Another half-assed update

Still too lazy to write reviews as long as I'd been writing them before, but I don't want to totally abandon this.

Zodiac (***)

Based on the true story of the Zodiac killer, this film details the lives of those trying to solve the case, notably Jake Gyllinhall's character, a newspaper cartoonist with no expertise except for a personal interest in the cyphers used by the Zodiac. Gyllinhall gives a very good performance, as does Robert Downey Jr. While it lacks the atmosphere of Seven or the raw intensity of Fight Club, David Fincher does another solid job of directing here. The film does have some pacing problems, mostly because of the nature of the real life case, in which there were several long stretches of time during which the Zodiac didn't communicate with the media or police nor had any known victims. Still the case is one of the more intriguing unsolved mysteries out there, and Fincher clearly took great effort in adapting the real-life events for the screen.

Children of Men (****)

This film is probably best classified as science fiction, as it is set in a dystopian vision of the near future, but at its heart its a very focused and human drama. The film follows Clive Owen, a former political activist who is now too cynical, burned out, and alcoholic to care, who stumbles into the role of guarding a pregnant woman -- the first woman to become pregnant in almost 20 years. The film makes some very pointed political commentaries about present day reality. Britain,--which proclaims itself to be "soldiering on" amidst the chaos the infertility crisis brought upon the world--is seen as oppressive and jingoistic, and scenes of imprisoned illegal immigrants recall images from Guantanamo Bay. Still more than anything, the story at its heart is a story of human perseverance. Clive Owen's character, Theo, despite the depression he'd sunken into, finds something worth fighting for, and Children of Men is the account of how far he's willing to go to accomplish it. Despite some of the grandiose battle scenes and the near-future setting, the film is directed with a pretty minimalist style, using long, documentary like takes. And as I explained, the story is really a very simple and focused one and this simple style suits it perfectly. Even though its plot is quite different, I could see this being remembered in much the same way Blade Runner was remembered, in that its a story set in the future, but which is more about the people than the setting.