Movie Notes

Fracture - This psychological thriller starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling may be a bit predictable, but the performances (especially by Hopkins) are so brilliant, the predictability doesn't take away much from the overall picture. The film was well produced from start to finish.
Overall Grade: 7/10

Vacancy - I typically don't enjoy horror films, but do typically enjoy psychological thrillers. Vacancy couldn't make up its mind on what it wanted to be. It had the initial make-up of a solid psychological thriller, but in the end, thought it was just a slasher film. It's difficult to have it both ways. There was no character development. At no time was it known why the head of the evil operation was provoked to do such dastardly deeds. The two leads, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsdale, did a fairly decent job in their roles, but weren't given much to work with. The film had a lot of potential, but wasn't good for many scares or for much background information on why we should care. The ending was rather ridiculous as well, almost comical.
Overall Grade: 4/10

Zodiac - The film, based on the novel written about the San Francisco serial killer, seemed overly-long to my brother, but any film lasting more than five minutes without the music, gore, sex, and action sequences of The Transporter, would have him bored. I, on the other hand, thought the film did a great job drawing in the viewer. Especially with those unfamilar with the events at that time in San Francisco, the film became half horror and half mystery, because after the first couple (few) murders, there are many sequences where a single person is left by themselves in the dark and we begin to wonder if they're next. The acting was fairly solid all around, but after seeing Fracture with Hopkins and Gosling, I must say the acting could've been slightly better. Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. all star. I felt that Gyllenhaal was solid in his lead role as the San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist turned Zodiac-researching obsessor and Downey did a good job in his limited San Francisco Chronicle editorialist role. I'm not sure Ruffalo was the best man for his role, but did adequately. Some may find the ending to be a disappointment, but in this film, that makes complete sense, as the police, the feds, the whole country was disappointed with the end result. What, should the movie producers have over-Hollywoodized it and pretended that the killer was caught? I don't think so. If nothing else, this film was very intriguing and was able to hold an eery feel throughout. While I think it could have been improved upon some, I still think it's worth watching at least once.

Overall Grade: 7.5/10