The puzzle of Zodiac's missing minutes - and the stuff of dreams

The one bright spot on the horizon for the beginning of the new working week on Monday is that the shelves of DVD stores and supermarkets across the UK will be filling up (and hopefully emptying) with copies of the Zodiac DVD. This coincides with more discussion about the January release of the Director's Cut edition. There is a debate going on about how many extra minutes we will be getting for our money. One site has it that we will be getting another full 25 minutes while another puts it down to just 5 or 6.


At Hollywood Elsewhere, reporter Jeffrey Wells tried to find out the facts about the length in a manner all too reminiscent of Robert Graysmith's obsession, enacting his own tribute to an exceptional film, which is all about the detail. 'The whole point of Zodiac is obsession. The fun is in the obsessive wading through detail after detail, clue after clue, hint after hint. It follows, therefore, that the Director's Cut DVD should give free rein to the film's investigative intrigues (Jake Gyllenhaal's, Mark Ruffalo's, Robert Downey's...everyone's). This naturally means more details, hints and clues and more running time to explore each one. In this light, five or six extra minutes isn't nearly enough. I was looking for at least an extra 20 or 25 minutes. This is very disappointing.' How I chuckled at this comment to the site: 'From the begining to the end, the film was 157 minutes. I've walked it.'


Slashfilm is going for the optimistic approach and is predicting a full 25 minutes of extra detail. However, the fact that the source is the very Jeffrey Wells who is lamenting the lack of extra minutes is a little perplexing.


Movie City News has compiled a list of its top ten films for the year - up to September. Despite declaring with sadness that 2007 has, to date, been a poor year for film, the feature suggests that this is of no matter when set against the quality of the top film - Zodiac.

'This is several films in one while also being a complete movie on its own. There are several main characters, several suspects, several motives, several subplots and they all fit together somehow. The hero of the film changes, with the focus on Gyllenhaal, then Robert Downey Jr., then Ruffalo, then Gyllenhaal again and yet it works. That is ultimately the most brilliant part of Zodiac: it takes so many risks, isn't afraid of being unconventional and it all works. There is no fat to be trimmed off of the long running time and there is no better way to tell this story. The last half an hour of the film will stay with me for the rest of my life. In fact, the entire film will and that is the sign of a true masterpiece.'


A couple of months ago, I posted a link to a video which showed how special effects had played a surprisingly dominant - albeit subtle - role in Zodiac, including scenes where they would never be suspected. Now that the time is here when many of us, although not all, have had a chance to see the film for ourselves, I thought it was timely to repeat the link. The video itself is of very high quality.

Jake makes dreams come true at TIFF

No doubt many of you will have heard that some lucky members of the Brokeback community were able to get Jake to sign one of his original Brokeback shirts at the Rendition Gala in Toronto - two weeks ago tonight. I'm thrilled to see that the video of their moment can now seen here. It captures so much of the atmosphere that I'm remembering tonight.


And finally...

Jake has (probably) been spotted in LA again - this time chatting with a friend in the lobby of the Four Seasons Beverly Hills Hotel in LA. And he was wearing That Cap again... the one with the Big Red B. This picture was posted at DC last night (by Ania, I believe) and I have to repeat it here.


Includes pictures from IHJ and Jakeg.fan-sites.org.