Quentin Tarantino, 2007. ©Weinstein Company LLC/Courtesy Everett Collection
Quentin Tarantino’s complete list of his 20 favorite movies of the 21st century is finally available courtesy of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. His number one choice? Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down. All I’ll say is that, yeah, that is a choice. He did, in fact, choose a movie and name it as his favorite. Amidst all that, there’s some incredulous beef with Paul Dano, some Toy Story 3 love (which I do validate), and plenty of interesting horror choices, including Cabin Fever and The Devil’s Rejects. Rankings are always going to be controversial, and they are, by their very nature, subjective, so there’s no sense getting mad at the out-of-pocket selections Tarantino included. Instead, we should just celebrate David Fincher’s Zodiac coming in at number 6. And guess what? Zodiac is streaming on Netflix!
Zodiac follows the decades of investigations into the eponymous serial killer. Principally, Zodiac focuses on Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist whose work soon puts him within the killer’s orbit, namely the letters authored by the killer and sent to the press. In both real life and the film, Graysmith developed an obsession with the case and desperately tried to decode the many cryptic messages sent in the mail.
Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Zodiac is one of the scariest movies ever made. It’s so austere and matter-of-fact, and our own Ashliene McMenamy, writing about the infamous Lake Berryessa murder sequence, remarked, “The attack is one of the most disturbing sequences ever filmed. It all happens in daylight, which makes it even more upsetting. There’s no score, just the sound of the wind, the birds, and the screams. Although there’s very little gore, the violence is realistic and unrelenting. Most crucially, it doesn’t feel sensationalized.” It still haunts me.
Quentin Tarantino’s Thoughts
Tarantino echoed similar sentiments. You can check out his remarks on Zodiac and its placement on his list below:
“When I first watched Zodiac, I wasn’t that into it, and then it started playing the movie channels, and first thing I knew, watching 20 minutes of it, 40 minutes of it, and I realized this is a lot more engaging than I remember it being, and it kept grabbing me in different sections, so I decided to watch this goddamn thing again, and it was a whole different experience from that point on. I found myself, every six or seven years, watching it again, and it’s a luxurious experience that I give myself over to […] mesmerizing masterwork.”
“Luxurious experience” is a phrase I’m going to steal. We should refer to more things as luxurious. From a filmic, technical perspective, yeah, Zodiac is luxurious. Just watch the trailer below and see for yourself.
Watch the Trailer:
What do you think? Any plans to catch Zodiac on Netflix? If you do watch it soon, check in with me over on Twitter or Instagram and let me know your thoughts.
Categorized: Streaming News
