Zodiac

Zodiac was nothing like what I was expecting and I'm still trying to figure out if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I was reluctant at first to see the film because I'm not a fan of horror films, I get too scared and can't sleep at night and since this was based on true events and was all about murder I had my reservations. Surprisingly, the film wasn't that scary. In fact it wasn't about the murders per se but rather about the detective work and puzzle solving surrounding the murders. The murders themselves were pretty gruesome but compared to what other films have portrayed it's pretty mild. The film reminded me of All the President's Men because it was slow, drawn out and focused on the detective work. I did watch the director's cut so the theatrical version might be shorter and not give that same effect but still there isn't much action in the film. The film does a good job in showing the frustration of bureaucratic red tape and the problems involved when coordinating with other police jurisdictions. Everything seemed to be pointed to one person, Leigh Allen, but yet they couldn't convict him because they only had circumstantial evidence. You felt the frustration from the characters as well as the fear as they were targeted.

Another great cast for a film. Robert Downy Jr. has become a favorite of mine in recent years and he was no disappointment here except for the fact that he exited the film early on. However, his rapid deterioration in the film as Paul Avery was hard to watch in terms of feeling sorry for him but it was good. You get to see how the Zodiac wears him down. Two scenes stood out for me with Robert Downing Jr. which were both comedic moments. The first is when he gets a drink with Robert Graysmith played by Jake Gyllenhall. It's such a random scene but yet fits in with the building of their relationship. Robert Downy Jr. plays is so well. The second scene is when he gets the halloween card in the mail from the Zodiac with a piece of the cabbies' shirt. It's creepy because now he is being targeted but yet funny at the same time because how he reacts.
Jake Gyllenhaal was also good in this film although his character was a bit understated. I felt like they could have done a better job at fleshing out his character at the beginning. I guess my main problem with his character is that I was expecting an amazing puzzle solver in the vein of Nicholas Cage in National Treasure or Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones. More of the adventure puzzle solver which I didn't get in Zodiac. Although this was annoying, I applaud the fact that David Fincher didn't go all Hollywood on us and make Robert Graysmith a master puzzle solver.

The structure of these two characters paralleled each other and you knew that once Avery left that Graysmith would take up the mantel and you felt even worse for him because he gave up his family to track down the Zodiac without any real luck. We knew he had already been divorced once and knew it was going to happen again as his obsession with Zodiac grew. The sad thing was having his kids help him. It was frustrating to see a man go so deep into his obsession that he puts himself into dangerous positions.
Mark Ruffalo was the other main actor who was great to see. His voice made the role for him. Both him and Anthony Edwards made a great pair. They had great chemistry and I enjoyed the animal crackers gag that ran the film. Once again, like all the characters in this film you felt sorry for Ruffalo. Not able to catch the Zodiac and then being accused of writing a Zodiac letter. His whole life tumbles in around him but unlike Graysmith, he takes himself out of the situation. Admits defeat. He does help Graysmith in round about ways as he's researching for his book and gets caught up in the case when more evidence is pointing towards Leigh Allen. But, he knows when to stop and somehow you're almost thankful for that.
The film is so circular and the characters just get caught up in this cycle unable to break it by either getting out or by solving the case. As an audience, you feel frustrated. Part of the genius of the film is making the enjoyment come from the detection of how each of the characters sifts through the evidence and comes to their conclusions rather then find out who the Zodiac is. The audience in a way, is an extension of the character's in the narrative and through them we feel frustrated that we can't charge the main suspect which all the evidence points to or know for sure without any doubt that Leigh Allen is the killer because he dies. I think because of this lack of closure for the characters and the audience, the audience is forced to find enjoyment through the detective work. Much like All the President's Men and "Deep Throat" although now Deep Throat his been revealed whereas there will never be a way to concretely say that Leigh Allen is the Zodiac.

The tone of this film is very much on one level. There isn't much color in the film after the lovely green and yellow top Robert Downy Jr, is sporting at the first editorial meeting and the mood of the film fits. However, there are little spurts of comedy. The comedy in this film was well placed but yet you feel as if you shouldn't be laughing. When the Zodiac kills the two people by the lake the male victim says the things that you wish you could say if you were going to be killed. You come to the realization that this guy is going to kill you and you can do nothing about it so you become heavily sarcastic and really just a smart ass. It was a strange scene because you have this balance of comedy and horror but it works.
The one thing that really stood out for me throughout the entire film was the passage of time. Obviously this case spanned a few decades. We begin the movie in 1968 and end in 1991 with an epilogue text in the 2000s. There was the usual time titles for various events but when there was a significant jump in time the film did some unique things like the process of a building being built and the radio noise overlaying a black screen. It is so unusual to be presented with a black screen that it was a good effect. At first you don't quite know what's going on but then the black screen just endures and you put things together realizing that time is passing and you renter the narrative several years down the line.
The film made you think which is always a good sign of a well though out and crafted film. It wasn't overtly scary, I did have some moments last night when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep because I was thinking about the Zodiac killer, but it had just the right about of suspense.

The Illusionist

When it came out, The Illusionist was overshadowed by Christopher Nolan's The Prestige because both were about magicians but the two movies couldn't be further from each other in terms of content. The Illusionist is a romance with a great twist. The story starts with the arrest of Eisenheim (Edward Norton) and goes back in time to tell the story up and through the beginning scene. I loved the story as it played with my expectations. You knew that Eisenheim would be reunited with his lost love but the story seemed to prevent the happy union when Sophia (Jessical Biel) died, only to finally unveil the fact that Sophia and Eisenheim had faked her death in order to be together.
The cast was phenomenal because they all really became their roles and it was hard to see them as themselves. The all took on slight Austrian accents that masked their true voice just enough that you wouldn't be able to recognize them from their voice. Rufus Sewell perhaps looked too much like Jude Law in this film that I often got distracted. He does play a good bad guy though, Rufus Sewell that is. I'm not a huge fan of Jessica Biel but I didn't recognize her in this film which made it fun to watch not that she had a major part anyways. The girl who played the younger version of herself was amazing in the fact that you could see her growing up into Biel, not so much for the young guy they had playing Norton's character. Which brings me to Edward Norton who was amazing. It might be one of my favorite roles of his, although there hasn't been one which I didn't like. I wouldn't think that Norton would be cast as the leading man, he doesn't have that look but for this film it really works. He didn't do much with his body in terms of conveying emotion but it was all done with his facial expression and especially his eyes. When he's bringing Sophia "back from the dead" the emotion in his eyes is just gut wrenching. And to top it off his line of why he did it, "just to be with her." Oh, how my heart flutters, helped along by the fact that you don't think Sophia has survived. Paul Giamatti had the role of a lifetime. It was his best role I've seen and so far removed from what he has done previously. He takes very well to the Austrian-Hungary look and looks completely different. I think he has the most dramatic transformation in look and voice. He still has his eyes which are great to watch and tell you so much but they work with his character instead of standing out apart from his character.
The film was perhaps a bit slow but I enjoyed it and it seemed very European, probably another reason why The Prestige won out. There wasn't much action to the story which could make it seem dry to others but there was plenty of emotion through the characters, well mainly Norton for gut wrenching and Sewell for anger. The most memorable scene for me was when Norton kisses Biel for the first time after they met. This is the first scene with a lot of raw emotion that picks the film up. You can feel Norton's passion through the screen.

Every part of the film works together to brings us this masterpiece. What I took particular note of was the cinematography and the mise-en-scene. The film is shot is almost a quirky way using a lot of irises at the beginning but it works I think because of the tone of the film and the fact that it is set in the past allowing for that time of editing to work. The first half of the film uses the irises and keeps the iris faded at the edge of the screen to make it easier to see it in use of editing. The iris is not abruptly used which is another reason why it works well and doesn't disrupt contentnioity. Eisenheim begin the film with a grandeous set, very over the top with an announcer and butterflies. But by the end of the film the irises have left and Eisenheim is left with a chair on the stage and nothing else. The most beautiful shot in the entire film is when the camera is behind the curtains as they open to see a chair on the stage as Eisenheim walks in. The shot is breathtaking. The film becomes very minimalist but in a subtle way that don't necessarily realize until the very end when the more fantasy element though the use of the irises returns as Giamatti and the audience realizes that they got away.
When we return to where we entered the story everything starts to fall into place but you never think from watching the film up till this point that it would proceed in this manner. The illusion now is that Eisenheim has made himself the illusion. Made himself and Sophia disappear. When it comes to fruition that Eisenheim is not really there, what a great twist, and everything builds on that. In the hunt to find Eisenheim, the chief inspector stumbles upon the clues to lead him to the crowned prince and arrest him for murder. The sad thing about the story which you don't really think about until later is that in order to have their happy ending, the crowned prince kills himself even though he was right all along. Eisenheim did manipulate the inspector and left him clues to lead him to the wrong man. From the beginning the crowned prince was set out as a bad man so the film justifies it in that way.
The one problem I had with the film was the very ending where we find out what really happened, how Sophia's death was faked but I'm not sure there were enough clues or the clues were too subtle to pick up on that this ending seems plausible. The same problems exist for heist films. You want the audience to be surprised but still follow along after having been tricked. Although I though when Sophia had first died that maybe they had just faked her death but my hopes were dashed as I saw no way for that to happen. Esienheim/Norton gave no hint about what had happened. The scene where he finds her body in the lake was another great emotional scene but seemed like real pain making it seem as if she had really died. Plus he was so adamant that the crowned prince had killed her.
This problem area can be overlooked by the love story which is sweet, minus the necessary suicide, by uniting two lovers from different sides of the tracks.

Psych

I had heard about Psych when it first came out because of Dule Hill. I had loved him as Charlie in The West Wing and was excited to see him in something else, however I never really got around to watching it. My sister started watching a few episodes on Netflix and when I finally sat down to watch one I knew I had to start from the beginning and I've made it all the way through.
The show itself is pretty formulaic but I do love a good detective show with a twist. The twist for this show is that Shawn Spencer is not really a psychic but only pretends to be because he keeps calling in too many tips which turn out to be right and he falls under suspicion. For the head detective, Lassiter that suspicion never really goes away and for the most part Shawn is able to keep up the charade with the help of his trusty sidekick Gus and the various names Shawn introduces him as. The story is good enough to sustain itself although doing too many marathons takes some of the magic away.
The cast is perfect together, a great ensemble. Shawn and Gus have great chemistry together and are believable. In a strange way, Lassiter somehow grows on you and you find yourself really liking him. I can't explain it but you get use to him as a character and feel sorry for him when his love get put behind bars or Shawn finds a way to make him look like a fool. Juliet is a great companion to Lassiter and finally she and Shawn got together after years of banter. I enjoyed the relationship between Shawn and Rachel Lee Cook but not as much as the relationship between him and Jules. It's the kind of relationship that builds and builds until you think maybe they'll never get together but then they finally do. The only problem is that after all the building it becomes rather anti-climatic and nothing too big comes of it. They have their problems. The weekend away episode was a fun example but there isn't as much tension as there used to be now. It's a fact which I can overlook since they are together. Shawn's father is always good for a laugh and its even better when he gets back at Shawn. Their relationship has been fun to watch grow. At first it was a little awkward trying to figure out they could keep his part going but since they brought him into the force as the consultant liaison it brought a whole new dimension to the show which really worked. It brings Shawn down a bit to act more childish as in the time when Lassiter is telling Shawn that he can't be on a case because he wasn't hired and Shawn whines at his dad who says your hired. Really the show had some great comedy and the writing is a major part of that, the other being the actors.

Overall, the show is a comedy with, for the most part, stand alone episodes but at times it does try to spread its wings and do some dramatic episodes, most notably, the Yin and Yang serial killers. It gave James Roday greater acting potential which he lived up to with no problem but it didn't fit the fun atmosphere of the how. Shawn was really loosing his cool which we had not seen before when both his girlfriend and Jules were taken along with his mother and the death of the profiler. It showed great growth in the characters and the show but nothing that was continued in later episodes which made it seem misplaced.
So far one of my favorite episodes has to be where Shawn, Gus, Lassiter, Henry and Woody all wake up having no idea what they had done the night before. It allows you to see Lassiter in a different light and there is a lot of comedy to the episode.
The last season finale has me worried though as Henry has been shot and may be near death. I mean it is a great cliff hanger episode, something the show hasn't been particularly good at but at the same time I can't see how the show could progress without Henry. It was hard to see him decide to quit the force for a second time as he worked so well on the team but there are other ways to involve him if he survives the shooting. The promising thing is that Shawn realizes right away that the guy Henry is going to see isn't on the side of good. We'll know more once the season comes back.