Movie preview: Zodiac

Four men's lives are turned upside-down by the Zodiac, the serial killer responsible for at least five deaths who stymies law enforcement officials across Northern California for decades. Jack Gyllenhaal stars as Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist obsessed with finding the Zodiac's true identity. Robert Downey Jr. co-stars as Chronicle reporter Paul Avery, and Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards play the detectives spearheading the investigation. The lengthy Zodiac was directed by Panic Room's David Fincher and is based on Graysmith's book about the still-unsolved crimes.

Mark Ruffalo on the challenges facing Zodiac investigators: "I mean they were screwed from the beginning! They weren't set up for it. There hadn't been a serial killer, they didn't have the word serial killer at this time. And they didn't have the technology, they didn't have faxes. There was all these jurisdictional things going on, the guy was smart enough to kill in different places where he knew that there would be problems with information going back and forth. Today we'd probably get the guy."

Mark Ruffalo on meeting the Zodiac detective he plays in the movie: "In all of my whatever, daydreaming and imagination I couldn't come up with this guy that you see on the screen. It's all from Dave Toschi. Even in your wildest imagination you're never quite going to get the same nuance that you get if you actually get to sit and talk to the person."

Following are clips from Zodiac:

San Francisco Chronicle journalist Paul Avery reads a letter from the Zodiac killer: (Robert Downey Jr.) "'This is the Zodiac speaking. I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington Street and Maple Street last night. To prove this, here is a blood-stained piece of his shirt. I am the same man who did in the people in the North Bay area. The S.F. Police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly instead of holding road races with their motorcycles.'"

Robert shares his theories on the Zodiac killer's ciphers with inspector Toschi: (Jake Gyllenhaal) "I remember you thought that Zodiac was military, so I went to every base library and I got a list of every person who ever checked out these books and that's when I found this." (Mark Ruffalo) "Missing?" (Gyllenhaal) "That means they were stolen." (Ruffalo) "So almost every book on ciphers was stolen from the Presidio library?" (Gyllenhaal) "And the Oakland Army Terminal library. Somebody didn't want a record of ever having checked out these books."

Melanie asks husband Robert why he feels compelled to hunt down the Zodiac: (Chloe Sevigny) "When is it going to be finished? When you catch him? When you arrest him?" (Jake Gyllenhaal) "I need to know who he is. I, I need to stand there, I need to look him in the eye, and I need to know that it's him." (Sevigny) "Is that more important than your family's safety?" (Gyllenhaal) "Of course not." (Sevigny) "Why? Why do you need to do this? Why?" (Gyllenhaal) "'Cause nobody else will."
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