So we should explain then, obviously we've got the Patreon running now.
Patreon's up.
So the bits that the Patreon gets are the bits that no one's ever heard, which is...
Do you want to explain what our safe word is?
Pineapple.
And when we say pineapple, what does that generally mean?
It means, snip this out please buddy.
We're about to talk.
This is a peek behind the curtain, snip this out.
I'm nervous.
If you're on Patreon listening to this right now, welcome.
You can hear all the pineapple.
Enjoy the pineapple, man.
Pull up a seat, grab some fruit.
Know what I mean?
Shall we start the show?
Yes!
Hello everyone and welcome to the Every Media, the podcast.
My name is Ben Groves.
My name is Rob Macfarlane.
Welcome to the show, a movie podcast slash mental health check-in for two broken-brained
best friends talking around their problems, but not about their problems whilst, you
know, laughing at movies.
So Ben, before we get to what we're doing, I've got to ask a more important question.
How are you doing?
I'm doing really fucking good, man.
Oh yeah, yeah you are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm doing really good.
I couldn't talk about it until now, but I have a new job.
You do?
So that's happening.
I'm not ill anymore?
No.
My illness is gone?
No, Morrissey is wrong.
You are not still ill.
Oh, shut up.
It's all, it's actually all coming up gravy to be honest with you.
There's not really much I can grumble at.
How are you?
Good.
Happy for you.
Excellent.
Thanks, babe.
I'm still ill.
So Morrissey's right.
I can Morrissey.
That's, but let me be clear.
Let me be clear.
I mean, let me be clear.
Let me be clear.
That's the only thing Morrissey is right about is that I am still ill.
There's no other views of his that I agree with.
So, good safe.
Good safe.
I don't have a new job and I'm very poor.
Very poor.
Same mate.
I think everyone is at the minute.
Right.
So yeah, I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I'm getting on.
We're getting on.
What are we doing?
What are we doing this week, Ben?
This week, buddy, in our quest to cover every David Fincher movie ever.
Yep.
We are hot on the case to find out who is the Zodiac, baby.
Well, no, we're not a true to crime show.
We're like, we're more than mental health awareness show than true wine, true wine.
We're a true wine podcast.
Yeah.
Smashed it with an H for you and without the H for me.
Yeah.
Just sat here with a tank.
That's fine.
We got lots to get into this week.
We're going to get into why this is Fincher's most personal film.
No, he's not the Zodiac.
Be a.
What's these three protagonists say about self worth and how it's defined?
What's Fincher's best directorial technique and why this film might be the perfect example
of it?
The gorgeous example.
And Fincher is not an obsessive, but he knows about it and how this film may have actually
solved who the Zodiac killer is for people in real life.
Okay.
Yeah.
But to reiterate that, this is us covering David Fincher.
This is not a true crime show.
We're not going to get that heavy into the details of the case because it's a two hour
45 minute film about that.
And the film is what we're talking about.
Not the case.
Yes.
Right?
No.
But before we do that, mate.
What's Fincher been doing?
Where that Fincher at, bro?
Right.
Where that man been?
Well, I'll tell you.
Where that man been?
Since Panic Room, our boy, Davey F.
Aye.
Has been on a god danged spree, mate.
Like a proper binge of starting projects.
Okay.
And then cancelling them.
Okay.
So who?
Post Panic Room, there was an adaptation of Anthony Bourdain's memoir, Kitchen Confidential.
Okay.
Which was the first kind of warts and all story of what it's like to work in a professional
kitchen.
It's very good book.
Okay.
That eventually got made into a mini series called Kitchen Confidential, starring Bradley
Cooper.
Oh, that's cool.
There was a film called Chemical Pink.
There was an adaptation of Hard Boiled, Frank Miller's three issue comic book series.
It would have had Nicholas Cage in the lead role.
Mate, that would have been amazing.
He was one of the directors approach for confessions of a dangerous mind for the Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe, which would have been an insane version of that story.
I want Fincher's version of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Right.
It's just Panic Room, but the young kid goes into a fantasy like, yeah.
Pan's labyrinth meets a child in a wardrobe.
It's the coma.
It's the coma that Kristen Stewart has.
Yeah.
I'm with the Lions.
I want that so bad.
He was looking to make a really violent version of Mission Impossible 3.
I turned into Sean Connery there.
But yeah, Tom Cruise was like, no, no.
God damn.
Come on, Cruise.
And the list goes on and on and on.
There was a huge amount.
He was away.
He was out of, this is a big gap.
This is the biggest gap I think he's had in his career.
I can list Lord's Dogtown, Deadwood Pilot, The Lookout, The Time Traveller's Wife, The
Dirt, The Black Dahlia, Torso.
But you've got an approach to the Time Traveller's Wife.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Imagine seeing a David Fincher film going, God, he'd really do well for my affecting
slob story.
Right.
I've written this book called The Time Traveller's Wife.
We're going to action it into a movie.
What I need from you, Rob, is I need you to suggest a film that you've seen recently
that really screams Time Traveller's Wife to me.
Fight Club.
Oh yeah, sound.
Sign me up.
Let's get the director on board.
Let's go.
Yeah.
That's exactly the aesthetic I want for The Time Traveller's Wife.
But then he eventually, he lands on this and there's reasons that I'm going to tell
you and you, dear listener, as to why he picks this script.
Amazing.
Set the scene for us, Ben.
It's 2007.
Oh, is it?
Apple CEO Steve Jobs pulls a tiny glass rectangle called the iPhone out on stage and changes
the lives of millions of Chinese children.
Keeping up with the Kardashians.
Debutes on network television.
Changing the lives of millions of men trying to enjoy an evening with their girlfriend.
The British Army pull out of Ireland, ending the longest running British Army operation
of all time, having ruined the lives of millions for hundreds of years.
Yeah, we should do an episode on Win That Shakes The Barley one day.
Just really dig into that generational film.
Yeah, sure.
Dead certain that two English guys have loads to say about that film.
Great.
That'll be a really welcome opinion.
David Fincher is given $65 million to make Zodiac.
Okay.
It's not the worst thing I've seen attached to the phrase $65 million.
Thanks, Adam Driver.
Right.
I watched that again recently.
How did you make time travel and dinosaurs boring?
Yeah.
How?
How did laser guns time travel and dinosaurs and somehow it's a terrible film?
It's literally.
Right.
Oh my God.
What does this film mean to you, Ben?
Is this another one of your, you'd not seen it and you'd watched it for this and went,
oh, it's actually quite good.
No, no, no, no, no.
I've seen this.
I've seen this a bunch.
Right.
I think I saw this in the cinema, although I don't really remember that far back, if
I'm honest.
Great date movie.
A great date movie.
Yeah.
I'll give you a lift back now.
Not to beat a baby at the window.
Although why they'd have brought the baby to the cinema to see Zodiac?
I don't know.
It's just good parenting choices at that point.
You know what I mean?
100%.
I've seen it a couple of times.
It's one of those films that I've always enjoyed and it's never done much for me in
the ways of like, wow, I'm desperate to watch this again.
Yeah.
But every time I start watching it, it has this weird ability.
I know where it goes.
I know how it ends.
I know the twists and turns, but there is, there's something about this film that just
keeps me on the edge of my seat no matter how many times I see it.
Yeah.
Oh God.
Yeah.
I watched it twice for this and I was on the edge of my seat both times and it was
like back to back.
Yeah.
So I agree.
This for me is one of those Sunday afternoon movies.
So you know, yes, it is.
It's like the Godfather.
I've never chosen to put a Godfather film on or goodfellas.
I never choose to put goodfellas on, but every time I catch it, I've missed a chunk
of it.
Yeah.
I've seen goodfellas hundreds of times.
I've probably seen the first 10 minutes three times.
Right.
Yeah.
It's just sticky.
It's just a sticky watch.
Now, for the benefit of those that haven't seen this film in a long time and want a little
bit of a refresh on what happens and what it's about so that when we get into the weeds
of discussing it later, you're not, you know, left in the dark.
Yeah.
Or for those people who haven't seen it and never planned to, we're going to break down
the plot of the movie.
So this is your sort of final spoiler warning.
Final spoiler warning.
Also, if you're never planning on watching this film, grow up.
All right.
Ben, do you want to kick us off, mate?
Sure.
So, I'm gonna break down.
Zodiac.
Follows the investigation into the Zodiac killer, a mysterious and brutal murderer who terrorized
Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
After the Zodiac begins sending coded letters and taunting messages to the San Francisco
Chronicle, Robert Graysmith, a quiet cartoonist at the paper, becomes intrigued by the case
alongside crime reporter Paul Avery and determined detective Dave Toshy.
Graysmith is drawn deeper into the complex mystery.
Despite Toshy's relentless efforts to connect the clues and Avery's initial zeal, the killer
remains elusive and their attempts lead to a series of dead ends and frustrations.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
As years pass without an arrest, Graysmith's interest turns into an intense obsession.
He scours cryptic codes, decipher letters and retraces steps in the case, even as others
lose interest or become disillusioned.
This fixation begins to consume his life, straining his relationships and pushing him to the edge
of sanity.
His search grows increasingly dangerous as he investigates potential suspects, notably
Arthur Lee Allen, whose connection to the crimes leads Graysmith to confront him despite
a lack of conclusive evidence.
The trail-growing colder Avery's life spirals into addiction, whilst Toshy's reputation
suffers under the strain of the unresolved case.
Graysmith, however, refuses to let go and writes a book Chronicle in the investigation,
hoping to uncover the truth that has eluded them all.
Zodiac ends with a sense of unsettling ambiguity as Graysmith's journey shows both the relentless
pursuit of justice and the personal toll of an obsession that offers little closure,
even as new details emerge that deepen the mystery.
It's a three hour 50, because I watched the director's cut because I'm a nerd, right?
Three hours and 50 minutes that obsessively follows the details of a very complex case
involving lots of characters and lots of moment-to-moment changes.
So trying to summarize it with any sort of detail is mental.
It's impossible.
I started and then I was like, no, I'm just going to go vague.
Just quickly, though, the director's cut is three hours and 50 minutes.
Three hours and 47, I think.
Yeah, there's a couple of scenes added.
There's a long two-minute black screen, which is just radio news reports and songs and it's
the four-year gap.
He basically plays special events through all of those four years.
There's investigative bits where they recap all the details of the case to date when they're
trying to get a search warrant for Arthur Lee Allen's trailer.
They have to be on the phone with the DA or the judge to try and get the warrant.
And so they sort of reiterate the details of the case, which is actually really helpful
because it's one of the few times that evidence against the suspect is summarized and you
get like a full top-to-bottom list of all the circumstantial stuff.
Right, right, right, okay.
It's a long film and it's a deep film.
And I genuinely think it's probably Fincher's most personal film.
Right, okay.
Because not just you, quite a few people have spoken to it, but David Fincher's British.
Yeah, I've always assumed that he's British.
So he grew up in San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
I have no idea why I thought he was English.
No clue at all.
His family came to Northern California during the mid-1960s when he was young, young, young.
George Lucas soon moved on to David Fincher's street.
Francis Ford Coppola was around there as well.
It was like movie street, basically.
Jesus.
American Graffiti and THX 1138 are all shot basically in Fincher's childhood neighborhood.
Jesus.
Dude, he came from money, man.
Right, this thing.
So he, well, he said this is quite funny.
David Fincher, I quote, I remember coming home and saying the highway patrol had been
following our school buses for a couple of weeks now.
And my dad, who worked from home and who was very dry, not want to soft pedal things,
turned slowly in his chair and said, oh yeah, there's a serial killer who was killed four
or five people who cause himself to zodiac, who's threatened to take a high powered rifle
and shoot out the tires of a school bus and then shoot the children as they come off the
bus.
Wow.
You're beginning to get a little sense of why David Fincher might be quite so direct.
It sounds like his dad was a delight.
I thought my dad was bad for leaving when I was six.
Right.
I'd prefer it over that.
I think I'm lucky in comparison.
I think we both missed out on a lot of shit.
So those scenes with school children getting off buses, Fincher was on one of them.
That's nutty.
That's actually nutty.
I'm going to tell you some stuff now that's going to be really relevant later.
So he doesn't enroll in film school.
He takes a job as a PA at a small independent studio, works out for a little while and then
gets a low level position at ILM, Industrial Light and Magic.
That's cool.
You know the ATSTs, the chicken walkers at the end of Return of the Jedi.
He helped make them.
That's amazing.
Isn't it?
That makes Jedi even better.
One of his first film credits is Return of the Jedi.
I'm beginning to fall in love with this man.
He said, I didn't want to go to film school.
I didn't know what the point was.
The fact of the matter is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting
and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two.
Right.
Okay.
That's incredible.
Then he says, I went to a place called the Barkley Film Institute for a summer program
with a friend of mine and we just thought it was a joke.
It was very impressionist, very Barkley.
There were all these people who were there to communicate and change the world, to do
all these lofty things.
And then they made these real shitty, stupid little movies.
And we were like, I'm not here for this.
I'm just here to pull cable.
He's a nerd.
He wants to know what everyone on set does.
And he spends that time at ILM being on set just going, what do you do?
Love this.
And then the guy's talking to explaining it and him just shadowing him for a bit and
go, okay, now I know what a focus puller does.
Nice.
And he does that for years rather than learning how to direct.
He learns on the job.
Basically everyone's job.
Doesn't learn the director's job.
He learns everyone else's job.
That's amazing.
And then starts making movies.
He's made.
This makes me respect him a lot more than I did.
And the fact that his first film credit is Jedi.
Way better.
It's one of his first because he worked on a bunch of stuff.
He then obviously goes into commercials and stuff.
But I love the idea that even at that early age, Finch who was kind of looking at the
world around him and deciding what he cared about and what mattered to him.
And then going, well, it's not these lofty ideals and it's not these great artsy chats.
It's the down in the dirt of the technical.
That's what I respect.
That's my like, that's my intent.
And that's what matters to me.
That's what I value.
The reason I love Zodiac so much is everyone that's listening.
If you're a new listener, welcome to the show.
Also, I have an issue with myself with.
And you're a 35 year old podcast set.
You don't need to tell people that it comes with a gig.
I just, I need it.
It's like a subtitle at this point.
You know what I mean?
This is closed captions on an audio show.
You are welcome, dear listeners.
I struggle with myself worth and I define myself by what I can bring to the table.
Yes, you do.
Finch are in this film challenges that so hard, so fervorantly that it is impossible to miss.
Right.
And he's got, you've got your three, you got your three protagonists.
Got your cop, which is, is it Toshi?
Yeah.
Dave Toshi.
He's described, or he's not described.
He's factually the inspiration for Dirty Harry.
He is.
And there are so many Dirty Harry references in this.
It's amazing.
It is amazing.
Um, but you've got the cop who is, he's portrayed as is invested, but he's done with the case.
He needs it to be over now.
He wants it to be over.
There's other crime happening.
He needs to move on from this.
This can't be his, his sort of like defining moment because it's mental and it's insane
and there's no, there's no moving past it.
Right.
And he is contractually obligated to find the Zodiac.
Yes, he is.
To protect the people.
Yeah.
He's a small piece of a much larger machine.
He wants this and only this from this case.
Yeah.
Once it ended moving on, not trying to be more, it's not, not getting anything else from it.
It needs to be done, move on with career.
Right.
Yeah.
That's what's represented with that masculine input there.
That sort of like, this is what he's getting out of it.
Yeah.
And you've got the reporter.
You've got Avery, Paul Avery.
Yeah.
He's got a great business opportunity, a career defining story.
He tries to insert himself in the center of the story and be the person to go to about
anything to do with the Zodiac.
It's kind of a meal ticket in a way.
Like he's a meal ticket.
He's in it for the right reasons, but he's also aware of how it benefits him.
Exactly.
Right.
So he's portrayed as this self important big shot.
It's very sort of like, you know, puffed out chests.
Yeah.
Oh, this is me.
This is what I, this is what I am.
This is who I am.
This is helping me define my presence, not just in the newspaper world, in the journalism
world.
It is like, as a person in life, right?
And he falls off.
Yeah.
He falls off the second that it's out of his control, the second that people are like,
shut up.
You're nothing to do with this case.
You are literally a reporter.
Yeah.
The story, the need to be relevant, it all runs him into the ground, ends up in addiction,
horrid, right?
Yes.
So you've got two needs that are getting from this case and you're like, oh, okay.
Well, this is kind of crippling because I think we've been both of those people in the
past.
We've definitely been both of those people.
Do you know what I mean?
I see Paul Avery and I'm like, oh, that was my career.
Yeah.
A thousand percent, right?
But then I will value myself when other people value my career.
Exactly.
Right.
And it's those two things that come into this.
But then Fincher, he throws this like boomerang in there.
It's just a spanner in the works.
He throws Gray Smith in.
Right.
Gray Smith is like a low level cartoonist.
He's got no respect at that paper.
I mean, he shows like six of his cartoons that he's been working on.
The editor is just sort of like horrid, horrid, horrid, horrid.
We'll go with the least horrid.
Yeah.
We'll go with not so horrid.
And it's like, just no one cares about his stuff at all.
He's just, he's just a nerd who loves puzzles.
Yep.
This is it.
It does it for fun.
He just wants to see the end of the story.
There is nothing in it for him other than just wants the answer to the riddle.
He just wants an answer to a puzzle.
Yeah.
That's all it is.
He keeps himself small, but he is inexplicably the one who runs with it.
To the point of absolute detriment, right?
Yeah.
He's portrayed as this really nice, quiet guy, boy scout, very, doesn't swear, doesn't
smoke, rarely drinks.
He's the guy that develops an obsession to a point where he loses everything.
Yeah.
Everything.
Yeah.
Kids, new wife, he gets himself into these ridiculous situations that are so incredibly
dangerous.
Yeah.
He gets himself into this point in a little bit because this film broke me in places.
This is one of them.
Gets himself into these situations because of his obsession, right?
Yeah.
The motivation or the intention is what defines the caliber of the man in this film.
Yes.
100%.
It's not what they're getting from it.
No.
It's not what they're putting into it.
Their self-worth is defined by their intention behind the motivation.
I love this, it span it so hard and so quick that it hit me directly in the gut and I was
like, oh.
It's rare to see like a salad of masculine motivation presented.
Right.
Here are three men with similar mechanisms of motivation for different sources.
What's interesting is a lot of it is quite fictional.
There's a really interesting balance of truth and fiction in this film.
Okay.
Paul Avery is what I picked up on there.
There are things in here that are really, really, really true.
Right.
So Fincher went on an interview spree.
There are consultants on this film who consulted on how David was going to make it that are
surviving victims of the Zodiac killer.
He interviewed all of the original witnesses and he said about it.
David Fincher to quote, you know, we could have made this movie without any reason.
We were never ever having interviewed anybody and we didn't want to do that.
We wanted to get the real story and we wanted them to know that we didn't just wanted to
depict their anonymous suffering as victim number four.
We wanted it.
We wanted to know what really happened and the fallout from it.
I feel a responsibility to that.
When you're portraying people's real lives, you owe them the responsibility and dignity
of telling them what you're going to do and then sticking to that.
That's incredible.
Right.
Hold on a sec.
So rather than do what Sam Raimi did for Doctor Strange.
Right.
And just go, I've got a story off the peg.
I'll just put some Marvel masks on it and...
Yeah.
Apparently there's a TV show about Scarlet Witch or something.
We've had someone watch it.
They've given us a brief rundown.
I'm just going to make Evil Dead 4.
So rather than doing that, what he's done is he's gone.
I don't know if I can trust this police report or this interview.
I'm going to go ask that person.
That is the most respect to any source material that I've ever seen in my entire life.
Here's what's fascinating.
Respect for source material.
Yeah.
Varies wildly.
I'm going to go on to some other stuff he does.
Right?
Okay.
The only murders depicted are the ones for which there are surviving witnesses.
Okay.
That he could sit down face to face and verify this was the Zodiac and we know exactly how
it looked.
Oh my God.
So there doesn't depict his first murder because no one was there.
So he can't create a version of it that's accurate.
It would be conjecture.
Jesus Christ.
The Lake Berryessa murders at the side of the lake where the two friends are having
a picnic and they get tied up and they get stabbed.
Yes.
In the years since that murder, the oak trees that they're sitting under were removed.
Okay.
So he found out how old the oak trees had been on the day of the murder.
How?
He bought mature oak trees at that age, dug holes and then helicoptered oak trees into
the same spot that they had been.
Get out.
Stop it now.
Here's the thing.
That's so Christopher Nolan.
Right.
But it's not.
And I'll tell you why.
Okay.
Everything to do with the facts of the criminal case is as close to reality as possible and
exempt from subjective storytelling in this film.
I love this so much.
Do you know what this makes me feel?
Right.
This is making me, it's bubbling inside me.
I don't think I can hold it much longer, buddy.
It's a fucking...
David's convention.
Right.
I'm going to quote him again.
He said, our other mantra, you're going to love this.
Our other mantra was, let's make sure that we don't do a pastiche.
Yes, buddy.
Do you remember when we were talking about Maxine?
I love this guy.
It's one thing to do on a marge, but I didn't want to make a movie about sideburns.
I wanted it to be a movie about people.
I wanted it to be about the seventies in San Francisco that I knew growing up.
So when in doubt, I would reference old photos and go like, yeah, that's about how many Volkswagen
bugs you'd see on the street.
So that's what we'll do.
Oh my God.
He's not using the icons of the seventies, just slapdash.
Yeah.
Which Maxine, when I watched it, I was like, well, there's your kung fu and there's your
Reagan and there's your this and she's walking down the street and it's all the elements
of the eighties on one strip that she walks down in one scene.
Finch is like, no, there wouldn't be that many TVs in a window.
Not in San Francisco, but in Hollywood.
Come on.
There's at least four kung fu studios.
It's a different kind of thing.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Now, when it comes to the stuff that's to do with the Zodiac case, that's important
that it's remembered correctly and not misinterpreted as the stories get repeated, right, verbatim.
There's a load in this film that never happened.
Paul Avery was never destroyed by this case.
He didn't fall into addiction and then emphysema.
He was a healthy, happy family man.
Oh, he was very successful reporting on the Patty Hearst kidnapping.
Right.
Okay.
He didn't get ended by the case.
He just moved forwards with his own life.
The Zodiac went quiet in a way that Robert Graysmith didn't.
And speaking of Robert Graysmith and Paul Avery, they never worked together like they
do in the movie.
They would just shared an office.
Amazing.
But their stories and their personal lives don't affect the justice outcome of the real
life Zodiac killer.
So that's where there's room to make a subjective point.
Do you know what I love about this?
He's not given a single shit about Paul Avery sitting down and watching this film.
Excuse me, I was not an addict living on a boat.
They were like bits, right?
They're bits.
He's just gone, I'm going to magnify the shit out of these.
That's where I can tell a story and it won't affect people's memories.
I get that.
But I also love that it's been sort of like we have to absolutely 1000% respect the past
of the Zodiac killer.
Paul Avery now addict on a boat mate.
You were diet, right?
You had a weird lung disease by 50.
Absolutely.
I love it.
I love the disrespect.
Should we take a quick break and hear from this week's sponsor?
Yes, let's do it.
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Why is it?
Why have we got it?
Because some of you guys, I'll pay you money for something.
We're like, we will interrogate your morals and decide whether or not we want your money.
Yeah.
Nah.
Nah, you're right, mate.
Screw the money.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Back to the movie.
This is almost my favourite Fincher film of all time.
Very, very almost my favourite Fincher film.
It's a very close second to Gongirl.
Right.
But the reason that Zodiac is almost my favourite Fincher film.
Right.
It's not for the story.
It's not for the acting.
It's not for the film itself.
Okay.
These little things that he does in this film that I never noticed until we watched Panic
Room and you were like, this is his playground.
This is how he learns stuff.
Look at the background.
Look at the composition.
Look at how the shots are put together.
Look at all the weird little things that he does to make it that little bit better.
And you know what, mate?
All I've done in this film is see that.
Right.
And I'm like, he did that in Panic Room, but just way shitter.
He's obviously learned from that.
That's amazing.
Because Panic Room was the dojo where he learned that stuff.
And then this is where he goes, I know how to do that now because I've done it before.
And ironically, it makes Panic Room a better film.
Yeah.
Panic Room doesn't make sense, but the soft blur and the background.
Have you seen it?
The lighting.
It's amazing.
But like, there's moments in Zodiac where time's passing.
Yep.
And it does come up saying stuff like, you know, two weeks or four months or two years
or whatever.
How many times passed?
But it does these little things where the characters themselves, right?
If a week has passed and it's been a stressful week and a lot's happened and we're getting
caught up on a story and it's a stressful situation, every single person that's involved
and has been involved in that stressful situation looks a little bit more disheveled.
Really do.
Yeah.
But it's not a permanent thing.
It's just for that moment.
And then when they've rested or when something's concluded or when more time has passed and
they've moved on, they're back to like a rejuvenated version themselves.
And it's these little tweaks that are mental.
My favorite thing though, mate, and possibly my favorite scene in the entire film is a
skyscraper being built.
Like a time lapse of a...
Time lapse of it like being built really quickly.
Of a skyscraper going up.
And then night falls and it's almost like it's been built in a day or two and then it's
just lights everywhere.
It's gorgeous and that must have taken months.
Like months.
And it's amazing that it makes you feel like a day or two has passed.
And now there's just this enormous skyscraper.
Yeah, CGI.
Amazing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because you can't get that camera move.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sound.
Because all I was doing was thinking, this makes panic room a better film.
Every tiny thing that I noticed, this makes panic room a better film.
David Finch has got a really autistic camera.
I was chatting with one of our listeners.
It's unfeeling.
It's unemotional.
It's dispassionate.
It's documentary autism.
Yes.
Right?
Of just like...
I'm not talking about...
I can't remember what film we were talking about, but I referenced...
There's an Albert Camus book called The Stranger Where The Guy Shots A Guy and he's on trial
at the end and he gets put to death and the priest keeps coming to visit him and he's
like, you know, do you not feel sorry?
And he's like, no.
And then at the end of the movie, he looks up at the stars and he beholds the benign indifference
of the universe.
Yes.
That no matter what happens on earth, he's shot a guy.
The stars don't care.
Oh.
Okay.
The camera is very much the same.
It embodies that complete indifference.
Yes.
There's no God.
Yeah.
The clouds don't care that these two just got stabbed under a tree.
Yes.
They don't care that this taxi driver just got shot.
It's completely objective.
I love this.
But what it does is it's the indifference of time moving forward.
Yeah.
And the world moving forward.
Yeah.
And people move forward except for the dead and the obsessed.
Oh my God.
No one in the...
Oh my God.
No one moves forward until they go.
I'm done with this.
Robert Graysmith never lets go.
So he stays stuck in the late 60s mentally.
Oh my God.
And it's told with a time lapse of a fucking building.
It brings out so much.
There are so many little bits of like building work taking place in the background.
Or just someone moving house.
And it's like these tiny things.
Yeah.
This is like...
This might be my favorite fincher technique that has ever existed.
It's brilliant.
Ever.
And I think of the times he uses it.
This is the most masterful.
It really, really is.
I was going to make a point.
I was watching the film and I was looking at Robert Graysmith.
And you know, we said in I think panic room at the end of every movie David Fincher says,
well at the start of every movie David Fincher says,
I'm going to use this one to learn how to let go of it.
And then at the end of every movie he goes,
I hated it because I was an obsessive control freak.
Yeah.
So sitting down to watch Zodiac, I think we can forgive me for going,
Robert Graysmith, he's a fincher surrogate and I was feeling all smug.
Yeah.
Feeling all smug about it, right?
Yeah.
But I don't, doing my research on this film, I don't think it's fair.
Okay.
How so?
There are examples of his obsession.
So Mark Ruffalo, Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal did multiple takes between 50 and 70 times.
Say that again?
Multiple takes of this movie took up to 70 takes.
Jesus.
Gyllenhaal hated it.
I can imagine.
He said, you get a take.
Five takes.
10 takes.
Some places, 90 takes.
Jesus.
But there is a stopping point.
There's a point at which you go, that's what we have to work with.
But we would reshoot things.
So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do?
Where is the risk?
Yeah.
And I suppose for him, he's like, I'm trying to get a moment in time.
Right.
But if we just do it a thousand times, you'll have every possible variation of every possible
scene.
So at what point do you need an actor?
Just get a generative AI.
A publisher can never get into trading card games.
If he got into Pokemon, he would bankrupt himself.
He would.
No, I need every Charmander.
I need every Voltorb exists.
Because there might be a slight difference in the print.
This one has a little crease in it.
I need it.
Robert Downey Jr. said, I just decided, aside from several times I wanted to grot him, that
I was going to give him what he wanted.
I think I'm a perfect person to work for him because I understand gulags.
I love that man so much.
And then you've got the thing with the oak tree.
You've got the thing with the going back to re-interview people, making sure that he's
getting every detail of the case right.
Obsessive.
I get it.
But then I started reading quotes from Fincher himself and I started realizing he's not.
He's just a professional, right?
Right.
I quote David Fincher here.
Give me a while to get comfortable with the idea of saying another one.
I want you to think about this.
You're so often you're pressed up against the glass going, please don't take this the
wrong way.
We're going to try one more.
Right.
You're not doing anything wrong.
We're going to do three weeks at the rehearsal.
We're going to do a table read.
We're going to open out of town.
We're going to have at least three previews.
And we're going to do all that today before lunch with this master take.
We're going to go through all of that so you can get to a place where you go, yeah, I've
tried this.
I've tried that.
It is really over here and everyone can feel good about the work.
That's what we're trying to tighten.
This is a lump of coal that we're trying to turn into a diamond.
If an actor is going to let the role come to them, they can't resent the fact that I'm
willing to wait as long as that takes.
Okay.
You know, the first day of production in San Francisco, we shot 56 takes of Mark and
Jake, and it's the 56th take that's in the movie.
Okay.
And then in another quote, which I haven't got in front of me, he talks about you build a set for 250,000
Yeah, you fly actors in from all over the world. You cherry pick your crew
You get the best technology that's available to filmmakers at the time you spend
65 million dollars making a film the aim of the your creative aim is
Supposed to be getting everyone out of there as soon as possible. Yeah, not at all
No, not at all. Okay. What we're working late. Fuck you. You're getting paid. Okay. What did you think this was?
Yeah, now that you've put it like that. Yeah, right
I'm an actor that's getting paid millions to pretend to be someone else for a bit, right?
And you want it to be perfect in a restaurant. You're not any cash converters
A thousand percent a minute mate, you know what I mean? Yeah, we'll do it again. What you want one more
Fuck it. We'll do Bob Wagner Bob Wagner who's who's been his first AD or second AD on six films
Okay, he said about Fincher
We're here to do work and we're here to do something special and we have the opportunity to do that
If it's about the paycheck or if it's about the rat party if it's about the crew gift, you know what fuck off
That's Fincher's approach and I agree with it
That's incredible. I'd hold I've never I don't know why but I've never thought of it that way
I've always thought of it been sort of like oh my god. It must be so hard having to do the same thing 15 times
It's like it's your job. There's worse things right. It's your job. Yes
They're a toilet cleaners out there. Hey should be getting paid more right because their job is literally cleaning up
You work human waste working in McDonald's how many double cheeseburgers do you make in a day?
You don't get tonight Ian go. Oh, this is this beyond the pale. Yeah, this is ridiculous
I've made 90 double cheeseburgers. Do you know how we're not on us repetitive? This is
Yeah, welcome to work for the fucker
He's so right he's so right I don't think he is an obsessive
I think he's just
Aware of the money that's being spent yeah, and he wants his actors to do it again and again and again
So it's no longer feels like a performance. Yeah, they're bored of the line
So they start delivering it like the person would not consciously. I love this. I actually love this
It's given me a whole new view of it. Yeah, right
And it's nothing but mad respect right now and I just I feel like I
The counterpoint I get it right if you've got a really emotive scene
Yeah, like how many times you're going to get an actor to cry I get that or like you mentioned it earlier the basement scene
doing that a hundred times
Or for three days I okay the basement scene though
I think it needed to be done a few times because
That I'm gonna get into it now. How so because this film that scene the basement scene it ruins the film for me
Right, it ruins it. It ruins me
It ruins me on a deeply
Molecular level right my entire my entire person is changed in that scene right okay? You've got to tell me more
It's for all the right reasons
You mentioned it earlier right this entire film is direct to the point. It's fully objective right there is no
There's no caring. There's no sort of like there's no feeling in it. No, and I love it and then all of a sudden
All of a sudden out of nowhere you get a really subjective scene
Benchard just goes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you're feeling pretty safe. You're on board so far boom mirror up to you buddy
Mirror up to you. Grace Smith is the is great. You've been rooting for grace Smith this entire time. Yeah, he's a nutter now
Think he's doing all right. Yeah. Yeah, look at the position that he's got himself in mate
He's in a potential murderous house
With a basement in california. There's not many basements in california which is one of the clues
Yeah, so for those that we didn't put it in the breakdown for those who haven't seen the film in a while
I'm playing to see it
That our main protagonist robert grace. He's played by jake jalen hall has been following the case on his own
Strapping things together. There's a second suspect
There is and he goes to speak to somebody who might have information about this second suspect
And then it turns out all the evidence he has
That points the finger at this second suspect is actually true of the man whose basement he's in
And he starts to freak out
But obviously from the perspective of him
Terrifying from the perspective of the man who's invited him in for a cup of tea and is just answering questions
And has now got a sweaty crack head in his basement. Yeah, it's insane. He's the weirdo
But this is this is the bit that ruined me on a personal
I because I was looking at it and I was like if if I can relate to anyone in this film
It's gray smith. Yeah
Right because I like to do stuff in my spare time and sometimes I run away with it. I get a bit obsessive about it
I end up in an odd situation
at ie
We're two and a half years into a podcast about movies and mental health. Yeah, it's a hobby that's ran away, right?
Right, right, right?
Except for my hobby doesn't lead me to a potential murderous basement
Right where I'm genuinely terrified because I'm like, oh my god, I would have done the exact same thing
Ben I would have made all of these decisions. I love that you've done the family friendly podcast analogy
But let me just ask you this
Little too spicy to carry on
I'm an edited episode of Patreon
You're right. It's the moment the mirror's held up. Look where you are now. Look where you got yourself
Dude because you wanted the answer to a riddle
Exactly and it hits me every time and I'm like I hate this because now we're no longer being sort of like
Oh, I wonder where this is going to go. You're like, oh, this is where I am. Yeah, I I have been here before
I hate it. Why why is he here? It's it's it's the most harrowing look in the mirror ever
Crucial to understanding this film for me or crucial to my understanding of the film
I won't be an arrogant prick about it
It's crucial to my understanding of the film because at the very start we said this isn't a
True crime podcast. This is a podcast about the film
Yeah, and I don't think zodiac
Is a true crime film
It's not it's a it's not about a serial killer for me. It's about information
Okay
There's a scene in this movie where the Anthony Edwards character
Is calling around all the police stations of the different
Jurisdictions that these crimes have happened. Yeah, and he's trying to get scraps of information that he didn't know
That everyone thought had been shared and it's an it's this sort of demonstration of just how fractured and disparate
the justice systems
handling of this cases
Yeah, where that's not true is the newsroom
The newsroom is this central hub where all this information comes in is all collated
And you've got a serial killer whose kill count is not that high
And whose crimes in the world of serial killing are not so shocking. Okay, right?
He's not making belts out of nipples. He's stabbing people and shooting people. Yeah
What makes zodiac as a serial killer fascinating is he's the first one to play with the media
To be aware of the power of information. Yeah for a film made in 2007 at the birth of the internet
Yeah, it's an incredibly relevant topic for a man in 2007 to look at a world that it's
Literally entering a period of human history. We call the information age
Yeah, and look back at his childhood and find an informational serial killer
And the handling of his case which would have been solved in a week if they'd had the internet
Oh, damn. This is this is insane because as we mentioned earlier
Chinese children put little magic rectangles in all of our pockets right with instant instant access to every video
Every bit of information that's ever existed in human history was in our cell phone towers
Right, dude. How quickly would this guy have been caught with little black rectangles?
Oh, but these guys were working with telephones and fax machines, but not everyone had fax machines
And paper files in different police stations all across the state
You know this just makes me think
The plight of the serial killer's just gotten harder and harder. Really has. You know what I mean?
Really has. It's funny that it's almost like we don't want it to happen
Yeah, but I mean the ones that are still dedicated to it nowadays. There's a lot of effort there
Do you know what I mean? Probably one of the hardest jobs in the world up there with with McDonald's
Service line worker, you know, I've it's not acting. It's my point
Okay. Yeah, that's cool. The reason I think the information thing is relevant and it comes back to why an incredible
Incredible development in the zodiac case and this is all we'll talk about
The main suspect in this film is Arthur Lee Allen. Yes, it is now he went about his life
He had girlfriends who had kids. Okay. He was like a stepfather parental figure to those kids
Those are the Lee Allen Arthur Lee Allen. Yeah, he had a life. He had girlfriends, you know, he had all this stuff
The kids that he helped raise
Yeah, go and see this film in 2007 long after Arthur Lee Allen's death, right and things that had always confused them about his behavior
Why did we go there? Why did he drive us there? What happened to this item of clothing that we made for him?
Right suddenly make an awful lot of sense. Oh
A three-part documentary on Netflix called this is the zodiac speaking
Which if you think this film piles on a bunch of circumstantial but not definitive evidence against Arthur Lee Allen
Right, there's about eight times as much more evidence from them
Oh about we moved to this part of the country and then a coded letter
Containing one of our names was sent from that location
That they never knew if it was a real zodiac letter or not
But why would it have my name from my postcode written in the same handwriting?
They only came forward and started putting the pieces together and going through their mum's old stuff
Which has letters from him that are super incriminating. Oh my god because they went to see David Fincher's film and David Fincher
Was faithful to the events of the case. That's actually insane. He said this film is like
Genuinely helped shed a lot more light on who is almost without doubt now proven to be the zodiac killer
That is actually insane. Yeah, mr. David Fincher
Uh
Robert graysmith said mr. Fincher's team found evidence that the investigators had missed
He outdid the police said Robert graysmith my hats off to him. That's actually dude ridiculous. Yeah, genuinely ridiculous
I love this man. Right more than I can put into words. I love this man. Do you want to hear some sad news?
Though but I guess yeah
This film cost 65 million like we said in the intro. Yeah
Yeah, I don't know how much it made I'm gonna okay. So looking at Fincher's past
Hundreds hundreds and hundreds hundreds and hundreds of millions. I'm gonna I'm gonna put
I'm gonna put a safe
semi-educated guess
200 million in the u.s
Yeah, it only made
30 million
Wide it made 84
Unacceptable least profitable movie
Get in the bin states it made four million dollars less in America than fight club did his big flop
Jesus Christ, it was out. It was out grossed by wild hogs with John Travolta and Martin Lawrence
I remember seeing that this is a man
It's a terrible film. Yeah, it's so bad. I think I saw it twice. Yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah made more money than this film
Which helps later on
Literally solve or for all intents and purposes
Completely remove any doubt that Arthur Lee Allen was the zodiac killer. I contributed twice to wild hugs and wants to zodiac
Possibly I don't fully remember. Yeah. Oh god. I feel like an awful person but of the
2007 critics lists of top 10 films. Yeah, it missed only two of them. Okay. It's a huge huge critical success
Good, but financially an absolute nightmare. Yeah, Jesus
Yeah, that's really upsetting. It's bad, isn't it? It's bad. I don't like that at all
What are you gonna rate?
zodiac ben okay, so
I've got two ratings for this one. You keep doing this you keep doing this and it's not the system
I know but it's what's your favorite film. I've got two favorite films. Yeah, I don't question is it? I've got hundreds
Yeah, I've got hundreds
So there's two ratings for this one and the only reason I'm doing it this way is because
There's no other way to do it essentially
Uh, the on the first watch through yeah on your first time watching this film
It's something that I've never experienced before
Yeah, it feels like a documentary but it obviously is not a documentary but the tension
the attention to detail and just the
Magnificent storytelling. Yeah visual and obviously like written through the dialogue and all this stuff
fat 10
Yeah fat 10 all the way through first watch through fat 10 end of like there's no other answer for it because it's mindblowing
It's 2007 by the way. We've been spoiled with films like this since then we really 2007
This is mind blowing. It's really difficult to remember how ahead of their time David Fincher's films looked
This is it
This is it you watch zodiac now and you're like this is incredible and there are so many people trying to emulate it right now
It's unreal
But so it's a fat 10 on the first watch through my next rating
Is the rewatch ability because like I said earlier in the episode it doesn't matter how many times I watch this film
I'm constantly on the edge of my seat. I know where it's going. I know the twists and turns
I know the basement scene is around the corner. I know I'm going to have to confront some sort of demon when that mirror is held up at me
Fat 10
It's a two fat tenor it's two fat tens two fat ladies. Are you two fat tenors? That's what it is. It has to be
Okay, uh, okay. I mean
Yeah, I
What are you rating it?
Oh, I don't know mate. Look
Okay, I'm going to do two ratings as well
God you always do this. I know how the system works. No, it's not it's not
But I'm having to match your energy aren't I?
Welcome down in the filth with you
For me, it's a fat 10. It's
Right, it's everything I love about the technical side of filmmaking
Done for the right reasons. There's no showboating like there is in panic room
And panic room has reasons to be that is because if there wasn't the technical showboating
It wouldn't be a film that I'd have any interest in watching. All right. Yeah, I can see that the technical showboating in this is
purely to serve the artistic ends of the film
There's not a single thing that's done that doesn't have a reason for it
There's no reason that jody fosters face has to rotate 90 degrees in panic room
Fincher just had a new clamp and was like, let's give that
That looks mint. How much does that cost to rent a day five grand get it on the truck boy
Get it in me right get it on there. This one is much more restrained. It's a beautiful looking film. It's it's a wonderful film
It's a fat 10 for me. My second rating
Is how what how strongly I could recommend it to someone else?
Now my sister is much younger than me. She's 18. She's used to a much faster pace of movie
Yeah, I watched a lot of films with people that I'm like, it's great, isn't it?
And then about an hour in they're like, oh, it's a bit long this isn't it?
I'm like, we're on hour one of three
That rating has to be lower because it is
For some people going to be a bit of an endurance test
Right, right, right. Fundamentally, it's a film about the minute details
Of how they didn't catch a serial killer
That is exactly what the film is. So yeah, there's no like great big peak moment of tension that then leads to a resolution
Yeah, it's a slow petering out of the characters on screen being able to continue to give a fuck
Yeah, okay. And so
Am I recommend it to somebody who perhaps doesn't watch as many films as we do? Yes, it's an eight
Okay, right. All right. It's a great film, but I can see people going
No, not for me. Not for me. Well, I mean this film got a solid 38 out of 10 from us. You know what I mean?
So that's that's pretty still pretty good. It's pretty good. It's still pretty good. Yeah
We've got we've got a pretty hefty comment corner this week, Ben. I'm gonna say we
Pineapple real quick. Let's pineapple this
Sports commentator
But not any sport I'm talking like I'm talking like the offshoot sports. I'm talking cricket darts talking darts
Darts commentator
180 oh, but he missed he missed the bulls. I we have another one from Christina
But I want to keep it to next week. Okay, uh, Christina apologies, but we will read it. It is happening
We will but that is sadly all the time we have for this week. It is guys. Thank you so much for hanging out with us
It has been an absolute joy as always you have made our way way better this week. I honestly mate
There have been it's just been nice knowing
Like we're we're over time technically, but we're not way over time, but we're not
And men how free and is this I don't previously I was like
I had a new listener sat on my shoulder going. This isn't about the film. Why do I care about you?
Or why do I care about this person? Let's wrap it up
Yeah, and now I'm just I'm hanging with my mate. This is great. Honestly, this is great.
Thank you so much for this. Thank you man. And then you listeners and like yeah, if you're hearing this
We haven't launched it yet. We're this is us from the past
So
We're launching it in about three hours. Yeah
Uh, so hello
And we love you and we hope there's more than 10 of you. Otherwise I'm gonna be
Yeah, try to make it look like a work accident
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty easy as a chef. You know what I mean?
There's whisks just drowning the friars. There's quiches. Oh, that's a graphic one. I was going with fun ways. All right, but fuck it. Yeah, there's knives
Thank you so much for hanging out with us. We are forever grateful. We will be back next week with gladiator
Uh, I'm so excited Ben. Same me too, mate. One of my all-time favorite films. But that's it. This is us. This is us done
Let's let's wrap it up. We solved the case. Sodiak's done. We solved the case
We solved it. All this left to do is thank you for spending an hour of your week with us
Especially at the start of the week, you know, it's a Monday. Yeah, so Ben's gonna wrap up the thoughts themes and feelings
Of this I've got this down this is film into a little Monday motivational pep talk
Well, I just do what society always tells you to do and tell you to
consume
Obsess just just obsess over anything and everything because a
Jake Gyllenhaal is obsessed as shit in this film b
He's incredibly good looking does wonders for the skin being mad obsessed
If you've ever seen if you've ever seen a chronic masturbator with bad skin. No, I haven't I haven't