So tonight I finally got around to watching Zodiac, which I've put off for a couple weeks. I'm normally pretty vigilant about clearing out our one-disc Netflix queue, but the last few weeks have been hectic, to put it mildly. With my mom in and out of the hospital (mostly in), my schedule has been all kinds of fucked, and I'm a creature of routine. It's a long movie, and I didn't want to commit to it.
Anyway, I finally watched it, and yes, it's very long. Overly long, in fact. Like all David Fincher movies, I liked it, but good god, it is long. 158 minutes long. Like the actual Zodiac investigation, the film sort of peters out from a great start and goes nowhere for awhile. Then is does some stuff, which you think will go somewhere (again, like the true story), but it doesn't. Then some things kind of start to happen, but don't really, and then it's over. Finally. There's historical accuracy, and there's entertainment, and the two don't mesh when you make sure your movie is as dull as the fifteen years the case it's based on was dead.
Again: very good and entertaining for about an hour. After that, not so much. I love Fincher's movies, but I haven't seen the even longer Benjamin Button, or that new Facebook movie that I just realized this afternoon he directed (why didn't I know that? He's one of my favorite directors...). But this is not a good precedent. Zodiac is highly recommended by the Flyer's Chris Herrington, who I consider a go-to local reporter for both film and Griz news, but he must have much more patience than I if he didn't mourn the death of the nearly three hours of his life he spent waiting for Zodiac to reach its inevitable, unsatisfying end.
Oh, okay, I'll find something positive here. The acting is uniformly excellent, with a lot of "hey it's that guy" actors turning up and doing a fantastic job. Jake Gyllenhaal (I had to look him up to spell that fucking name right), Mark Ruffalo, and Brian Cox were, as usual, fantastic. Anthony "Stop calling me Goose" Edwards turned up unexpectedly, and was terrific despite the awful, awful wig they put on him. The Howard Shore score is so low-key that I didn't even notice it, but the more memorable soundtrack was perfectly selected. And they did a great job setting the film in the late sixties/early seventies. I'm getting nostalgic about the seventies in my old age (I just turned 34; holy shit I'm 34 now), and I love movies set or, even better, filmed in the seventies and early eighties. It was a weird time with weird fashions and decor. I want my future kids to know how bizarre my childhood was compared to today.
So, on a scale of Buy, Rent, or Don't bother, Zodiac gets a Rent. That's what I did.
Anyway, I finally watched it, and yes, it's very long. Overly long, in fact. Like all David Fincher movies, I liked it, but good god, it is long. 158 minutes long. Like the actual Zodiac investigation, the film sort of peters out from a great start and goes nowhere for awhile. Then is does some stuff, which you think will go somewhere (again, like the true story), but it doesn't. Then some things kind of start to happen, but don't really, and then it's over. Finally. There's historical accuracy, and there's entertainment, and the two don't mesh when you make sure your movie is as dull as the fifteen years the case it's based on was dead.
Again: very good and entertaining for about an hour. After that, not so much. I love Fincher's movies, but I haven't seen the even longer Benjamin Button, or that new Facebook movie that I just realized this afternoon he directed (why didn't I know that? He's one of my favorite directors...). But this is not a good precedent. Zodiac is highly recommended by the Flyer's Chris Herrington, who I consider a go-to local reporter for both film and Griz news, but he must have much more patience than I if he didn't mourn the death of the nearly three hours of his life he spent waiting for Zodiac to reach its inevitable, unsatisfying end.
Oh, okay, I'll find something positive here. The acting is uniformly excellent, with a lot of "hey it's that guy" actors turning up and doing a fantastic job. Jake Gyllenhaal (I had to look him up to spell that fucking name right), Mark Ruffalo, and Brian Cox were, as usual, fantastic. Anthony "Stop calling me Goose" Edwards turned up unexpectedly, and was terrific despite the awful, awful wig they put on him. The Howard Shore score is so low-key that I didn't even notice it, but the more memorable soundtrack was perfectly selected. And they did a great job setting the film in the late sixties/early seventies. I'm getting nostalgic about the seventies in my old age (I just turned 34; holy shit I'm 34 now), and I love movies set or, even better, filmed in the seventies and early eighties. It was a weird time with weird fashions and decor. I want my future kids to know how bizarre my childhood was compared to today.
So, on a scale of Buy, Rent, or Don't bother, Zodiac gets a Rent. That's what I did.
