Month: March 2007

Up in Flames

The bad thing about tonight’s episode: it probably raises more questions than it answers. The good? The next episode is only six days away. Ignore that. It’s nice to know we’ve got an uninterrupted slate of new episodes from here on out. No more two and three-week hiatuses makes Lost fans happy, despite their apparently dwindling numbers. (Last week’s episode had a series-low audience of 12.78 million viewers.) I’m still enjoying the ride, questions be damned.

Thursday Morning Quarterback Edit: Ignore the preceding paragraph, preserved solely for posterity’s sake. I think I’m going to start waiting until the next day to publish these. My vast reservoir of writing talent can only truly come through after sixteen revisions. Plenty of questions raised and re-raised, but on the whole, last night’s episode had plenty of answers, albeit answers to (relatively) inconsequential questions.

I think the biggest item-of-note to take from “Enter 77” was the revelation of the Others being on the island long before the Dharma Initiative, when I tended to believe it was just the opposite. This is all under the assumption that Flame Station staffer Mikhail “Patchy” Bakunin was telling the truth to Sayid and Kate.

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Zodiac | A

director: David Fincher
starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chloë Sevigny, Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, John Carroll Lynch

A quick word of warning. While this film is faithfully based on real-life events, I’m sure there are many people completely unaware of the full details of the case and its current status. Thus, it’s probably not a good idea to read this review before first familiarizing yourself with the case and/or seeing the flick. If you’ve got next to no working knowledge of the story, then I’ll just leave you with my urging to see the flick. It’s great. Spoilers abound in the review below.

The epic film adaptation of the grisly Zodiac killings in 1960’s San Francisco has arrived, courtesy of the reliable hands of director David Fincher. Aside from the fascinating story itself, Fincher is one of the great American directors working in film today, and his name in the credits is enough for me to hop onboard. The subject matter itself, though, is the big attraction here. I’ll leave it to Wikipedia to summarize the high points:

The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California for ten months in the late 1960s. He coined his name in a series of taunting letters he sent to the press until 1974. His letters included four cryptograms, three of which have yet to be solved.

The killer’s identity remains unknown. The San Francisco Police Department marked its investigation “inactive” in April 2004 and reopened it some time before March 2007. The case remains open in other jurisdictions as well. [Wikipedia]

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Tricia Tanaka is hot

Based on how tonight’s episode started, I was ready to join the ever-growing chorus of Lost fans complaining about the show and it’s lack of real developments in the form of “answers.” We get more cliched, manufactured melodrama courtesy of Sawyer and Kate looking sad and glancing at each other over shoulders, and Hurley’s dad telling him about the power of hope and making your own luck, and the genesis of Hugo’s rotund physique, etc, etc. Boo frickity hoo. And gee, juxtaposing a rabbit’s foot with Hurley’s curse wasn’t too heavy-handed. Thankfully, all that stuff was in the rear view mirror after the first commercial break, as we got something of a lighter episode centering around a Dharma/VW hippie bus Hurley finds in the middle of the jungle. It’s amazing how much stuff these castaways keep finding within a stone’s throw of their beach. I’m guessing they’ll find a helicopter, a trampoline and a McDonald’s before the season’s through.

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