Zodiac (2007)

I've had a fascination with the "Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius" for years. The fact that so many cults, serial killers, whackos, sickos, and twisted degenerates appeared in the late Sixties and the Seventies is pretty interesting. One of these loonies was the Zodiac Killer. They never tried anyone for the murders. Spooooooky.

David Fincher used to be one of my favorite directors - Alien3 is my second favorite of the series and Se7en is...well Se7en. After that well...I'm not a fan. I wasn't particularly interested in seeing Zodiac. I'm not a fan of Fincher, Jake Gyllenhall, or Robert Downey Jr. but hey it was something to watch.

It was a pretty solid movie all around but it really didn't instill a sense of purpose or meaning. The movie revolves more around Gyllenhall's character - a Boy Scout cartoonist who becomes obsessed with the Zodiac and lets his life go to shit and eventually writes the book that became the basis of the movie. There are some moments of tension in the movie but since we know nothing is going to happen to any of the characters we aren't that involved. There's not really any extended family melodrama showing what an unhealthy obesession will do to a home life. Yes, that's something we've seen before but Zodiac definitely could have used it.

The best parts of the movie are clustered in the first half of the movie when Zodiac is on the rampage. The kills are pretty grisly though most of the gore takes place off screen. Effective use is made of the sense of dread and knowing that real people were put in unimaginably horrible situations. Hey honey let's go to the lake and have a nice picnic. Oh shit, here comes a psycho with a knife.

The soundtrack is pretty much what you would expect - there's pretty solid and genuinely creepy use of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man. David Shire - composer of The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three's amazing score - did the score for Zodiac but I'm not particularly sure where.

All in all I give the movie a 6.5. You not missing much if you don't see it but you won't be too disapponted either.

Ratatouille (2007)

I love Pixar Movies, you love Pixar movies, we all love Pixar movies. Just go see the new Pixar movie.

Not much of a review I know but everything I can say about Ratatouille is good. Sure I could gripe about the standard Pixar/80s-esque storyline: oddball against all odds goes his own way, meets other oddballs, team effort against the mainstream/square/corporate bad guys, heart warming sniffly learn a life lesson even the coldest heart can melt ending, and acceptance of oddball and friends by bullies/family/nay sayers in a party/reunion setting. You know what? I like it. Hell I love it. While Ratatouille didn't have the emotional family dynamic punch that The Incredibles had it was almost better because it was about cooking and the love of food. Hell I got sniffly just because the protagonist, Remy, was so passionate about food and cooking. What The Incredibles was to superheroes, Ratatouille is to gastronomy.

Oh yeah and Peter O'Toole's villianous Anton Ego, restaurant critic, is now my favorite animated movie villian.

Plus the animated short before the movie - Lifted - completely turned around the bad mood I've been in for weeks.

Michael Giacchino's score was good, playful and French, but not something I would actively seek out unless I needed something to put on random with the Amelie score.

Day Watch

Night Watch was pretty good - an unexpected and welcome change of pace from Russia sci-fi. Day Watch is the second part in the trilogy and I was pretty unimpressed. I was pretty bored and by the end I didn't care about what was going on. Yep there's a bunch of strobe lights and Russians having a party and the witch from the first movie and...

Both the book and the movie fizzled out in the last third. Meh.

4/10

1408 (2007) dir. Mikael Hafstrom

John Cusack was John Cusack, Sam Jackson wore a nice suit, and Room 1408 was haunted.

Not much of a review but 1408 is exactly what it is - a haunted house movie with John Cusack in it. I knew what I was getting and got exactly what I was expecting. Some of the movie was spooky, a few jump scares, John Cusack says something cocky, Stephen King's "man dealing with fallout of family crisis" storyline, decent direction and cinematography, some neat spooky sound design, and a fairly forgettable score with a Carpenter's song as the "uh oh" trigger. I wasn't disappointed nor was I blown away.

1408 is a solid creepy ghost story/haunted house movie that moves a little slow at times - I think the audience we saw it with was bored most of the time. Worth seeing at a matinee if you can sneak off and hide one afternoon during the week.

Humourous sidenotes:

I accidentally wore my "Steven King Rules" Monster Squad shirt to the movie. Spoooooky! I still felt ashamed when I realized what I did. At least I wasn't the lady who wore a Serenity shirt to Slither.

The next day Amanda and I were having dinner at the diner next to our house and that Carpenters song came on! Spooooooky!

Into the Blue (2005)

Yes I rented it. Yes we watched it. You know what it was actually perfectly reasonable. In all honesty I'll buy it if I see it on sale somewhere. Why?

The movie chugs along, blah, blah, blah, beautiful beach people, beautiful beaches and then BAM! actiony goodness. The movie goes sideways in the third act and turns into a kick ass actioner. There are several brutal shark attacks, shootings, spearguns, Jessica Alba whomps the shit out a dude, another brutal shark attack, and a couple of painful impact shots.

We really weren't expecting to like this movie at all and really it wasn't very good but for a summertime popcorn movie it hit the spot. The acting is respectable, the story is a knock-off of Benchley's The Deep, the chicks are hot, the dudes are buff, Scott Caan is probably sick of hearing that he really looks like his Dad, and there are sharks and people in SCUBA gear fighting. I'm a sucker for movies with sharks and people fighting in SCUBA gear in them. Thunderball is my favorite Bond movie for this reason.

Don't scoff, get off your high horse, and just rent Into the Blue. It's good summertime fun.

Shadow of the Sword (2005)

Epic period piece set during the Inquisition. More boring and predictable than it should have been. It wasn't bad in any way, the acting was fine - heavy use of "hey that guy from that other period piece", the camera work and direction were fine, there were dirty peasants and some brief blood & nudity - not at the same time.

All in all not bad but nothing extraordinary at all.

F*CK: A Documentary (2006)

Yes, an entire documentary about the "F-Word". That's about it. I'm not trying to be flippant but there's really not too much to say about this. You're either going to see it and have a good dose of "preaching to the choir" or you're not going to see it. Ice-T and Billy Connolly are the best moments of the documentary but I'm a big fan of them anyway.

Basically there's no new or interesting information in this. If I had seen this ten years ago I would have been all "right on!". Now I don't really give a shit. Oh yeah there's some good footage of Hunter S. .