Come anticipate David Fincher's "Zodiac"

slightly loaded question there milo! we learn he had an absent father, is a bit lonely, hates his job, can't think of anything he'd rather do, separates love from sex with a cleaver. more than you learn about the guys in '2001'. and of course psychology is externalized in fincher too, e.g. 'seven'.

We don't get any sense of him as an individual beyond what we're told, and what we're told is all about moving the story (or justifying the gag). It's all shallow and explicit, quirks to drive the plot (or justify the gag).

Where in Kubrick's films, there's much more abiguity to the characters and their motivation. You actually have to read into their words and actions.

zodiac is ALL about character

I don't see the Kubrick parallels either (perhaps a certain detachment pervades it, but that's certainly not unique to Kubrick.)

If anything I think Fincher's treatment of actors (like setpieces or as I said above wallpaper) has more in common with Hitchcock.

Curious question: does anyone actually think that Zodiac's characters were unambiguous? That everything was right on the surface? Because I gotta say if that's the case you must have watched a different movie than I did because I thought there was tons of ambiguity with all of these people (in fact that's Armand White's main complaint!) and the movie (to it's credit) doesn't try to neat explain it all away. It just let's it all play out and leaves the viewer to ponder the mystery and motivations of these people (and events). Which given the real life outcomes is exactly as it should be.

i've watched this like 4-5 times now and each time im more convinced it's great. profound, even (in the contrast between certainty and faith, and the necessity of the latter; monastic dedication; the threat of nihilism; and the simple transcendence of the final confrontation). at least that's my personal reaction to it.

best american movie of 2007, for me, easily.

Kent Jones wrote in the current Film Comment that it's his Movie of the Year -- and then complains at length that Gyllenhaal is unconvincing as an obsessive fact-monkey.

i never know what to make of claims about performances like that...

saw this again, always scared to see films i love a second time in case they don't live up. this one really did. it's awesome. the music montage was fun too. forgot how much rdj brought lols.

yeah, i never got the hate for his character on this thread.

saw for the fourth time last week, great as ever

i mean "rescreened"

and yeah rdj is great - character wouldve been killed by some bullshit hammy johnny depp acting but he really inhabits it

rdj is awesome!!

must get this director's cut editiony thing.

the aqua velvet scene never fails to bring lolz

'THIS... can no longer be ignored'

'hey bullitt, its been a year! you gonna catch this fuckin guy or not?'

the scene at the bullitt premiere gave me a movie boner.

it were DIRTY HARRY!

no oscar nominations AT ALL?? can we have a recount?

not anywhere as original as Fight Club, which got one nomination: Sound Effects Editing.

holy shit morbz

you are not allowed to have opinions about movies

No, he's right. Long and boring.

who the fuck are you?

no, it's good. But one just-good murder film is interchangeable with another.

http://i10.glitter-graphics.org/pub/1/1140r4teg1tiai.gif

all this time i just thought you were acting like a slow 17 yr old, i didnt know you actually were one

seconded

one just-good murder film is interchangeable with another

-- Morbius

Exactly. Which is to say boring at three hours, unless you have some specific interest in the case or detective stories in general. I don't.

Nice clothes, though.

this movie is not a "murder film"

i ... think ... i agree with morbius ... in spite of disliking fc

that was the corniest turd i evah passed

no, it's good. But one just-good murder film is interchangeable with another.

I thought that about No Country for Old Men more than this one, which had the historical/journo angles.

hamlet, clue, weekend and bernie's, all the same really

^KLASSIK SHIT^

Not if you want to pirouette around it with "limits of our knowledge" crap, Shakey, no.

shit tell me which murder films are like zodiac because i want to see them

otm

there's what, like 8, 9 minutes of actual murdering in this?

I don't get it. What was so great about it? Camerawork was really slick, but kinda distracting. Nice cinematography. Snappy color coordination on the set decoration, but it seemed overdone and (worse) meaningless to me. I gather we were supposed to see the main character being "consumed" by this insoluble case the way Downey was, but that didn't come through at all. Puppy dog hero seemed inward and obsessive from day one and Downey a predictable drug/booze casualty. Pat ending where the killer's identity is finally settled felt cheap: seriously undercut the film's most interesting themes. What's to love? Period detail? Painstaking re-creation?

^^^ ban

I'd say its genre is the procedural

Except for the parts that aren't. Like 50+% of it.

its genre is the procedural

Yeah, but w/ journalists instead of cops. If you allow a broad definition, with some context & character stuff that isn't related to the case at hand.

that's not really a genre, is it?

i don't think with stuff developed outside studio development departs by name-directors that 'genre' is that useful a category. sure in a way this is a "procedural detective film," but it's not in a genre in the way films were under the studio system, when they were done on a factory basis.

(this isn't to privilege fincher's MO, over, say, the system that produced the noir genre in the 1940s; i'm just saying.)

xpost

It's interesting that the movie that contenderizer is describing sounds virtually nothing like the one I watched.

Are you saying that the film wasn't about a character being consumed by an investigation, or that it didn't attempt to provide a solution to its own puzzle (killer's identity)?

Maybe. Not sure I'd agree about as much as 50%

I guess part of what makes it great to me is how it manages to investigate or even "deconstruct" (sorry) itself and its genre without sacrificing any pleasure. Its an extremely satisfying film.

Xposts

the movie that contenderizer is describing sounds virtually nothing like the one I watched

-- Alex

But, yeah, I get that a lot.

Ryan: How does it deconstruct the genre? How is it anything but what it seems on the surface?