1) BREACH - a stellar performance by Chris Cooper as the real-life spy Robert Hanssen makes Billy Ray's latest expose on the dark side of Washington's power brokers (he did the compelling "Shattered Glass") a must-see. D.C. never looked so ... SNOWY! (It was filmed in Canada, except for some scenes with Laura Linney in the DC Metro). And the actress playing Ryan Phillippe's East-German hottie of a wife is a revelation, especially when you realize she is the very North American actress Caroline Dhavernas, star of Fox's all too-brief series 'Wonderland.'
2) ZODIAC -- another compelling film for intelligent filmgoers: more about the obsessiveness of solving a puzzle (in the great tradition of both 'All the President's Men' and 'J.F.K.') than about the real-life events that surround the story. As in "Breach," the film is propelled forward by a trio of riveting performances: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr. -- and actor who by all measures is at the top of his game. True to his previous films, David Fincher ("Se7en") films the Zodiac murders in agonizing, excruciating detail.
It is nice to see a movie that devotes so much attention to period details (from 1969-71): from the clothes to the music to the overhead shot of the downtown San Francisco construction site that was to become the Transamerica Tower. If the movie ends without resolution for any of the characters ... hey, reality bites!
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