I seriously cannot stop watching this movie. Anthony Edwards is amazing in his small role – pure detective detection, looking the riddle in the eye and knowing there is no solution, keeping the frustration trained in his irises. The San Francisco skyline is straight from the 1970s. Wow! Computers, huhn? Opening sequence begs the question: why must we keep looking for the dark side of Donavan, the poor Hurdy Gurdy bananapeel smoker? (Just ask either Country Joe or the rolly-polly Fishheads!) A little less exposition (involving Downey Jr. who is a GREAT actor and thus tremendously distracting – as much so as the aquamarine cocktails he shares prematurely w/ our flea-on-the-back-of-detection neuter, Jake G) and this movie might just have risen Mr. Fincher into the ranks of the very greatest. The light and production design do way more work here than the storyboard, for the first time in a Fincher (this is the man who built Panic Room on his Power Book before he ever even quarantined the poor actors). The melodrama is entirely overdone but refreshing from a man from whom we normally expect teenage kicks and sagging pricks. This is at least a much better film than Spike Lee’s hilariously stupid Son of Sam Italian-hate-on (part __ in his wild assault on all Italian Americans – although thankfully SpikeTV didn’t get to rub ice on any nipples in that shit). Once again, this film is about light, set design, and temporally complex time-image storytelling. Hitchcock would have loved this film. However! Hitchcock would also have forgotten about this film after a single brandy and a dispiriting phonecall. It is, after all is said and done, the only Fincher what breathes, though.
3 comments:
I agree that Zodiac has been his best film in years. It didn't surpass Se7en or its goofy, yet unflinching follow-up, The Game (1997), with Michael Douglas as a human eyelash in need of a spiritual wipe/blink.
Zodiac was grand, gorgeous filmmaking. So good that you tolerate Gyllenhall's stargazing shoegum histrionics for 45 FUCKING MIUNUTES. Major hit-and-miss. First two acts were well done. Aside from time-lapse montage and Ruffalo/Edwards central line, I liked the yellowcab death scene.
Wonderful that picked up on Donovan. Chilling ending, too.
The Game was definitely my previous favorite and might be again someday. I don't have my own copy so I haven't had a chance to revisit it over and over like some – you know – masochistic cartoonist neuter obsessive. The endings of both Se7en and The Game (and Fight Club) were also amazing. He does know how to pull those out of his top hat, to be sure. I also will never get Morgan Freeman and the metronome out of my head, that was brilliant. It just strikes me that Zodiac is the submarine best calibrated for repeated submersions because it is a felt project (impressionist, even) instead of one that’s been felt up.
that's so funny that we both re-watch the same movies repeatedly. I remember after Life Aquatic came out on the Criterion 2-disc we both watched it for a week straight as well. Zodiac I stole from the internet, but watched it seven or eight times that first week.
Just saw The Station Agent, this gentle fist of a fish-out-of-water comedy. Watched that repeatedly too.
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