- guardian.co.uk, Thursday May 17 2007 16.21 BST
Two fine films in the space of 24 hours. It's either my birthday or some kind of divine payback for sitting through My Blueberry Nights yesterday. First up was Zodiac, David Fincher's clammily engrossing tale of the hunt for a serial killer who terrorised San Francisco in the late 60s and early 70s. It's a newspaper thriller in the mould of All the President's Men; full of clattering typewriters and trilling telephones.
Zodiac isn't perfect, in that it's a shade too long and attempts to cover too much ground. But it remains a muscular and confident piece of work. As ever, Fincher is brilliant at creating and maintaining a sense of menace. The San Francisco he evokes looks normal on the surface; it's only when you draw closer that you realise that it is running a fever - that it's sick, possibly dangerous. Incidentally, the film is out in the UK tomorrow, so for once this is a Cannes treasure that won't be kept under wraps until some time in 2008.
The second film I saw probably won't be appearing in your local multiplex any time soon. It's Control, the Joy Division biopic by photographer-turned-director Anton Corbijn. This is a shame because it is quite superb; a sort of kitchen-sink, social-realist rock-opera, topped off with an eerily good performance from the previously unknown Sam Riley as Ian Curtis.
Kicking off in early 70s Macclesfield, Control charts the rise and fall of the band's iconic, over-wound-up front man, who killed himself on the eve of their first US tour. I guess one might see it as the prehistoric companion piece to 24-Hour Party People. Except that where Michael Winterbottom's Madchester romp was jubilant and inventive, this is dour and deadpan, threaded through with a dry, lugubrious wit. The obvious comic highlight comes in the scene in which a hapless roadie keeps getting shoved back on stage when Curtis goes awol, although I also liked Rob Gretton's congratulations to the band after their first gig at a local dive: "Lads, that was fantastic. I ain't seen a reaction like that since George Best was kicked out for glassing a bouncer."
No more visits, praise God, from M. Henri, the venerable owner of the Guardian flat. But this place is weird enough without him. On the walk back from Control I passed by a respectable businessman-type who, for some reason, was pushing a cat in a baby's pram along the Rue d'Antibes. The cat was overweight, and wore a pirate's kerchief in place of a collar and - as befitted its mode of travel - carried itself with a lordly, despotic air. One street down, an Asian model was vogueing for the photographers and the hired goons were bundling some protesting tourist down the steps of the Palais. But none of them commanded quite the same level of attention as that snooty, pram-riding cat.
