB, 1999, 20th Century Fox, 139 min. Director David Fincher adapts Chuck Palahniuk’s mind-twisting novel. Edward Norton is the nameless narrator, an insomniac looking for relief who briefly finds comfort in various support groups. But when he encounters another lost soul (Helena Bonham Carter) with increasing regularity, the comfort disappears. Then Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) enters the scene, an untamed force of nature. The two soon find an intoxicating bond in pummeling each other senseless and, before long, they have other guys who want to join in. A cult-like atmosphere takes over Pitt and Norton’s ancient rundown, tenement house, and Norton must come to terms with an onrushing, very personal, self-inflicted apocalypse. "FIGHT CLUB delivers a sucker punch to the audience and then pulls the rug out from under it. It is sensational. It is also grimly funny." – Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle; "It's a dangerously seductive and subversive work that, in its messianic intensity and insanity, speaks volumes about the way we live, the material things we think will make us happy and the denial of our baser instincts that ultimately cripples us and makes us ill." – Paula Nechak, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Trailer

SE7EN, 1995, Warner Bros., 127 min. "Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light." Director David Fincher had already directed ALIEN 3 before this, but SE7EN was the film that put him on the map. Morgan Freeman is a big city homicide cop days from retiring when he’s assigned to a gruesome case that’s just one in what will turn out to be a string of murders committed by a serial killer using the seven deadly sins as his MO. Saddled with a wet-behind-the-ears rookie detective partner (Brad Pitt), Freeman finds himself descending farther down into the urban inferno than he’s ever gone in his entire career. The offbeat title sequence started a whole new trend in presenting opening movie credits. Co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. "A buddy-cop thriller recast as Dante's sojourn in Hell, this graphic, allusion-littered film stands the conventions of the genre on end -- along with the viewer's hair…a decidedly medieval enterprise, darker in text and tone than a Gothic cathedral by the light of the moon." – Rita Kempley, The Washington Post Trailer