Top 250

Zodiac (2007)
Number 217 on IMDb's Top 250

A serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area taunts police with his letters and cryptic messages. We follow the investigators and reporters in this lightly fictionalized account of the true 1970's case as they search for the murderer, becoming obsessed with the case. Based on Robert Graysmith's book, the movie's focus is the lives and careers of the detectives and newspaper people as hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Screenwriter Shane Salerno optioned the Robert Graysmith book "Zodiac" when he was just nineteen years old and developed it with Graysmith for several years before selling it to Disney's Touchstone Pictures in a seven figure deal. Salerno wrote several drafts of the screenplay before multiple administration changes at Touchstone derailed the project about the mysterious San Francisco serial killer, Zodiac. Producer/Performer Anthony Begonia's parents were classmates of one of the Zodiac victims in San Francisco. The cipher mailed to the Chronicle in the movie was actually mailed to the Examiner. Scenes of Dave Toschi and Robert Graysmith watching "Dirty Harry" were filmed inside the Mann National Theatre in Westwood, CA. The garish color schemes of the movie theater were not added by the art department. The very retro interiors of the theater have remained unchanged since 1969, when the National was first built. Interestingly, "Zodiac" played at the Mann National Theatre in mid March of 2007. Thus, moviegoers watched other moviegoers occupy their seats-- on the National's trademark large screen. Dave Toschi in real life was the inspiration for Steve McQueen's performance in Bullitt. In the film, they remark how his specialized holster is like McQueen's in Bullit.

The interesting thing about this movie is that it isn't really about the Zodiac Murders, it is really about the dectectives and newsmen. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Greysmith who wrote the book the movie is based on. He did a good job stay kind of introverted and mousey throughout the movie which really fit his character. Mark Ruffalo played the lead dectective Dave Toschi and for some reason I kept thinking he was John Leguizamo, they really look a lot alike. Robert Downey Jr.'s presence was also felt. So it was pretty good. Dang it, I can never figure out how to end these posts and I always seem to come up with something lame like, "So it was pretty good."