Come anticipate David Fincher's "Zodiac"

I will defend BB (which has a melancholy way about it which strikes me as more distant from middle-of-the-road sentimental Hollywood fare than it looks) but GWDT was pretty lame and rote.

There's an episode in an early season of The League where a dude hides the sex tape he made with his wife in the Benjamin Button sleeve because he knows no one will ever want to watch it. And then of course the biggest loser of his friends finds it, because he wants to watch Benjamin Button.

Hard to believe a dude skilled enough to pull of Zodiac and Social Network - tough stories to tell - could falter so hard with down the middle commercial dreck like Benjamin Button and Dragon Tattoo.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, July 13, 2013 4:13 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

it seems like there's no longer any stories that he's driven to tell. something comes across his desk and hes like 'well i guess i can make this'

Yeah he's clearly contemptuous towards the film system these days. I hope he doesn't start doing shitty middlebrow cable series..

i liked this a lot more 2nd time around. great soundtrack and rdj & ruffalo did a fine job

this is prob my fav scene

http://jmount43.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/capture3.jpg?w=1024&h=424

the bit with the watch

"does anyone think this suspect warrants further investigation?"

yeah the watch and them exchanging looks as he just offers up incriminating details

I have watched this movie way more times than is healthy, I think

doesn't really come alive until viewing 4 or 5 imo

Every time this is revived and people start talking about it, I want to watch it again...the look on Ruffalo's face during that interrogation--I think he ever so slightly arches his eyebrow at one point, trying to mask his incredulity.

otm

i think I watched it 4 times just when I bought the dvd

i wanna watch it again RIGHT NOW

ruffalo and edwards are so great throughout but that scene in particular is so great. so many little moments and glances.

let's watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DSuUJ-Scbeg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Gdt6SgFdNNw/TFljCzsgAfI/AAAAAAAASpE/smQYuF446_s/s1600/Picture+4.png

"Well, we'll be checkin' in on that..."

I think the Ruffalo reaction I had in mind happens between 45 and 47 seconds. But yeah, everybody in this scene. And the dead-centre framing on certain shots. As good as it gets.

lol I forgot the bit about his "alibi"

didn't it come out recently that it's definitely NOT that guy?

it's been pretty clear for 10+ years that it's not that guy or longer. graysmith's the only one who rode that hobbyhorse (into the ground, admittedly)

bottom line is that zodiac turned graysmith into a legit nutbar. his followup to the book the movie is based on is just, smdh

I've read about the implausibility of Allen too in a couple of places.

In terms of the movie, I wouldn't want it any other way, though. It's ambiguous and open-ended enough as is--I'm not sure it could support much more in that direction without disintegrating. It needs some kind of anchor, and Allen serves that purpose perfectly.

yeah i have no problem with the movie or the original book even though Allen is not at all the guy -- mainly because it captures more of the kind of fear/hysteria that the Zodiac created, even in Graysmith, which is more the story to me

and the movie is fucking BOSS

this movie was available on the plane but i opted for the godfather trilogy

Defensible choice, but I would have checked to see if your parachute was in working order after the first two.

speaking of defensible choices: Jake's hair!

Part of the thing with Allen is that he's the perfect example of a guy who seems creepy and definitely up to no good. You feel compelled to think "well he's guilty of something surely" and I think that feeling is part of what the movie is about. Easy Dirty Harry.

totally

also I like when they bust into his rv and find the sex toys and the animals in the freezer

so it was a well known fact in the States before this film came out, that it *isn't* who the cops in the film think it is/might be?
you'll have to forgive me as this crime isn't really that well known about in the UK at all iirc.

this is probably the last film i can recall watching twice at home over 2 nights, before that i'm thinking not since i was a kid with Karate Kid or something.

Allen was primarily singled out because of Graysmith's book. (A bestseller, I believe.) after the movie I compulsively checked out some theories online and there seems to be a lot of suspects these days.

As VegemiteGrrl points out the movie is really centered on Graysmith's narrative and can't be divorced from his point of view.

(Though obviously it's not totally reducible to his point of view either.)

I dunno if it's well-known but the post-script of the movie makes it clear Allen was not even charged, and the whole movie is about Graysmith drawing questionable conclusions

I know I've mentioned it before, but seeing the making-of, esp. re: the GGI, really opened my eyes to the possibility of film in the modern age. It reminded me of the filmmaker who cited Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" as one of the best uses of CGI he'd ever seen, namely because no one would notice it. (Iirc, there are computer storm clouds in a scene or something.) "Zodiac" is like an entire movie of that, where everything is artificial in service of not seeming artificial. Michael Mann's "Collateral" has a similarly intriguing philosophy behind it, using digital cameras to capture the way cities really look at night, which chemical film ironically can't accurately pick up.

I can't remember if the end notes on screen say that Allen was cleared by DNA? Only part I didn't like was Fincher shoehorning in Allen as the likely killer when it's not even disputed by the time the film was being made that he had nothing to do with it...

they do

Collateral a good comparison for it lookswise I think. Miami Vice too. Sorta that hyperreal clarity paired with artificially beautified images.

For different reasons, zodiac is always paired with Eyes Wide Shut in my mind, for reasons I haven't totally worked out.

Allen isn't shoehorned in imo because he's a central part of the phenomenon via Graysmith. Did Toschi ever say anything regarding Allen as a suspect?

2009 Chronicle Blog post sez:

Toschi said Allen was the “best suspect” he ever investigated. But Allen ultimately was ruled out by fingerprints, handwriting samples and DNA and was never charged in connection with any Zodiac killings

i ended up being really taken by the disjoint between image and structure in this movie; everything was so clear and beautiful and well composed, but it moves along in this pointless and herky-jerky fashion, just grinding along for years and years. riveting, scary, moving but simultaneously really patience-testing. i took that to be the point.

my favorite zodiac theory is the Kacszynski (Unabomber) = Zodiac theory.

It's baloney but the handwriting similarities CREEPED me the hell out the first time I saw them matched up. Plus the whole 'he was in the bay area when it happened' is neat enough to make conspiracy nuts go bananas with drawing connections. It's a dead end but it is a fun one to 'what if' through when you first stumble onto it

sorry to derail

I probably told this story upthread but my dad loves telling the story (which he told me repeatedly when I was a small child!) that the zodiac called and threatened him when he and my mom lived in the Bay Area in the late 70s. Lots of crank calls going on I imagine. Must have been a bizarre time.

Love that the "best suspect" is totally ruled out by empirical evidence. So metaphysically poignant!

Alright, guys. I'm rewatching this Sunday night.

Not that I keep up, but this has got to be one of the best movies of the last 20 years right? That opening and the time-lapse song sequence in the middle(?) are just breathtaking

I was thinking about this while out driving--I'm a very good driver, so I can think about stuff other than the driving--and you've got four or five (at least) people on this thread who keep watching this over and over, and admit to a compulsion that has them thinking about watching it again. We make attempts to explain what it is that compels us to keep coming back to it; I'm guessing we would all concede that it's not the easiest thing to explain. (I know I would.)

A perfect mirror on the Graysmith's own obsession, and his attempts to explain himself.

mr veg is in love with the time-lapse recreation of San Francisco -- and he just about peed his pants when they recreated the tv studio for Melvin Belli

if you guys like this film, i really recommend 'memories of murder', directed by bong joon-ho (who also directed 'the host', 'mother', 'snowpiercer'.) similar to 'zodiac' in a lot of ways, but it has a lot of the jarring tonal shifts korean cinema are known for (slapstick comedy, suspense, drama, tragedy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories_of_Murder