Come anticipate David Fincher's "Zodiac"

Yeah I guess it is what I would call a great rainy afteroon movie, and certainly there aren't enough of those. But I have this feeling that it only stands out (for me) because everything elwe is so terrible!

else

RD needs to show us a new, less prattly side soon.

Mark Ruffalo was using a reedy voice (not his usual one) that was reeeeallly familiar, but I can't figure out who he might have been imitating.

Haha I think it might have stood out for me because everything else by Fincher is so terrible!

"terrible" = not like a million overrated gritty cop shows of the last 25 years

lol well okay.

I read the (first/original) Graysmith book when I was a teenager, so I did sort of know how everything panned out beforehand. I may well have been more gripped if I knew less about the case.

I like gritty cop shows, Morbius! =)

But seriously I thought it was just fantastic. Great acting, great mood, great pacing. I admit that maybe it might have resonated more with me because the case was such a part of the undercurrent of the Bay Area when I was growing up, but it's still probably the best movie I've seen this year.

Alex OTM

Maybe this is why I like This Is England so much then! Not that it is set anywhere near where I am from or features people like those I grew up with, but it certainly draws from a larger culture that was all around me during my childhood.

Fincher decorates background walls with classic movie posters and includes a self-indicting, pre-opening credit visual clue (elucidated during the third act) that speaks to cinema's potent cultural impact,

wait what is this "clue" he's referring to here

S: Donal Logue
D: John Ennis

I don't like acting much, usually

What do you watch in movies -- costumes? wallpaper?

(although if you watch Jake Gylllie in this one you might hate acting too).

i just watched this just now

I don't know, a lot of "movie acting" has really got to me of late, basically the kind of acting you see in most studio films has suddenly begun to strike me as utterly ridiculous - that this is now how you now portray characters for a mainstream audience. I'm not just trying to be snobby about it (I hope) because there's lots of horrible acting in other types of movies.

Worst recent example I can think of - Little Children.

That movie was terrible though.

It was. Lots of things wrong with it. But the acting in it was (for me) kind of the final straw. Whenever I notice acting now it turns me right off.

Also if you though Robert Downey Jr was bad in this, don't see Fur! Actually don't see Fur period!

hahaaaa! I have NO plans to see Fur in this lifetime.

I don't know that I think RDJ is "bad", I think he probably always succeeds at what he is trying to do. I just don't particularly want to buy what he is selling.

(unless he has some really good shit)

On the other hand, I sort of like Mark Ruffalo despite his only-slightly-more-subtle but still ludicrously mannered performances.

And I know everyone thinks I am RONG and crazy anyway but just to show I'm not simply being contrarian - "acting" I have liked recently was definitely Daniel Auteil in Cache'. That was perfect, IMO. Almost invisible!

RDJ quite fine here; the only perf in recent years I couldn't stand was in the Linklater cartoon.

If you like "realistic," no-nonsense, leaden acting, you couldn't get better than Anthony Edwards here.

Yeah he was good. I didn't say LEADEN though, you did. =)

And I don't just like "realistic" acting. I thought Laura Dern was amazing in Inland Empire, I liked Alec Baldwin in the Departed. It's a really fine line, I admit.

I couldn't stand Edwards, actually.

really? that's funny!

I didn't have a problem with any of the actors actually. Inland Empire (Laura Dern's acting chops aside) was nearly unwatchable OTOH.

Of course part of the reaosn why I didn't, was it didn't matter was on screen cuz Fincher treated them like they were wallpaper anyway.

It's funny how quickly Zodiac's become Fincher Film #3 or #4 about which everyone will be evenly split on its merit.

Edwards did a fine reprise of Goose here.

x-post I don't think anti-Fincher people have the same animosity to this that they did with Fight Club and Seven, in part because "Hurdy Gurdy Man" aside he avoided his more obvious indulgences. It's not even ANTI-Fincher, just varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Really haunting film – I think of it as Rashomon for the CSI-watching pathology/forensic-obsessed generation.

Who the killer is the least of your problems, it's the inability to know anything to a certainty.

I was never a fan of Fincher until this film

I really don't have much of an opinion either way about David Fincher and wasn't really hyper-aware of this being "a David Fincher film" while I was watching it.

D: John Ennis

Are you MAD?!?!

I was aware of him but didn't really care one way or the other - altho I actively disliked Fight Club and Se7en seemed like some sub-par Vertigo graphic novel type crap (you call that a "twist" ending? wtf)

also yeah I loved John Ennis' two scenes in this

"It's funny how quickly Zodiac's become Fincher Film #3 or #4 about which everyone will be evenly split on its merit."

Hah but the funny thing is how many people who liked Zodiac HATED his other films!

John Ennis was the 2nd handwriting expert, right?

which is my point!

(xpost)

Hey, admrl: Philip Baker Hall gives his usual tip-top performance.

I like Philip Baker Hall

weird - Philip Baker Hall was in the shitty 2005 Zodiac film as well (albeit as a different character)

I just a clip in which Graysmith talks about the killer. Man, he's about as noble, sincere, and dull as Gyllenhaal made him out to be.

http://www.adweek.com/adweek/photos/2006/03/31_CR_News_Subway.jpg
ACTING!

this really holds up well - the third act seems very distinct from what comes before and more clearly delineates the central themes of the movie. Up to that point it all feels like fairly standard crime thriller stuff, but when it moves on to Graysmith its clear that all he's doing is fumbling around in the dark, and that the "truth" of the killer's identity has become just a backdrop, and one hopelessly obscured at that, for all these other issues - media fascination, the morbidly obsessed, etc. - to play out against.

Also on second viewing the bit in the house with the movie poster guy - I got the definite sense that this wasn't just a blind alley, it was Graysmith brushing up against a fellow Zodiac-obsessive, someone who has likewise followed the details of the case and perhaps even participated in its obfuscation (much as Graysmith unwittingly had)... the stuff Vaughn knows and says in some ways imply that he may have written Zodiac letters himself or made false calls, etc...?

The whole scene makes Graysmith's reaction of fear/horror even more of an ironic comment on just how deluded he was about his role and his unrealistic expectations of being able to solve the case.

that scene, in the basement, is the one i'm most iffy about, the one i want to see again, but also one that makes me want to read the book to see what the deal was there.

it's classic horror/serial killer-movie stuff, and i'm not sure if that's meant to reflect graysmith's being delusional at this point... or if it's a cheap moment in an increasingly actionless film...

it's classic horror/serial killer-movie stuff, and i'm not sure if that's meant to reflect graysmith's being delusional at this point...

I think it's both - the fact that the entire scene is constructed as a classic "reveal" horror-movie scene, and revolves around films/movie posters/a projectionist (cf. pyschological "projection" haha geddit), and that the "lead" comes out of nowhere and is completely unrelated to all the evidence previously discussed in the film all point to it being a reflection of Graysmith's addled state. Also take into account that up to now this character has never been mentioned and bears no direct relation to the crime. Yet the fact that he knows all these details about the case and is happy to play along with Graysmith's amateur detective routine would indicate he's just a similar obsessive, someone who loves the DRAMA and attention of the whole affair. Graysmith is the same way, but he doesn't want to admit it to himself, instead pretending like he's some knight-in-shining-logical-armor who's gonna solve this thing cuz its "important"...

I was irritated by this scene the first time around. The second time around it struck me as a very genius move, lots of layers to it.

Loved that scene – both genuinely scary and hysterical.

its one of those scenes that emphasizes how the movie is NOT about solving a crime - its about how trying to solve a crime magnifies and distorts the crime itself, as well as those attempting to solve it

Yeah, by the end of the film Graysmith is totally leading the witnesses