How I Did It: And How I'm Going to Keep Doing It

When people are honest with themselves about their personal health they often have conflicts to resolve by way of goals to achieve. I didn’t. As I mentioned before I began to change the way I lived by acting on an impulse that I could probably tough out a couple of weeks of laying off the trans fats, lose a couple pounds, and return to life as normal $50 dollars richer with a bucket of Popeye’s spicy recipe under one arm and a peanut-butter chocolate pie under the other.

But I didn’t just lose a couple of pounds as it would turn out: wiser choices at my parents’ dinner table (when applicable) compounded with boot camp two to three nights a week conducted by a friend with just the right amount of apathy and 35 days later I was 30 lbs lighter.

Perhaps it was my body reacting in shock to an occlusion of Hot Wok lunch specials (seemingly designed to feed China’s PLA and America’s growing obesity rate) we ordered every Thursday at work or an abate in ice cream night caps or actually breaking a sweat a couple of times a week for the first time in nearly a decade but presumptions aside there is simply nothing sweeter than trying on a pair of shorts that barely fit in college, pulling them up to my waist – reaching for a belt – and having them fall to the ground.

So, 2006, I move into my own apartment and have sole control of what is allowed in my cupboards, freezer, and refrigerator. At first I only had my gut instinct (har-har, har-dee, har-har) to go by and on my first trip to the grocery store I did what I wish so many men and women who complain about their weight would do: exercise some common sense. Yes, it’s a crime that fresh foods cost as much as child support in this economy but even if you can’t afford them you know with some exceptions the difference between right and wrong.

Take breakfast for instance: Great Value sugar-free oatmeal is healthier (and cheaper) than a box of Pop Tarts and Honey Nut Cheerios don’t cost anymore than a box of Cap’n Crunch.

Over the course of the next year-and-a-half I set only one goal for myself with a notable escape clause: keep it real unless you are with friends or family. In other words: behave yourself throughout the work week – politely passing on offers to order out at work (which I continue to do to this day) and cut back on food day celebrations which are often little more than a sugar & salt orgy almost always headlined by Better Than Sex Cake (which, by the way, it is not – it doesn’t even top a mediocre blow…but I digress) and on the weekends indulge a bit while still exercising caution (one cheeseburger opposed to my usual two, etc.).

I also discovered you can exercise perennially for free if the elements aren’t a factor simply by moving your feet for extended periods of time. It’s called walking and contrary to an old wives’ tale you do not have to reach a predetermined speed to begin shedding calories. Yes, walking faster burns more calories and moving at a snail’s pace will obviously burn less but I’ve personally found maintaining a medium stroll for 60 minutes a night five nights a week and you will begin to enjoy this healthy augmentation to your diet in addition to the benefits it will eventually bring your heart, blood pressure – not to mention your soul (walking is excellent for meditation).

In 2008, David Zinczenko editor of Men’s Health magazine, released the first in an on-going series of Eat This, Not That books aimed to help people like you and me fine tune our diets (and in some cases drop significant amounts of weight) simply by making better choices at chain restaurants (including fast food behemoths like McDonald’s), grocery stores (even if it’s the lesser of two evils), and holidays as well as debunking specious health food products and re-evaluating foods ignorantly labeled unhealthy (often because of their fat gram count).

The original book, followed a year later by their timely Supermarket Survival Guide, evolved into something of a diet dogma for me so when that irresistible urge to dine on potato chips, oven pizza, and ice cream is simply too much to withstand…I can make a more reasonable choice like Kashi’s delicious Mediterranean pizza (meant to be devoured in two or even three sittings), Tostitos Baked Scoops that taste virtually identical to Frito’s version with half the fat, or The Skinny Cow ice cream products which I am still unconvinced a la the low-fat yogurt episode of “Seinfeld” are in fact this easy on the beltline with only 150 calories a sandwich almost half the count of its decidedly not-so-healthy competitors.

Has it been a long week? Do you need a couple of beers? The Supermarket Survival Guide even covers what to knock back and what to avoid (note: it may pain some to discover that you should try and avoid popular domestics such as Blue Moon and Bud Light as well as popular foreign labels like Killian’s Red, Guinness Extra Stroudt, Corona Extra, and Heineken…but dieting and changing your lifestyle often involves curbing bad habits if not outright sacrifice).

As 2009 drew to a close I arrived home from work one day and discovered a flyer in my mail box that might have otherwise been tossed until I realized it was for a local gym that had just opened and was significantly cheaper than other area fitness centers which in-part is why I avoided them up until this point. I thought how could it hurt to at least check it out and ended up meeting with a friendly personal trainer who promised as part of his pitch (in addition to the low fixed rate of $19.95 a month) that Cardinal Fitness also had a low douche bag/meathead ratio and I was sold.

To this day I go to Cardinal Fitness three to four times a week and enjoy running and working out on the gym’s wide array of equipment. One day I looked in the mirror while doing calisthenics and saw faint signs of definition – the pay-off for a lot of hard work over the trajectory of several months – and thought to myself I would have never believed any of this could ever be possible.

I am not an expert. I do not hold a degree in health or fitness. Weight loss and maintenance is not an exact science because we truly are snowflakes when it comes to our genetic make-up – no two are the same.

I only know how I did it and I hope my story will one day help inspire yours.
 

How I Did It: Part II

When we last left Adam it was 2003 and he was some 70 lbs overweight…

A year later following the Thanksgiving holiday I sat in front of the television one night feeling somewhat guilty over enjoying documentary filmmaker Gordon Spurlock empirically research and later reluctantly transcend into a bloated depressed grease-logged lab rat after eating McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner during the course of one month for his directorial debut “Super Size Me.” (I also felt just slightly ill at ease with the film’s seemingly empathetic stance towards Spurlock’s muse: two morbidly obese teenage girls in New York who attempted to bring a class action lawsuit against the McDonald’s corporation for their appearance).

Still, “Super Size Me” at least affected my cognition: what if I gave up the trifecta of fast food? While perhaps a tad rash it certainly couldn’t hurt. I couldn’t afford to move out of my folks’ place so I really couldn’t control what’s served at the dinner table or what’s stocked in the refrigerator because I wasn’t contributing to the grocery bill but I could control what I ate outside of the home.

And with that I haven’t consumed a single menu item from McDonald’s, Hardees, or Burger King beginning that night in late 2004.

A few months later – it’s officially 2005 now – pleased with my complete resilience to the burger chains I decided to take my recent dietary adjustment one step further: I would identify the three worst common household foods and simply make them go the way of my recent absconding of double quarter pounders with cheese, monster burgers, and whoppers (I use the word abscond because I wasn’t yet advertising my decision to shun certain establishments and the benefits were barely noticeable since I hardly lived at any of these places to begin with).

I punched “10 worst food/drink” into Google and printed off the top 10 results and then picked the three items that were on every list. I’m not at all surprised now that each one of these items ranked at the top of every list.

After that day in February of 2005 I haven’t eaten a single doughnut, only recently sampled high end Holland-style French fries at a nice Chicago restaurant, and only once accidentally downed a Sprite when someone passed me a mixed drink. In other words: I don’t eat doughnuts or French fries or drink soda pop of ANY kind.

I think you know why I put such an emphasis on “any” because so many people of all shapes and sizes trick themselves into believing diet soda is somehow the healthier option. In fact, it was soda that made the top of all 10 lists and each list emphasized how all-around awful soda is for you REGARDLESS. Look at it this way: There are 42 grams of fat in a McDonald’s double quarter pounder with cheese. There are 107 grams of fat in a Hardees monster burger. There are 65 grams of fat in a Burger King double whopper with cheese. So, should you make it a point to always reach for the double quarter pounder (“double royale with cheese” if you’re in Europe according to Vincent Vega) because it technically healthier or should you maybe select D: Don’t eat any of them!

Fast forward a year and some change and my department at work decided to have a “Biggest Loser” competition (sans the opprobrium of being overweight, topless, and in spandex): $5 gets you into the pool – weigh in each week for a month – you pay a dollar for every pound you gain. Eight of us (including myself) entered and so really on a lark my journey began.

I had every intention of taking this seriously (I needed the money for one thing because I had just landed an apartment) and did and after witnessing what everyone else ordered out that day for lunch I decided this was going to be easier than I thought.

Then I told my buddy Blaine I was in a weight loss competition. Blaine is a childhood friend who I remained in close contact with when I lived at home after college (speaking of which I need to call him). He also holds a degree in physical fitness from Western Illinois University and was picking up clients here and there and training them out of his home. Blaine is a naturally driven albeit very competitive individual and once he found out there was competition involved he offered to train me 2-3 nights a week at his home for free and I gladly accepted.

After the first night of a one hour boot camp, however, I thought I was going to die having never been fit in my entire life. I left Blaine’s garage with all the required motor skills needed to drive home locked in pain and immediately laid down on my bed and attempted not to throw-up by trying to remain completely quiescent until the room stopped spinning before falling asleep.

Still, I returned two nights later and each session became slightly more bearable than the last. What’s more my peers at work began to take notice after a couple of weeks and for a kid who suffered from no self-esteem growing up – it was nice to constantly be recognized (for once) as someone who was in the process of accomplishing a goal.

To be continued…

How I Did It: Part I

When I graduated from Illinois State University in 2003, I left with a degree in Mass Communications, a minor in Cinema Studies, and a gut the size of a ‘72 Volkswagen Beetle. I tried to live in denial as long as I could that I had put on a significant amount of weight since my days in high school but when you gain weight people not only notice they also often lack the tact not to mention it.

“You’ve gained at least 50 lbs if not more since the last time I saw you, Adam.”

“You’ve really packed on the pounds over the years.”

“Adam…you’re fat.”

Thankfully, none of these three very thoughtful individuals have gone on to work for St. Jude.

I was always a big eater growing up my Germanic appetite devoured EVERYTHING in duplicate (sans the occasional malignant Good Housekeeping recipe) and I sort of got away with it during my formative years because of my height and received a pass from most of my peers as a big guy – a term I heard a lot but never really took too much offense to because I knew what the alternative was.

Then I graduated from high school and like everything else at that age: things changed.

It wasn’t as if our cafeteria offered much in the way of sound nutrition (I used to think Landshire must have the school board in their back pocket) but attending high school in the only state during the late ‘90s that made physical education mandatory combined with the uncanny metabolism rate most teenage boys seemingly enjoy during these four otherwise awkward years [almost] balanced me out in proportion to my height.

I began community college having stopped growing the preceding year and no longer required to exercise three days a week now only walking to and from my car and to class. I probably took less than half of the steps an average human does a day. My teenage metabolism soon evaporated with the onset of my 20’s and never having a predilection towards healthy eating I basked in the glow of my new school’s daily servings of cheeseburgers (with a side of cheese fries), salty sandwich wraps (with matching potato chips), pizza (with a side of ranch dressing – hold the salad), ice cream (with cookies), and then there was the pie (banana crème, butterscotch, chocolate, coconut, peanut butter, et al).

And that was just during the day at night on the weekends I discovered the joys of Chinese food and it was love at first bite! To me, lo mein, fried rice, egg rolls, wanton soup, crab rangoon and just about everything else on the menu (including a few items my taste buds couldn’t fully decipher) felt to me like what it must have felt like for Richard Simmons the first time he combined candy-striped Dolfin shorts with a Swarovski crystal-encrusted tank top.

As the ‘90s drew to a close two more significant factors would enter the fray in relation to my diet: I began to hang out with a group of guys who traditionally met at Pizza Hut* every Friday night and around the same time I (somehow) managed to trick a girl I met at school into believing I was someone she would want to hang out with regularly. The crux of a new relationship is often food and we hit every restaurant in Peoria County.

So, to recap: wake, go to class, drink a vat of grease for lunch chased by 1 liter of sugar, go back to class, go home, eat everything at the dinner table twice and depending on what night of the weekend it was sit down to a delicious dinner of lard on a cheap plastic plate. And I carried this diet right on to ISU where the situation went from bad to worse because I was now eating all of my meals on campus where a man could virtually have whatever in terms of trans fats he wanted three times a day (and I did).

In my final year of school and now living in an apartment my diet almost solely consisted of Lucky Charms or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Pop Tarts, Easy-Mac, ramen noodles, Jacks oven pizza, ice cream and I more or less filled in the blanks with Chinese takeout, Mexican carryout, and pizza delivery.

I returned home after graduation topping out at 265 lbs.

To be continued…

* Pizza Hut is perhaps America's most recognizable pizza chain and is also one of the country's least healthiest restaurants. Pizza Hut's menu is so laden with items we should teach children and adults alike to never put in their mouths that you'd be better off dining with Ronald McDonald or even The Colonel. 

You Aught To

Perhaps it’s a sign of my age – I turned 33 on the thirteenth – but movies just aren’t that good anymore. I grew up loving going to the theater and to this day the actual experience is something I still enjoy but I rarely go anymore because akin to showing up after 7 p.m. on a Friday night to your local mom & pop beta rental in the ‘80s – there isn’t a whole lot to choose from.

I blame the nerds; they decidedly took over in a bloodless coup de théâtre and their Cheetos-stained grip on the marquee shows no sign of loosening. What's coming soon to a theater near you? More comic book adaptations, franchise installments, prequels, sequels, reboots, and remakes – that’s what!

Furthermore, what isn’t filmed in gimmick-rich headache-inducing 3-D these days? (If you answered pornography rest assured my friends the Japanese are on top of it).

So, where’s the challenge? What happened to the interest? How is this stimulating?

To be fair, nerd surplus is what is in high demand right now and in a failing economy that houses an industry that’s been in the red for years and caters to a demographic whose collective attention span gradually dims with each passing decade it’s understandable what led to this crescendo of largely insipid cinema notwithstanding the occasional fully realized gem a la Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of the immortal 1933 classic “King Kong.”

OK, fine – I admit I also enjoyed “Piranha” (2010): both a remake of the equally cheap (but also likeable) 1979 “Jaws” rip-off and presented in 3-D.

Again, there are exceptions, but the over-saturation of these films and their ilk is nothing short of onerous.

So what does the future hold? Obviously I don’t need to elaborate – you can sort of do the nerd arithmetic for yourself – but you can expect more of the same. Does “Spider-Man” really need a reboot? Does “Top Gun” really need a sequel? Does “The Wizard of Oz” really need a prequel? And do we really need a remake of [insert film title here]?

If you answered no to any of these questions: Too bad, we’re getting them anyways…

Ah, but like The Cos didn’t go all the way to Toronto just to talk to his “Bill Cosby: Himself” (1983) audience about narcotics and dentistry the preceding rant isn’t why I’m here, either. In fact, I’m here to discuss the cinematic highlights of the last decade; the best of the aught's, if you will.

And despite a noticeable abate in truly memorable films over the last decade that hardly means there weren’t any, either.

In fact, these are my favorite films of the aught’s. They might not be the best films of the decade, per se, but they are all great in their own right and films I have revisited since their initial release and have held up (in some cases only gotten better on repeat viewings). What follows is an alphabetical list of titles and brief proclamations of my love for them. My hope is this list will serve as proof not is all lost and there are still challenging, creative, and insightful minds working in film industries around the world in the new millennium.

Plus, it should help debunk that ugly charge that has followed me around for years that I pan anything and everything contemporary.

If you have no further vested interest in reading beyond this point other than to see me worship at the foam-rubber boots of “The Dark Knight” (2008), I profusely apologize ahead of time for any confusion.

 (500) Days of Summer (2009, USA)

A romantic comedy-drama that isn’t heavy-handed, manipulative or saccharine and told with deference to the male perspective? To that end it’s almost one-of-a-kind. Only an overly precocious Hollywood kid sister rings false here.

 Artificial Intelligence: A.I. (2001, USA)

Out of respect for Stanley Kubrick’s unrealized robotic “Pinocchio” director Steven Spielberg practices some long overdue self-restraint (notwithstanding Robin Williams’ cameo)  – going so far as to ape the original auteur's technique – and as a result we get what is probably Spielberg’s most beautiful, emotionally chaotic, and thought-provoking offering since “Schindler’s List” (1993).

 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Great Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006, USA)

 It’s nice! Great success! High five!

Capturing the Friedmans (2003, USA)

Andrew Jarecki’s intransigent documentary is almost “Blue Velvet” (1986) brought to life: lurking underneath the white picket fence and green grass of this typical middle class suburban home is a nauseating secret brought to the surface over Thanksgiving dinner but what happens next is hardly an open and shut case: Did the dad do it? Did his youngest son do it? Did they do it? Is the dad guilty? Is the son guilty? Are they both innocent? Is being so clearly guilty of one crime automatically mean you’re guilty of a subsequent crime? Ironically, perhaps no documentary in the history of a medium bent on agendas has demanded such an open-mind from its audience (read: the Friedman’s public jury); however, it’s almost beyond reproach that the home video footage the Friedman boys took of their family as it literally imploded in front of their very eyes will leave audiences emotionally rattled.

 City of God (2002, Brazil/France/USA)

Brazilian neo-realism (if there is even such a thing) at its unyielding best.

 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005, USA)

Watching Alex Gibney’s glossy non-fiction expose on Enron, one of the most exasperating examples of corruption, fraud, and greed in the new millennium that overnight became synonymous with all three at the corporate level, is like becoming privy to the hundreds of thousands of pounds of documents the infamous Houston-based energy/commodities/services company shredded as the walls were literally coming down around them and then having the data neatly organized and elaborated to you in layman's terms. 

 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, USA)

Charlie Kaufman, one of the most pleasingly off-kilter screenwriters working today (“Being John Malkovich,” “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Adaptation.”) surmises if you had the chance to erase that one soured relationship from your memory would you really want to even if it meant curing unbearable heartache?

 In the Mood for Love (2000, Hong Kong/France/Thailand)

Wong Kar-wai’s unofficial follow-up to 1990’s “Days of Being Wild” is another art house gem about complicated romance. Equally complicating is deciding what your favorite Wong Kar-wai film is now: “Days of Being Wild”? “Chungking Express”? “Happy Together”? “In the Mood for Love”?

 Let the Right One In (2008, Sweden)

With the runaway (and equally unnerving) success of the “Twilight” saga one might feel compelled to throw-in the towel but Sweden’s “Let the Right One In” proves there is hope in this world for aesthetically striking and meaningful young adult vampire films.

 Lost in Translation (2003, USA/Japan)

Sophia Coppola’s directorial fluke also happens to be the best of Bill Murray’s dramatic turns in this quasi-romance. 

 Memories of Murder (2003, South Korea)

By the mid-1980’s, the term serial killer had already been coined and articulated through a number of high profile cases in the United States, but South Korea never reported having one until 1986, when a phantom strangler moved in and around the countryside of Hwaseong targeting females indiscriminately. Based on a popular play, “Memories of Murder” chronicles this period of unrest seen through the eyes of local authorities bent on making evidence stick to convenient suspects to appease the public and a veracious detective on loan from Seoul regularly at odds with his peers’ rural methods of interrogating suspects and solving crimes. The film’s final moments unfold over a decade later at the site where the first victim was discovered as a local school girl chats with the former lead detective who is rocked to his core (and so are we) by a sudden realization before breaking the fourth wall with only a single haunting silent stare into the audience that has never truly evaporated from my subconscious.

 Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001, Japan)

Once a generation – if that – a fantasy comes along that effectively captures the spirit of the immortal, perennial “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) and Hayao Miyazaki's “Spirited Away” is that rare film. 

 Mulholland Dr. (2001, France/USA)

The ‘90s weren’t exactly David Lynch’s but then again the macabre virtuoso’s filmography is too controversial to concede definition and as such is left to the eye of the beholder. “Mulholland Dr.” ameliorates on previous misfires and is an amalgamation of the best elements from Lynch’s past work crafted into a single haunting reality turned fantasy turned nightmare.

 No Country for Old Men (2007, USA)

An excellent return to form for Joel and Ethan Coen following back-to-back duds (2003’s underwhelming “Intolerable Cruelty” and 2004’s vexing “Ladykillers” remake) that breaks all the rules (brilliantly I might add) in this nihilistic modern western. Javier Bardem, who co-stars as a laconic sociopath, is unforgettable much like the film itself.

 No End in Sight (2007, USA)

Whether you supported the war effort in Iraq or are still lamenting the United States’ decision to go to war is a moot point in Charles Ferguson’s exploration of every disastrous decision the Bush Administration made in Iraq once Coalition forces touched ground via not the War’s many outspoken critics, rather, by the decision-makers themselves.

 A Prophet (2009, France/Italy)

After HBO’s “The Sopranos” ran its course the mob genre unofficially went into a refractory period before the French coaxed it out and made this nearly perfect film.

 The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, USA)

To date, the best (in a lovely filmography) of Wes Anderson’s retroactively dressed wry comedies.

Sideways (2004, USA)

Director Alexander Payne really emerged in the new millennium as a master craftsman of comedy-dramas following his 1999 political satire turned bona fide cult classic “Election” with “About Schmidt” in 2002 and then with his best offering to date 2004’s Napa Valley buddy film that makes light of male vices without bowing to them. 

 Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (2003, South Korea/Germany)

Director Kim Ki-duk is known for some of the South Korean new wave’s darker and more visceral entries (“Address Unknown,” “Bad Guy,” “The Isle”) occasionally earning Kim comparisons to controversial Dutch filmmaker Lars von Trier. “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring” proved a significant departure; a beautiful allegory for Buddhist philosophy told through the seasons circumventing the life of a monk, alpha to omega. Regardless of your religions affiliations – or lack thereof – Kim’s poetic masterpiece shouldn’t be missed.

 Taxi to the Dark Side (2007, USA)

Few Americans lost sleep over the possibility that detainees at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo Bay and other CIA-sponsored detention centers were being tortured because we were led to believe these military prisons were only housing captured al-Qaeda operatives, Taliban combatants, and 9/11 conspirators. Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side” wasn’t the first (or last) documentary to challenge this assumption but it’s probably the most exigent of the bunch. In the end, we learn that the film’s human subject (an Afghan taxi driver with no links to terrorism) didn’t die at the hands of his interrogators as the result of an egregious error. In fact, the various mental, physical, and sexual tortures he succumbed to are standard operating procedure for incoming detainees of which it is now believed only a mere one percent are linked to terrorists. This leaves little doubt who these detainee’s family, friends, and loved ones will align themselves with despite no previous anti-American sentiment. Mission Accomplished.

 Traffic (2000, Germany/USA)

Director Steven Soderberg tosses a rock into the War on Drugs and we watch the ripples contract, overlap, and eventually run aground.  

 Tupac: Resurrection (2003, USA)

There’s been at least a half-a-dozen documentaries made about Tupac Amur Shakur, if not more, but “Tupac: Resurrection” is the only one that really made a name for itself as a solid non-fiction film. Rather than cash-in on conspiracy theories revolving around his murder or produce a straight-to-video fluff piece director Lauren Lazin attempts to understand the wounded boy that lived inside the troubled entertainer resurrected through a specious voiceover narration re-edited from available interviews and sound bytes allowing the deceased icon to guide the audience through his contradictive iconography and even reflect on his own death, post mortem. 

 WALL-E (2008, USA)

The antithesis of Kubrick’s seminal “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) – man is in fact in control of his own destiny – unfortunately for Earth our insatiable appetite for over consumption and growing torpor compounded with Corporate America’s reckless indifference to the environment has turned the planet into a garbage dump incapable of supporting life by the year 2805. The film’s hero WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Litter-Earth class) is the lone trash compactor left on the planet who discovers life in the form of a seedling which begins a chain reaction that will eventually bring hope to both Earth and mankind (now living exclusively on a spaceliner diseased and morbidly obese). The film’s first 20 minutes are a lovingly tacit tribute to the silent era of filmmaking but it’s the romance between the adorable title character and an evil robot he slowly softens through benevolence that makes “WALL-E” one of the new millennium’s most affecting pictures. 

 Waltz with Bashir (2008, Israel/France/Germany/USA/Finland/Switzerland/Belgium/Australia)

Memory, over time, becomes a canvas you paint your reflections on and as such this Israeli docu-drama is animated in faux rotoscope until the film’s final moments when the truth surfaces and actual footage taken from the aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon closes Ari Folman’s cathartic exercise in coming to grips with his (and Israel’s) culpability in the 1982 atrocity.

 Zodiac (2007, USA)

Robert Graysmith, the political cartoonist cum amateur sleuth wrote two books on the Zodiac, the megalomaniacal serial killer who terrorized the greater San Francisco area during the late ‘60s before entering dormancy and vanishing. Despite being accepted by some as the utmost authority on the subject, Graysmith probably got just as much right as he did wrong (including but not limited to who he believed was the infamous killer) but that aside, David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (based on Graysmith’s books with some additional liberties taken for the sake of a compelling “All the President’s Men” narrative) is sort of how those affected by the horrific unsolved crimes felt at the time (recreated through an all-encompassing soundtrack that acts as a clothesline Fincher hangs his unsettling big screen adaptation on). And while “Zodiac” narrows its focus over its multi-decade trajectory it does at least explore other avenues of possibilities without definite conclusions as well as end with the understanding that there are still more questions than answers for the most infamous unsolved serial killings in American history despite following suit and also pointing fingers at Graysmith’s suspect.