Domande frequenti

In places that get a real winter, foundations need to be below the frost line or the foundations might move as they freeze and thaw. Basements are also useful wherever tornados are common because you can hide underground.

There is no need to build basements in states like California because there are neither freezing temperatures nor tornados. Even if you wanted one just for fun, high flooding and earthquake risks make basements an actively bad idea.

Nessuno ha ancora risposto a questa domanda.

Nessuno ha ancora risposto a questa domanda.

Beginning in 1969, San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) becomes obsessed with the case of self-acclaimed "Zodiac" who has been taunting the police and the newspapers with his letters and cryptically-coded messages. In his search, Graysmith is aided by heavy-boozing crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), SFPD Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner Inspector Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) as well as detectives in Vallejo and Napa, handwriting expert Sherwood Morrill (Philip Baker Hall), and Linda del Buono (Clea DuVall), a convict who knew one of the Zodiac's victims. His investigation leads him to suspect Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch), a school employee fired for touching students in indecent ways. However, all of his evidence is either circumstantial or hearsay. In 14 years, Graysmith still has no hard evidence.

The movie is based on Zodiac (1986), a nonfiction book by American true crime writer Robert Graysmith about the unsolved serial murders committed by the "Zodiac Killer" in San Francisco in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The book was adapted for the movie by American screenwriter James Vanderbilt.

The movie claims to be based on "actual case files" and uses actual reports to construct the killings. In the Vallejo and Lake Berryessa attacks, one victim in each instance survived to describe what happened to the authorities. In the Paul Stine shooting, several eyewitnesses saw the attack occur, and were able to provide the police with valuable information, including a reasonably detailed physical description of the killer. In the first attack which can be conclusively attributed to the Zodiac, that of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, there were no survivors or eyewitnesses (save for the killer himself), and so the film makers decided to not show that particular killing, opting not to try reconstructing it based on the available forensic evidence. Robert Graysmith believes that in the Faraday/Jensen killing, the Zodiac parked behind their car and then approached the couple, just as he did in the Ferrin/Mageau shooting. Faraday and Jensen appear to have been exiting the car, and Graysmith believes that Zodiac shot Faraday first, after which Jensen tried to flee, but was also gunned down by the killer.

The different actors were employed to match the varied physical descriptions of the Zodiac Killer by eyewitnesses and surviving victims. For example, the suspect witnessed at the scene of Paul Lee Stine's murder was described as quite heavy, stocky, and even barrel-chested, and is here played by Bob Stephenson, while the man implied to be Zodiac (although never positively correlated with the Zodiac killings by the police) who threatened and attempted to kidnap Kathleen Johns was described as considerably slighter and smaller, and is here played by John Lacy. For that reason, the Zodiac's first confirmed murder at Lake Herman Road (referenced several times in the movie as having occurred just prior to Christmas 1968) was not shown because there were no survivors or eyewitnesses (other than the killer himself) that could give a description of the murder scene. Interestingly, John Carroll Lynch, who plays Arthur Leigh Allen, the man who's ultimately accused of the Zodiac killings by Robert Graysmith (a theory seemingly supported by the film), was not used in recreating any of the crimes of the Zodiac Killer.

While he claimed credit for dozens of murders (at least 37, according to one of his last confirmed letters to the Bay Area press in 1974), the police have only been able to reliably link Zodiac to four attacks for a total of seven victims, two of whom survived: (1,2) David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on December 20th, 1968, in Benicia, (3,4) Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin and Michael Renault Mageau on July 4th, 1969, in Vallejo, (Mageau survived), (5,6) Bryan Calvin Hartnell and Cecilia Ann Shepard on September 27th, 1969, at Lake Berryessa, (Hartnell survived), and (7) Paul Lee Stine on October 11th, 1969, in San Francisco. These are all cases where the Zodiac offered up information which could only be known to the killer himself and the police at that time. For example, in the first two instances he accurately described the positions of the victim's bodies and the brand of ammunition he used to commit the crimes. In the Stine shooting, he sent a piece of Paul Stine's bloodstained shirt with one of his letters.

No, he was not. There have been multiple suspects investigated over the years (as many as 2,500, according to some official police documents), but none have even been arrested in relation to the case. If he is still alive, it is believed he must be at least 70 or even 80 years old. It is presumed that he is dead. However, the case is still officially open and is regarded as a "cold case". According to Wikipedia, the case was reopened again sometime before March of 2007.

... at the beginning when the kids are shot? "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan, which also plays at the end. Interestingly, Donovan's daughter, (Ione Skye), has a role in the film as Kathleen Johns, the woman who is almost kidnapped by Zodiac.

...when the cabbie is shot? "Bang Bang" by Vanilla Fudge.

Yes, there are two other movies that detail the Zodiac killings: The Zodiac Killer (1971) and The Zodiac (2005).

The director's cut offers five minutes of new plot scenes. Most of the news scenes are slightly extended dialogue sequences but there are also three new longer scenes.