A lot to unpack here.  Yep, the last time I watched it, I noticed (and loved) the bleak cinematography.  It's like Hell on Earth and totally appropriate for the film.

Stallone would have never fucking worked as Sommerset. The reason why Freeman and Spacey work well together is that they are doubles as one another.  Sommerset is grouchy as fuck in that film and jaded as hell.   If Stallone is in that film instead, it's just a Stallone (albeit bleak) action film.  There's no nuance to it probably.  Look, this isn't a shot on Stallone but you're probably not getting the other stuff in the film that you got from Freeman playing Sommerset.

Beatty would have been interesting as Doe.

Both of those alt endings suck in my opinion.  Honestly, it doesn't make that much sense for Freeman to shoot Doe anyway.  It HAD to be the Pitt character because he's basically the entire beacon of light and hope in that film...and he finally succumbed to the dark side of humanity.  No other ending is this powerful.

Personally I don't like Paltrow as well. But she's fine here and doesn't really detract from the film.  Wright would have been a better pick maybe.  Applegate never made any sense since as you stated her movie career was on the skids and she was still on Married w/Children at the time and was more or less a comedic actress.

Pacino was right to turn this down.   Love Heat and it wouldn't be the same w/out him.  He did Insomnia in the 2000's which is sort of close to Seven anyway.

I couldn't picture Duvall doing this but Hackman maybe, although he was sort of transitioning to supporting character roles at this point.

I watched this a couple of years ago and it's pretty good.  I agree about the ending it wasn't very good.  Don't think Hoffman likes this film very much either.

Duplicity--I rewatched this .  First saw it in 2009 or 10.  Got annoyed with it then.  But this time I enjoyed it.  It's one of those con/heist films.   The thing is though you have to pay attention since there are a fair amount of flashbacks.  It's not a gritty thriller film.  I think I enjoyed this more than Mr. and Mrs. Smith since the comparison will be inevitably be made.  That one has cartoonish over the top violence.

Sleep--German horror/psycho thriller.  I wanted to like this but ultimately the plot just totally loses me in the second half and just left me confused.  There's some mention to Neo-nazism in Germany that kind of is a factor in the second half of the film.  But I just can't make sense of the film.   Too bad, because I think it's pretty well shot.

A lot of times he'd be eating stuff too.  So, he'd be taking a bite out of a sandwich while bitching out McCoy for some bad legal blunder.

I can agree with all of this.  I've rewatched the Bratt/Martin eps from this time period more than the ones with Noth and Moriarity.  They just seem fresher and less dated as well.  Speaking of bad decisions, I bet Bratt regrets walking away from L&O for a movie career that never really happened.  He definitely could have clocked in a few more years on auto pilot if he wanted.

Wiest was just miscast horribly.  She never had the conviction of the other DA's.  She just was there and never offered anything to the character and was wishy washy.  Was just a waste of time.

Agree on CI, too.  Those eps were incredibly intense and psychological.  It seemed like D'Nofrio gave it his all in those eps and I wasn't surprised when he got burned out by it.

Vikings-Broncos 98.  I would have liked to have seen Broncos try to slow down Moss.  And it would have been cool to see Cunningham in a super bowl after all the PHI playoff chokes/bad losses in the early 90s.

And this is a personal pick for me Oilers-Cowboys in one of those 90s years.  Moon was a choker and they would have did their thing where they led for a while before self destructing and Warren throwing a clutch int.

49ers Steelers would have been interesting in the Young SB year.  Although no one was beating SF that year, they were fucking LOADED in 94.

Chargers-Bears in 2006.  Assume that SD doesn't choke against NE and beats IND, we got that loaded Bears D and ST that was scoring all over the place vs the Chargers who had 6 all pros that year.  You have Marty Schotenheimer finally in a super bowl after all those bad losses.  Bears still had Grossman as Qb.  I think they still lose but who knows.

Bengals-Bills Bengals but this one is probably the best game of the weekend.
Jags-Chiefs:  KC.  Jags ain't playing the choking Chargers anymore.  They get destroyed if Lawrence stinks in the first half again
Giants-Eagles:  I have a hard time w/this one. PHI should win but I wouldn't be surprised if this thing is close and NYG pull it off
49ers vs Cowboys: 49ers but Purdy can't be missing open WR like he did last week vs Seattle.  Still Dallas is playing well