Smile!
The Awards are rolling in for one of the year’s most provocative films!
A Golden Globe acting nomination, on the AFI Top Ten film list, multiple Broadcast film critic nominations and now the San Diego Critics have chosen it Best Film Of The Year…Time for:
Brilliant “Nightcrawler”! Jake Gyllenhaal’s Oscar Worthy Portray Of A Modern Day Travis Bickle!
When Academy Award nominations are revealed, don’t be surprised if Jake Gyllenhaal’s name gets announced – this terrific Actor has given the performance of a lifetime – a modern day Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver” with a hint of Robert DeNiro’s Rupert Pupkin from “The King Of Comedy”.
First, check out the trailer:
“Nightcrawler” is an intense, beautiful directed action thriller that looks at a modern day sociopath, and the bloody world he crashes to make a name for himself…
Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, a loner and hustler who stumbles upon a new profession: “Nightcrawler”, the term used to describe the guys who chase down crime scenes and car accidents and then sell their footage to local news stations.
Rene Russo is terrific as the aging News Director who loves to yell “if it bleeds, it leads” every time Bloom films a horrific crime scene.
Look at these two images: Jake looks like the spawn of “Taxi Driver” Travis Bickle, and both characters use automobiles as their window into the bloody, violent world around them…
Empire’s Great Interview!
The terriifc british movie magazine empire has an interview with the Actor in their November issue. It offers up some great insight into the film.
Empire has a great interview with Gyllenhaal, who explains the look of his “Nightcrawler” character.
The actor lost twenty pounds to give himself a more haunting, “hungry” look…
“The idea was that he would be thin and that he would feel hungry…at a certain point I said ‘Lou is a coyote’…when you see one of these coyotes, they’re skinny and they stare at you like they’re going to eat you. Their techniques are all about preying on the desperate.”
Director Dan Gilroy was fascinated with a crime photographer from the 40’s in New York named “Weegee”. The Director told Empire:
“He was the first guy to put a police scanner in his car and drive around looking for crime scenes. I was fascinated by the intersection of art and crime.”
Bill Paxton is great as a veteran “Nightcrawler” who befriends Bloom – and quickly comes to regret it.
This is a terrific movie: a searing character study of evil, a tense, action-packed thriller, and an oscar-worthy performance by Gyllanhaal, who also produced the film.
For those who work in TV news, this isn’t a pretty picture. I worked in hard news for many years, and I know that this film, while not indicting the “nightcrawler” mentality, does raise many serious questions about “the public’s need to know…”
And for Gyllenhaal, this is an amazing career achievement…and here is a look at two incredible performances that his character seems to evoke:
Gyllenhaal’s loner in “Nightcrawler” is similar in mindset to Travis Bickle, who roamed the streets and found violence in Martin Scorsese’s brilliant “Taxi Driver”…read all about the seedy street of 70’s NYC by clicking here:
And of course, some of Gyllenhaal’s character evokes a sense of Rupert Pupkin, DeNiro’s brilliantly deranged character from Scorsese’s “The King Of Comedy” as well…
A newly released 30th anniversary blu-rays a great way to re-discover this masterpiece…read all about it here…
http://johnrieber.com/2014/03/25/the-king-of-comedy-goes-blu-amazing-extras-scorsese-grills-pupkin/
And once again, check out the masterful “Nightcrawler”, one of 2014’s best films!
