[REVIEW] Zodiac

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:48 am

The popular line on this movie seems to be "it's good, but too long, and gets boring in the middle part, which should have been cut out."

Though I certainly respect their right to hold this opinion, I must respectfully and with all deference suggest that these people are all idiots.

First of all, there can be no complaints about the first hour and a half of this movie, or the last 20-30 minutes.

So there's a half hour in there where, wow, stuff is not zipping around the screen and there aren't any shiny, blinky lights to look at. So your solution is to CUT THAT OUT? Even though held within the quieter nature of these segments exists what one might say is the whole point of the movie, as the Zodiac case goes on and on, year after year, with red herring after red herring, and the people involve each learn to deal with their obsession in one way or the other, their personalities disintegrating in all variety of manners? We should take this part OUT because it's not EXCITING enough? FUCK YOU.

Zodiac is great from start to finish, and even though it's 10 hours long, once the credits rolled, I was sad, because I wanted it to keep going another 10 hours.

FOUR (4) STARS (****)

Mr Banzai · Post by **Mr Banzai** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:00 pm

I am hoping to See this movie, as it's playing nearby and my other passions aren't quite in the Mind's eye of the world as movies are.

Hopefully there are sexy girls in this movie, zodiac:: I can't wait to see!!

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:37 am

r Asgard Tokyo geeks Erie

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Fri May 30, 2008 12:43 pm

Huh, not sure why the conversation didn't take off with this movie. Hmm. Anyway, this has come up a few times, so: BUMP!

- the bump chudder

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Fri May 30, 2008 7:03 pm

why the fuck did I write that last post? I haven't seen Zodiac and prolly won't get the video. Nuff said.

THE
12 SIGNS
AARDVARK

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 12:57 am

I have more to say on this topic. Remind me to say those things.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:00 pm

Well alright, let's start with this:

Who here 1) hasn't seen it yet, or 2) doesn't yet agree that it's the 7th best movie of all time?

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:55 pm

I don't agree. The guy it was based on was a fraud, wasn't he? I don't think ANY good movies can have frauds in them.

/crosses arms

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Oct 14, 2010 10:28 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I don't agree. The guy it was based on was a fraud, wasn't he?

No?

EDIT: No.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 5:41 am

Somehow I have never seen the Zodiac movie, which is bizarre because as a kid I was haunted by the Zodiac killer. I loved that story (as much as one can love the story of a mysterious serial killer) and I remember being scared by the artist's rendition by one of the survivors. If nothing else, the story of the Zodiac killer taught me as a kid that police and detectives weren't magic. As a kid you are taught that police are like Santa and Jesus, that they can see you when you're sleeping and know if you've been shoplifting bubble gum ... and this guy showed us/me that, with half a brain, the cops could be outsmarted. Well, he and D.B. Cooper.

One time in speech class our teacher made us bring a letter and read it. I think the intent was to bring a letter that was famous or something, I can't remember. But I brought one of the Zodiac's ransom notes and read that and the teacher thought I was a weirdo, which I was. Anyway, I know more about the Zodiac killer than a lot of people who actually saw the movie, so it is indeed odd that I haven't seen it. I will fix that this weekend.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 1:44 pm

Public education

Zero dollars

reading a Zodiac ransom note in front of the whole class

PRICELESS!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 8:26 am

Jesus Christ, Flack. I don't know whether to ... Jesus Christ, Flack!

(I sort of wish I had thought of that.)

Actually, we never had cool assignments like "bring in a letter to read in front of class." Everything we ever had to do before, say, the 9th grade could have been boiled down to the phrase "look it up on the Internet."

I remember doing a report on text adventures in 5th grade though. I had two sources, an issue of Compute! and some other article about them from another computer magazine. The hell was I going to find original sources on text adventures back then? (In a public library, I mean.)

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 8:27 am

Were we going to get a better explanation as to why Zodiac is good? Or is this thread just a fucking tease at this point?

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:00 pm

Yes you will.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 1:55 pm

When? When will that happen?

It's in my BOTTOM 250 MOVIES at the moment. Only you can save it!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 1:56 pm

How about this. Each day you don't tell us whatever it is you want to tell us, I will mention a movie that I think is better than Zodiac.

"The Human Centipede."

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 7:13 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Jesus Christ, Flack. I don't know whether to ... Jesus Christ, Flack! (I sort of wish I had thought of that.) Actually, we never had cool assignments like "bring in a letter to read in front of class." Everything we ever had to do before, say, the 9th grade could have been boiled down to the phrase "look it up on the Internet."

For the most part I already knew this, but especially after comparing notes with other adults, I can tell you I had a really good public education. Our school district is one of the best in the state (there's a reason we're sending our kids there, too). So yeah, we did weird things like this all the time. I remember one time in eighth grade (I think) we studied poetry and had to bring a poem to class and read it. I argued that song lyrics were poetry, and the teacher agreed to the point where she changed the assignment and had everyone in class bring a song and read it aloud. Nothing like standing in front of your peers, reading the lyrics to Metallica's "Sanitarium" to prove you're a little odd. What I remember most about that assignment was a guy named Billy reading the lyrics to Paradise City and realizing just how ridiculous most rock lyrics really are.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I remember doing a report on text adventures in 5th grade though. I had two sources, an issue of Compute! and some other article about them from another computer magazine. The hell was I going to find original sources on text adventures back then? (In a public library, I mean.)

In 7th grade I wrote a school newspaper article about the problem of computer piracy. Yeah. That didn't get me labelled as a nerd or anything.

In fifth or sixth grade I did a report on jousting and as part of my report I wheeled the school's lone Apple II into our classroom and had the game "Chivalry" playing behind me. Then i got like a hundred questions about the game and the teacher gave me an A because I had "made the computer do that" and I'm pretty sure she thought I programmed it or something.

Now that I have derailed the thread, my next response will be about ... THE ZODIAC.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 7:53 am

So, I watched Zodiac last night. On my iPad. God, I love that thing. It's like the geeky equivalent of a giant bling necklace. You can just wave it around and be like, "look how much money I can waste, bitches!"

So. As previously mentioned, for some reason I was really into "true crime" books as a kid. I read (and probably still own) lots of books on Charles Manson, Jack the Ripper, Berkowitz, Dahmer, Gein, and of course, Zodiac.

Looking into the eyes and mind of a serial killer is always creepy. I remember seeing the courtroom footage of the Nightstalker (Richard Ramirez) being led out of the courtroom and saying "Heil, Satan!" while showing the pentagram he drew on his palm ... Jesus, that creeped me out. But perhaps even scarier at the guys like Jack the Ripper and Zodiac, the ones that never got caught. I always wondered what happened to those guys. Did they quit killing on their own? Did they die? Go to prison? Become reformed? Or are they still out there, waiting to strike again?

--

Having previously read Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac (on which the screenplay for the movie was based), there wasn't a lot of new material here for me. To sum a three hour movie up into a sentence or two, after killing a few people, a serial killer by the name of Zodiac begins taunting police and sending cryptograms to local newspapers, demanding that they are published. Everyone working on the case eventually burns out and after a decade, the only person who continues to work on the case is a lone newspaper cartoonist who has become obsessed with discovering the killer's identity.

Of course, anyone remotely familiar with the case knows how the movie will end. Being shocked that the Zodiac is never arrested is kind of like being shocked that, in the film, the Titanic sinks -- you kind of know that going into it, and so the "art" of the film is not the story itself, but how it is told.

What I think the film did right was it showed the obsession involved in solving a high profile case such as this one. It also showed, I think probably accurately, both police and Graysmith trying to make the facts fit a particular suspect. I'm sure this happens on a daily basis, especially in cases that hit the news.

I was a little disappointed with some of the parts of the case that were left out. The Zodiac actually send them a map overlaid with his symbol, showing where the murders had taken place. I thought that would have been a cool visual in the movie. Also, after shooting Paul Stein (the cab driver), he called the cops and left the payphone off the hook. I thought that would have been cool to include. The biggest thing I thought they left out were the letters from the Zodiac that never got solved! (EDIT: They also left out the fact that Leigh Allen passed a polygraph test.)

Where I think the film lacked was in the character development. I can almost buy Graysmith's obsession because he's witnessed the case unfold, but some of the other people, it's hard to see why they got so caught up in the case. It would have been nice to see just one or two scenes of how the case was affecting the lives of the inspectors (Toschi and Armstrong).

Also, near the end of the movie when Greysmith visits the lady in prison, I wonder why he didn't take HER the photo lineup and have her pick the Zodiac out? That seems like it would have closed the deal, doesn't it?

The biggest problem I had with the movie was that it was based on Greysmith's book. In a way, that kind of turns Zodiac into The Usual Suspects (a great film that tells a story that may or may not have ever happened). Ultimately, Zodiac is told from Greysmith's book, so what is presented as "this is who the killer was" should really be "this is who Greysmith thought the killer was", and that doesn't really come out. A LOT of people think that Greysmith did a poor job of investigating the Zodiac crime.

That doesn't make Zodiac (the film) any less enjoyable, though. I thought it was a good drama, but unfocused at times. It wouldn't make my top 10 list movie list, but I enjoyed it and would watch it again if I had a spare ten hours.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 5:13 pm

I am going to start using Zodiac as a verb.

Every time I respond to a thread here, I Zodiac it.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:30 pm

"Toxic Avenger."