Come anticipate David Fincher's "Zodiac"

dang, was looking forward to reading the gary l stewart book ( as recommended on s&d: True Crime! books ) but is it just outright bullshit?

i feel like fincher/screenwriters lead us to believe that this guy really was the killer and there wasn't enough evidence to pin it on him in time.

my sense is that there is also evidence that would seem to rule that guy out that fincher doesn't introduce. so he does streamline the narrative a bit in order to have some kind of conclusive ending, even if it's far less conclusive than the vast majority of film procedurals.

still think it's a brilliant movie FWIW.

― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, May 13, 2014 9:29 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The movie sticks to Graysmith's version of events which has many factual errors and distortions, including a ridiculous scene in the film where Graysmith supposedly solves the second cipher.

ALA was excluded by everything: handwriting, fingerprints, eyewitnesses, DNA. It wasn't him.

dang, was looking forward to reading the gary l stewart book ( as recommended on s&d: True Crime! books ) but is it just outright bullshit?

― NI, Monday, May 19, 2014 12:53 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The fingerprint evidence in the book is ludicrous from what I've read.

dang, was looking forward to reading the gary l stewart book ( as recommended on s&d: True Crime! books ) but is it just outright bullshit?

― NI, Monday, May 19, 2014 12:53 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The fingerprint evidence in the book is ludicrous from what I've read.

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, May 18, 2014

The amateur sleuths on the Zodiac Killer message board aren't too convinced, it seems

that message board is kinda O_o

wait is it a message board FOR zodiac killers or

no one is sure whether they are a zodiac killer or not

very tense place

I haven't seen a picture of it but apparently this guy somehow needed to reverse the image of his dad's fingerprint in order to find a match, which sounds ridiculous

that message board is kinda O_o

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, May 19, 2014 1:38 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which one? :D

Really odd watching The Zodiac--the other one, from a couple of years before Fincher's. It turns up in sale bins all over here.

It's not good, didn't expect it to be, was just interested in comparing them. Maybe it shouldn't have surprised me how closely the budget version anticipated the later film--it obviously draws from the same source material (Graysmith's book, I assume)--but seeing the same murders played out in the same sequence, and in exactly the same settings, and hearing the Zodiac speak lines that match up verbatim, was disorienting. The Zodiac actually starts with the Vallejo murder that Fincher's film only alludes to.

It's more plodding than outright bad, although sometimes it's that too--there's a montage of news of the day intercut with the unfolding story (as "Time Has Come Today" plays overtop) that's really clunky. The actors playing the detective and the reporter aren't within light years of Ruffalo and Downey (no Graysmith character). The worst performance, though, comes from the one person who links the two films, Philip Baker Hall. He plays the chief of police in this one, and he's surprisingly terrible.

interesting! I didn't even know about that other film.

This is playing tonight in NYC in 35mm. As a skeptic, I'm willing to give it a second shot if I can stay energized til 9pm.

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/zodiac

if you can stay awake until then, you can always nap during the movie. it's a long one.

no i don't do that

Do it! It's a movie that really rewards (more than most) the big screen. All about the details and subtle touches, plus the construction. It's nice to be as focused on the procedure as its characters.

I'd love to see this in a theatre again. Not sure what the context will be, but I'm sure I'll get the chance at some point.

no i don't do that

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius),

you can try watching it at home while vacuuming or scrubbing the tub

I don't clean, either

alfred you have a tv in your bathroom??!

or a bathtub in your living room??!!!

he has a private bathtub at lincoln center, actually.

i think this movie is pretty brilliantly achieved but not as profound as some would have it.

I think a lot of the profundity comes from a mix between a commitment to its procedural genre and the historical contingencies of the case. and outstanding performances.

i hear that a lot, that it stays true to the historical contingencies of the case. and it's true that the film does allow for more uncertainty and contradiction than most procedurals. but it still leaves out some important things that would have left the audience with even more uncertainty. the film strongly points to the one suspect, with the nagging uncertainty chiefly limited to the fact that because he's dead we can never be sure. but the film leaves out exculpatory evidence that would suggest that even that suspect was probably not responsible for all or possibly any of the murders. i think this is discussed above.

i mean, i wish the film completely lived up to the way it's often billed (as sort of spinning out into uncertainty and irresolution) but i don't think that's truly the case. i think it is more conventional than a lot of its admirers would seem to argue.

that doesn't mean that it's not an excellent movie, though.

It DOES present that evidence! And in any case I think there's more going on than a gesture towards pure uncertainty and irresolution--more like how do things like certainty and resolution play out against uncertainty and demands for justice.

does it? i thought there was some contradictory evidence that it pointedly leaves out. it's been a few years since i thought about all this, so i'm going from memory as opposed to checking my sources.

xpost

whole final act being a kind of "what now" after the pure uncertainty and irresolution already arrived at earlier (and why all the other investigators fall away from the case).

It's only presented as a postscript--so you're partially right!

weirdly, if you want to see a film that's very oddly structured--and kind of hypnotically boring-- b/c it largely hews to the uneventful flow of someone's actual biography, rent "jolson sings again"

with the nagging uncertainty chiefly limited to the fact that because he's dead we can never be sure

there is a title card saying he was exonerated by DNA evidence.

yeah, I'm gonna bail on this in favor of the Irene Dunne movie tomorrow morning at IFC Center, which I am much more likely to find profound.

btw Alfred has never directly faced the screen while a film is running.

with the nagging uncertainty chiefly limited to the fact that because he's dead we can never be sure

there is a title card saying he was exonerated by DNA evidence.

― Οὖτις, Friday, September 19, 2014 3:30 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right, i remember that. i think my feeling was that relegating that to a title card allows the film proper to end on a more traditional beat than it would otherwise.

I put the mop where my heart ought to be.

relegating that to a title card allows the film proper to end on a more traditional beat than it would otherwise.

the title card is immediately preceded by a scene of the lone survivor "positively" identifying the suspect as Allen

I suppose they could've leapt forward 20 years to a scene at a DNA lab or something if the title card wasn't definitive enough for you

i mean, i wish the film completely lived up to the way it's often billed (as sort of spinning out into uncertainty and irresolution) but i don't think that's truly the case. i think it is more conventional than a lot of its admirers would seem to argue.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, September 19, 2014 8:23 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a largely straight adaptation of Graysmith's highly misleading and inaccurate account.

e.g. there's a scene where we're supposed to believe that Graysmith solved the second cipher, which is just fucking absurd

say more, i'm interested...

the story itself is more like 'hey here's a guy who's totally crazy, follow him down the rabbithole while he thinks he's solving the Zodiac case'

the facts of the murders as they stand are pretty well depicted, but everything else is pretty much Graysmith-ian

we've discussed this--extensively, i think--but the murder by the lake is one of the most terrifying things i've seen in a film

otm

say more, i'm interested...

― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, September 19, 2014 9:28 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well he didn't solve the second cipher, no one has. but there's a scene in the movie where a reporter interviews Graysmith on TV announcing he solved it, with an admiring Paul Avery watching it in a bar.

Then there's the scene with the Paul Stine witnesses where they make it sound like it was just some dumb kids who didn't get a good look at him (I think the similar description from a cop is just ignored), the way they just dismiss the fingerprint evidence, the rather silly excuses for the handwriting evidence (e.g. writing left handed).

When I saw the movie I didn't know anything about the case and it's amazing to watch it a second time and see how hard it strains to make Graysmith's theory viable.

the attack at Lake Berryessa is totally disturbing and as unglamorous a staging of the event as you could make.

And yes, the Lake Berryessa sequence was the scariest murder scene I can think of, from any film. Just horrifying.

the one by the lake was v scary but,

the lake murder and the roadside abduction sequences were horrifying and great.

lake berryessa stabbing is so hellishly realistic...the dull thuds of each stab, his faint grunting each time...every tiny detail is so horrifying

the sequence with the murder by the lake is utterly terrifying

the lake scene is really disturbing but

the lake scene is terrifying, but

haha

yeah that scene is really stomach-turning in a no-nonsense way

no music makes it so much worse.

i heard the original cut had it scored to "mr. blue sky"

the way that scene puts you in the minds of the victims is really masterful filmmaking, especially when you see him like they must have first seen him, from far away, in the daytime, with his homemade costume and his tool belt and you're like "is this fucking guy serious or what?" and then horrors just keep building.

There's even a great moment of levity in that scene, the way the guy corrects his girlfriend on what his major is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFN4Bb7wcog