Zodiac

Movies to See Right Now

by
THE RIDER

ICYMI here’s my remembrance of movie poster artist Bill Gold. And here’s my running list of Best Movies of 2018 – So Far. You can already stream some of them.

OUT NOW

    • The MUST SEE is The Rider. A young man’s rodeo injury threatens to keep him from his passions. Filmed in South Dakota with non-professional actors, The Rider is emotionally powerful and genuine – and not a bit corny.
    • Tully, the insightful and compelling dark comedy from the brilliant and brave team of Diablo Cody, Jason Reitman and Charlize Theron.
    • A Quiet Place is as satisfyingly scary as any movie I’ve seen in a good long time. Very little gore and splatter, but plenty of thrills. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, but I enjoyed and admired this one.
    • Godard, Mon Amour is, at the same time, a tribute to the genius of Jean-Luc Godard’s early cinema and a satire on the insufferable tedium of the political dilettantism that squandered the rest of Godard’s filmmaking career. This is a very inventive film, written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist). The more Godard films that you’ve seen, the more you will enjoy the wit of Godard, Mon Amour.

ON VIDEO
The recent capture of the Golden State Killer reminded me of Zodiac, from the master of the serial killer genre, David Fincher. video pick Zodiac can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

 

ON TV

On May 28, Turner Classic Movies brings us two particularly authentic war and post-war classics.  I always recommend watching The Best Years of Our Lives around Memorial Day.  It’s an exceptionally well-crafted, contemporary snapshot of post WW II American society adapting to the challenges of peacetime. Justifiably won seven Oscars. Still a great and moving film.

In Men in War (1957), an infantry lieutenant (Robert Ryan) must lead his platoon out of a desperate situation.  He encounters a cynical and insubordinate sergeant (Aldo Ray) loyally driving a jeep with his PTSD-addled colonel (Robert Keith).  In conflict with each other, they must navigate through enemy units to safety. Director Anthony Mann is known for exploring the psychology of edgy characters, and that’s the case with Men in War.

Robert Keith and Aldo Ray in MEN IN WAR

Stream of the Week: ZODIAC

by
Robert Downey, Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal in ZODIAC

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, we in Northern California suffered more than our share of serial killers, to the point that I couldn’t even remember the Golden State Killer, recently snagged by a much ballyhooed foray into ancestry DNA. But the list topper has to be the Zodiac Killer, a random thrill killer who used the news media to taunt the police and terrify the Bay Area.

Officially, this case has never been solved.  But there’s a pretty convincing theory about the killer’s identity advanced in David Fincher’s 2007 Zodiac.

Fincher spins his story through the separate obsessions of three Zodiac-hunters.  There’s the dogged homicide detective (Mark Ruffalo) and the renegade newspaper reporter (Robert Downey, Jr.).  Then there’s the oddball, a newspaper cartoonist (Jake Gyllenhaal);  unlike the other two, it’s not his job to track down the killer.  He’s a puzzle hobbyist who takes on the killer’s cryptogram and then plunges down the rabbit holes of matching handwriting and the availability of various suspects.

Ruffalo, Gyllenhaal and Downey are all superb.  And John Carroll Lynch takes the creep-o-meter off the scale as the prime suspect.

The supporting cast is brilliant and unusually deep, including Chloe Sevigne, Elias Koteas, Clea DuVall, Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall, James Le Gros and an unrecognizable Candy Clark.  Brian Cox nails the bluster and wit of that prototypical celebrity attorney, Melvin Belli.

John Carroll Lynch in ZODIAC

Fincher, of course, is the master of the serial killer movie.  Before Zodiac, he made what is probably still the most thrilling serial killer movie, Se7en.   He followed Zodiac with the top-notch  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl.  In Zodiac, Fincher builds the tension, occasionally giving the audience relief with some laughs, especially when Gyllenhaal’s amateur sleuth finds himself in a situation that he thinks is much more dangerous than it really is.

The film is also a dead-on time capsule of the 70s in the San Francisco Bay Area, from the opening shot, a drive through a Vallejo neighborhood on the 4th of July.  The fashions and the music of the period are perfect, especially the Donovan and Santana songs.  This was before law enforcement had DNA to work with – and, in the case of two of the investigating police departments, even a newfangled fax machine.  As the 70s approach the 80s, we even see an early Pong video game.  One thing that I did not personally remember from the era, but have verified really did exist, is the Aqua Velva cocktail.

This is a wonderfully entertaining movie.  Zodiac can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Best Recent Crime Dramas

by
Gomorrah

We’re living in a good time for crime drama.  When I think of this genre, I generally think of The Godfather, Goodfellas, and the film noir of the 40s and 50s.  But there are some excellent contemporary ones.  This year, we have had A Prophet, The Secret in Their Eyes,  Ajami, Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom.  (Interestingly, two of those films are French, and the others are Australian, Argentine and Israeli.)

Here are some more outstanding crime dramas from the past seven years:  The Lookout, A History of Violence, Layer Cake, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,  Tell No One,  Gomorrah,  Sin Nombre,  In Bruges, Zodiac,  Maria Full of Grace and Eastern Promises.  All of them have inventive, fresh takes on the crime genre.  All of them are on my list of best films for its year.

For descriptions and trailers, see Best Recent Crime Dramas.

Layer Cake

Hollywood's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

by

 

Hollywood's Mikael Blomkvist

 

There’s some good news about the upcoming Hollywood versions of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy.  First, David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) will direct, and Fincher’s track record suggests that he is the perfect guy to pull this off.

Second, Hollywood is planning to make all three films (instead of just the first or compressing them into one movie).

Third, Entertainment Weekly reports that Daniel Craig will play Mikael Blomkvist.  If you’ve seen the gritty British crime drama Layer Cake, you know that Craig can play the smart and understated Blomkvist.

Still, the success of the project depends on who will play Lisbeth Salander – and we still don’t know.  My first choice is the Danish actress Noomi Rapace who has originated the role, and she speaks English well; but on the extra features of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo DVD, Rapace says that, after living with Lisbeth for 18 months of prep and filming, she is done with the character. Carey Mulligan has been quoted that it won’t be her, either. So we watch and wait.