Skip to main content

Zodiac

I was updating the library's official webpages on the county library site earlier this evening, and there were some issues that were really frustrating. I decided to post a review to cheer myself up. Only this review isn't about a comedy, it's about a drama with subject matter that is only a little disturbing.

FYI: if you go to our page on the county site, and there are issues with font size, etc. please bear with me... I will prevail and make that site bend to my will! Insert evil cackle here. Yes, the frustration with the website has finally sent me over the edge.

Zodiac stars the very talented and always cute, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey, Jr. The DVD is available upon request from Annville Free Library. I am always most annoyed when a DVD comes without any special features... and this is one of those DVD's because apparently they are saving them all for the director's cut. And do you know what else? I am also always annoyed when a DVD does not have any previews; I feel ripped off when there aren't any coming attractions. Oh, well.

This movie is based on a true story; in fact, I believe it is the film adaptation of the book of the same title by Gyllenhaal's character, Robert Graysmith. It tells the story of the serial murders committed by a killer who called himself "Zodiac." The action takes place in northern California in the 1970's. When the police investigation stalls and the case goes cold, Graysmith decides to pick up his own investigation which is portrayed in the movie. Eventually his research solves the mystery of the identity of the Zodiac killer but not before his investigation becomes an obsession that takes over his life and destroys his marriage. While this is a very long movie, it is also a very good movie, very fast paced--the movie skips ahead in time by days, weeks, months, sometimes years to advance its narrative. This device can be confusing and hard to keep track of for someone who is not mathmatically minded. While it is a dramatic movie about disturbing events, it also has its lighter moments. For example, one day Graysmith enlists his young children's help in tracking missing persons' dates of disappearance and tells his children not to tell mommy about this because this is "their secret project." Slightly inappropriate, but still amusing nonetheless.

Gyllenhaal's performance is one of the most interesting in the movie as we witness his editorial cartoonist turned investigative reporter/author descend into obsession and go to great lengths and great risks to solve the mystery.

I enjoyed this movie, and if you like mysteries and true crime stories, you will also enjoy this one.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How To Be A Heroine: Or What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis

I feel as if I could write a book subtitled "What I've Learned From Reading Too Much" except all my lessons would be culled from Greek mythology, the Babysitters' Club, the lives of British queens, crime mysteries, suspense thrillers and celebrity and entertainment gossip.  I first ran across How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis in an ad in BookPage.  The title sounded intriguing and once I looked it up on Amazon, I was in for reading it.  It reminds me of the literacy autobiography writing assignment that I had in one of my English composition classes in college--except this is the literacy autobiography on steroids. The premise of this book is that the author revisits the seminal texts that she read in her youth by examining the lessons and impressions of the novels that she had upon her first readings when she was younger.  Ellis has then re-read the novels as an adult specifically for the writing of her own book to see if the novels hold up to her original i

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read.  Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one.   Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment.  The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story.  It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve.  Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week.  This  particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and the reader in

The Whisperers by John Connolly

If there was one thing Jimmy didn't care for, it was competition, ... There were some exceptions to that rule: he was rumored to have a sweet deal with the Mexicans, but he wasn't about to try to reason with the Dominicans, or the Columbians, or the bikers, or even the Mohawks. If they wanted to avail themselves of his services, as they sometimes did, that was fine, but if Jimmy Jewel started questioning their right to move product he and Earle would end up tied to chairs in the [bar] with pieces of themselves scattered by their feet, assuming their feet weren't among the scattered pieces, while the bar burned down around their ears, assuming they still had ears. from page 86 The Whisperers is John Connolly's newest Charlie Parker installment in which some beloved characters reappear and in which previous characters from another Parker installment reappear to shed further light on the big baddie that may or may not be coming for Parker in the future. This newest inst