You've said that twice now, almost word for word. I don't get the "no effect on anybody else's life" part, because I've just given a rave review for it.

I don't get comparisons to Haneke, either, since I don't really see a relevant point of discussion between the two - and since you've only seen all of three films by him, I can't see how you would, either. The only way I see a similarity - and it's a vague one - is how both directors have an obvious great deal of pre-planned choreography for their scenes; Haneke more so, though, since his films are decidedly minimalist in terms of editing, and Fincher only for certain set-pieces.

Good Cinema doesn't start and end with Michael Haneke, or what you might term as "art cinema", though.

I'm (half) interested as to how you might counter my points of praise in my review. How Zodiac is a lesson in subjective verisimilitude - constantly shifting focus and placing the audience into a different character's identity.

I see also a lot of visual worth in Zodiac. Didn't you notice the subtle change in cinematography as we moved through the decades. Compare the colour and lighting in some of the early scenes to the late scenes. If that isn't attention to period and detail and/or visual authenticity, I don't know what is.

And I've not even hit upon his use of CGI yet.

As for the text epilogue, it wasn't so much lazy as economic. The narrative had already served its purpose. How do you wrap up a series of events which are still continuing in real life in mere imagery and dialogue?

Some text epilogues are worthless, or contradictory, like the ones at the end of Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamond, because they're really pretentious in how they pull the film into sudden educational mode, contrary to the action conventions of the film.

But Zodiac's was similar to the one Melville uses at the end of Army in Shadows. Very efficient.