3/6/07:  "What makes a director great?  We can SEE the work of actors, cinematographers, costume designers, set decorators and special effects technicians.  We can hear the words the screenwriter wrote and watch the mechanics of their plot in motion.  We can listen to the composer's music and feel it improving or detracting what what we see onscreen.  But what of the director?  How can we really know when the most elusively Godlike of movie craftsmen is doing their job?  I suspect that at the end of the day, it's when he or she ensures that everyone else has done theirs to the best of their ability, resulting in the best possible movie.  David Fincher has directed six feature films:  Alien 3, Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, and now the historical serial killer thriller Zodiac.  I have loved each and every one.  And that is why I think Fincher is the best director working today.

On July 4, 1969, a young couple sitting in a parked car are approached by a man who opens fire on them, killing one and badly wounding the other.  About a month later, three California newspapers receive letters taking credit for this murder and two others the previous December.  Each letter contains one-third of a cryptogram which promises to identify the killer." MORE