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Some of the greatest Hollywood collaborations have come about through chance encounters and random conversations. Such was the case with "Zodiac," David Fincher's critically acclaimed 2007 true crime thriller about the Zodiac Killer and the investigation surrounding him. The film features something of an ensemble cast, with the likes of Robert Downey Jr. playing journalist Paul Avery and Brian Cox playing celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli.

The two lead roles, though, are played by the duo of Mark Ruffalo and Jake Gyllenhaal, with the latter playing famed writer Robert Graysmith and the former playing detective Dave Toschi. While both actors are big-time stars today -- and already were in 2007, with Gyllenhaal a particularly hot item coming off "Brokeback Mountain" and "Jarhead" -- the pair might never have been put together for "Zodiac" if not for Jennifer Aniston.

"I was talking to Jennifer Aniston," David Fincher explains on the film's DVD commentary track.

Because "Star Trek" is set in a presumably idyllic future -- when war is at an end, money has been removed from the equation, and diplomatic togetherness rules the day -- one will see few open displays of tribalism or jingoism. No one in "Star Trek" can yell about how much they love their country because, functionally, there are no countries. At least not on Earth. Occasionally, Chekov (Walter Koenig) will express pride, or even smugness, about his Russian heritage, but his attitude couldn't be read as "patriotism." Instead, he has become a smaller part of a large human tapestry, now united and working together to explore the galaxy, expand knowledge, and share ideas. 

Perhaps ironically, the widespread multiculturalism of the United Federation of Planets is dressed in military uniforms and sails about the heavens in starships armed with phasers and photon torpedoes. "Star Trek" has all the visual trappings...

In the "Star Trek" episode "And the Children Shall Lead", the Enterprise discovers a remote science station where the entire staff seems to have died by their own hands. Chillingly, the children of the staff -- all of them under 12 -- seem oblivious to the dead bodies scattered around, happily playing and giggling as usual. Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) posits that the kids might have blocked out the horrors as a form of protective amnesia, but soon the real plot is revealed. In private, the children are visited by a ghostly being named Gorgan who imbues them with eerie mental powers and gives them dark instructions.

Gorgan tells the children to take over the Enterprise, which they are able to do by pumping their fists and hypnotizing the crew. Sulu (George Takei) looks at the viewscreen and sees knives and swords. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) looks in a mirror and sees...

"Mending the Line" follows the journey of a traumatized Marine forming an unlikely bond with a veteran through fishing therapy. The movie, directed by Joshua Caldwell, boasts a dynamic cast praised for their performances. The film's cast includes Brian Cox, Sinqua Walls, and Perry Mattfeld.

Mending the Line chronicles a traumatized Marine returning from war and striking an unlikely friendship with a hardened veteran, and the movie features a dynamic cast with various familiar faces. The drama film, directed by Joshua Caldwell and written by Stephen Camelio, premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival on September 29, 2022, before its theatrical release on June 9, 2023. Mending the Line received praise from critics and audiences alike for its strong cast (among other positive attributes). The movie holds an 80 percent rating on the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and an Audience Score of 82 percent.

At the beginning of Mending the Line, a Marine named John Colter is...

Brian Cox's excellent performances elevate the projects he's in, even if they don't receive huge acclaim. Cox's diverse roles showcase his range and talent, from playing villains to more uplifting characters. His role as Logan Roy in "Succession" solidifies Cox as a standout actor, delivering powerful and memorable performances.

Brian Cox has only grown in success and fame throughout his career, and that's thanks to the excellent movies and television shows that he's been a part of. Though not every project he's done has reached huge acclaim, it's often Cox's performance that elevates it and garners attention. Even if he's only onscreen for a short time, his presence makes itself known, and this has been evident in the roles that he's typically cast in.

Getting his start on the stage with classical Shakespeare training at the Dundee Repertory Theatre, he worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has...

When reading actor Brian Cox's memoir "Putting the Rabbit in the Hat," I was disappointed that he didn't mention his work on David Fincher's superlative "Zodiac." Throughout the book, Cox shows no reluctance to burn bridges, and given his ribbing of "Succession" co-star Jeremy Strong's method acting, I was eager to see if he'd have similar words about Fincher's infamous perfectionism. Alas, no such stories exist.

True to its title, the 2007 "Zodiac" film is about the Zodiac killer, the still unidentified murderer who left Northern California quaking with fear as the 1960s closed. The film spans the 1960s to 1980s (with an epilogue in 1991), focusing on the killings and then Robert Graysmith's (Jake Gyllenhaal) investigation years later.

One of the movie's earlier sequences recreates an episode from October 22, 1969. Someone claiming to be the Zodiac said he would dial into Jim Dunbar's Kgo-tv (local to...

Following his portrayal of billionaire patriarch Logan Roy on HBO's Succession, Brian Cox has become rightfully regarded as one of the finest actors working today. However, long before he started running Waystar Royco, Cox was one of the premier character actors in Hollywood, working with critical darlings such as Michael Mann and Spike Jonze, and appearing in blockbuster films like X2. Yet, one of his strongest performances clocks in at just under 10 minutes. His turn as real-life attorney Melvin Belli in David Fincher's detective masterpiece Zodiac may be short, but it certainly packs a punch. Belli, a prominent attorney who represented the likes of The Rolling Stones, and Jack Ruby, was one of the few people to ever speak to the potential Zodiac killer, during a televised call-in segment on A.M. San Francisco.

The Zodiac Killer attacked at least eight people in California between 1966 and 1969. He claimed to have killed at least 37 people, although only five of those deaths can be definitively attributed to the killer. While the Zodiac Killer has never been caught, his case is still active, and now one major mystery has been solved: an international team of private citizens and codebreakers have cracked the Zodiac Killer’s mysterious “340 Cipher” 51 years after it landed on the FBI’s desk.

Zodiac had a habit of taunting police by sending letters to the press, and several of those contained intricate codes, some of which he claimed would ultimately reveal his identity. This marks the second coded message to be broken by civilians. In July of 1969, a puzzle sent in pieces to The San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and Vallejo Times-Herald newspapers in 1969, was cracked by a school teacher from Salinas, Calif.

Exclusive: Gimme Shelter, directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwein, is widely considered one of the greatest music documentaries of all time.

The film, which chronicled the Rolling Stones’ U.S. tour in 1969, culminating in the Altamont Free Concert in San Francisco, premiered 50 years ago this week and comes 51 years after the controversial show, where Meredith Hunter died at the hands of the Hells Angels.

Gimme Shelter captures onscreen both how the concert was put together and the moment that Hunter was stabbed by the bikers, who were providing security at the event.

The film explores a fascinating moment in time — the end of the 1960s and the peace and love explosion, coming months after Woodstock — and showcases the uglier side of America, fresh from riots. It also captures one of the most iconic rock ‘n’ roll bands in their prime both in the studio and live.

Porter Bibb produced the film,...

She did it again! Roseanne Barr’s big mouth is her undoing. It always takes her down, along with everyone around her. The death toll is legendary.

I stood witness to Roseanne’s first foray in Hollywood, from her comedy circuit “Domestic Goddess” act to her nine-season run of “Roseanne” from 1988-97. We always met after some crisis, like her screeching the national anthem in 1990.

That was a poor-taste joke, gone awry, a crisis of her own making, just like her problems today. At that time she blamed the critics. “I feel like I am under siege,” she told me. “I just can’t get out.”

Also Read: Roseanne Barr Says She 'Begged' ABC Not to Cancel 'Roseanne' Show

And she accused her show writers of undermining her success. “They did real degrading things to me,” she said. “They’d attack me, then ignore me, then treat me like I was stupid.

Yet another puzzle picture, that came out on DVD back with the first wave of Wac films in 2010. An expensive romance with Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux, it was filmed in Europe, co-written by Ray Bradbury and bears the music of Michel Legrand, including an exceedingly well known pop song. Yet it sat on a shelf for three years, only to make a humiliating world debut on TV — on CBS’s Late Nite Movie. It was clearly one of those Productions From Hell, where nothing went right.

The Picasso Summer

DVD-r

The Warner Archive Collection

1969 originally / Color / 1:85 enhanced widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date May 28, 2010 (not a mistake) / available through the WBshop / 17.99

Starring: Albert Finney, Yvette Mimieux, Luis Miguel Dominguín, Theodore Marcuse, Jim Connell,

Peter Madden, Tutte Lemkow, Graham Stark, Marty Ingels, Georgina Cookson, Miki Iveria, Bee Duffell, Lucia Bosé, Jean Marie Ingels.

Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond

Original Music: Michel Legrand

Animator:...

Ryan Lambie Mar 28, 2017

Creepy sets, gore, a sweary Emile Hirsch and lots of gallows humour. We visited the set of indie horror, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe...

Nb: The following contains some saucy language and discussions that some may consider Not Safe For Work.

Half an hour out east on the Hammersmith & City Line, across a busy dual carriage way, just down from a branch of Tesco’s and tucked away in an old warehouse, about 200 people are making a horror film.

The warehouse interior is now, thanks to the ingenuity of production designer Matt Gant and a few dozen set builders, a basement mortuary in Virginia. There are long corridors. Low lighting that picks out the Victorian wallpaper but leaves corners shrouded in deep shadow. A junk-strewn room houses a man-sized furnace, something the production designer jokingly refers to as “the pizza oven”, but is actually a place where...

Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones and Diane Varsi star in American-International's most successful 'youth rebellion' epic -- a political sci-fi satire about a rock star whose opportunistic political movement overthrows the government and puts everyone over 35 into concentration camps... to be force-fed LSD. Wild in the Streets Blu-ray Olive Films 1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date August 16, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones, Diane Varsi, Hal Holbrook, Millie Perkins, Richard Pryor, Bert Freed, Kevin Coughlin, Larry Bishop, Michael Margotta, Ed Begley, May Ishihara. Cinematography Richard Moore Film Editor Fred Feitshans Jr., Eve Newman Original Music Les Baxter Written by Robert Thom from his short story "The Day it All Happened, Baby" Produced by Burt Topper Directed by Barry Shear

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back around 1965 - 1966 we endured this stupid buzzword concept called The Generation Gap, a notion that there was a natural divide between old people and their kids.

Shine A Light: The Long Haul Of Marty, Mick & "Keef"

An essay by Jon Zelazny

This article first appeared at EightMillionStories.com on April 18, 2008.

Martin Scorsese appears on-camera in the pre-concert scenes of Shine a Light, his only obvious personal touch to a concert film that’s generally indistinguishable from your average HBO special. Scorsese has made some wonderful documentaries over the years, and at this stage in his career, I look forward to his pet projects more than his Hollywood features, but when measured against gems like ItalianAmerican and The Last Waltz, or even the tutorial My Voyage to Italy, Shine a Light is easily the least impressive work of Scorsese’s non-fiction career… which isn’t to say it’s a boring movie, or somehow not worth the price of even an IMAX ticket, because The Rolling Stones are indisputably world-class entertainers, and don’t require any...