Such was the case with Zodiac. From the title I assumed it was about the Zodiac killer. I knew the director was David Fincher and that it was rating quite well on Rotten Tomatoes. Fincher has been criticized in the past for an excessive use of CG. The only obvious use in this film is the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid to mark the passage of time which works really well. Although advertised with Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal, they’re just a small part of incredible cast. Everyone does a great job; I particularly liked Mark Ruffalo (funny because his character sounds like a young Columbo) and his partner Anthony Edwards (Revenge of the Nerds). It was an enjoyable movie, not mindblowing, but definitely interesting if you can tolerate the 160 minute length.

Here are all the other movies I saw last month:

Borat – I never expected to see this movie. I don’t like candid camera/people getting screwed with type of stuff. Luckily for me this movie actually has a plot and is truly hilarious.

Catch Me If You Can – Yeah, it’s good.

Code 46 – Excellent biopunk. Set in a future world where cloning and genetic manipulation are common place and heavily regulated to prevent strain weakening. Successfully places the viewer inside a complicated world without having explain every little detail. Worth checking out if you’re a fan of Gattaca.

I Am Sam – Feel good

Mystic River – Good

The Woodsman – Feel bad, but it’s good. Kevin Bacon plays a recently released sex offender. Definitely worth watching.

Lawrence of Arabia – I was planning on seeing it eventually and happened to watch it on TMC one afternoon while working at Ryan’s. Imagery reminded me of Tintin.

Kinsey – I enjoyed this. Some of the comedy comes from characters stating sexual myths that were believed at the time. I couldn’t help thinking of this pornographic image.

Harvey – Great movie. Really funny stuff. “Years ago my mother used to say to me… ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”

Rear Window – I wasn’t sure if I had seen this movie since I can recognize spoofs of it so easily. I didn’t realize the ending wasn’t the same as the Simpsons’ episode.

American Psycho – Rewatched it because CK had recently seen it. Still enjoyed it.

Rize – There are so many bizarre things in this world that need one definitive expose on them.

Munich – Meh.

Lewis Black Unleashed – This is the special they repeatedly show on Comedy Central.

Sleep With Me – Meh. Watched it because a friend mentioned Tarantino’s monologue about Top Gun being about homosexual love in the movie is like this trailer.

2046 – I was tricked. This isn’t SciFi. It looks great though if you can stand subtitles.

Revolution OS – More history than I ever knew about free software, open source, etc. I was caught off guard when Netscape had such a major roll. We’re kind of a big deal.

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children – It’s CG that’s the only thing I got out of it.

Nacho Libre – This is funny?

• Superman Returns – I don’t really like Superman; he’s a dick. The movie was okay. I haven’t seen the originals.
• Vertigo – I had seen it before, but forgot. That’s been happening a lot lately. Maybe I’m watching these too fast.
• Road to Perdition – I believe dad suggested this. It’s as good as everyone says.
• The Man on the Train – I had seen this too. If you’re not adverse to subtitles, I highly recommend this film. The characters and dialog are fantastic.
• Lewis Black: Red, White, and Screwed – I’ll watch anything Lewis Black does (as RjB says, “he’s an angry man, you’re an angry man, it works”). I got to see him while I was still in Lincoln, NE which I’m guessing is better than seeing Larry the Cable Guy an actual Lincoln resident.
• 49 Up – The series checks in on the same people every 7 years. I also watched 21 Up to get some idea of what might change as my life progresses. I suggest you watch 49. It’s the best edited. Life lessons? This is just a blip. People change. Life changes. Might as well enjoy the chaos. (seriously, it shows a homeless man becoming a council man)
• Demon City Shinjuku – Slept through this. I was just watching it because it showed up as clips in Johnny Mnemonic.
• Cube Zero – Stopped after ten minutes. I should stop adding movie series in blocks.
• Johnny Mnemonic – Based on a William Gibson short story. I’ll watch pretty much anything cyberpunk. Wikipedia has this tidbit: Trivia: When referring to the hardware which Johnny is using, the “tracer” refers to it as “GPL”. Ugh.
• Palindromes – I really liked this movie. Todd Solondz‘s films are inherently “good”, but this film I actually enjoyed. Using multiple women to play the lead was a fun element.
• Beerfest – Nothing Broken Lizard does will match Super Troopers. If you think you’d enjoy this movie, you probably will. At least they keep adding more nudity.
• Mr. Smith goes to Washington – I was fufilling an obiligation. I’m in it for the cheap thrills: It was fun hearing them say “short pants” instead of “shorts”.

• Idiocracy
• Jackass Number Two
• Lewis Black: Black on Broadway
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Bourne Supremacy
• A Scanner Darkly
• Cube 2: Hypercube
• Howl’s Moving Castle
• 12 Angry Men
• Ask the Dust
• Sex and Lucia
• Solo Mia
• Heat
• Dave Chappelle’s Block Party
• Falling Down
• Sarah Silverman’s Jesus is Magic
• The Aviator
• Election
• Dirty Pretty Things
• Clerks II
• Welcome to the Dollhouse
• The Ice Storm

• The Iron Giant I had been meaning to see this for a long time. Really a great movie.
• THX 1138 Meh. Only real entertainment was when I found out NIN’s Mr. Self Destruct opens with a sample from “the beating channel”.
• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift Upon watching I realized I had seen the opening sequence before and remembered it had caused me to make this film a low priority. Luckily the action improves once they get out of the States. Lots of good drifting action performed by the people I filmed earlier.
• Lucky Number Slevin This was okay. It was nice to see some of the plot’s unbelievable points eventually explained, although it still left some stuff a little too loose.
• Penn & Teller’s Bullshit Ryan recommended this Showtime series. They debunk stuff like psychic readings. It’s interesting but I’m already skeptic so having it reinforced doesn’t seem very entertaining.
• Entourage Season 1 I had seen the first half of this season and wanted to see the rest. At only 8 30 minute episodes it’s too short. I look forward to catching the second season on DVD though.
• House of Sand and Fog Okay drama. Some characters seem way too irrational. Third movie you get to see Jennifer Connelly on a white pier. This movie also has a similar spoiler to Lucky Number Slevin.
• Touching the Void For some reason I expected more action than documentary. It’s really good: like watching PBS with F words.
• Slacker I wanted to see more Linklater. It’s neat to see where Clerks got at least some of its inspiration.
• Brick Excellent. I just stumbled on this on Ryan’s list. I IM’d him within 5 minutes saying “I think I’m in love with this movie”.
• Boogie Nights The only major PTA film I hadn’t seen yet.
• Rounders Was sitting on Justin’s shelf. I think it’s required viewing living here.
• Cars I saw an interesting panel at SIGGRAPH where they described this film’s development. They use really exaggerated movements for naturally deformable elements like suspension components, but they tried to always keep rigid objects like car bodies solid and true to real life. The creators also pointed out that the car eyes are a huge cheat. The irises constantly change shape on the flat windshield so that from the camera perspective they always appear round.
• The Da Vinci Code I had listened to this book, groaning multiple times. Sometimes it was the writing. Other times it was just knowing that if I read it myself I wouldn’t do the stupid french accents. To turn it into a movie they had to cut down some of the plot. So you end up with simple grail movie, but one with not near the quality action of an Indiana Jones flick. That and they left in some of the groan worthy writing.

• Thank You For Smoking I really enjoyed this. Good satire. Nothing too heavy.
• Entre las piernas I was surprised by this. It’s got some decent drama and suspense. It may annoy you if you don’t like every character being significant and running into each other (i.e. Crash). I’ll let you discover the English title on your own.
• The secret of NIMH I remember seeing this videodisc quite a few times as a child. I just wanted to see it again to help my memory.
• Rabbit-Proof Fence Amazing true story.
• Mimic I had seen 5 of the last 6 Guillermo del Toro movies. This was the one that was missing. I wasn’t missing much.
• Chopper An okay biopic about Aussie criminal Brandon “Chopper” Read. I had seen several hilarious skits about him and wondered what the character was based on.
• Hellraiser Clive Barker’s directorial debut. I haven’t seen a lot of old horror movies and I wanted to see this unedited. Good stuff.
• Pulse Standard Japanese horror: slow, ominous, incomprehensible, and for some reason it was remade in English. The creepiest part was the main character wearing a shirt from Gilley’s… the bar up the street with the bikini bull riding. This shirt was for the one in Texas though (everything in Vegas is based on something) since their shirts were sold by Lucky at some point.