‘Zodiac’ – DVD of the Week
Zodiac debuts in a 2-disc special edition.
When Zodiac was originally released in a bare-bones, single-disc edition six months ago, I suspected that a special edition would follow. After all, this is a painstakingly crafted David Fincher film, and Fincher… well, he likes DVD and he’s happy to share his work and let the audience peek behind the curtain. And why not? Fincher is appropriately obsessive in his attention to detail as he recreates seventies San Francisco and American culture, right down to his filmmaking choices, which evokes the period cinema without aping it. One of the most technically accomplished directors working today, he avoids all temptation to impress us stylistically to draw us into a complex story and a complicated investigation that spans years and reverberates through the culture even longer.
I really couldn’t pick out the new footage in the extended cut, which is only a few minutes longer. Fincher talks about some of it in his commentary, but there are no major new scenes and the structure and storytelling are essentially the same.
My MSN review is here.
Also new on DVD this week: Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, a visually spellbinding science fiction film that overcomes a creaky B-movie plot with sublime imagery; Clive Owen in the gonzo action blast Shoot ‘Em Up, an adrenaline-driven affair that refuses to take itself seriously; and Emanuele Crialese’s gorgeous Golden Door. I also want to call out Takashi Miike’s Big Bang Love, Juvenile A, an expressionist juvenile prison drama by way of Jean Genet, and a film he called his masterpiece. On TV, the first season of the Showtime/BBC co-production The Tudors and the FX comic drama The Riches, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, debut, as well as all four mysteries in the An Unstuitable Job For a Woman series, starring Helen Baxendale as P.D. James’ fledgling detective Cordelia Gray.
My complete DVD column can be found here.
Tags: Big Bang Love Juvenile A, Zodiac
