Rewatchables Reference

• Bill: The Arthur Leigh Allen interrogation scene – 'I love this scene.' Three actors sizing him up, Ruffalo's barely-contained reactions, the 'Zodiac' watch, the boots, 'I suppose you'll want to know about the bloody knives in my trunk.'
• CR: Toschi and Armstrong reconstructing the taxicab crime scene – 'Fincher making a mini cop movie in the middle of this movie.' Also Downey on the houseboat.
• Sean: The final breakfast between Toschi and Graysmith – 'Darlene worked at the House of Pancakes in Vallejo. I walked it.' The moment you feel like the movie knows who the 'Zodiac' Killer is. Also Graysmith's first meeting with Toschi.
• Craig: The interrogation – 'It felt the most like Usual Suspects where you're sitting there picking up on things.'

• Sean: Wide-eyed innocent weirdo era Gyllenhaal – Donnie Darko through this, before pivoting to End of Watch/Prisoners intensity. Also Gen X reckoning with their childhood, right before Obama.
• Bill: Folger's coffee everywhere – that was the only coffee forever. Coordinating investigations between cities without the internet.

• Sean: True crime obsession – this movie was ahead of the curve before podcasts, documentaries, and Netflix made it mainstream.
• Bill: Late 60s/early 70s San Francisco on film. Downey's comeback (this plus 'Iron Man'). The Fincher catalog and what this movie means to it.
• CR: All of Downey's mutterings to Gyllenhaal – 'Sweet mother of Christ, what are you drawing?' The film changes totally when the protagonist switches. Also Chloe Sevigny – 'maybe the hottest she's ever looked.'
• Sean: The unsolvability of mundane tragedy, and Graysmith as a stand-in for internet obsession culture – using external problems to divert yourself from what's going on at home.

• Bill: Cutting the two-minute blackout montage signaling the passage of time (Joni Mitchell to Donna Summer), replaced with a jarring 'Four Years Later' title card. Also not enough Downey/Gyllenhaal scenes together.
• CR: The four-year gap is the most abrupt, weird transition – you have to reorient that Avery has washed out and Graysmith is on his own.
• Bill: Anthony Edwards with a wig – 'He's such a proven bald guy that anytime I see him with hair, I'm like, come on.'

• CR: Gyllenhaal and Sevigny in the phone booth outside the restaurant – 'the way it's lit, it's kind of romantic. It's a personal favorite.'
• Sean: Three connected shots – 'Zodiac' coming over the hill at Lake Berryessa, holding on Hartnell's face during the stabbing, then cutting to the woman's torso. All blood was digital so they could do 50 takes without redoing costumes.
• Craig: The aerial Golden Gate Bridge shot that looks like an Apple screensaver.
• Sean: First push-in on the city with the rebuilt Embarcadero Freeway – Fincher rebuilding a freeway that collapsed in the '89 earthquake just because he grew up with it.

• Bill: Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan when the Lover's Lane shooting starts – 'songs in the background and then it gets loud.'
• CR: Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye.
• Sean: Bernadette in the bar – Four Tops song. Fincher does a little Scorsese/Thelma Schoonmaker thing where it starts midway through and the vocal just pops in.

• CR: The Avery trip to Riverside on an anonymous tip – it works out but that part is confusing.
• Bill: Not making it clear enough that there was a murder before the opening murder scene. It assumes the viewer already knows the 'Zodiac' timeline.
• Sean: The Donald Cheney character – credibility issues in the wider 'Zodiac' world. Fincher says he finds Cheney credible, but many investigators disagree.

• Sean: This is the greatest American crime film ever made. 'It's the only crime film that really portrays what it's like to try to solve a crime. No other movie is really interested in that.'
• Bill: The 'Zodiac' is the GOAT serial killer – never caught, might also be the Black Dahlia killer, great nickname, drove detectives crazy, created books and movies, still going on Reddit 55 years later.
• CR: Triple feature – 'Zodiac', 'Boogie Nights', and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Three filmmakers doing childhood memoirs where they don't put themselves as the central character.

• Gary Oldman was supposed to play Melvin Belli but physically couldn't work – ironically later played Churchill (who was way fatter) and won the Oscar.
• Jennifer Aniston tipped Fincher off to both Gyllenhaal and Ruffalo. Orlando Bloom was the backup for Graysmith.
• Fincher wanted Brad Pitt as Avery. Sean: Pitt doesn't do the fast-talking energy a smart-alec journalist needs – 'he plays dumb really well, plays low-key or burnt out really well.'

• Brian Cox channeling full Logan Roy energy – Bill can't watch him in anything after Succession without waiting for him to become Logan.
• Theresa Russell as Sandra Van Ryan – Downey on the houseboat doing 'Downey karaoke, playing all the hits.'

• Sean: John Carroll Lynch, Zach Grenier, Philip Baker Hall, Elias Koteas, James LeGros, Donald Logue, John Terry, June Diane Raphael, Adam Goldberg – 'the definitive that-guys. This is the cast they designed Dion Waiters for.'
• Bill: The priest from The Sopranos (one of the cops). Skippy from 'Kicking and Screaming' / the drug dealer from Beverly Hills 90210.
• CR: John Getz and John Terry from the editorial meetings.

• Sean: Clea DuVall – one scene, camera doesn't move off her. 'The pinnacle of this category.'
• CR: Brian Cox – two full scenes, puts seasoning on every moment. 'When he gets out of the cab with all the helicopters swirling.'
• Bill: John Carroll Lynch – 2.5 scenes. Charles Fleischer as the basement guy – one terrifying scene.

• Bill: Michael Keaton for Anthony Edwards – CR says too big for the role. Fincher described Edwards as 'the living embodiment of the assist' who makes other people seem better.
• Bill: John Slattery should be in this movie somewhere.

• Fincher used photos to determine how many VW bugs should be in each scene. Cars change accurately over the decade.
• Ray Cantrell's 1972 movie 'The 'Zodiac' Killer' was made to catch the actual 'Zodiac' in the theater – filmmakers hid in a freezer scouting the audience. They claim the 'Zodiac' came in and they spoke to him in the bathroom but couldn't keep him.
• Downey's four-straw trick (picking up a 4th straw): 26 takes. Graysmith's cocktail recipe: vodka, gin, lemon, lime, and blue curaçao – 'just a Long Island iced tea dyed blue.'

• Fincher: CR says this movie (creative apex). Bill says Social Network. Sean says 'Fight Club' was first apex, then 'Gone Girl'. All agree this launched one of the most impressive sequences of filmmaking this century.
• Serial killer movies: Silence of the Lambs. True crime movies: yes.
• Ruffalo as a movie detective: this vs. 'Collateral' (Bill says this, CR loves the 'Collateral' goatee).
• Gyllenhaal: Maybe – this launched him into the End of Watch/Prisoners era. Nightcrawler might be his best performance.
• John Carroll Lynch movies: this over 'Fargo'. Donovan music: 'Goodfellas' (Atlantis) over Hurdy Gurdy Man here.

• Bill: Scorsese – 'I'd want to see the movie.' Interested in the Rolling Stones, late-60s San Francisco energy.
• Sean: Spielberg – Scorsese has never made a procedural; it's not what he does. But Spielberg might not be dark enough for this movie.
• CR: Spielberg's version might turn out like The Post – not bad but a little too earnest.

• Bill: Why is the cartoonist in high-level editorial meetings reading the 'Zodiac' letter? Fincher admitted they needed it for the movie.
• Sean: Three detectives in a room, almost certain Allen is the 'Zodiac', he's wearing a 'Zodiac' watch – and they can't get him. Then Toschi works the case solo for 7 more years.
• CR: Toschi's 'I can't help you, but if I were to help you, I'd tell you to call Ken Narlow' – 'we don't have to make this into the Riddler.'
• The penne alla vodka – Chloe Sevigny's character orders it, but it didn't exist until the 1980s. Fincher on the commentary: 'We fucked up.'
• Craig's mother-in-law: Graysmith says 'no one's going to read Herb Caen' – she shouted 'everybody read Herb Caen!' The 'Zodiac' actually mentions Caen in a letter.

CR: Fincher already did it – Mindhunter on Netflix.

• CR: Wayne Jenkins writing one of the 'Zodiac' letters – 'you better keep your kids off that school bus or I'll take them out the 'Zodiac' way.'
• Bill: Doris Burke – 'I'm trying to decipher your game, Mr. 'Zodiac'.'

All: Fincher for Best Director. He was completely snubbed despite this being one of the best-directed films of the decade.

• CR: Who is the 'Zodiac'?
• Bill: Why don't cops in these movies realize serial killers always start with somebody they know? It's the big revelation every time.

• CR: The 'I Am Not Paul Avery' button.
• Sean: Paul Avery's houseboat – Amanda Dobbins Award for best piece of real estate.
• Bill: NOT the wooden dildo. Would want one of the original 'Zodiac' letter recreations or Graysmith's whole scrapbook of newspapers and murder clippings.

• CR: 'It's not finished until you type it up.'
• Bill: Don't ever give up on a murder investigation, even if it costs you your family and sanity, because it might lead to a David Fincher movie. 'Fincher might be waiting for you. He loves obsession.'

• CR: All the President's Men.
• Sean and Bill: Dirty Harry – the exciting solved version of this story vs. the real unsolvable version.

• All: Fincher.
• Sean: Did the 'Zodiac' Killer win the movie? His myth is burnished by this film.

Craig: Big thumbs up – never saw it before. Called it a 'generational connector' and a decent family watch. Already wants to go back and rewatch. 'Creepy All the President's Men.' Said there's a 15-minute chunk in the middle that could be cut but understands the movie needs to feel like this long, painful process.