For the Love of Film

To fully appreciate Jim Jarmusch’s first film, you must understand the context of when it was made. I have already seen Jarmusch’s second and third films, Down by Law and Mystery Train respectively, but this was my first viewing of Stranger Than Paradise. To those also viewing it for the first time, It may come off as the antithesis of indie filmmaking and thus some may overlook it’s merit, and the important fact that it was the first of it’s kind. We don’t look down on the concept of TOMS shoes just because BOBS come along; the same should go for innovative filmmaking. Stranger Than Paradise showed the kind of quality independent film that could be made by sheer will and desire as opposed to money, and Jarmusch’s style clearly influenced the works of other directors to come such as Gus Van Sant and Quentin Tarantino to name two. And yes, I just compared filmmaking to shoes.

Willie (John Lurie) is an NYC apartment dweller who is annoyed to have his Hungarian cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) stay with him for a week before she is to go to Cleveland where their Aunt Lotte lives. Willie is standoffish towards Eva while his best friend Eddie (Richard Edson) takes a liking to her. Willie begins to enjoy her company though and when she leaves for Cleveland he clearly has a void in his life.

A year later Willie and Eddie decide to visit Eva in Cleveland after winning some money in cards (completely on the up and up, of course). She is happy to see them though she finds it hard to balance spending time with both them and a “friend” of her’s, Billy. Plus Aunt Lotte doesn’t like her going out too much. Willie and Eddie discover what this video can tell you about Cleveland and they decide to head back to New York…until they start talking about Florida. So it’s back to pick up Eva and off to Florida!

The final act in Florida is where the crux of the story occurs, where the most amount of “stuff” actually occurs, but that is what the first two acts were building up to. Jarmusch allows plenty of room for the actors and scenes to play out but at only 89 minutes the film (originally conceived/shot in part as a student film) never feels unnecessarily slow. The three main actors were not traditional actors but rather musicians/artists, Edson was even the original drummer for Sonic Youth. His characterization of Eddie having an innocent crush on Eva is glorious in it’s simplicity and he effectively steals most scenes he is in as given Laurie’s character’s laconic nature.

In watching Stranger Than Paradise I couldn’t help be reminded of Kevin Smith’s Clerks, which came 10 years later. The black and white cinematography with little in the way of cuts, the slow pace and use of black screen and title card to convey passage of times/different scenes all match up. Stranger Than Paradise’s humor is much more low-key however, there is definitely no snowball discussion here. Instead just a film featuring TV dinners and the music of that wild man Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

So I’ve done a pretty bad job at juggling my film major studies and my film blog but I’ve still been watching movies and I finally have some time to do a review. Hopefully there will be more to come.

Brazil is the story of Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a man working in a small department in the British utopian society of the future. Of course this facist society isn’t quite as well organized as you may think and the smallest of small errors (The names Tuttle and Buttle are very similar, you see) leads to all sorts of headaches for everyone who works there. Sam is already unhappy but this error leads him to meet the girl he’s been dreaming about, a truck driver named Jill Layton (Pam Grier). The problem is that Jill has made herself quite a nuisance in the Buttle/Tuttle error as she wants the government to right their wrong and explain why her neighbor Mr. Buttle was harshly abducted instead of the man they were looking for, a rogue outlaw repairman named Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). But Sam is in love and takes a promotion he doesn’t even want just to learn more about Jill. His bosses tell him to mind his work but Sam’s too far gone: Jill is all the matters.

The thing I would point out about Brazil that my description doesn’t do justice is that it’s very, very funny. Certainly director and Monty Python alumni Terry Gilliam is no stranger to comedy and Brazil is full of great little gags and humor that doesn’t beat you over the head (well, except for Tuttle and Sam’s revenge on the workers who seize Sam’s apartment). 

Pryce plays Sam well as an affable, average hero who starts to act out when his heart overpowers his head. Gilliam was supposedly unhappy with Grier’s performance as Jill but as a character she doesn’t speak a whole lot and she does a fine job at looking good. De Niro’s role as Tuttle is small but he steals nearly every scene he’s in. And a cast of smaller characters such as Katherine Helmond as Sam’s mother Ida all have some time to shine and add a lot to the odd world portrayed in Brazil.

Brazil has gained a reputation for being one of the strangest films ever and for being confusing, but I find neither of these descriptions to be the case. Admittedly it’s a bit strange but at it’s core it’s a love story set in Orwell’s 1984 future. It was probably stranger in 1985 but these days it’s pretty common fare. And having watched the 142 minute directors cut released by The Criterion Collection I didn’t find the film to be hard to follow at all. I found it witty, engaging, and to some extent, inspiring. In the face of adversity Gilliam ultimately made the film he wanted and it is a fine piece of art.

Brazil has nothing to do with the country of Brazil but everything to do with good filmmaking.

Sundance films can be hit or miss depending on a lot of factors. King of California received generally good reviews but it was largely ignored in almost all facets of release. And that’s a real shame because it’s a really good film.

Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) is a 16 year old girl in Southern California who’s been working at McDonald’s for the last two years to keep up payments on her car and house. She has these things because her father Charlie (Michael Douglas) has been in a mental institution for these two years. But now he’s out and Miranda’s life is no longer that simple as he often acts impulsively, doing things like, say, hitting on a female cop. More specifically he is determined to discover buried treasure that he read about in many books, supposedly left in the vicinity of their town by the Spanish explorer Father Juan Florismarte Torres. There’s one problem: Charlie’s calculations determine that the treasure is buried under a Costco’s. But is it really that big of a problem?

King of California was written and directed by Mike Cahill who’s IMDB page shows only that he’s written an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast and a movie called Boxers and Ballerinas, and that he hasn’t worked on anything since King of California. This basically boggles my mind as King of California is a fantastic little film. It doesn’t set out to shock audiences or have over the top comedy, it just tells a really good story about a modern day search for treasure set in beautiful Southern California. 

Michael Douglas turns in his usual great performance as the eccentric and instantly likable Charlie. Even a flashback of him trying to kill himself and some of his more selfish actions don’t take away from his charm. Evan Rachel Wood plays the straight character well and even though she sometimes comes off as a wet blanket to the well meaning Charlie she hits the emotional moments in the film really well and really made me forgot for a moment or two that she’s romantically linked to Marilyn Manson in real life (which I still find really odd).

I would really recommend to anyone looking for a movie to brighten your day a little bit that King reigns supreme.

Italian director Federico Fellini is considered one of the premiere filmmakers of the 20th century. I have yet to see much of his work beyond Amarcord and 8 1/2 and while Amarcord wasn’t exactly what I expected or pictured, I can see why Fellini has the reputation that preceeds him.

Amarcord is set in 1930’s facist Italy and introduces us to an entire village’s worth of character. The main story followed is that of Titta (Bruno Zanin), a typical teenager who likes to cause trouble with his friends and is very interested in girls. Or, in the case of the town beauty Gradisca (Magali Noël), women. Titta is also good at annoying his extremely short-tempered father Aurelio (Armando Brancia) while his mother Miranda (Pupella Maggio) is more patient, but only slightly. Aurelio isn’t quite into the whole Facism thing and has to deal with those consequences, as well of the consequences of taking his crazy brother out of the asylum for a day.

Amarcord surprised me because I was expecting something a bit more artsy or deep like 8 1/2 and instead there were numerous masturbation, sex, and fart jokes. That certainly doesn’t make the movie bad but it definitely caught me off guard. 

That’s not to suggest that Amarcord isn’t art either as it features a number of beautiful shots and imagery. The acting is fine and nobody is out for an Oscar (well, except for Fellini) as the drama of living in facism is outweighed by the comedy in the film. The story of Gradisca probably could have carried a movie in itself as she is both very mysterious while very visible and lovely.

Amarcord is well worth a viewing and was a good choice for release by the Criterion Collection. I just wish Fellini could have given audio commentary for the scene where the boys masturbate in the car at the same time. That would have been interesting.

would make you a winner in my eyes.

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One of my general rules is that I will watch anything if my favorite actors or actresses are in it. This rule applies to people such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Christian Bale, Robert Downey Jr, Tina Fey and Natalie Portman. Another name on that list though is Ellen Page and while Whip It didn’t look bad per se, it didn’t look particularly good either. I just felt as though an actress as talented as Page could be working on better projects than a cookie cutter story about roller derby. And ultimately I still think that’s the case.

Page plays Bliss Cavendar, the kind of girl who, at the insistence of her friend Pash (Arrested Development star and real life Page friend Alia Shawkat) dyes her hair blue right before she’s set to take place in a beauty pageant her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) places her in. Bliss and Pash don’t seem to quite fit in in Bodeen, Texas. After Bliss meets women on a roller derby team called the Hurl Scouts like Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig) and Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore). Bliss and Pash attend a game between the Scouts and the Holly Rollers, who are led by the intimidating Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). Maggie convinces Bliss to try roller derby and thus Babe Ruthless is born. Things go great for a while and Bliss even meets a rockstar boy she likes named Oliver but things suddenly come crashing down as all of her relationships spiral out of control. But at least there’s still roller derby. I guess.

Directed by Drew Barrymore Whip It is exactly what I thought it would be albeit at almost two hours, longer than what I expected. Page is adorable and later strong as Bliss but as a character we never learn much other then ‘oh, that girl just isn’t like everybody else’. Wiig and Barrymore aren’t particularly funny in their roles while Alia Shawkat is. Barrymore’s Fever Pitch co-star Jimmy Fallon steals most scenes he’s in as announcer Johnny Rocket who is obsessed with hot tubs. Andrew Wilson (the forgotten Wilson brother) and Daniel Stern are both entertaining as Bliss’s coach and father, respectively. Landon Pigg was an odd choice for a love interest and he doesn’t have much chemistry with Page.

Whip It is a decent flick to catch on a rainy day but not much more than that. I know you like Drew Barrymore, Ellen (the pictures of you kissing her indicate you like her a lot!), but you can do better. 

I wasn’t familar with the work of Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier before watching Antichrist. Apparently he and a number of other filmmakers have taken on a dogma, avant garde style called ‘Dogme 95’. Antichrist seems to fall into that category and after having watched it, I have no interest in seeing any more Dogme 95 films.

Told in four chapters with an epilouge and a prolouge, a man (Willem Dafoe) and woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are having sex when their young child Nick climbs out from his crib and falls out a window to his death. Overcome with grief the couple retreat to the woods where the man (who is a therapist) is hopeful he can help his spouse get over her depression and fears. A number of strange things start happening though, including ticks on the man’s arm and the woman constantly needing sex from the man, culminating with the man finding a fox disembowling itself and turning to him and saying “Chaos reigns”. The rest of the film is a bloody, physical battle between the man and woman as it becomes clear that there is something very wrong with her. The mutilate each other sexually and in the end, only one is walking out alive.

Antichrist sets up a really interesting story with a beautiful opening scene (although even that features a hardcore shot of penetration) of a couple retreating to the woods after the death of a child and then pisses it all away with gross-out horror scenes. And I feel like I can sit through almost anything, I even made a point of watching Cannibal Holocaust even though I never want to do that again. But Antichrist, featuring graphic scenes where a the man’s penis is stimulated to climax blood and the woman’s clitoris is cut off is far, far too much for me and my psyche. I give Dafoe and Gainsbourgh a lot of credit for giving the film a shot but neither should include any part of it on their all-time career reels.

Many have tried to determine what Von Trier is suggesting in the subtext of the film but to me it’s pretty clear he’s simply trying to shock the audience as no resolution or explanation is hinted at in any meaningful way. Antichrist is technically profecient enough to recieve two stars from me, but I can’t actually recommend this film.

I’m a big fan of the Criterion Collection and the films they release. Criterion’s critera (say that five times fast) for releasing films is that they look for “important classic and contemporary” films. 1964’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars may seem like an odd choice, one of dozens of Sci-Fi flicks made before we ever even landed on the moon. But it has a number of important characteristics that make it more then the kind of old movie you’d find in the $5 bin.

Colonel Dan McReady (Adam West, yes, that Adam West) and Christopher ‘Kit’ Draper (Paul Mantee) make up the crew on the Mars Gravity Probe 1 ship. Actually there is another member, a small money named Mona (played by a wooly monkey named Barney in a gender-bending role). The ship narrowly avoids a meteor but Draper and McReady are forced to evacuate. Draper makes it down to Mars but McReady is killed in the crash. Save for the company of a screeching Mona, Draper is now alone, a modern day Robinson Crusoe, on a strange planet. He finds that he can breathe the air for short periods of time and that there is water on the planet (hey, it was 1964, I’m giving them a break). To paraphrase The Killers Draper finds that when offered survival, it’s hard enough to life. In this case it’s the loneliness and realization that he will likely spend the rest of his life alone. That is, until he comes across a spaceship which he thinks will rescue him. It turns out the craft is alien and it is attempting to kill a number of slaves, one of whom (Victor Lundin) escapes with Draper’s help. Draper is no longer alone, but is he really better off?

Directed by Byron Haskin (The War of the Worlds) Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a gorgeous film. The colors and sets on Mars are vivid and imaginative and the science was actually correct for a brief period where it was believed that there was breathable air and water on Mars. It is not only the look of the film that makes it notable but the script as well is well thought out and written, with John C. Higgins and Ib Melchoir sharing screenwriting credit. I’ve seen a number of bad 1950’s and 1960’s sci-fi films that attempted to do what Robinson Crusoe on Mars does and they don’t come half as close to the film’s ability to generate feelings of emotion. Paul Mantee carries the load in a one man show and is affable as Draper, who suddenly becomes overbearing when given a companion in Friday (his name for Lundin’s character). But that subsides as their friendship grows and the ending is genuine, if rushed. And Mona the monkey is adorable in her (his) little space outfit.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a fine film well worth a look to see how we used to imagine space and didn’t take it’s exploration and sheer vastness for granted. It’s also a good companion piece to the famous Tom Hanks movie Castaway as that film utilizes a number of concepts established in RCOM.

Straight up: I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the original Star Trek. Oh sure, I know all about Kirk and Spock and ‘Beam me up Scotty’ and all that. My lack of viewing though is not out of a lack of interest or anything, it’s just something I’ve never gotten around to. And quite frankly I like enough ‘nerdy’ things without adding the top stereotype. With the interest of person’s like myself in mind, people who have never actually watched the show, the entire Star Trek television/film series was rebooted with Lost creator JJ Abrams 2009 film simply called ‘Star Trek’. 

James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) is born in the year 2323 just as his father George orders his Federation starship the USS Kelvin to be evacuated as he collides it into the invading Romulan ship. Kirk is an underachiever as a teenager but after a bar fight he is recruited Captain Pike to join Starfleet. Kirk is the only one in Starfleet who is able to solve the test that Vulcan Spock (Zachary Quinto) programmed. Spock is convinced Kirk cheated but before they can get to the bottom of things the Vulcan planet is put under attack and the cadets must all be sent up to try and help. Dr. Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban) sneaks Kirk on board. Also on board are crew members Uhara (Zoe Salanda), Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), and later, Scotty (Simon Pegg). Spock and Kirk don’t like each other but they have to get along if they are to accomplish their mission. Easier said than done.

Abrams stuck with writers he’d previously worked with on Mission Impossible III in Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci (The Island, Transformers). Those credits for Kurtzman and Orci indicate they can put together a script filled with action but perhaps it was Abrams direction that grounded Star Trek into more of a character study then a giant blockbuster. That’s not to say there isn’t action in the film, there’s plenty of it. But all of the dialouge here actually matters and isn’t just a set-up to see robots punch each other.

The casting was dicey but worked out perfectly. Pine and Quinto were both relative unknowns in most circles before being cast as the young versions of characters that have been around longer then the actors themselves. Both delivered excellent performances though with Pine as the confident Kirk and Quinto as the reserved and brilliant Spock. And now the producers in an excellent situation to use their young actors for numerous potential sequels. The rest of the crew is well cast as Cho and Salenda both avoid being merely ‘there’ because their ethnicity matched those of the original actors by turning in good performances, Salenda in particular. Urban is impossible not to like as Bones and the same goes for Pegg as Scotty, who provides some comic relief. Eric Bana, under a plethora of make-up, play the evil Romulan leader and the lovely and underrated Winona Ryder rounds out the cast as Spock’s mother.

The Star Trek reboot could have been a disaster in the wrong hands, just look at the number of films/series that get made only to be remade a few years later because the first one failed to launch either financially or creatively. But J.J. Abrams cemented his ever expanding legacy by successfully transferring one of TV’s most famous shows to the big screen. Plus he claims to be a huge Twilight Zone fan, which only serves to make fellow huge fans like me more excited.

Based on a graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a film that speaks to the sarcastic 20-something in all of us. What could be considered a nerdy comic book filled with pop culture references and hipster tendencies is now a 60 million dollar plus film. But does the beloved series lose it’s charm in it’s adapation to the big screen? Nah.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22 year old living in Toronto hoping to find success with his band Sex Bob-omb and find love, not necessarily in that order. He’s dating 17 year old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) but he still struggles with his break from current rock star Envy Adams (Brie Larson). All of this means something until he has a dream about a girl with pink hair and then he meets her at a party: Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Scott is obsessed with this girl. A slight problem is that Knives is still obsessed with Scott. But Scott drops Knives like a bad habit to be with his (literal) dream girl. An even bigger problem: Ramona has 7 evil ex’s who Scott must fight and defeat in order to be with her. The ex’s include a movie star (Chris Evans), a rock star (Brandon Routh), twins, and someone from when Ramona was experimenting. And at the top of the chain: Gideon (Jason Schwartzman). Can Scott Pilgrim defeat the 7 evil ex’s to win Ramona? Will Young Neil (Jason Simmons) ever stop being awkward? Will NFL star Pacman Jones consider changing his name to Puckman Jones? Will I never not appreciate a film that features both Jason Schwartzman and Aubrey Plaza? Will Arrested Development fans yell out “HER?” during a scene in the movie? Will consequences ever be the same? 

Scott Pilgrim is one of the most original films you’ll see in quite some time. Granted that sounds a bit silly to say when it’s based on a comic series but it’s true, there are very few movies as creative and inventive as this. It feels like a live action comic but not in any way you’ve previously seen. The CGI works perfectly as opposed to your typical action flick where everything looks too good to possibly be true. Scott Pilgrim is an out and out fantasy without ever taking itself seriously.

Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) has a great track record with creativity and Scott Pilgrim is another notch in his belt. Everything is bright and fast paced and the jokes are laugh and minute stuff. The film is very well cast as Cera plays Pilgrim perfectly with deadpan reactions and childlike innocence. Winstead is charming as Ramona but she doesn’t have to do too much as Ramona herself is a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. The supporting cast is excellent though as Mark Webber is great as Sex Bob-bomb frontman Stephen Stills and Kieran Culkin steals nearly every scene he’s in as Scott’s gay roommate Wallace Wells. Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza both have small, funny roles as Scott’s sister and enemy, respectively. 

The one flaw with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is that it has to cram so much story into one film and so not everything gets the amount of attention it deserves. Scott’s past relationships are brought up but not really expanded upon other then revealing that Scott isn’t exactly the perfect boyfriend. All of Ramona’s evil ex’s get a backstory and explanation but not enough to make them really stand out. 

Scott Pilgrim is a very fun film and one that will likely be more enjoyed with multiple viewings. And to those who don’t care for the film, I just have this to say. Meh.

An unprofessional confession: I missed the end of the fight with the 3rd evil (vegan) Ex as I had to quickly lower my pee bar. Also this film made me feel like my hair may be getting too shaggy. So I need a winter hat.

Will Smith’s rise to the top of Hollywood has always sort of baffled me. He’s certainly a charismatic and charming personality who was funny on a sitcom but it just seems like he went from TV star to movie star overnight. He didn’t have one ‘breakout’ role, he just started starring in big budget blockbusters like Independence Day and Men In Black which were likely to do good business regardless of Smith’s involvement. This is not to say he’s not a good actor; he is. I just don’t get how he became what he is today. I Am Legend is another example of that.

The year is 2012, the place is New York City. One man scientist Robert Neville (Smith) is left all alone except for his dog Sam and manequin Frank. Oh and the mutants that come out at night that everybody turned into after Neville’s cure for cancer turned out to kill most and turn the rest into these Darkseekers. He lost his wife and daughter in an accident during the initial madness and it still haunts him. Neville is hopeful to find a cure and to find more humans still out there. The film’s lesson is: never try and cure cancer.

Based on the novel of the same name by original Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson, I Am Legend had been adapted for the screen twice before in The Omega Man. Here director Francis Lawrence (Constantine) is almost deadly serious and at times it works and at others it falls flat. The film is primarily a one man show for Smith and his interactions with his dog, the manequin (goddamnit Fred!), and the darkseekers. Smith gives a good performance but not so good that it elevates the entire movie.

I Am Legend is a perfectly fine little movie but it doesn’t reach what it was going for and it falls short of the campy fun that is The Omega Man.

Fun fact: I went to see this movie when it came out with a friend. The film ended with a long shot followed by the directing crediting leaving some to groan in disapointment. But two guys didn’t just groan, they yelled. “BULLSHIT!” yelled out one voice, immediately followed by “WASTE OF MONEY!” It was amazing.

…may not seem like a big deal to a lot of people especially when there are plenty of blogs with more, but it’s a milestone that means a lot to me. It was a little over a month ago I decided on a whim to create a film review blog and now a few weeks later I have 100 sets of eyeballs looking at my humble opinion. I had a lot of work over the last week or two but I should get back into the swing of things with more reviews coming. Thank you to everybody who checks out For the Love of Film.

Director David Fincher has certainly carved out a name and niche for himself. He started with the blockbuster Alien 3 where he cut his teeth and then directed the very successful Se7en. After The Game he then directed the (in)famous Fight Club  in 1999, which I have previously reviewed here on For the Love of Film. Fincher followed up Fight Club with the very underrated Panic Room in 2002 (which I would like to review at some point). And then five years went by before Fincher released his next, and best, film. And that’s saying something because I’ve listed some good movies and he even followed this one up with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (another one I’d like to review soon). But just as Tarantino considered Inglorious Basterds his masterpiece, I believe Zodiac is Fincher’s finest moment. 

Zodiac is based on a true story. Right at the end of the 60’s a serial killer strikes in San Francisco and starts writing encrypted letters to the San Francsico Chronicle (as well as two other Bay Area newspapers), demanding that they be published or he will kill more people. The crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) can’t figure out what to make of these letters but mild-mannered single parent Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) who works as a political cartoonist at the Chronicle is able to figure it out. He quickly takes a very strong interest in cracking the Zodiac code and helping to stop the murders. They don’t stop though and detectives Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) are put on the case. They quickly find though that, like Avery and Graysmith, there are a lot of dead ends. Pretty soon the murders seem to stop but the hunt continues and it starts to consume all of these men’s lives. Who is the Zodiac?

Robert Graysmith is an actual man who wrote books about the Zodiac Killer. His memories and recollections help shape the story and the screenplay by James Vanderbilt benefits from this as well as all the investigating done by Graysmith, Vanderbilt, and Fincher. 

Gyllenhaal is perfectly cast as Graysmith, an upstanding man just trying to do the best he can for his son but with something lurking underneath. Why does the case mean so goddamn much to him? He’s a political cartoonist and has nothing to do with the police and crime section. Downey Jr is arrogant but likeable as Avery and Ruffalo’s character Toschi (complete with action sideburns) is impossible not to feel bad for as he is eaten alive by the case. Chloe Sevigny has a small turn as Graysmith’s blind date/spouse and the undersung John Carroll Lynch (Fargo, The Drew Carey Show) gives perhaps the best performance of the entire film as the entirely creepy Arthur Leigh Allen. Actually Phillip Baker Hall’s character who used to work with Allen may be even terrfying.

The amazing thing in Zodiac is how little in the way of ‘action’ there is during the entire second half of the film and yet because the first hour set up the story so well you don’t even realize it. The story is so engaging and intriguing guns and knives aren’t needed at all. And frankly it doesn’t even matter because this really isn’t a story about the Zodiac Killer, it’s a story about the people who tried to discover the Zodiac Killer’s identity. Despite the on-screen murders the scariest part of Zodiac occurs when nobody is even killed.

This is all a credit to Fincher who’s direction gives Zodiac an ominous (Northern California) feel while setting up all sorts of unsettling situations and events. There is an unmistakable feeling that something big is going on here. And it is.

Zodiac didn’t make much money at the box office or get much mainstream attention but make no mistake about it: Zodiac is a gripping two and a half hour ride that will tell you a real story you don’t already know.