Zodiac, Samurai Girl, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, & Valis

Zodiac is something I saw a while ago, and forgot to write up with either of my last two posts. But it's David Fincher's long and involving look at the Zodiac killer, a serial killer in the San Francisco area who killed at least five people in the late 60s. Of course, he wouldn't be nearly as interesting had it not been for the codes that he sent to reporters after some of the murders. Quite a fascinating case. The movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey, Jr., Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall, Adam Goldberg, Clea DuVall, and Chloë Sevigny, all of whom I have a soft spot for, or love unreservedly. And David Fincher does a good job, ratcheting the tension, even though you know that no one will ever get caught or charged with the murders. It's just a strong film, all around.

Samurai Girl is an ABC Family miniseries event thingy, six hours about a young girl named Heaven who it turns out is a sort of Japanese Jedi master whose destiny it is to save the world, or destroy it or something. Honestly, I didn't entirely understand what the hell would happen. She is about to get married when the wedding is hijacked by ninjas who kill her brother and send her running off to her brother's friend (who happens to be a ninja master), but not before meeting a goofball (played by Kyle Labine, brother of Tyler from Reaper, which doesn't start up again until January?) and his roommate. The cast is uniformly mediocre (besides Kyle, who's not as charming as Tyler), and Jamie Chung (who is Korean-American and plays Japanese, which I would have been bothered by had this tried to be remotely realistic) formerly starred on The Real World San Diego. So yeah, it's cheezy as hell, but it's surprisingly watchable. As long as you're sitting on your bed, bundled up, under the influence of drugs. And willing to deal with a much worse Buffy ripoff.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story was shown on Frontline, and is an interesting look at the history of one of my lifetimes greatest racebaiters: Lee "Willie Horton" Atwater. For those who don't spend too much time reading about the history of Karl Rove and the like, it's probably informative, but other than actually seeing pictures of him palling around with terrorists (black people!) and drunks (George W. Bush) and his face post-steroids, there's surprisingly little there there. Still, I enjoyed it, and enjoyed thinking that Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were so dirty that Ed Rollins thought they went too far.

Valis is a Philip K. Dick novel (I think the first work of his I've actually read, which is surprising based on my enjoyment of movies based on his books), that has been cited in Lost, which is why I have wanted to read it since I saw that Tweaks had a copy. I'm not sure how much I can really explain about it, but the wiki page might help a little in explaining why I feel like it's an interesting and possibly illuminating look at what goes on on the island in Lost. Of course, as for anything attempting to explain what's going on in Lost, a visit to Lostpedia's page on Valis is informative.