Zodiac (2007)

 "I think he's watching us."

"Well, we're very good looking."

This is an interesting film, to say the least. I suppose I was expecting something more sensational, more focused on the gory details, but instead far more of the run time is dedicated to the puzzle of who the Zodiac was, with all the many little clues, details and complicating factors, not least of which is which crimes, other than the main ones, were genuinely committed by the Zodiac himself.

The whole thing looks beautiful and the directorial style from David Fincher is exquisite. The California of the late '60s up to the early '80s is recreated in convincing and fascinating detail. Indeed, the actual social mores of this time- in which hippes and the like did not loom anything like as large as popular culture may make us imagine- are as fascinating as anything else, not least the detail that Arthur Leigh Allen seems to be let off appallingly lightly for his disgusting child molestation. And the cast is pretty much perfect, although Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo stand out in particular.

I'm not convinced that Allen was the Zodiac- indeed, I'm not sure any of the usually touted suspects were. But I don't think we can say, despite appearances, that the film does either. It leans into the ambiguity at times, especially with the extraordinary tense scenes where Robert begins to suspect that Bob Vaughn may be the Zodiac, and the two of them are alone in Vaughn's basement.

But the film, I think, is not about solving the mystery: it's about the dangers of obsession with endless if fascinatingrabbit holes such as this, which ruins Robert Graysmith's marriage, Paul Avery's health and career and David Toschi's reputation. Mysteries are fascinating, but they are not more important than our relationships, our children, our lives. And that's a very compelling point from a seriously impressive film.

Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

 "I'm in love with Spider-Man's aunt!"

Yes, I know. I'm well behind oin the Marvel films; I intend to remedy that. And I'm being competist, and trying to track down Blade:Trinity. Anyway...

This film is awesome. It works brilliantly both as an action film and as a farce. It's totally a Spider-Man film- the characterisation of Spidey is spot on, and Tom Holland is superb, plus not only is Jake Gyllenhaal brilliant as Mysterio but the villain works perfectly. He's the master of illusion: what could be more gloriously cinematic?

And yet, at the same time, this is absolutely a big MCU film. It ties Spidey very strongly to the legacy of the late Tony Stark- including, with Happy, an important member of Shellhead's supporting cast. But it's deeper than that. The film takes place in the afteermath of the former dead returning after Thanos's snap. Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders take prominent roles... and turn out to be Skrulls.

And, yes, at the end, a dying Mysterio outs Spidey as Peter Parker- via J.K. Simmonds as J. Jonah Jameson once more!!!- which will have future consequences, but which is also a sign of the MCU disdaining the concept of secret identities. We do not rely on cliched tropes here.

It's mostly an adorable and light farce, though, with lots of comedy, bits of action and romance between Peter and Mary Jane, which is incredibly sweet. Yet at the same time it manages to  be a very Spider-Man film set far from his territory of New York- imagine!- and a brilliant MCU film.

Kevin Feige, you and your underlings triumph yet again.

Donnie Darko (2001)

"Every living creature on Planet Earth dies  alone."

This is the greatest film of the twenty-first century so far. I thought so the first time round, when I saw this film back when it first came out in my uni days, and I think so now. It's beautifully and meaningfully shot, it has definite yet undefined themes, and it oozes a profundity that can't be nailed down to anything so banal as a specific meaning. And in retrospect it comes from a turn-of-the-millennium golden age of films like this. It's only been thirteen years, but I couldn't imagine Donnie Darko being made now.

From the start we establish that it's going rive beautifully shot. We establish that the soundtrack is going to be awesome, too; it doesn't get much better than Echo and the Bunnymen's "Killing Moon". From the beginning there's a visual emphasis on the contrast between the banal suburban existence from 1988 (fittingly, the year of Morrisey's "Everyday Is Like Sunday") and the slow motion acid trip of the camerawork, establishing a stranger and more beautiful world than dinner tables, 1980s interior decor and put downs of Michael Dukakis.

The debate over politics (and it's sobering, from a modern perspective, that a relative centrist like Bush the Elder could never run for the presidency over politics today) establishes the family dynamic; Elizabeth, the eldest, is the political rebel, Donnie is a very strange boy, and the family is a pretty normal kind of dysfunctional.

Donnie Darko is a fairly standard Holden Caulfield type- adolescent, rebellious, bookish- but things get a little stranger once he's woken up by a giant talking a rabbit- introduced, naturally, by an eerie soundscape. He's not at all displeased, being an angst-ridden teen, that the world will end in "28 days, six hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds". 

Our slow introduction to the school environment  is helped along by a slow montage and a splendid "alternative 80s" soundtrack. It's weird to me, as a Brit, to see the superb and sexy Drew Barrymore, teaching Graham Greene, saying "barrow boy" in an American accent(!), but she's a parallel to Donnie; older, more mature yet also alienated. Also alienated is Cherita, with Donnie, who is certainly alienated, the only one who is nice to her.

Not at all alienated, on the surface at least, is the slimy, authoritarian snake oil salesman Cunningham, alongside his stupid teacher accomplice. But Gretchen Ross is pleasingly alienated, which is why  we want her and Donnie to get together. Donnie doesn't get in trouble for flooding the school but he gets in trouble for challenging Cunningham's vacuous bullshit, which is a very valid commentary on the prevalence of such bullshit and, worse, that it is so widely believed. 

Donnie doesn't want to die alone, but he can't bring himself to believe in a God, much like myself. I don't understand the significance of the wormholes or the time travel stuff, but perhaps the point is partly that, on four dimensional space-time, death is not the end but just a point in our four-dimensional lives. It's the nearest we atheists can get to eternal life.

It's narratively satisfying to see Cunningham revealed as a paedophile, and appropriate that it should be Donnie burning his house down that reveals this. But the world is ending. So we must have a party, a type of party where people dance to Joy Division the mystery of who Frank is gets revealed, but the ending, while deeply satisfying, is mysterious; time reverses so that Donnie dies in the plane crash; he sacrifices all this extra time he had so that the world will not end for others. His life therefore has meaning. Death is absurd but, for this existentialist film, God is dead so it is our choices that matter.