The Game (1997)

David Fincher’s third movie (between Seven and Fight Club), which I hadn’t seen until it hit the Criterion Channel this week, with Michael Douglas as a wealthy banker who gets a mysterious birthday gift from his younger brother (Sean Penn). This is a solid twisty thriller, and much less bleak than the two Fincher films that bookend it.

(Also, the 1990s was a fantastic decade for this type of movie in general, but it looks to me like September 8–19, 1997, was a particularly incredible couple of weeks: The Spanish Prisoner debuted at the Toronto Film Festival on September 8 (although it didn’t get to US theaters until the following year), The Game arrived in US theaters on September 12, and then L.A. Confidential came out the very next weekend, on September 19. Holy smokes.)