WEIRDLAND: "Zodiac": searching for a killer, banalization of terror, #5 Best Movies Naughties list

Saturday, December 12, 2009

"Zodiac": searching for a killer, banalization of terror, #5 Best Movies Naughties list

Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) shows a defeated smile in "Zodiac" (2007).

5. Zodiac (2007): David Fincher’s film about the search for the Zodiac killer takes its time, which is maybe why it has never received its due from those who didn’t see it in a single sitting at the theater. As the killer is never caught and the decades drag on, the film ultimately becomes largely about the tedium of obsession, something which is lost watching this on cable or in increments on DVD. You’ll never listen to Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” again.
John Carroll Lynch is incredibly creepy as the most likely Zodiac suspect, the “banality of evil” personified". Source: thehollywoodinterview.blogspot.com

"Zodiac might have looked like a movie that keeps putting its emphases in the wrong place, instead of communicating as strongly and counter-intuitively as it does that this really is a movie about bottomless bureaucracy (which isn't the same as soullessness, because the production design keeps humanizing the space and individualizing the work stations) and about the dispersal and banalization of terror, as the papers and the flowcharts and the manila files and the guesswork pile up to Sisyphean proportions. The evocation of period comes easily to Burt, or at least he makes it seem so, and if he's refreshingly uninterested in turning the 70s into a joke, he's not without a sense of humor—or have you forgotten those electric-blue cocktails? Extra points for taking such care with more marginal locations like Elias Koteas' police station and the plant where the cops interview John Carroll Lynch and the house where Jake Gyllenhaal almost nabs a suspect (or is, himself, almost nabbed by a suspect)". Source: www.nicksflickpicks.com

John Carroll Lynch also played Mr. Livingston, the affable father of Jimmy (Jake Gyllenhaal) in "Bubble Boy" (2001).

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

Jake G is so hottttt... Hes amazing in Brothers i just saw that movie and everyone should go see it! Its actually way better and different from the trailer.

Elena said...

I have a hunch that Jake will nail his role in "Brothers", because he managed in "Jarhead" to show a dark side, not that in "Brothers" he's that badass, but he's a seducer of his brother's wife. So it will another test I think he'll pass successful.

In "Zodiac" Jake was really incredible, I cannot forget his final scene confronting Arthur Leigh Allen in the store.