ZATOICHI (Japan, Takeshi Kitano)
We non-Japanese can't fully understand what it means for Takeshi Kitano to make a Zatoichi movie. The best comparison I can come up with is this: Imagine that Sean Connery had starred in all the James Bond films, and then years after the series ended, Clint Eastwood decided to portray 007 himself in his own Bond flick. The "official" Zatoichi films numbered 26, all of them starring Shintaro Katsu, whose name obviously became synonymous with the role of the legendary blind swordsman who wanders through the violent landscape of feudal Japan. So to have TV comic-cum-art film Renaissance man "Beat" Takeshi Kitano take on the role, well, it became quite the mini-scandal in Japanese film circles. Nevertheless, Kitano (most famous in the US for his meditative but violent contemporary crime dramas) trades in his usual long-take style for flashy editing and even flashier swordplay, delivering a worthy Samurai action picture. (Amusingly, Miramax retitled the film The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi at the last minute for the US release, presumably so it wouldn't fall to the alphabetical bottom of movie review sections, and since there's no "Z" on telephone buttons, finding Zatoichi might be a bit difficult on Moviefone.) But this is still inarguably a Kitano film, with his full bag of tricks - a slightly nonlinear narrative, time taken to focus on quiet subplots, deadpan humor and seemingly incongruous scenes of dancing or off-beat characters. This time, those scenes - choreographed and performed by Japan's answer to the "Stomp" dance troupe, an appealing bunch of tap-dancers called The Stripes - actually have a nicer fit with the story (which has Zatoichi befriending a down-on-his-luck gambler and his aunt, as well as a pair of geisha siblings carrying out a lifelong vendetta against the men who murdered their family). The music is great, the cinematography is great, the swordfights are great, and naturally Kitano is great as star, as director, as writer and as editor (the man does everything!), even if in his typical nonconformist fashion he gives his Zatoichi a modern, bleach-blonde haircut instead of the traditional shaved-forehead-and-ponytail look. He directs a fine all-star cast, including one of Japan's best known "serious actor" idols, Tananobu Asano, as the noble ronin (masterless Samurai) who takes on a job as bodyguard for the vicious gang terrorizing the small town that Zatoichi wanders into, and whose showdown with Zatoichi is as anti-climactic as it is inevitable. This is one of the most singularly enjoyable movies I've seen all year, with a careful balance of mood, character and action, and a fantastic finale (I'm giving nothing away here) that is nothing less than a full-blown, heart-pumping tap dance number. You read that right. For that alone you should see Zatoichi, but see it for all the other things as well.

ZODIAC (US, David Fincher)
Originally I was going to write this whole review under the assumption that pretty much everybody knew at least the basic details of San Francisco's legendary Zodiac killer: How many murders he's connected with, how long his killing spree lasted, and whether he was ever identified or caught. But my wife informed me after we saw Zodiac that she knew none of this going into the movie. So if you don't know anything about the case, perhaps you should stop reading this review now. Although it may serve you well to read it, so that you aren't as disappointed with the film. Even though, going into the movie, I was aware that this is a police procedural film and not a serial killer film, I feel that it's director David Fincher's devotion to the Zodiac timeline (and, more to the point, to Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac, an exhausting true crime tome) that, while making Zodiac technically impressive, is the reason why it doesn't really work as a movie.

Thing is, for those of us who have even a passing knowledge of the case, we know that, like Jack the Ripper and the anthrax poisoner of 2001, the real Zodiac was never caught. We also know that, like the aforementioned anonymous murderers, he mysteriously stopped killing after five deaths were connected with him. (Now there's one for the conspiracy theorists: Why five?) And since Zodiac is based on Graysmith's completed book, we can surmise that the movie doesn't bump off Graysmith (played by an ever-earnest Jake Gyllenhaal) himself, which makes the handful of suspensful scenes surrounding Graysmith pretty unsuspenseful. Because of this, Fincher and his screenwriter James Vanderbilt walk a fine line between making a film about Graysmith's almost pointless obsessiveness, and celebrating the fruits of that obsessiveness (after all, Graysmith's book became a bestseller, and now a Hollywood film). They want to make a character study, a police procedural and a whodunnit all in one. Which I support - if only it really worked. The main problem is not just that we know we won't see Zodiac brought to justice, and that we know that none of the main characters are going to get killed because Zodiac "officially" ended his killing spree in 1969, but that Graysmith's intense fascination with the case - and he was just a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle who got involved simply because he was curious - continued for almost twenty years. This means that, two hours into this overlong movie, Jake Gyllenhaal is still going nuts over every shred of evidence - useful or not - long after we've gotten over the film's disturbing early murder scenes. In short, I lost interest well before Graysmith did - even on screen - and thus couldn't buy into his obsession. I think Fincher could have kept us emotionally involved with Graysmith while still sticking to the facts. Zodiac would have been a much better film if we could have been made to identify with Graysmith, or at least see the value of pursuing this years-old, increasingly uninteresting case. And I will lay part of the blame on poor Jake Gyllenhaal; again, "earnest" is the best way to describe the actor and his work. He tries so hard! Yet there remains a shallowness in his role as Graysmith. Decades go by, but he doesn't show the scars of his obsessiveness or even the passing of time. (It doesn't help that the actor's very 2007 haircut remains exactly the same, whether we see Graysmith in 1969 or in 1983. If he had let himself look all 1970's like costars Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo - both turning in effortlessly fine performances - then it wouldn't have been as distracting.)

In 1971, while the real Zodiac was still on everybody's minds, the cop thriller Dirty Harry came out. It's no secret that the Clint Eastwood classic was inspired by the Zodiac killings. (Fincher's Zodiac even includes a scene at a San Francisco screening of the film.) Fictionalized as it was, I think it actually tells a more gripping, more engaging, and more satisfying story about Zodiac. And if you haven't seen Dirty Harry recently, or at all, I'd advise giving the well-made but ultimately dull Zodiac a miss and catching that great film instead.

ZOOLANDER (US, Ben Stiller)
Lately security has been very tight at my place of employment, Paramount Pictures, so it almost seemed like they were not going to provide their routine free screening of Paramount films for employees. But 10 days after Zoolander's release, they decided to slip one in for those interested. I figured it was worth a free ticket, so I checked it out. As I had no expectations whatsoever for Zoolander, I wasn't really disappointed, but it's just another silly, forgettable dum-dum comedy, so it's hard to put much effort into a review. Stiller plays Derek Zoolander, the most handsome male model alive (see, the joke is, Stiller is actually rather goofy-looking, get it?). Brainwashed by evil fashion designer Mugato (ubiquitous Paramount comedy costar Will Ferrell, doing his usual disturbing, slightly homoerotic schtick) into killing the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who has promised to end the practice of child labor in the garment industry, Derek mugs and moons and bumps his way through 90 minutes of fairly painless comedy surrounding this slight plot. Oh yeah, and Derek is also extremely stupid. Surprise! As is his chief rival Hansel, another hot male model played by the decidedly non-hot Owen Wilson, a funny actor with one of the strangest-looking noses I've ever seen. Anyway, you get the expected toilet gags (courtesy Stiller's dad, Jerry), slapstick and campiness, but mostly you get humor so dependent on the movie's wacky context that it actually isn't that funny. Zoolander is full of corny scenes from a thousand melodramas, and the joke is that this time you have male supermodels enacting them. That's fine, but Stiller is so dead-on with his cliches that I was left thinking, "Yeah, so? You're spoofing bad movie scenes. Tell me something I don't know." Maybe it would have been a lot funnier if I was drunk. Still, I laughed a few times at the better jokes. But it's not like I ever need to see it again.