Bideodromage
Portrayed memorably by actor Matthew McConaughey, detective/profiler Rust Cohle is as troubled and enigmatic as he is brilliant. Haunted by his past (and present), Cohle is an insomniac, an alcoholic, and experiences profound episodes of paralyzing synesthesia. He’s singularly obsessed with his work, which in this case involves a sadistic, ritualistic serial killer amidst an eerie Louisiana landscape of unsettling, tantalizing suspects.
The serial predator and killer Martin Vanger appears in both the American and Swedish iterations of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. He is equally disquieting in both. Peter Haber portrays Vanger in the 2009 Swedish release, and Stellan SkarsgΓ₯rd does the honors for the 2011 American film. Both performances are brilliant, and chilling. Haber’s portrayal is earnest and volatile, while SkarsgΓ₯rd is more haughty, detached, dispassionate. Both work perfectly.
The brilliant character actor Tom Noonan gives a towering performance as serial killer/child predator John Lee Roche, who may, as it turns out, be responsible for the disappearance of Fox Mulder‘s sister Samantha—the entire crux of the series.
The brilliant actor Brad Dourif gives a mind-boggling portrayal of convicted—and soon to be executed—serial killer Luther Lee Boggs. In this story, there’s a catch—a quite big one—in that the murderer claims to have acquired psychic powers, and might be able to help capture a predator who has abducted two people, and has killed ritualistically in the past. Mulder (David Duchovny), for one, is less than convinced.
In these two subsequent scenes, firstly… although Agent Scully would dearly love to converse with her recently deceased father, it’s quite possible that Luther Lee Boggs’ (Brad Dourif loses his mind, in the best possible way) intense aversion to the electric chair has even greater motivational potency. Lastly, in the poignant, haunting final scene (the final scene *we’re* going to present…), the correct warning Boggs had given to Scully ended up saving her life, and convinces her that he’s been telling the truth. He’s only willing to convey her father’s message if she is his witness when he’s strapped to the chair in a few hours. Is this one last trick, one potential last act of cruelty? Or does he truly value the agent whose life he saved? This ambiguity is part of what makes him such an intriguing character…and Dourif’s masterful performance makes Boggs truly indelible.
Amen. Simply one of the greatest performances I’ve seen, ever.
The Zodiac Killer was active—as far as we know—in 1968 and 1969, though he claimed in one of his notorious, cryptic, and, really, legendary, letters that he had killed (and was continuing to kill…) many more than the law department could conceive of. His five “canonical” murders were unusual in a number of ways: his “signature” varied from event to event; and instead of trying to conceal his deeds, he boasted and rodomontaded unabashedly and very publicly. When he gloated that he planned to kill schoolchildren as they “came bouncing out” of a schoolbus, panic ran rampant throughout the whole of Northern California.
The initial scene shows the strikingly cryptic, bizarre, haunting interview that Toschi {portrayed by Mark Ruffalo}, Mulanax {Elias Koteas} and Armstrong {Anthony Edwards} held with Person of Interest Arthur Leigh Allen {played by John Carroll Lynch, who gets it pitch-perfect}. By turns haughty, indignant, angry, and laconic, Allen kept dropping revealing, tantalising bits of information that certainly got the lawmen’s attention. They glance at each other, almost in shock, as the suspect all but reveals that he’s the infamous Zodiac. But not quite. An extremely intense scene.
The middle two videos cover one of the “canonical” Zodiac murders, and some of writer/sleuth Robert Graysmith’s unnerving detours into what may, or may not be false leads, this being a particularly disquieting episode with Bob Vaughn (Charles Fleischer).
The final video shows Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) as he enters the domain of Leigh, not to prove anything, but to look into his eyes “and know he’s the one”. He does so, and as it dawns on the chief suspect of the Zodiac investigation what is happening, his countenance morphs from pleasant, to menacing and cold.
This riveting film focuses, for the most part, on the remarkable degree of not only fear, but *obsession* that the never-caught serial killer instilled in people. This kind of obsession destroyed a number of lives; Paul Avery {Robert Downey, Jr.}, Dave Toschi {Mark Ruffalo}, and Robert Graysmith {Jake Gyllenhaal} are those examined in Zodiac.
“Car Lot“, from Psycho soundtrack. Composed by Bernard Herrmann.
The plot of Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, pivots on the fulcrum of a red herring. Janet Leigh’s character fears that she is in imminent legal danger, and suffers from a troubled conscience, when in fact something far, far worse, something having absolutely nothing even remotely to do with events up to that point, awaits her.
When he dines initially with Leigh, the reaction/mood of Norman Bates {portrayed iconically by Anthony Perkins} changes rather drastically, from chipper, to utterly incredulous, to overtly hostile, to a resigned world-weariness, to a last attempt at joviality. He appears to be friendly and caring, if a bit troubled and mercurial.
When the dogged, unswerving Milton Arbogast {Martin Balsam} calmly dissembles the slowly dissolving structural integrity of Norman’s version of events, he opts to trot out the heavy artillery, proclaiming “If it doesn’t gel, it isn’t aspic; and this ain’t gelling.” Stunned silence proceeds to take over the entire universe, and Norman Bates is clearly rattled. The two shall meet again, soon enough.
The mighty and imposing actor Peter Boyle portrays reluctant prognosticator Clyde Bruckman in The X-Files.
Mr. Boyle truly turns on the jets, and was nominated for {and won} an Emmy for this indelible, unforgettable performance.
The brilliant character actor Pruitt Taylor Vince gives an extremely memorable performance as serial killer/lobotomist Gerry Schnauz in this moving {and eerie} episode of The X-Files.
The notorious and ultra-elusive serial killer dubbed {much to the displeasure of Grissom} βThe Strip Stranglerβ is eventually tracked down by the CSI MΓ¦stro, despite the βhelpβ of the FBI. In this powerful scene, Gil confronts one Syd Booth Goggle (once considered a minor irritant, at bestβ¦), who turns out to be the deadly predator. A risky venture: no backup, and close quarters.
Actor Matt O’Toole gives a remarkable, bravura, iconic performance as serial killer Paul Millander, invoking dread, menace, yet some sympathy (of a sort…) as well. Highly intelligent, and courteous, with a traumatic youth-hood, to put it mildly, Millander nonetheless is that most threatening of characters; always he seems to have the advantage.
Bideodromage 