Honestly, I had no idea what the movie was about.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
We debated this the weekend before, and Felice said there was nothing playing.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’d just finished reading "Entertainment Weekly" and I remembered they’d given "Zodiac" an A.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing gets an A.\u00c2\u00a0 So I said we should go see that.<\/p>\n
The L.A. "Times" said it was playing at 7:15 at the Galleria.\u00c2\u00a0 And if I stretched and showered we’d have JUST enough time.\u00c2\u00a0 Call me days in advance and I won’t make a commitment.\u00c2\u00a0 But if I have to run the gauntlet like O.J. in those old Hertz commercials, I’m in.<\/p>\n
I was a little worried about going to the movies on a Saturday night.\u00c2\u00a0 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!\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, it’s got to be REALLY important to leave the house, it’s like living in Sao Paolo, you can’t GET ANYWHERE!<\/p>\n
But we scooted down the hill no problem, and after the valet took our car we rode the elevator up to the theatre.<\/p>\n
Personally, I like to sit relatively close.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, not the very first row, but I don’t get those people who sit in the back.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
So we got almost dead center seats in the front row of the second section, just a few feet above the hoi polloi.\u00c2\u00a0 And as the theatre filled up to near capacity, we watched the commercials, and the trailers.<\/p>\n
Well you know the business is fucked up when the ads are better than the coming attractions.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
And then, just after the no-talking announcement, the film began.<\/p>\n
I was thankful for the no-talking announcement.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe movies are a religious experience.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to bond.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about going with a group of buddies and having a party, it’s about letting go and being taken away.\u00c2\u00a0 Saturday night, I was taken away.<\/p>\n
Now I went to this exhibition in London last fall, about "Twilight".\u00c2\u00a0 There was this one photographer, his pictures instantly created a mood.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nGo to: Gregory Crewdson<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for a look.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
More specifically, click on the lower center picture.\u00c2\u00a0 And imagine it blown up the size of a wall.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0The vibe of this photo, of all of Gregory Crewdson’s photos, taken at twilight, that was the exact feel of the opening of "Zodiac".\u00c2\u00a0 The images weren’t fast and flat, but deep and rich, I was right there, in the park with the two young lovers.\u00c2\u00a0 When they got shot.<\/p>\n
Oh boy.\u00c2\u00a0 This normally isn’t the kind of flick Felice likes.\u00c2\u00a0 She won’t go to see blood.\u00c2\u00a0 And this is the BEGINNING?\u00c2\u00a0 We’re in for a VERY long ride.<\/p>\n
Yes we were, about two and a half hours.\u00c2\u00a0 And I didn’t look at my watch once.<\/p>\n
How was I supposed to know this movie was about the Zodiac Killer?\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t live in California back then, when he terrorized the state, in the late sixties and early seventies.<\/p>\n
But I was alive in that era.\u00c2\u00a0 And David Fincher captured the vibe perfectly.\u00c2\u00a0 And depicted the California that was in my mind.<\/p>\n
The whole movie had this darkness, like Crewdson’s photos.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for the killing by the lake.\u00c2\u00a0 That attack was done in broad daylight.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s even scarier.\u00c2\u00a0 To be confronted with a living nightmare when not a cloud is in the sky, when you’re nowhere NEAR civilization.<\/p>\n
And Jake Gyllenhaal was great in that movie with Jennifer Aniston, but I prefer his sister.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, his puppy dog quality resonated.\u00c2\u00a0 How you are one step removed, witnessing history.<\/p>\n
But Robert Downey, Jr…a tour de force!\u00c2\u00a0 He may be fucked up, but this guy can ACT!<\/p>\n
And Chloe Sevigny.\u00c2\u00a0 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!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s romance.\u00c2\u00a0 Two lonely souls forming sinews in a restaurant booth.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Chloe gives the green light, and it’s fascinating to watch.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially when the danger and excitement lead her to exclaim that this is her best date ever.<\/p>\n
And the movie is LITTERED with names, recognizable faces even if you don’t go to the flicks that much.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re all secondary, to the story.<\/p>\n
The Zodiac Killer saying to place his puzzles on the front page of the newspaper or he’ll kill a bunch of schoolchildren.\u00c2\u00a0 His demand for a TV phoner with Melvin Belli.<\/p>\n
And you’re not sure what’s a blind alley, and what’s real.<\/p>\n
You think the film is climaxing, but then it falls apart.<\/p>\n
And time is going by.\u00c2\u00a0 People are aging, losing their jobs.<\/p>\n
But still, the Zodiac is at large.<\/p>\n
And the cars update.\u00c2\u00a0 And the fashions change.\u00c2\u00a0 And the soundtrack?\u00c2\u00a0 Come on, what represents angst in ’69 more than Santana’s "Soul Sacrifice".<\/p>\n
And I’m sitting in the theatre thinking you can replicate the sound at home, but not the image.\u00c2\u00a0 Film, projected dozens of feet across, in a dark room.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a religious experience.<\/p>\n
I guess I want my art different.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want it in a club, bumping into a bunch of people.\u00c2\u00a0 With me, it’s about bonding with the creation, becoming one.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the essence of a great book, a great movie, a great record.\u00c2\u00a0 When I feel if I could only meet the guy or girl who made this thing, my life would work.\u00c2\u00a0 That they’d get me.<\/p>\n
This is not the kind of art fostered in the mainstream today.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s art tends not to be personal, but bland, to be enjoyed by a large segment of the population, and then forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 Like someone’s gonna hear "Sexy Back" in their automobile twenty five years from now and smile and think of the good times?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, we don’t even want to listen to Eminem, and it hasn’t even been half a decade!<\/p>\n
The problem is one less of distribution, but experience.<\/p>\n
Mainstream concerts are not about the music, but the choreography, the explosions, as if the music wasn’t enough.<\/p>\n
And mainstream movies are about titillation, they’re roller coaster rides to take you away from your mundane life.<\/p>\n
But mundane life is the most exciting.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why I liked it so much.\u00c2\u00a0 As did Felice.<\/p>\n
If they made more like this, I’d live at the movie theatre.<\/p>\n
_______________________________________<\/p>\n
Now I have a Hi-Def monitor.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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