comment #1

romeoisbleeding says ...

So have you seen the Directors Cut of Zodiac? can you describe the extra 7 minutes???? thanx

comment #2

Caustic712 says ...

So... the one that's being released in January is 162 minutes, which was only supposed to be five minutes longer than the theatrical. Is this screener 162, 164, or... ?

comment #3

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Romeo is Bleeding: I have to run it again tonight and take notes. I can't do it until sometime tomorrow. Figure midday or thereabouts.

comment #4

actionman says ...

Can't wait to see this director's cut...loved the theatrical cut. Once was very good as well. Gotta pick up that Days of Heaven Criterion.

comment #5

Geoff says ...

I've ordered my Days of Heaven. Can't wait.

comment #6

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

God's busy giving Al Gore awards.

comment #7

romeoisbleeding says ...

Thanks to Wells. I will check back in tomorrow of course.

comment #8

mutinyco says ...

Days of Heaven disk is exquisite.

comment #9

Wrecktum says ...

Why the need for a directors cut? What would compell the studio to force Fincher to release a different theatrical version? Is it a ratings issue? Certainly it's not a running time issue. Maybe Fincher couldn't finish his cut before WB's theatrical deadline?

Or perhaps it's just a cheap DVD stunt like most directors cuts/"unrated versions" are.

comment #10

Mr. Gittes says ...

Zodiac was well directed. Well acted. Well shot. Well edited and all those things. But when it comes right down to it, the entire Zodiac story doesn't warrant a two and a half hour movie. It reads much better in a book or in the original script by Vanderbilt. After the credits rolled, what were we supposed to get out of it? Obsession, investigative reporting akin to Woodward and Berstein, 70's culture of San Francisco? So what? Yes, the movie is better then most and David Fincher still shows us why he's one of the best in biz. Unfortunately, the problem started with the source material and by the end, I was left with "Okay...so why did Fincher make this?" Seven and Fight Club stay with you long after you see them, Zodiac did not. When is Button coming out?

comment #11

Kristopher Tapley says ...

I started watching it last night. Two hours into it, there was no change. I assume the added seven minutes are in the final act?

Anyway, glad Paramount is on it and both sending these screeners early, while buying maajor add placement in the trades.

comment #12

Zimmergirl says ...

I think it's more of a publicity stunt to help launch their zealous Oscar campaign. They are now coming on strong because they are seeing that is a relatively weak year for Best Pic contenders, especially Big Hollywood ones. But Jesus, please leave God out of it. One would hope He had better things to do than work miracles to get Zodiac a best pic nomination.

One thing you people don't seem to realize is that the Academy are not fan boys. They range in ages, economic class and sex. It has to be a movie that broadly appeals and if Zodiac broadly appealed it would have made more at the box office than only half of its budget.

3:10 has finally surpassed its budget, Jesse James has made NO money and was fairly expensive,Once has made 9 million so far and cost practically nothing so there is your big success story so far. No Country will make money, American Gangster for sure and Charlie Wilson's, if it is good, will break the bank. But Zodiac has an uphill climb with its very poor box office, imo. It shows me that it never had that "must see" thing about it but rather the "must avoid it" thing about it. But we'll see. I hear the miracle worker Cynthia Schwarz is on this so don't count it out yet. You hear that God? Drop all of the important stuff you're doing and get right on that.

comment #13

gruver1 says ...

Uhhn...maybe you're right. A Paramount guy just told me thought it was 165 minutes, or 7 minutes longer....but maybe it's 163 or 164.

comment #14

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

"After the credits rolled, what were we supposed to get out of it? "

Texture.

comment #15

malibugigolo says ...

ATTN H'Elsewhere readers:

Should we all chip in and buy Wells a new bookcase, maybe a table, too?

All his DVDs and scripts it seems are always on the floor.

comment #16

WJ says ...

Maybe Jeff is just proud of his expensive carpet.

Zodiac is my favorite movie from this year. Judging from this year's weak slate, No Country for Old Men may be the only film to unseat it.

Best of luck to Fincher. I can't see the Academy giving it a Best Pic nomination, but Director and tech noms might be possible. This is the kind of obsessive, dense film that is more widely recognized decades later (a la Vertigo).

comment #17

Rob says ...

No one else has said this about Zodiac, so I will: It scared the living bejesus out of me.

comment #18

malibugigolo says ...

Zodiac did nothing for me. Its so ambivalent towards humanity, who cares? I have better things to do that watch some guy and his obsessions. And Gyllenhaal's line readings gave me a headache along with sucking any tension right out of the movie. He voice sounds like that doll, Teddy Ruckspin.

comment #19

jeffmcm says ...

Fincher agrees with you.

comment #20

Wrecktum says ...

"No one else has said this about Zodiac, so I will: It scared the living bejesus out of me."

Little girl.

comment #21

jeffmcm says ...

Wrecktum, you used to be cool. What happened?

comment #22

BurmaShave says ...

Agreed Rob. I saw it on a Sunday afternoon and left it throughly shaken and disturbed. Scarier by far than all the torture porn thrown at us this year. "Before I kill you I'm going to throw your baby out the window." Chills.

comment #23

Craig Kennedy says ...

Not so fast Zimmergirl. God just bought me some chili cheese fries from Wienerschnitzel, surely a little Oscar campaigning isn't beyond His grasp.

comment #24

Wrecktum says ...

"Wrecktum, you used to be cool. What happened?"

I still am. Sometimes you write what you feel and sometimes you feel like crap.

comment #25

bagelfilm says ...

Free screeners or paid by you?

comment #26

christian says ...

The major xtra minutes in ZODIAC come primarily from the two minute music montage over black and a scene with anthony edwards giving evidence to the DA. I find the movie overlong, beautifully anal but yes, lacking humanity. And the cg is phony.

comment #27

BurmaShave says ...

Uh huh. That sounds like an opinion you walked into the theater having because of previous Fincher films.

comment #28

sig says ...

No doubt zodiac was an excellent movie. but having watched a korean murder mystery flick "Memories of Murder" by Joonho Bong in 2003,, it just didn't hit me as hard. its kinda very similar too; based on true/serial murder cases, a modern history setting, ***spolier*** and not being able to catch the murderer although the movie reveals to us a very convincing suspect.

comment #29

Arizona Joe says ...

I agree with Malibugigolo. Gyllenhaal does sound like Teddy Ruxpin, and his obtuseness made the plot go at a a glacial speed, realistic but too slow for drama. I don't recall it was de rigueur for 1960s heroes to wear greasy jackets and flannel shirts. The washed out cinematography was a celebration of a world before Lowe's and Home Depot, or so it seems. Couldn't we have seen more colorful views of No Cal from the 60s? Was it all work, worry and obsession? Everything was so bleak and blah in that film, in between the harrowing murders. Speaking of elocution, I don't think there is superior entertainment value in Mush Mouth Mark Ruffalo. Unless you're Brando, an impeded dialect is not a sign of soulfulness.

comment #30

Joe M. says ...

Great film. I just hope the director's cut fixes that silly "Naked Gun"-esque error near the end, the one that occurs at the start of arguably the most powerful scene in the movie: when our hero is staring at the alleged killer in the hardware store. Severely undercutting the emotional power of that scene is the fact that the calendar behind the guy's head doesn't match the date that appears on the bottom of the screen. It was really distracting.

comment #31

Alan Cerny says ...

If ZODIAC can't satisfy the inner film enthusiast in some people, those people are hopeless.

comment #32

rocco says ...

You're no different than other believers or worshippers, Wells, except your gods have names like John Lennon, Marlon Brando, and Bob Dylan.

comment #33

alan says ...

"You're no different than other believers or worshippers, Wells, except your gods have names like John Lennon, Marlon Brando, and Bob Dylan."

There is a difference. His are real.

comment #34

Stephe96 says ...

Joe M,

I agree totally. In fact, I thought that gaffe was SO glaring that maybe an out-of-date calendar was an actual detail that Graysmith noticed while he was in the store. Can anyone verify if something similar occurs in the book? I just can't believe that someone as detail-obsessed as Fincher wouldn't catch such an obvious mistake.

comment #35

George Prager says ...

I liked it.

comment #36

Hallick says ...

"No doubt zodiac was an excellent movie. but having watched a korean murder mystery flick 'Memories of Murder' by Joon Ho Bong in 2003, it just didn't hit me as hard."

There's a stabbing in "Zodiac" that hit me harder than anything in "Memories of Murder", but the South Korean movie lingered for me more than Fincher's. I really think the optimal version of "Zodiac" would've been a mini-series since, as it is, it's really good but also really patchy, as if it were a mini-series to begin with that just got trimmed to fit into a motion picture running length. Too many of the characters drop in and out of the proceedings arbitrarily and seem to turn some big corners OFF screen because the ball got handed off to somebody else for 20 minutes. And the ending just seemed to stall out with a character thrown in out of nowhere that should've gotten more than a couple of lines a half hour earlier. "Zodiac" is still one of the better movies of the year, but I think it missed out on being one of the best of all time.

There was a mini-series back in the 1980's called "Chiefs" that resembled what I'm imagining "Zodiac" could've been for this decade.

comment #37

rocco says ...

Alan, you realize you responded to the object of my sentence and not the subject, right? But I'll indulge you...

...whether real or imaginery, all icons are merely elusive images...while some search for meaning through sprituality, there are others like Wells who try to find it through art (and celebrity). I don't think either side is in any position to be feigning superiority.

comment #38

MilkMan says ...

I would love to explain to Mr. Gittes and all the other Zodiac non-believers why the movie matters, that it was not an exercise in futility, but all I would be doing is parroting what Steven Shaviro said about the movie, which can be read if you hop on over to The Pinocchio Theory and read all about it. His take on the movie is the best I've read so far and will help anyone on the fence about the movie discover the key to watching it in the right frame of reference. I get the feeling that a lot of people went to see Zodiac and were expecting to see something else.

comment #39

KeithNYC says ...

I generally loved the film as well. However, when I did some research afterwards I found out a couple of things that were glaringly left out by Fincher to fit his conclusion that Allen was the killer:

A)The man who claimed that Allen confessed everything to him actually had a huge motive to lie. He thought Allen had sexually molested his children. I believe Fincher left this part out.

B)The very creepy sequence where the police enter Allen's trailer and find the squirrels (some dead and some alive) is designed to make us think Allen is a complete nut case. When in fact, he had a grant from a local school to do experiments on them. (not that the sticky dildo was not disturbing)

There were some others and many have questioned the accuracy of Graysmith's book. The closing text also quickly reveals that DNA tests from the envelope's from the letters did not match Allen's DNA.

I still think the circumstantial evidence was substantial against Allen but I do feel Fincher was a little dishonest. I thought that maybe this stuff would be in a very extended directors cut. I guess not.

Any thoughts on this by any experts of this case?

comment #40

BurmaShave says ...

Yeah because doing experiments on squirrels is so completely uncreepy when there's a grant involved.

comment #41

KeithNYC says ...

"Yeah because doing experiments on squirrels is so completely uncreepy when there's a grant involved"

Heh. Yeah, its still very creepy. However, the scene makes you think he is having sex with them or something. I just thought it was a little bit of a "cheat" by Fincher. That is all. Its still a great film but things like the two examples I posted above make we wonder how fast and loose Fincher was playing with the facts to support his interpretation. After all, he is indicting a man (although only after he is dead and consequently no defamation claim) for mulitple murders. I still believe it was Allen although I really dont know much about that DNA test thay may have exonerated Allen. It just may have not been the slam dunk Fincher made it out to be.

comment #42

ZayTonday says ...

Damn Criterion, they need to start releasing Blu-ray discs... I want to pick up Days of Heaven bad, but don't feel right paying for is in standard def.

comment #43

George Prager says ...

Actually I'm going to wait until it's released as a virtual reality hologram, so I can feel like I'm keeping Brooke Adams warm at night.

comment #44

christian says ...

I guess I won't be able to really appreciate any movie until I read six or seven film experts carefully point out to me why I should appreciate said greatness. Whoda thunk?

comment #45

BurmaShave says ...

christian, you have a whole website devoted to your bizzare taste in film. ZODIAC just wasn't kitschy enough for you, that's fine I respect that, but stop cockblocking the rest of us and our meager hopes for it.

comment #46

christian says ...

Thanks for that inaccurate summation simply because I don't love your choices. It's called an opinion and this site is full of 'em. But I'll remember that next time you chime in with one iof your own that differs from the groupthink. Smoke a bowl and lighten up.

comment #47

BurmaShave says ...

Relax.

comment #48

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

If you read enough about Graysmith and his case against Allen it's pretty easy to come away thinking that Allen, abhorrent though he was, had nothing to do with the killings and we still have no idea who the Zodiac really was. I don't mind that in the context of the movie because the movie's about obsession with finding an answer and it works to have the answer in plain sight yet unattainable. But I suspect the truth about the Zodiac is like what someome said many years ago about Jack the Ripper: "On Judgement Day, when all sins are revealed, we shall hear the true name of Jack the Ripper-- and say 'Who?'"

comment #49

Kristopher Tapley says ...

Alright, the "Director's Cut" seemed to be the same damn cut to me. I can't tell what is new. Seriously.

Weird.

comment #50

KeithNYC says ...

"If you read enough about Graysmith and his case against Allen it's pretty easy to come away thinking that Allen, abhorrent though he was, had nothing to do with the killings and we still have no idea who the Zodiac really was."

Interesting and thanks for the response. Dont have the time to really research the case but those points I mentioned earlier (and some others) make me think that Fincher fudged things a bit and it is not a cut and dry case. Still, that interrogation scene alone of Allen (which I have read is very accurate) still has me convinced he did it.