My small review of David Fincher's Zodiac (2007) movie

Hollywood was blessed with many new talented director in 90’s. David Fincher is one of them. I enjoyed his earlier movies like Seven, Fight Club, Panic room etc. After 5 years gap he came with Zodiac, an unsolved serial killer case in US. I am not going to write lot of about this movie because it was based on couple of books (One of them is NY best seller.) & there were some movies on this subject. Fincher uncanny ability to establish the right atmosphere for tension which drives most of his movies. This movie also starts with Zodiac killings. In particular killings next to lake chills the audience. His killings, letters to News magazines, police & other organizations chilled the SF bay area people in late 60’s & 70s. Though movie starts with killings, after 20 minutes, story revolves around the four people who dedicated their rest of their life to find the killer. In particular SF chronicle cartoonist & police inspector. Rest of the story revolves around analyzing the crime scenes, leads, investigations etc. This movie runs more then 2.1/2 hours time. But you never feel the length. Director did pretty good job in estlishing the right atmosphere for the tension with best possible dark beginning & maintained the same threw out the movie. They replicated the best possible 1970s atmosphere for the movie & the background music was pretty good & in particular opening credits one & cinematography matched correctly to the mood of movie. Following are few interesting one liners in the movie which comes in the correct time. “Before killing you, I am going to throw the baby out of the car” “sorry also comes under talking” “ I need gun” “ I draw the poster” “Give me gun, I am going to kill the son of bitch” “If not me, no one is going to find him” “Tonight is going the strangest date ever in my life”. After long gap, Fincher came with very good movie. If you like his earlier Seven, then you will like this one too. It is too early to predict the 07 Oscars, but I am predicting, this movie will get good no of nominations in the best supporting actor, background score, editing, cinematography etc.

My small review of Do The Right Thing (1989) movie

For some reasons, I always stayed away from movie based on racism. (May be because I often face this in my day to day life?)But after watching Crash, I felt I missed a lot on this subject. So I brought serious of movies DVDs on this subject. “DO the Right thing” is one of them. This movie was written, produced, acted and directed by Spike Lee. This movie is all about what happened in 15 hours timeframe on a hot summer day in a multi-ethnic community, dominated by black, where a small pizza center owned and operated by a white Italian American with his two sons. Mooke (Spike lee himself) acted as pizza deliver boy. Spike spend good amount time in establishing the black the community characters & sequence of stupid events leads to a death of a community member & complete destruction of the pizza restaurant. Mooke character goes threw lot of emotions (hopelessness, helplessness, anger and Stupidty etc.) Definitely an honest attempt by Spike Lee on a slice of American Society& it is very difficult to answers many of the question raised by this movie. I remember one quote before talking about cinematography “better is blessed” This movie was blessed with the best possible cinematography by “Ernest Dickerson”. I watched “The Criterion Collection” collection DVD. Spike's commentary on different characters & his thoughts gives more insights in to movie.

Movie ends with following two quotes.
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys a community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence.
- Malcolm X

I watched this movie last year. Dumping my notes now.

My take on movie "Crash" (2004)

Tag line: You think you know who you are.

Movie start with cars crash on LA suburbs.
Immediately movie goes back to last 24 hours of
people who met this crash and lives.
Movie got very smart & intelligent script showcases not only characters,
but real representation of real people.

Shot in the background of LA
(Where you will see white, black, Asian, spanic and French etc)
live together & their personalities and racist feeling w.r.t others & on the system.

Again movie has everything.
Right & brilliant script, good casting & apt locations & good photography etc.

Very worth watching. Dont miss it.

Note: I am moving things from my old blog ( sometim in 2004). I watched this movie in the first week of movie release. I enjoyed it a lot.