I've been a fan of David Fincher since he did AT&T's "You Will" campaign for my old agency NW Ayer back in the early 1990's. I never got to shoot with him, but I've closely followed his films, including the recent Brad Pitt reverse biopic "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".

I enjoyed the film. In fact, while I had my quibbles with the story (which is only remotely, conceptually related to F. Scott Fitzgerald's similarly titled and not exactly classic short story) and aspects of Pitt's performance, I thought it was a visual tour de force.

It's fairly well known that big brand, :30 second TV spots, especially those done during the Internet boom of the 1990s, have about twenty times more money and attention per second lavished upon them than any feature film. But somehow Fincher has been able to compose, light and film his big screen productions ("Seven", "Fight Club") with a similar sensibility.

In fact, at least three times during the film -- most notably during the character summary at the end and the story of how Daisy hurt her leg -- I could have sworn that a 1990's multi-million dollar branding spot had broken out. In a good way. Really.

I'm rarely dazzled by the visuals in a feature that's not an epic CGI extravaganza and it was refreshing to see someone have some fun with the conventional approach.

Other than Fincher, the only directors I can think of who have managed to bring his or her impressive and daring visual commercial approach to (successful) features are, perhaps, Michel Gondry and Spike Jones.

I wonder if this is because of budgets, conservative studios, or fear of failure on the director's part.