outfit as CURSED, shot on DV and intended for a video release. Eventually, TOKYO PSYCHO won a limited theatrical outing, and the full-frame video was masked into a 1.85:1 shape. For the DVD release, Panik House opted to keep the widescreen framing of the theatrical release, but since this image was never 16:9 for- matted to start with (it was just a standard video frame with a black matte stuck on top), the DVD is similarly non-anamorphic; to have done otherwise could not have created any greater resolu- tion, since there isn’t any more image resolution to be had. A 16:9 formatting job on such a source would just have done in the studio exactly the same pro- cess your HDTV monitor will when you click “zoom.”
An engaging if low-key com- mentary track by Panik House president Matt Kennedy and his Japanese licensor Ko Mori com- pares the film to gialli by Bava and Argento (although the film is never as gaudily colorful as Kennedy seems to think it is), and explores in some detail the sor- did history of the Otaku killer and a second serial murderer whose story inspired the film. Although Kennedy and Mori have little to say about the production history of the movie, they use the op- portunity for a sharp study of Japanese culture, as revealed through the film, however inci- dentally. The movie is presented with optional English and Span- ish subtitles—and in an innova- tive and welcome move, the bilingualism does not stop there. Spanish-speaking viewers can avail themselves of a second, Spanish-language commentary recorded by
Cine-East.com’s Enrique Calvez. Additional extras include the usual trailers and still gallery, as well as footage from the film’s Japanese premiere and behind-the-scenes featurettes.
58
ZODIAC (2-DISC DIRECTOR’S CUT)
2007, Paramount DVD, DD-5.1/MA/16:9/LB/ST/CC/+, $34.99, 162m 25s, DVD-1 By Sheldon Inkol
The crimes of the notorious Zodiac Killer, who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the late Sixties and early Seventies without being apprehended, have been the basis or inspiration for several movies, starting in 1971 with both the sleazy exploitation item THE ZODIAK KILLER (sic) [VW 95:20] and Don Siegel’s vigi- lante classic DIRTY HARRY, and continuing through 2005 with the release of Alexander Bulkley’s THE ZODIAC and Ulli Lommel’s reviled ZODIAC KILLER. With this in mind, it’s under- standable why David Fincher, the acclaimed director of THE GAME and FIGHT CLUB, would not want to make just another serial killer movie; it’s perhaps even more understandable in light of the fact that Fincher’s break- through feature was the serial killer thriller SE7EN. Fincher did, however, accept the ZODIAC as- signment, which he saw as a newspaper story rather than a serial killer story, as well as a study of obsession. Fincher’s use of David Shire as the composer of his film’s original score is a tip of the hat to Alan J. Pakula’s ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976), another 1970s newspaper story that Shire scored. ZODIAC’s tagline states that “There’s more than one way to lose your life to a killer” and rarely has a tagline distilled the essence of a motion picture so well. From the Zodiac’s fatal attack on two young Vallejo residents on the Fourth of July in 1969 to the haunting closing scene that takes place 22 years later, Fincher’s ZODIAC is an engrossing jour- ney that thankfully does not
glamorize the killer or his crimes, but instead illustrates the differ- ent ways that violent crime can destroy lives, not just those of vic- tims and their survivors, but also the lives of the people who are drawn into the investigation, and those family members whose lives they touch. Rob- ert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) is one such person, an awkward single dad who works at the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE as a car- toonist. When the murderer claims credit for his crimes in a series of coded letters sent to the CHRONICLE (and other papers), Graysmith becomes obsessed with the case. The Zodiac claims that, after death, he will be re- born in Paradise, where his vic- tims will be his slaves. One of his attacks takes place by Lake Berryessa, near Napa, and is the gruesome highlight of ZODIAC, made all the more chilling by the bizarre ritualistic hood the killer wears. When the Zodiac strikes in San Francisco, enter SFPD homicide detectives Bill Arm- strong (Anthony Edwards) and his partner, Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), the real-life model for Steve McQueen’s character in BULLITT (1968). The structure of ZODIAC (with its multiple protagonists) is not typical, but it is very definitely divided into three parts. The first 26m focus on reconstructions of the killer’s crimes, as well as his first contacts with the CHRONICLE, which involve Graysmith and jaded crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.). With the introduc- tion of Toschi and Armstrong, ZODIAC subsequently becomes a police procedural for almost half of the movie’s total running time, with Avery and Graysmith carrying out a parallel but subor- dinate investigation of their own. Graysmith serves the function of everyman in this segment, watch- ing televised news reports and
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