Zodiac
I was sort of totally 100% kind of half psyched up kinda for this movie. The preview looks sort of whatevery but I like the Finchy. Seven, The Game. Both real good. Fight Club. One of my all time faves. (cough) Panic Room (i just noticed Panic Room was the first movie review I ever done wrote. man, I've gotten like all wordy and stuff since then, huh?) Yah. Panic Room. Not so great. So I was definitely psyched up for a better movie. And not really knowing any real details about the real Zodiac guy made it feel like it was gonna be all juicy viewing and stuff.
I picked up twizz, twix, and a water for the flick and got a good seat close and center with no one around. I took my coat off and put up the hood up of my sweatshirt. (I've been watching movies recently with my hood up. I sort of puff out the sides and I think it makes the acoustics better. And it's sort of like wearing blinders and I can frame the screen--- But now that I think about it-- maybe I'm just the creepy guy in the theater with his sweatshirt hood up. No wonder no one was sitting next in my row. Especially in a serial killer movie.) But whatever.
This movie starts up with old school 70's logos for Warner and Paramount which was a nice touch. Crackly film and stuff. And we immediately dive into the 70's on July 4th. Weird vibe. Big cars. Off clothes. Roman candles. Sideburns and all that stuff. The whole mood was the stylings of the super 70's which I dug. And for the getgo through the first hour of this flick I was jacked into this movie totally. Twas like movie crack. Everything was clicking good for me. Story. Actors. Mood. And the murders. Ahh... the bloody blunt murders. So good. So horrible. Especially the stabby one. So very rude! And a gaggle of half-famous side characters got batted around without it tipping the scales. So it was all good.
But then around the hour and twenty mark I wasn't so happy anymore. I found myself appreciating the 'mystery' of this Zodiac guy but I wasn't riveted anymore. I quickly drifted sideways into being half-assed interested. Like putting together a jigsaw puzzle while half-drunk on wine. And as the movie plowed through the dogpiles of evidence and tangents and characters and hints and clues and fights and dopey cops and false leads and creepy moments and this and that-- it turned kind of messy-- I was like, 'Man! I wish someone would shoot or stab or choke or run over someone and liven this place up!' Alas, the actual exciting murderer/murdering just slowly faded into the distant past...
Three Good Things About this Movie
- I liked the lingering aftertaste afterwards.
- The murders were all 70's horribled.
- The bald guy (husband from Fargo) did a great job as a creepazoid.
Three Bad Things About this Movie
- It made me sort of miss press crazed serial killers in real life. (shh... i
didn't mean that, serial killer wannabees!!)
- The cops banging their heads together like coconuts just got tiring. (I mean
c'mon... the wristwatch wasn't enough?)
- Talking talky talky McTalk talk chatty talk talk talky talk talk. Wait what?
Talk talk talk talk... OH! Talk talk talky talk...
Yadda whatever. In the end, I appreciated the obsession and the passion that drove these guys- (and Finchy) but unfortunately it was a pretty one sided affair. I really wanted to be a part of the investigation. All involved and stuff. I wanted to feel the frustration at a dead end or get psyched up when some clue broke. Unfortunately, I wasn't invited to actively participate at all. I just sat there staring at it go by-- like a tired traffic cop just dying to work in homicide...