Saturday night the kid was gone. My wife too. I stared at the rack of DVDs in the corner of our living room. Film noir? Nope, too comfortable. Sci fi? Nope, too much of that lately. Then, from within its little NetFlix jacket, came the call of David Fincher’s 2007 crime docudrama, “Zodiac.” What the hell. Fincher usually creeps me out a bit too much for comfort, (Alien3, Seven, Fight Club) but “Zodiac” was my town, San Francisco!
The movie spans a 20-year period from the late 1960s to the early 90s when the famed Zodiac killer took lives around the the San Francisco Bay Area. He was never captured and is believed now to be deceased. The film follows three men who tried their best to identify and catch the killer.
I watched with glee as Fincher’s camera soared across Yerba Buena island over the Bay Bridge flying toward the Ferry Building. But the film doesn’t showcase the San Francisco of 2008. The Transamerica pyramid is gone, most of Embarcadero Center is under construction, and the abominable Embarcadero freeway is back! Fincher had done his homework with a ton of subtle CGI changes to the city. In the process, I was magically transported back to my earliest days as an SF newcomer.
The “Embarcadero” was a horrible elevated freeway designed in the 1950s to speed cars from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge. Thankfully, it was never completed. It blocked enough views from downtown — from Mission Street to Broadway — to be an eyesore, casting huge shadows in its wake. It ultimately would be knocked down by CalTrans as a result of seismic damage sustained in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.
Fincher, in his quest for historic accuracy, used CGI models to rebuild the Embarcadero and the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid, as well as a local cinematic landmark now closed, the Northpoint Theater.
The Northpoint was something of a regional legend. George Lucas, Philip Kaufman and Francis Ford Coppola all used the gigantic theater with its state-of-the-art sound system to frequently run test screenings of their films for audiences, cast, crew and friends. I still remember getting up early Sunday morning in the summer of 1983 to see a semi-final print of The Right Stuff with my buddy Cliff. Lucas was there as was Ed Harris and Phil Kaufman.
By 1997 the writing was on the wall and huge single screen venues like the Northpoint were going the way of the drive-in before it. The stadium seat megaplex was taking over. The Northpoint closed down, this message left on the theater’s answering machine:
“Thank you for calling Cineplex Odeon’s Northpoint Theater, located at the corner of Bay and Powell streets, two blocks south of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. Today we are proud to present … nothing, rated nothing. Show times today are anytime you want, Monday through Friday, and Saturday and Sunday. We have a special bargain price, $4.25 for the zero show of the day, Saturday, Sunday, and holidays, and any shows before zero time. We offer no parking, a half-block north on Powell, next to the Northpoint Health Club … For further information, please dial 411. I’m sorry, we are now closed, if you haven’t figured it out.” Another voice cried out from afar, “Bye bye, and enjoy the movie!” (LINK)
Even in the midst of David Fincher’s fine unresolved hunt for the Zodiac killer, it made me smile to see the filmmaker carefully resurrect the Northpoint Theater for one more film.
