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XXXIV: David Fincher, Zodiac (2007)
Lengthy recreation of the unsolved Californian serial case, covering a period of some twenty years or so. A killer sends a cypher to the SF Chronicle and other papers, and crime correspondent Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) and cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllengaal) obsessively track the case, risking health, sanity and marriages, whilst two cops David Toshi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Downey Jr is all manic energy as always, and apparently the least authentic performance - but also the most convincing (although I got flashes of Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men. Gyllengaal is a bit of a cipher despite playing the character whose book the film is based on - it's not clear to me why he is obsessed, why he is so weird and where he comes from. Chloe Sevigny as his girlfriend/wife had the sort of thankless role that Gwyneth Paltrow had in Se7en - Fincher doesn't write well-rounded women on the whole (unless Panic Room proves me wrong).
Never less than gripping, although necessarily episodic and bitty, this is a very competantly put together thriller of the old school.
XXXV: Fred Schepisi, Last Orders (2001)
Ensemble style adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker Prize winner - dying Jack Dodd (Michael Caine) leaves orders that his ashes be scattered off Margate Pier, and so life long friends tipster Ray (Bob Hoskins), funeral director Vic (Tom Courtney), ex-boxer Lenny (David Hemmings) and adopted son Vince (Ray Winstone) head off to the seaside from Bermondsey whilst his unfaithful wife Amy (Helen Mirren) visits their fifty-something autistic daughter. Each of them have their secrets and counsels they are keeping - some people know what is going on but choose to say nothing. The story unfolds in flashback and present day (late 1980s despite a millennium cycle route marker in Rochester), demanding much of the audience. With the exception of Winstone, these are all actors who were big in the 1960s and 1970s - and Hemmings in particular has gone to seed (with bizarre eyebrows). We are aware of their younger selves even as younger actors play these parts.
Occasionally local knowledge nearly ruins it - the timing doesn't work (it'd be darker for a start by the time they got to Margate) and the geography a bit awkward (Butchery Row is moved to right outside Canterbury Cathedral and replaces Sun Street, and they seem to head for the Bell & Crown for a drink rather than the nearer Buttermarket - which was probably a Firkin at that point)
But these are finely judged performace by British character actors at the top of their game, much of it confined within a car (shot on green screen when maybe old-fashioned back projection might have been more appropriately period). Lenny seems the surplus character - although he pushes some events to crisis point, he doesn't provide part of the secret of the hidden narrative. I can't remember if he had more to do in the novel - but it feels pretty faithful
Totals: 35 [Cinema: 12; DVD: 22; TV: 1]
Housekeeping for end of month: projected 105 total, down from 112 suggested last month. But I lost much time to editing.
Lengthy recreation of the unsolved Californian serial case, covering a period of some twenty years or so. A killer sends a cypher to the SF Chronicle and other papers, and crime correspondent Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) and cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllengaal) obsessively track the case, risking health, sanity and marriages, whilst two cops David Toshi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Downey Jr is all manic energy as always, and apparently the least authentic performance - but also the most convincing (although I got flashes of Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men. Gyllengaal is a bit of a cipher despite playing the character whose book the film is based on - it's not clear to me why he is obsessed, why he is so weird and where he comes from. Chloe Sevigny as his girlfriend/wife had the sort of thankless role that Gwyneth Paltrow had in Se7en - Fincher doesn't write well-rounded women on the whole (unless Panic Room proves me wrong).
Never less than gripping, although necessarily episodic and bitty, this is a very competantly put together thriller of the old school.
XXXV: Fred Schepisi, Last Orders (2001)
Ensemble style adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker Prize winner - dying Jack Dodd (Michael Caine) leaves orders that his ashes be scattered off Margate Pier, and so life long friends tipster Ray (Bob Hoskins), funeral director Vic (Tom Courtney), ex-boxer Lenny (David Hemmings) and adopted son Vince (Ray Winstone) head off to the seaside from Bermondsey whilst his unfaithful wife Amy (Helen Mirren) visits their fifty-something autistic daughter. Each of them have their secrets and counsels they are keeping - some people know what is going on but choose to say nothing. The story unfolds in flashback and present day (late 1980s despite a millennium cycle route marker in Rochester), demanding much of the audience. With the exception of Winstone, these are all actors who were big in the 1960s and 1970s - and Hemmings in particular has gone to seed (with bizarre eyebrows). We are aware of their younger selves even as younger actors play these parts.
Occasionally local knowledge nearly ruins it - the timing doesn't work (it'd be darker for a start by the time they got to Margate) and the geography a bit awkward (Butchery Row is moved to right outside Canterbury Cathedral and replaces Sun Street, and they seem to head for the Bell & Crown for a drink rather than the nearer Buttermarket - which was probably a Firkin at that point)
But these are finely judged performace by British character actors at the top of their game, much of it confined within a car (shot on green screen when maybe old-fashioned back projection might have been more appropriately period). Lenny seems the surplus character - although he pushes some events to crisis point, he doesn't provide part of the secret of the hidden narrative. I can't remember if he had more to do in the novel - but it feels pretty faithful
Totals: 35 [Cinema: 12; DVD: 22; TV: 1]
Housekeeping for end of month: projected 105 total, down from 112 suggested last month. But I lost much time to editing.
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