Zodiac DVD Review

[Mitch G]

I'm a big David Fincher fan. Movies like Seven, Fight Club and Panic Room are some of my favorite flims. In Zodiac, Fincher once again demonstrates his greate story telling abilities.

Usually the term, "period piece" is reserved for movies taking place in before the early 1900s. But, Fincher has created a great late 1960s/early 1970s period piece with Zodiac. His eye for detail really paid off in putting you in that time. Little details like "do not touch the volume" sign on a TV in a newsroom makes you wonder how many photographs of newsrooms from that era he studied before setting up the shot. Additionally, I always enjoy Fincher's direction. From his approach to introducing Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club to his synthesized tracking shot in Panic Room, Fincher puts some signature shots in Zodiac as well. For example, I really enjoyed the overhead tracking shot of the cab.

The cast of the movie includes the Jake Gyllenhaal who plays the movie's central character, Robert Graysmith, but other notable names are in the movie as well. Robert Downey Jr. plays reporter Paul Avery and Anthony Edwards of ER fame plays one of the detectives. But, one of the things I liked about the movie was how it was chock full of various character actors who you've seen before but don't necessarily know their names.

The storyline generally revolves around a San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist, Robert Graysmith. Graysmith becomes obsessed with finding the Zodiac killer who haunted northern California in the 60s/70s and eventually writes the book upon which the movie is basd. Graysmith's obsession is portrayed against the backdrop of his relationships with his co-workers, his children and his wife. But, the story is broader than just Graysmith's. The movie takes a chronological approach to story telling and introduces you to the various newspaper writers and police detectives who were involved with the case throughout its long history.

Some audience members/critics found the story telling to be boring, but I think alot of that was to blame on the trailers for the movie. The trailers made it seem like Graysmith is a great puzzle solver who gets caught up in the case and is put through various thrilling moments. The movie is a bit more cerebral than that. Not to say that there aren't some suspenseful and tense scenes, but it's not as intense as Silence of the Lambs, for example. Nonetheless, if you like detective stories and real life murder stories to boot, I think you'll like Zodiac.

[Richard W. Haines]

It held my interest for the long running time even though I knew up front it was an unsolved case
which took away some of the suspense. At least they give you a good suspect by the end of the
film. I haven't seen it on DVD yet so I can't evaluate the quality. It looked pretty murky and soft
on film because it wasn't shot in 35mm but on digital tape. You always lose a lot of quality when
you adapt digital to film rather than the other way around. Perhaps it will look better converting directly from the digital master rather than the intermediate film stock used for the release prints.



That aside, I was disappointed they didn't do more with the color. Since this story took place
over a long period of time, I thought they should've made the sixties' sections resemble a sixties movie
with vibrant color and the later time periods more subdued since the look of movies changed dramatically after the sixties. Primary hues were out and and desaturated colors
was in. It would've been innovative to try different 'looks' in this story
to suggest the passage of time. Similar to what Scorsese did in "The Aviator" where he color coordinated the scenes that took place in the twenties' to look two strip Technicolor and the thirties' sequences to have the full spectrum like three strip Technicolor. It's a shame that so few directors these days utilize color dramatically as they had in the past (i.e. Hitchcock, Lean, Leone, Powell etc.). Of course shooting on digital tape limits your lighting options as opposed to current 35mm T-Grain negative stock which has a four point leeway in exposure. You can really 'paint with light' on film these days but not on tape. All tape formats are archivally unstable so when they deteriorate, they'll be stuck with the inferior film elements on this movie in the future. It's always best to have an original
35mm camera negative for your master which can be transferred to any new format that may be invented without losing any quality.

[Mitch G]

The PQ on the DVD (SD-DVD) was OK. It was a bit murky as well which I attributed to some attempt at giving it that 70s look. And, a couple of outside scenes showed some jaggies (edge enhancement?). It'll be interesting to see what the HD-DVD looks like given that they used digital tape.


Mitch

[Richard W. Haines]

Yes, it will be interesting to see the results. Ten years from now the producers are going to be kicking themselves for not shooting it on film. They'll be some ultra-fine grain/high pixel count new format and this film won't pass the muster because the original digital master will be deteriorated or in an obsolete format and the out-putted 35mm negative will be murky and soft. I didn't object to the long running
time because the story held my interest but it was an eyestrain to watch fuzzy images all afternoon in the megaplex.