zodiac

***SPOILERS*** the following is an entry regarding movies david fincher has made and the upcoming zodiac film. it involves spoilers about fincher's seven, the background to the zodiac film. DO NOT READ if you haven't seen seven, or don't know about the zodiac killings. you can just scroll to the bottom and watch the zodiac trailer which is spoiler free.

david fincher is finally back with another movie, and it's about time too. he's directed a few movies, the best of which are seven and fightclub. he is one of the few directors to successfully move from directing music videos to movies. what makes him successful is that unlike many music video directors, who are all style but lack substance, fincher not only has a style of his own, one that has been copied repeatedly by others since seven debuted, but he's got a real depth to him. that depth comes in understanding story structure and knowing what works and what doesn't in a script.

it's now known that before seven was made, he got a copy of the "head in the box" script and thought it was great. but when he agreed to do it, he was told he was given the wrong script and there were numerous rewrites, the last of which was your typical cop/thriller genre. what made seven so great was the last half an hour of the movie. the first 2/3rds is your typical cop/thriller genre, which is just overdone, overplayed, and flat out boring. but the movie's genius lies in the last third, where the killer actually gives himself up, and you're left wondering what is going to happen next? then it had the ultimate ending, which was completely shocking and appropriate, which is why the film stands out as a masterpiece and people remember it as "the head in the box movie."

fincher knew that, and he fought for the ending. what occurred was a compromise, with the studio insisting on a voiceover add-on to the end of the movie, instead of the ultimate shock ending he had planned, which involved the movie ending with brad pitt's character shooting the killer, then fading to black. as it stands, this movie rates right up there with the ending to the very unsettling dutch abduction film, spoorloos (which was subsequently made into a shitty american remake called the vanishing) and the 1980's music video-excess cop film, to live and die in l.a. (both of those movies have endings so amazing and appropriate, that it would be wrong of me to reveal them even in a spoiler page - and that's the key to a good ending. it has to be appropriate to the rest of the story. otherwise, a shock ending just for the sake of having one is definitely not cool).

so fincher knows how to make great films (seven, fightclub). he also knows how to make okay films (the game) and crappy ones as well (panic room). this brings us to zodiac. the latest movie by fincher, which is, funny enough, another serial killer movie. but knowing fincher, this movie won't be your generic serial killer film. it already has a great premise, because it is about the zodiac killer.

in the late 1960's and 70's, a killer roamed the san francisco bay area, taunting police with letters and cryptic messages. his victims seemed random, and the "cryptograms" he sent were always mysterious. so much so that three out of the four cryptic messages have yet to be solved. what makes this really interesting, is that the san francisco police department officially closed the case in april 2004 even though the killer's identity remained unknown.

the following is the trailer to fincher's zodiac. i don't know how i feel about the movie just from seeing the trailer, but my first impression is that it's definitely going to be interesting. too bad it's not out until 2007.