All is well, it's UK Zodiac DVD day and Jake quotes Shakespeare

Today is a Monday and what has made it many times more bearable for me today has been the UK release of the Zodiac DVD. I'm delighted to say that the release has been accompanied by a plethora of standing ovations in the press, perhaps supporting the view that this is a film well suited for the small screen. I do agree that this is a good film to watch within the comfort of your own sofa or chair and with supplies to hand. That way, you can enjoy every perfect minute of what is surely the film of the year - well, tied for first, I have seen Rendition after all.


Here are some quotes from the press that have accompanied the release. Philip Horne in the Telegraph: 'Graysmith, his San Francisco Chronicle colleague Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr), and David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), the investigating policeman, try to make sense of the chaotic, hellish fixation that the taunting, elusive Zodiac entices them into – a paranoid universe of maddening leads and spooky red herrings. This film full of facts, codes, puzzles and, increasingly, fear, puts in perspective the 21st-century CSI or House forensic model of scientific adequacy. Here, people are fallible, jurisdictions compete, evidence is transmitted by snail mail. In this imperfect world, "Just because you can't prove it, doesn't mean it's not true." Paradoxically, the very-1970s Zodiac was shot on the Viper camera system, yielding a digital image of "almost unbearable sharpness" (Fincher). Zodiac's story is twisted and painful, but this "good movie" is so exhilarating I didn't want it to stop.'


The IndieLondon: 'David Fincher serves notice of why he continues to be regarded as one of the boldest, darkest and most fascinating directors of the moment with Zodiac, a gripping account of one of America’s biggest unsolved crimes... Fincher’s film works as both a riveting police procedural and an intriguing insight into the emotional toll of crime on the people investigating it... Gyllenhaal, for his part, has to wait for the film’s focus to fall on him given that his cartoonist begins as a hopelessly shy loner who follows the case’s progress from the sidelines. But once given the opportunity, the actor skillfully shows how it became an obsession that placed both his sanity and marriage at risk...There’s also a keen sense of time and place (San Francisco is particularly well shot) and a very nice nod to Don Siegel’s ’70s masterpiece Dirty Harry, whose villain was based on the Zodiac... It’s for these reasons – and several more – that Fincher’s film emerges as one of the finest American releases of the year so far. It’s essential viewing.'

I bought the DVD today and I can confirm that the half-hour special is the UK ITV4 special from earlier this year. I think this is well worth having - if only because of Jake with tousled hair wearing a purple t-shirt.


Someone please make Jake do Shakespeare

Jake's done it again - we've seen him pose like a Praxiteles Apollo or Hermes (woodchopper) - and now he's quoting Shakespeare. Jake has become an intoxicating mix of sex appeal and classical reference, possibly a good reason for why he is so alluring. With thanks to UV for locating the link, here is an interview with Jake from TIFF, in which he flaps his arms to keep at bay the heat surrounding him (I would have thought he would be used to that by now), pulls the plug on the slightest hint of a personal question and gives us, almost modestly, a line from The Merchant of Venice: 'I fear you speak upon the rack where men enforced do speak anything.' I can only beg Trevor Nunn and any other director with a bit of clout to get Jake onto a Shakespearean stage prompto.



Odds and sods

It seems that Jake spent Sunday evening watching our old friend Rufus Wainwright sing Judy Garland at the Hollywood Bowl. Speaking as someone who has seen Rufus dressed as Judy - in tux jacket and black fishnets - I can imagine that this was some night on a stage full of memories. Thanks to a WDW reader and others elsewhere, it appears that Jake was with his father, unofficial godmother Jamie Lee Curtis and a certain cap with a Big Red B on it.


Thanks to WDW reader Michele for uncovering the other talent behind Jake's public event style - twins Clare and Nina Allen - the other talent being, of course, the incredible material they have to work with, Jake himself. Looking around, the twins are everywhere, advising and dressing Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Kirsten Dunst and many more, as well as being friends of Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz. Judging by Jake's appearances at the Baftas, Cannes and Toronto, they do a fine and, I think you may agree with me, enviable job.


Includes pictures from IHJ.