I saw Zodiac for the first time almost a year ago, at the beginning of February 2007. The film stuck with me, even as a cavalcade of bona fide masterpieces were released into theaters, and I always knew it would make my top ten list at the end of the year. But it wasn’t until I revisited the film with the two disc Director’s Cut DVD* (I have but haven’t watched the bare bones theatrical cut DVD) that I realized how high it would place. The movie ended up coming in number two for me, and I believe that not only is Zodiac David Fincher’s finest film, it’s one of the great movies of the decade.
The two disc DVD hits stores on Tuesday (read Nick’s review here), and you’re going to find the second disc packed to the gills with extras – not just about the making of the movie but also a feature length documentary on the real case. This is no repurposed History Channel quickie cash-in; this is a from scratch doc that goes back and revisits as many of the major players in the case as possible. It’s incredible.
Long (and engrossing) as that documentary is, they couldn’t fit everything into it, so some stuff hit the cutting room floor. But thanks to the interwebs you can see some of these scenes exclusively on the Zodiac movie website. Click here to check it out – there’s stuff on linguistic analysis, geographical profiling, and behavioral profiling. Now you can get as obsessed as Robert Graysmith!.
In the meantime, keep your eyes on CHUD; I have an exclusive interview with David Fincher hitting the site sometime today. And while you wait, feel free to click here to order the Zodiac two-discer from CHUD!
*best DVD cover in years? Fuck yes.