Robert Lachenay

I would dismiss a working environment like that completely if I were an actress as established and utterly esteemed as Lily Tomlin. Regardless of the consequences, if my "director" called me a "c*nt," I would stand up, throw a newspaper in his face, and leave.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. He, like Altman, is able to articulate the form of a character through very subtle nuances and he is brilliant and the overarticulated crap you long for is precisely what has ruined so many films of the past 15 years.

Look for youtube interviews of PTA and you will find all the answers you're looking for.

Not if he is immensely respected by those he works with. I can absolutely gauruntee you that Spielberg, Scorsese, Von Trier, the late Altman, PT Anderson, Lynch, The Dardennes, Bergman, the late Fellini (especially him...jeezzzz...him and von trier.."don't mess"), etc, etc did hold the position of MASTER once they had become established, which, by this time and by his ability to make a movie so utterly pretentious as "I <3 Huckabees," O. Russel must be. He's a crappy director and (after having watched this), apparently a huge d*ck.

Most people have no idea what its symbolism actually is, which is understandable, as it was derived from a somewhat, publicly unfamiliar source. They associate the event with Exodus, but that is not the frogs' representation...it was derived from Charles Hoy Fort, a writer who specialized in the study of anamalous phenomenology and its philosophical reflection on social trends. The Exodus references (ie the various hidden verses in scenes) were added later, but he concedes that it was Charles Fort whom he gained inspiration from, and if you were to read Fort, it makes much ore sense and takes the climax to a whole other level and makes it much more satisfying than associating it with Exodus. And no....personally, I do not think it takes away from the film. In fact, I think it is one of the boldest moves by a director in history of cinema (one of many, but one nonetheless), given the budget and star power, and it transcends the film to a whole other level. It made me excited...very excited for film. Anderson, IMO, is one of the 10 greatest currently working directors...he is incredibly intelligent and talented and the brilliant, subtle, nuances composed into every one of his scenes heighten even the most mundane moments.

Unlike Russel.

After watching that, it's no wonder why Russel's movies are such god-awful stink bombs. No clue who he thinks he is to call Lily Tomlin a "c*nt." She's Altman's friggen' girl...who is he?

So you're essentially suggesting he create a trailer?

Naw, sorry, man. Sorry for being so confrontational. I was just fairly disappointed in the film is all.

As I said...don't want exploitation (ie NO irreversible, that movie stunk). You didn't think the victims at the lake stabbing were strangely nonchalant? That scene almost became comediac...it was almost cartoonish watching him stab her. The lines were there to show their nervous compliance...it wasn't the script. It was fincher's poor dramatic direction in those scenes and many others that made the characters almost completely unbelievable. As for the cinematography...I did not liek the faux backgrounds being interspliced with the actors...doing that in a film does nothing more than make the scene look static and theatrical, a definite detriment to a film that relies on a gritty pseudo-realism. Your assessment for the type of film fincher was trying to go for in zodiac is correct, but he failed to give much to pull us into that obsession. The problem that arises when going into this specific genre of film (obsessive, analytical, tru crime docudrama, etc...) is that the few that have come before (JFK, A Way With Words, Crime) have done such a mind blowing job of capturing that obsession (actually making the audience obsess WITH the characters) and analyzing past events in a deeply compelling way, that to cimmit to a project only half way as fincher did in zodiac makes it very pale and forgettable in comparison. This was a long, long involved film that didn't have enough pull to keep people involved. In JFK and A Way with Words, one could be fully content with the lack of catharsis, as it was the journey that was important, not the end. ZODIAC only half-commit, and for that, the opposite became true.

I h ave that dvd too. Criterion Collection RULES!

I couldn't disagree more. I'm not calling for exploitatin, but those scenes ruined the film. It has nothing to do with the acts of killing, but moreso with the response of the victims. They treated it like it was to be taken lightly...like it was a joke. There was also a terrible lack of commitment on Fincher's part concerning what type of film he was actually trying to make....many of the comic aleviations were wholly unwelcome, and in the cases that his characters actually got serious about things, it was misplaced and irrelevant. In my opinion, from a stylistic and dramatic directorial stanpoint, it was one of the biggest misfires of the past year or so.

I thought the same thing until we began approaching the 3 hour mark. If a director expects to be truly commended for his abilities, that can never be an excuse. The killing scenes were so utterly nonchalant and desensitized, that it killed the film on impact. There was more emotionally crushing force in, "Before I kill you, I'm going to throw your baby out of the window," than there was in watching two young, high-school aged kids get brutally shot to death. The shooting of the taxi driver was executed with a horribly misplaced desensitized technique so that, after it happened, we were left feeling absolutely nothing--he wasn't a human, merely the taxi driver character who got his brains blown out and a "cool" sequence of frame increase. The film NEEDED us to feel those scenes DEEPLY, as Robert Graysmith's main drive was derived from his insistence that "These deaths DID matter, these people WERE real and will be missed." With the way it was presented, it would be quite easy for a person to disagree or to says, as many of the characters said, "They DON'T matter. They're just some of many deaths in the SF area each month." To be engrossed in the theories...the investigation...hell, to even be mildly creeped out, Fincher needed to show that there was weight behind the actions of this malicious and elusive killer...that for him to be on the street wasn't simply a period of cultural "WOW," but also a period of great suspense, paranoia and danger. To me, the film was just sort of "bleh..." It unfolded...things happened...and that was that. The characters were all one dimensional stencils of characters we've seen countless times in similar situations (regardless of whether this story is a true story, once it is committed to celluloid or word, "it all becomes fiction"), and fincher didnt have the pulsing ecstasy of say, Stone, or the quiet, intimate focus of Xiao to take these cut-outs to the next level. Fincher presented it as lifelessly and coldly as stainless steel or iced jasmine rice...it was there and I watched it for 2 3/4 hours and that was that.

You're not agreeing with me. I did not say that without the music, it would be nothing. I said that without that single scene in which the Frost character played fur elise with too much agression, trying hard to surpress it, but ultimately failing and flicking off the structure of the piece, the film would have been nothing. That scene defines the entire film: every collective, desperate emotion and motivation of the fairly mute characters. It was an incredible film but it would have been nothing and meant nothing without that scene. We've seen this before on many occasions...in Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse for example, the scene of quiet, observant artistry where we recognize the unspoken and unspeakable bond between the two main characters (that of the artist and that of the model...a shared ownership; the antithesis of bondage: collaboration), made the piece transcendent. People are far too worried about the actions, the words...but few are patient enough to absorb a piece, to sit feet from the screen and interact with it, to bask in the words not spoken, the actions and sounds that have not manifested, but crawl around just beneath the surface. Elephant was a great film, but owes its greatness to that scene and that scene alone. ZODIAC was not good because Fincher, as a director, hit the wrong notes too many times to count. The characters exhibited nonchalance when it was FULLY INAPPROPRIATE TO DO SO (one of many, many examples would be the binding and stabbing of the couple at the lake...he fishes for a sort of uneasiness...a desperate attempt by the characters to not focus on the situation, but almost turns it into parody when the boyfriend corrects his girlfriend on what he majored in. The act itself is commited with a swiftnees that doesn't allow the audience to comprehend the true horror of a murder...and so it goes that we simply continue with the story in desensitized, mild fasciniation. One should know that there is something deeply wrong when he watches the accounts of the murders of real people by one of the most terrifying and viscious serial killers in american history, and feels only remotely affected by them, if affected at all.), and a coarse seriousness when nonchalance was desperately needed (this was usually only exhibited by the vile Robert Downey Jr character, who exploited the deaths of the victims for his own petty gain). Because we were never allowed to fully identify with any of the characters, or feel much for the victims (which is where Fincher's style, or consciously attempted detatchment from his style played to the film's detriment), it began to drag and drag and drag. The points that should have absorbed us into caring about the quest to find this elusive killer were underplayed until, finally, there was nothing for the audience to care about, aside from a catharsis (i.e. who did this??) that could never be delivered. I tried desperately to enjoy it, as when I was younger, I saw a CourtTV account of the zodiac and was absolutely mortified for a few weeks afterward....it just never panned out. There was so much to work with, but fincher underutilized every aspect of it. If he wanted tofocus on the cultural phenomenon as the backdrop to the lives of others (as we saw spike lee do in summer of sam), he should have done that.....but he committed to no specific type of film and, in this case, it failed miserably. The only thing I will remember about this movie a month from now is creaking floor boards in a basement (the ONE eerie scene). The killings were about as moving and sensitive to human life as the killings in Octopussy...the characters about as engaging as those in God's and Generals. THis was not a terrible film or even a bad film...just totally forgettable. Sorry for any poor grammer, typos, misusage, etc... THis is the answer to your question though. This is how I personally felt.

He did not fool me and it wasn't a very good film.