…Or where David Fincher finally makes a film for grown-ups, and delivers on the considerable promise he has already shown in his previous works Se7en, Fight Club and Panic Room (It’s probably best we forget about Alien 3, isn’t it?) I have had no doubts that he is a director with both a striking visual style, and a handle on how suitably to use digital effects manipulation for dramatic effect. Where I think he has so far fallen down is his rather sadistic attitude towards his stories and characters, that he sets out to shock without there being sufficient justification to. This has yielded the impressively moody but sophomoric Se7en, and the macho-porn parading as political statement Fight Club.

What is different about Zodiac is perhaps explained a little by the real-life story behind the film. A series of murders occur in the Bay Area around San Francisco, and mysterious coded messages are sent to a local newspaper claiming to be from the killer, going by the moniker Zodiac. Naturally, the police set up an investigation team to try to catch the killer, as well as to stop the further killings which are threatened in the correspondent’s letters, but the film also follows Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist based at the San Franciso Chronicle who takes an interest in solving he case. It is unlikely that anyone watching the film will not know that it is based on a factual serial killer, and also the fact that no-one was ever caught for the murders.

Knowing all of this in advance, the audience is thus not kept in suspense waiting for the criminal to be brought to justice, the typical expectation of the serial killer thriller. Perhaps this is why the film has underperformed at the box-office; this is more a subtle character study than a Silence of the Lambs-style manhunt, as of course Se7en was to a large extent. The major theme of the film is actually the obsessive pursuit of the killer by the films protagonists; policeman David Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo, journalist Paul Avery, Robert Downey Jr in a predictably “Downy Jr-esque” performance, and aforementioned cartoonist Graysmith, played by the ever-watchable Jake Gyllenhaal.

The depths of their obsession with the case takes its toll on their lives, in different ways; disrupting their working lives, relations with their families and friends, and occasionally putting them in physical danger – in one particularly memorable scene involving a basement that you really wouldn’t want to go down into yourself. Gyllenhaal is solid as the geeky Graysmith, though at times a little too expressionless, while Ruffalo is well cast as the wearily inquisitive Avery. Downey Jr, on the other hand, is unfortunately again doing his intensely irritating Robert Downey Jr schtick, which for some may be entertaining, but for me is just plain lazy.

As the years pass by, and leads come and go, the case slowly grinds to a halt, only intermittently propelled along by the persistence of those fascinated by it. But what is their motivation for contiuning to pursue it? Director Fincher and his team spent 18 months conducting their own investigations into the case as preparation for the film, and there is the sense that their own rather macabre fascination with the case reflects that of the protagonsts’. This is the genius of the film, and why it is Fincher’s most mature and thought-provoking work thus far; like in the films of Werner Herzog, Zodiac shows us our fascination with other people’s madness, and how this shows that there is a little of that madness in all of us.

My recent flurry of NASA-related posts have been inspired by this great little documentary about the history of the Apollo program.

Maybe I am more than a little behind the times, but I am still not entirely convinced by the need for documentaries getting cinematic releases. Perhaps my doubts are at least partially raised by the horrific sight of large posters advertising Michael Moore’s new gurn-fest, Sicko, featuring the rotund shyster brandishing a rather menacing rubber glove. One can’t help but feel that he, as well as fellow shock-doc manufacturer Nick Broomfield (another pet hate of mine, i’m afraid) are responsible for this new wave of ‘factual’ content breaking through the cinema doors.

This reservation aside, the other problem I have is that many of these documentaries are simply not cinematic. More worthy efforts such as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and No End in Sight are fine if you were watching them on BBC4 from the comfort of your sofa, but is there any need to pay £6 to see them on a bigger screen with the THX booming in your ears?

Thankfully, with In The Shadow of the Moon, there is no such problem; cinema has always had a fascination with space travel and exploration, thinking in particular of the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, so it is a subject which lends itself much more naturally to these confines.

The documentary, somewhat inevitably, contextualises the story by beginning with JFK’s speech predicting the USA putting man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Here, and throughout the film, we are given glimpses of the domestic situation America faced in the period: Vietnam, Nixon, various assassinations, the Russians and the Cold War. What is also provided, though, is little glimpses into the popular culture of the time; one particularly funny moment occurs when coverage of the Apollo 11 mission cuts to a rather unsubtle advert for program sponsor Kellogg’s.

Interviews with the astronauts are unfailingly interesting, and they certainly seem to be an articulate, down-to-earth (sorry) bunch. Particularly engaging is Michael Collins, ‘the loneliest man’ as Karl Pilkington would have it, whose dry self-deprecatory sense of humour shines through throughout the film. ‘Mr Rendezvous’ Buzz Aldrin comes across as a complete geek, and one who relieved himself on the ladder down to the moon’s surface at that. There is the notable absence of a certain Neil Armstrong in the interviews, but this is inevitable given his rather reclusive nature.

The astronauts’ varying reactions to their achievements is also interesting; for some it seems to have strengthened their faith, while others seem to have come away with a sense of the Earth’s insignificance and fragility. It is also noteworthy that these men were naturally all pilots in the USAF, and if they weren’t doing what they were doing, they would inevitably have been flying jets over Vietnam – a fact that is easy to forget.

One particularly haunting part of the film is the speech that had been prepared and filmed in advance by President Nixon in case of the eventuality that Armstrong and Aldrin did not make it off the surface of the moon alive, describing their ‘sacrifice’ for scientific endeavour. Michael Collins is typically dry about this: “It’s what any PR man would have written”.

Read the speech is in full here: http://watergate.info/nixon/moon-disaster-speech-1969.shtml

The film could so easily have been an overly-patriotic chest-beating love-in for Uncle Sam, and in the run-up to the first landing we do get a sense that it is a purely American mission. However, after the Apollo 11 astronauts return to earth, there is much footage of the international sense of achievement, reinforcing the idea that, as Neil Armstrong’s words so fittingly implied, this was for all mankind.

Films about the the recording of music can often struggle to capture the act of creation in a believable fashion. Some can capture that moment of inspiration and the coming together of disperate elements to fuse together in a perfect harmony: The Buddy Holly Story, for instance, or more the more recent Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line spring instantly to mind. By contrast, it can be rather hammily assembled; the creation of ‘Light My Fire’ in Oliver Stone’s The Doors laboured the classic organ riff’s inception to the point of smelling rather cheese-like. Once, thankfully, is the former, and it is to director John Carney’s credit that the film manages to walk the tightrope between reality and musical fantasy so effectively.

Firstly, the key to the film’s believability is the fact that the songs are clearly being performed by the films two leads and not by some fake shemps lurking off camera. If one reimagines the film as a Hollywood romantic comedy starring, say, Meg Ryan, then the film with the same plot would be sub-TV-movie fodder. What we have here, though, is two endearingly honest performances by real-life musical collaborators Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, giving a window of insight into the way their songs are created, re-shaped and recorded. While the songs themselves are pleasant enough, they are perhaps not strong enough to stand out if, for instance, one overheard them on the radio; what gives the presence of the songs its magic is the performance aspect, as so often can be proved, a live performance of an ordinary song can make it truly extraordinary.

Of course, this is not a documentary about two recording musicians, so we have a fairly standard boy-meets-girl narrative with the usual mis-steps and twists and will-they-won’t-they moments. It is pleasing to note that the film functions on this level too; I don’t invoke the name of Richard Linklater in vain, but there is an easy charm and wide-eyed optimism about Once which is reminiscent of Linklater’s Before Sunrise, for my money the Citizen Kane of modern ‘romantic’ films (I add the inverted commas because to reduce said film to a mere genre label does it no justice whatsoever).

But back to the music; possibly the one thing about the film that stayed with me most was its understanding of the role of music. The male protagonist, ‘Guy’, is not some wannabe X-Factor muppet intent on fame at any cost; he is planning to move to London primarily to win back his ex-girlfriend, the girl whom he seems to write and sing most of his songs about. His creative impulse is both one of catharsis and a deep longing; like Alvy Singer in Annie Hall, it stems from the need to make things in art perfect because its so difficult in real life. Similarly with the ‘Girl’ in the film: it transpires that she is married, but her relationship is far from perfect, and the music she makes is both reflects this, and signals her desire to heal those emotional wounds.

We also see the flipside of the coin: the way the songs affect the listener. In several poignant scenes we see how music is an escape for these characters; ‘Girl’ walks home late at night from the corner shop listening to a borrowed CD player, the music transporting her away from her mundane surroundings to what seems like another world. Similarly, in an earlier scene, a simple duet between our two protagonists on the floor of a piano shop whisks us temporarily away from a drab Dublin high street and into the high heavens. A great record can take a listener away to such places, if they are willing to go there; this wonderful film made me want to go wherever it was taking me.

I have to admit that I have a rather large soft spot for Pixar films; Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles are all superb examples of how to make an animated film which makes the screen come to life as if the characters on it were real. They all managed to acheive a wonderful balance between entertaining whilst having a human message behind the story, something which other animation studios seem not to be able to do as well; let us not forget that, as entertaining as they are for adults, these films are primarily aimed at a younger audience.

The story centres on a rat called Rémy with a nose for a good recipe, who one day accidentally gets separated from his family, and ends up in Paris at the failing restaurant of his favourite, but now deceased, chef. There, by way of some good fortune, he ends up guiding the young inept heir to the restaurant, Linguini , in preparing new recipes which start to restore the restaurant to its former glories, much to the dislike of the newly-deposed former head chef Skinner.

The main theme of the story, namely the prejudices not just in the kitchen but in everyday life against outsiders, is nicely explored, though there is some messy business with a notable food critic which sometimes falls a bit flat (having a dig at the critics, Brad?). Otherwise, this is great fanily-friendly fodder, though perhaps a little too uncontroversial at times. Brad Bird, who stepped in to helm the project after original director Jan Pinkava was removed by the highers up at Pixar, once again hits all the right notes direction-wise, proving that the fantastic The Incredibles was no fluke on his part.

Visually, the film is again one step up from what has gone before. One can’t help feel that Pixar are permanently engaged in a spot of oneupmanship with Dreamworks, for instance constantly trying to outdo each other in terms of things like ‘realistic water’, and so on. Here, Paris is wonderfully recreated as a bustling, beautiful city, though oddly the city’s labyrinthine sewer system is not exploited as a setting as much as might seem suitable. Small details are, as usual, painstakingly rendered, which add up to helping to create the micro-universe of the film’s setting.

Another of Pixar’s strong points, the characterisation, is perhaps a little underplayed here, similarly to Finding Nemo; the main characters in these films tend to be interchangeable, but it is the peripheral characters, much like in the best work of the Coen Brothers, which give the films their depth. Here, the prize for the best of these must go to head chef Skinner, wonderfully voiced by Ian Holm, who falls only just short of Pixar’s greatest creation, The Incredibles’ Edna Mode.

I find it hard to believe the nay-sayers who are criticizing this film. Perhaps Pixar’s problem is that they have set such a high standard for animated features, that anything that falls just short appears to be a failure; Ratatouille, in my eyes, is a wonderful work which easily ranks alongside their other films in terms of sheer enjoyment.

***ATTENTION: FOOD BASED PUN FOLLOWS****

All in all, a thoroughly wholesome platter from Pixar.

***FOOD BASED PUN ENDS HERE***