Small Zodiac News!

First up on the San Fran Examiner there is an interesting story about filming. Since all my readers are lazy fat pigs that can't be bothered to click on a link ill just past the whole story.

Smith, Downey, City star in flicks

Angelo Viducic has been a waiter at Original Joe's for 45 years. Now, at age 65, he's starting a new career as an actor. His first role? … He's playing a waiter at Original Joe's. Angelo, the very definition of debonair, along with a half-dozen or so of Joe's staffers and customers, will be working today as Joe's itself becomes a set for director David Fincher's production of "Zodiac," the flick about, naturally, the Zodiac Killer. Big Name cast: Gary Oldman plays Melvin Belli … Robert Downey Jr. plays legendary crime reporter Paul Avery — a case of casting a great character to play a really great character … Jake Gyllenhaal plays the Chron cartoonist, Robert Graysmith, who wrote the books on which the flick is based. Mark Ruffalo, who seems to be in town all the time, plays detective Dave Toschi. Anthony Edwards, Pell James, Bijou Phillips and Chloe Sevigny are in the flick as well. …"This really fits," says Original Marie Duggan, the presiding genius of Joe's. "During the time when all this was really going on, the S.F. Homicide Squad practically lived at Joe's." … Marie herself works today (they've closed the restaurant today for the shooting) as an actress. But she says her wardrobe "is pure Mrs. Doubtfire." … John Harris, Joe's master bartender, plays himself. And waiter Phillip Lucin, another of the Croatian horde who have animated Joe's since its founding, will sling some food in the show. Manuel Loaisa, who started as a busboy in May 1969, plays himself. He served the original Zodiac detectives. … Joe's is remarkable for having staffers like Loaisa and Viducic who have worked there, in tuxes and behind heavy aprons, for decades. "We've all done rather well here," says Angelo, "we've been able to build good lives in this country because of Joe's." …Joe's is timeless. When the location scouts came to check the place out, they discovered that, to make the joint look like a 1970s-era San Francisco restaurant, they had to change only one thing: the pay phone. Otherwise, not an anachronism in sight.
Not like down in the Financial District, where another film crew was shooting last weekend. "Pursuit of Happyness" — and yes, that's how they're spelling "happiness" — stars Will Smith as a homeless guy in the mid-'80s who wins custody of a small son just as he is admitted to an intern program at a stock brokerage. … Smith, not the kid, gets into the brokerage program. ... Well, it's no more improbable than any other real-life San Francisco story of the ‘80s. Indeed, "Happyness" is based on the true-life story of one Chris Gardner, who found himself out of work, out of luck and living with his baby son in a BART restroom. … The rest is pure Hollywood (or Horatio Alger). By pluck and luck, Gardner went on to become a broker at Dean Witter and Bear Stearns. Nowadays, he's a partner at the Chicago-based minority brokerage firm Gardner Rich & Co., and is so rich he can afford to hire his own gardener. Nice San Francisco story. …So down around the Bank of America building, last weekend they closed off traffic so our modern hybrids and SUVS wouldn't interfere with the ‘80s-era autos and trucks roaming up and down California Street in the background. … One startling anachronism: the cast of extras roaming the streets was largely dolled up in suits. I saw more "business attire" on California Street on Saturday than you're likely to see on any business day in the current dress-casual era. … Filming is also taking place around Duboce Park, where a mock-up BART station was built, and in Oakland and Piedmont. … By the way, Smith is said to be a jolly, friendly guy, much liked by crew and extras, though the death of his compadre, Andre Blair, who was for years Smith's stand-in on movie sets, saddened the shoot. Filming was stopped for the funeral. …Moviemaking is an intense business, so it's no surprise that cast and crew often don't have much time or energy to pursue the pleasures of The City. But you have to wonder sometimes if they even know where they are. Another Mark Ruffalo feature, "Just Like Heaven," was just released — to less-than-enthusiastic praise from my Examiner colleague, Jeffrey Anderson, though The City looks likes heaven. … To promote the movie, director Mark Waters did an HBO featurette about the shoot. In his television promo, as his actors jump on and off the Hyde Street cars, Mr. Waters speaks fondly of the venerable, characterlike vehicles. But he keeps calling them "trolley cars." My, that is ignorant … even for a guy from La-La Land.

Phew there u go. Here the link

Also from:

However, her mortal romantic interest, played by Mark Ruffalo, has had enough of this lovey-dovey fluff stuff. Ruffalo's prepping for a far more serious role in the upcoming David Fincher movie about the Zodiac killer.
"I'm the lead inspector in the Zodiac case. It's a great part," Ruffalo says. The film stars Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Edwards and Gary Oldman in the infamous case of a serial killer who had a double digit body count in San Francisco in the 1970s. He was never officially arrested.
"They say it was 37 bodies found, but many people think it was twice that count," says Ruffalo. "It's set in the period of the '70s. It centers on my relationship with a loose-cannon reporter. It's also about the five different police forces who came together to find this killer during a time when there were no fax machines, no Internet and it was hard to share information."