Honestly, I had no idea what the movie was about.

So we’re sitting in Felice’s living room, at about 6:15, and I tell her we have to get out of the house, that we should go to see a movie.

We debated this the weekend before, and Felice said there was nothing playing.  But I’d just finished reading "Entertainment Weekly" and I remembered they’d given "Zodiac" an A.  Nothing gets an A.  So I said we should go see that.

The L.A. "Times" said it was playing at 7:15 at the Galleria.  And if I stretched and showered we’d have JUST enough time.  Call me days in advance and I won’t make a commitment.  But if I have to run the gauntlet like O.J. in those old Hertz commercials, I’m in.

I was a little worried about going to the movies on a Saturday night.  Live long enough in L.A., and you don’t only refuse to go out on Friday or Saturday nights, you won’t even drive in RUSH HOUR!  Hell, it’s got to be REALLY important to leave the house, it’s like living in Sao Paolo, you can’t GET ANYWHERE!

But we scooted down the hill no problem, and after the valet took our car we rode the elevator up to the theatre.

Personally, I like to sit relatively close.  Oh, not the very first row, but I don’t get those people who sit in the back.  You want to be IN the movie, you want to feel like you’re PARTICIPATING, you don’t want ANYTHING else in your field of vision.

So we got almost dead center seats in the front row of the second section, just a few feet above the hoi polloi.  And as the theatre filled up to near capacity, we watched the commercials, and the trailers.

Well you know the business is fucked up when the ads are better than the coming attractions.  Seemingly every trailer was cut the same, fast transitions appealing to the MTV generation and enough plot points included that there was no need to see the flick.

And then, just after the no-talking announcement, the film began.

I was thankful for the no-talking announcement.  I believe movies are a religious experience.  I want to bond.  It’s not about going with a group of buddies and having a party, it’s about letting go and being taken away.  Saturday night, I was taken away.

Now I went to this exhibition in London last fall, about "Twilight".  There was this one photographer, his pictures instantly created a mood. 

Go to: Gregory Crewdson for a look. 

More specifically, click on the lower center picture.  And imagine it blown up the size of a wall.  The mother coming out of the station wagon to confront her ne’er-do-well daughter, with the younger sister still in the front seat, taking it all in. The vibe of this photo, of all of Gregory Crewdson’s photos, taken at twilight, that was the exact feel of the opening of "Zodiac".  The images weren’t fast and flat, but deep and rich, I was right there, in the park with the two young lovers.  When they got shot.

Oh boy.  This normally isn’t the kind of flick Felice likes.  She won’t go to see blood.  And this is the BEGINNING?  We’re in for a VERY long ride.

Yes we were, about two and a half hours.  And I didn’t look at my watch once.

How was I supposed to know this movie was about the Zodiac Killer?  I didn’t live in California back then, when he terrorized the state, in the late sixties and early seventies.

But I was alive in that era.  And David Fincher captured the vibe perfectly.  And depicted the California that was in my mind.

The whole movie had this darkness, like Crewdson’s photos.  Except for the killing by the lake.  That attack was done in broad daylight.  That’s even scarier.  To be confronted with a living nightmare when not a cloud is in the sky, when you’re nowhere NEAR civilization.

And Jake Gyllenhaal was great in that movie with Jennifer Aniston, but I prefer his sister.  Still, his puppy dog quality resonated.  How you are one step removed, witnessing history.

But Robert Downey, Jr…a tour de force!  He may be fucked up, but this guy can ACT!

And Chloe Sevigny.  You might think she’s nothing but a clothes horse, but her wide-eyed want to connect four eyed girl at the initial date with Jake…WHEW!  That’s romance.  Two lonely souls forming sinews in a restaurant booth.  Sure, the models in the news may want nothing to do with you, but there are so many reasonable women out there who want to be open and honest, who want the adventure of a relationship.  Chloe gives the green light, and it’s fascinating to watch.  Especially when the danger and excitement lead her to exclaim that this is her best date ever.

And the movie is LITTERED with names, recognizable faces even if you don’t go to the flicks that much.  But they’re all secondary, to the story.

The Zodiac Killer saying to place his puzzles on the front page of the newspaper or he’ll kill a bunch of schoolchildren.  His demand for a TV phoner with Melvin Belli.

And you’re not sure what’s a blind alley, and what’s real.

You think the film is climaxing, but then it falls apart.

And time is going by.  People are aging, losing their jobs.

But still, the Zodiac is at large.

And the cars update.  And the fashions change.  And the soundtrack?  Come on, what represents angst in ’69 more than Santana’s "Soul Sacrifice".

And I’m sitting in the theatre thinking you can replicate the sound at home, but not the image.  Film, projected dozens of feet across, in a dark room.  There’s a religious experience.

I guess I want my art different.  I don’t want it in a club, bumping into a bunch of people.  With me, it’s about bonding with the creation, becoming one.  That’s the essence of a great book, a great movie, a great record.  When I feel if I could only meet the guy or girl who made this thing, my life would work.  That they’d get me.

This is not the kind of art fostered in the mainstream today.  Today’s art tends not to be personal, but bland, to be enjoyed by a large segment of the population, and then forgotten.  Like someone’s gonna hear "Sexy Back" in their automobile twenty five years from now and smile and think of the good times?  Shit, we don’t even want to listen to Eminem, and it hasn’t even been half a decade!

The problem is one less of distribution, but experience.

Mainstream concerts are not about the music, but the choreography, the explosions, as if the music wasn’t enough.

And mainstream movies are about titillation, they’re roller coaster rides to take you away from your mundane life.

But mundane life is the most exciting.  The thoughts that flow through your brain while driving, the analysis of issues that you just can’t get right. "Zodiac" has got all the excitement and disappointment and denouement of real life.  And that’s why I liked it so much.  As did Felice.

If they made more like this, I’d live at the movie theatre.

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Now I have a Hi-Def monitor.  I blew the "Zodiac" trailer up to its 23" width and the vibe, it wasn’t quite as enrapturing as the one in the theatre, but it was on the continuum.

Go to: Zodiac Trailer

Watch the trailer in as much definition as your computer will afford.  I would have cut it differently, but you’ll get a hint of the feeling…

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Notes:

Yes, that is Ione Skye, Donovan’s daughter (although he doesn’t acknowledge her.)

Speaking of Donovan, when you hear "Hurdy Gurdy Man" you’ll be brought right back.  Funny how certain acts, like Zeppelin, Floyd and the Doors, are picked up by younger generations, and others aren’t.  W.C. Fields was a hero to me and my high school buddies, does any teenager today know who he is?

I didn’t know that was Candy Clark until I saw her name in the IMDB.  She was great in "American Graffiti".  Funny how some people make it, and others don’t.  I projected a longer career for P.J. Soles after her turn in my favorite stupid movie, "Stripes", and I expected more of Joey Lauren Adams after her stellar performance in "Chasing Amy".

Speaking of stellar performances…  Did you see Mark Ruffalo in "You Can Count On Me"?  One of my favorite movies ever.  There are similarities to that role here, but he’s more brooding, harder to decipher in "You Can Count On Me".  Want to know who I am, what I like?  Rent "You Can Count On Me", that’ll give you an idea.

I can’t see Donal Logue without thinking of "The Tao Of Steve".

Yes, that is Adam Goldberg with the beard at the "Chronicle".  He was great in "Relativity".  Are Zwick and Herskovitz done on the box?  They made the best TV.

Big egos, none are larger than lawyers’.  Brian Cox gets it right as Melvin Belli.

They nail the bleakness of Riverside and the pulse of San Francisco.  SF might be viewed as second-rate compared to NYC and L.A., but this movie makes it SO appealing, you want to pick up and move there.

David Fincher has finally graduated from music videos.

Read the Wikipedia about the Zodiac Killer AFTER you see the movie.