I saw the movie. I am a big "true crime" fan. I've read the books, seen the web pages.
Here a quick review.
1) Robert Downey is pretty funny in every scene he is in. He is in lots of scenes in the first 1/2 of the film. So there are quite a few chuckles early on. I'm not sure that's a good thing in this film.
2) The ending goes on for quite a bit. They could have made the last 40 minutes about 10 minutes long.
3) It was nice to see Ess Eff in a film again. Hey it always is. I don't know how they got the shot of the old freeway along the waterfront. Old footage? Computer added? That was cool. I am so glad it is gone.
4) Now everyone will know about Monticello, the town that was flooded to make Lake Berryessa. No, not everyone thought doing that was a good idea back then (or now).
5) Original Joe's at 144 Taylor gets some screen time. Notice the doors that say O/J on them. It is a way old school place to eat. Good food, not fancy. Great burgers. Slightly grumpy older waiters, cloth napkins. I had a date with my wife in the same booth they showed in the movie. What more could you want?
6) Ken's Wheels! Another SF Landmark.
7) The North Point movie theater!
8) I didn't think the film showed how much fear was felt by everyone in the Bay Area over Zodiac. (maybe 1 above) It was a really scary thing. School buses got police escorts to and from schools. Everybody was pretty on edge.
9) One of the radio stations in the background had part of an ad with Steven Matthew David, Top Of The Hill Daly City. Whee!
So I say it was ok. It isn't really bloody or really scary. Kids could probably see it. But it ends up focused on 1 person so much that it is annoying if you want to see the movie as an exploration of the Zodiac case. But it isn't that. Even if it was a documentary (and there are some you can watch on the topic) all documentary films and tv shows have a viewpoint. The goal of the person making the film is to show a viewpoint and try to convince you of it. No problem with that, that is just what they do.
So this film, while not holding strictly to the facts, well at least not showing all of the facts and theories, ends up trying to convince you that there is a clear guy who did it. It passes over my favorite theory about the Mt. Diablo radians and it kind of plays both sides of the is/isn't a documentary film. Don't let the facts get in the way of an ok movie. It is pretty fun to watch.
But there wasn't a clear guy who did it. That's just a fact of the case. Example? Sure. Read This.
After you see the movie and you KNOW who did it, read this.
I left feeling that (once again) people in a true story were pretty well slapped around by the media. In this case I wonder how the families of the guy accused feels? And the handwriting expert? And the movie house worker? (what a cornball scene that was) The reporters? All "real" people, who get dragged in the mud.
It will happen again when the dvd comes out. Sigh.
See the film, read the books, and if you want to know more start with this web page, read the text and follow the links.
The 70's around here was pretty crazy, Patty Hearst and Zodiac everyone knows about. Maybe more scary were the Zebra murders with blacks killing whites.
Former SFPD police chief Prentice Earl Sanders wrote a book about the Zebra murders, the Weekly did an article about him and his book. Be sure to read this follow-up letter to the editor.
I haven't read that book.
Lastly let me quote from Steve Huff's True Crime Blog.
To start working on your own ideas or just get an idea of what really happened, start with ZodiacKiller.com. The new movie and Robert Graysmith's books are worthwhile reference points, but Tom Voigt's site is where you should begin if you want to get a much more balanced view of this infamous series of unsolved murders.
No comments:
Post a Comment