NIGHTCRAWLER
Added 2022-04-07 19:49:27 +0000 UTCI'm working on a review for this one, mainly because I've been delving into the Christine Chubbuck suicide lately from the 1970s, and have been thinking of movies about sensationalized news. Naturally you'd think I'd be more inclined to review Network or something like that, but I've been meaning to revisit this one for a long time. Mainly because Jake Gyllenhaal's performance stuck out to me so strongly. Though I didn't care for the film initially. Revisiting, I found more to admire, while still having some criticisms too. Interesting idea seeing a protagonists such as that, be rewarded with success. If you've seen the film, what are your thoughts on it?
Comments
I like this movie, and the Rebecca Hall Christine movie, but a better movie that’s similar is this film called Chameleon Street. It won the grand jury prize at Sundance in 1990 it’s about this conman from Detroit named Douglas Street who started off extorting a baseball player, but then got his foot in some crazy doors. finessing his way into becoming a doctor who conducted over 50 hysterectomies. A lawyer for lucrative firm. Getting fake diplomas from big universities such as Duke. To me it’s great unreliable narrator piece about that kind of social striving “American dream” that goes hand in hand with films like Nightcrawler or American Pyscho even a little bit of Holy Motors with what is saying about performance and identity. I’m really curious to see what you’d think of it.
jared Clarke
2022-04-08 20:11:38 +0000 UTCI'm with Bennett on Christine. One thing it did really well was show the emotional pain of someone who puts a lot of effort and passion into their work only to not get the appreciation and recognition they deserve from their boss. I've had two jobs where I worked under someone almost exactly like that. Even one of them looked a lot like Tracy Letts who played the boss. You feel like you get nothing but criticisms no matter how well you do and that optimistic feeling of accomplishment immediately followed by some nitpick without praise is probably the worst mental feeling in the world and this film portrayed it extremely well. Also, Rebecca Hall should've gotten an Oscar nomination. The only real big weakness is that the supporting cast of characters, with a few exceptions, have next to no characterization.
Wolfman Brandon
2022-04-08 03:47:42 +0000 UTCI love it for Rebecca Hall and her performance. She’s an underrated actress and I think, other than perhaps Parade’s End, this is her most substantial role.
Bennett Oliver
2022-04-08 00:17:46 +0000 UTCI love it. It’s of course not completely realistic, but that’s no problem for me. Lou and Rene Russo show the power of incentives and how they corrupt the news. I worked at newspapers for many, many years. When I started, we just wrote what we thought were interesting stories. In the online era, once we could see what readers actually clicked on, what we thought was good was no longer the sole criteria. It could justify a major story every now and then, but we still needed to do stories that would get clicks to feed the beast. We never got close to the ethical lines Nightcrawler is crossing, but I definitely did some “empty calories” stories just because I knew people would click on it. Returning to the movie, all the performances are great. It builds terrific tension starting with the “murder house.” It’s certainly not profound like “Network,” but I greatly enjoy it.
Jim Barnes
2022-04-07 23:55:49 +0000 UTCI think what the movie is about—the ugly, sensationalized tabloid coverage of murder—definitely was going on during the 1980s, what with the coverage of the Night Stalker and other events. But Hollywood didn’t really get around to satirizing and condemning such actions until the ‘90s, and such coverage was still going on. Natural Born Killers, To Die For, and Mad City are just a couple I can think of right now. Had Nightcrawler been made 20 years earlier than it was, I think it would be something of a cult classic because its ideas on the media would’ve then tapped into the zeitgeist of that time and allow the film to make more of an impact. As it is, I think it’s an enjoyable dark drama through the vibrant nightworld of LA that proves to be a great showcase for Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s one of my favorite performances he’s given.
Bennett Oliver
2022-04-07 23:44:28 +0000 UTCHate is a strong word. I'm extremely invested in the concept, I suppose. And to me, this film was just boring and unremarkable, and written like it was made for tv lifetime movie. I feel like you have to really work hard to make a story like this generic, and they managed to do it. Really disappointing.
Deepfocuslens
2022-04-07 23:22:27 +0000 UTCNightcrawler is a far better film than Christine without question, in my opinion.
Deepfocuslens
2022-04-07 22:56:57 +0000 UTCAlready seen it. Hated it. XD
Deepfocuslens
2022-04-07 22:54:23 +0000 UTCSame
Deepfocuslens
2022-04-07 22:54:16 +0000 UTCI do think that there is suspension of disbelief to be had. I don't think the film is setting out to be realistic. If it were, they monumentally failed. That said, I do wish the commentary were less one-note. It could've done with more complexity, again to support the protagonist.
Deepfocuslens
2022-04-07 22:54:05 +0000 UTCI'd put most of those films above this one, as far as satirical exploration of sensationalism. But, I do like it overall as a piece of entertainment, and as an example of an excellent performance that is dependent on it's quirks.
Deepfocuslens
2022-04-07 22:52:51 +0000 UTClol funny you say that. I was thinking this script felt like it came out of the 1980s, but of course influenced by 1970s. Even for 1990s it feels like a stretch. I do wish the performance had been better supported. It's so interested, but the film is quite not up to that level. And I wish it was. That said, I did like it more the second time. Part of why the film feels stagnant for a period is because this isn't some cynical psychological spiral. This character is a symbol for a type of modern human being, or mix of human beings, and not very concrete. He has no real arc, and he is barely tested. That said, I found a lot of that refreshing. For me it didn't take time to get going. I found it pretty compelling from the onset. Just looking at it a bit differently.
Deepfocuslens
2022-04-07 22:51:02 +0000 UTCI enjoy the movie well enough, in large part due to Gyllenhaal’s eerily compelling performance. The weight loss was an especially canny move to make; his skin stretches tight across his face and every trace of that eager puppy-dog look he’s always had disappears. He takes on the look of something between a bug and a lemur, a creature that looks like it belongs in the shadows. It goes well with what he brings to the character. There’s always been something of a sweet earnestness about Gyllenhaal, that he’s something of an innocent (a quality used well in Zodiac). Here he uses that to an unnerving effect, coupling it with a creepy, intense avidity and drive. His Lou Bloom, a would-be Weegee of the modern world, makes it very clear to us—and everyone around him—what he wants, but we also sense that he’s not all there, that he’s something pretending to be human. That makes him enticing to watch as he goes about his job because we know he’ll do anything to get ahead, and sooner or later he will. The film’s photography is probably the best depiction of LA at night I had seen at the time since Collateral. It’s all the more striking because Gyllenhaal’s Bloom, with his beady, sunken eyes, seems at home in the dangerously alluring nightworld around him. It’s his natural habitat. For all the strength of the striking visuals and Gyllenhaal’s performance though, as an overall film there’s something lacking about Nightcrawler. It doesn’t really start to get going until the second half, when Lou stumbles across a murder in progress. And the statements it makes about the ruthlessness behind capitalism and the media were incredibly stale and well-trodden even at the time of the film’s release (2014). Its portrait of the local new’s unending hunger for sensationalism evokes more the primal sins of the media during the 1990s—the time of OJ Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Amy Fisher and the tabloid news programs who hounded after their stories—not our current 24-hour cable news cycle world (who, in terms of transgressions, have gone far beyond what Lou Bloom does in the movie). Nightcrawler is a decent character study with an outdated message on how crazy you have to be to succeed in the news world.
Bennett Oliver
2022-04-07 22:07:13 +0000 UTCI think it's a very good film, I have not seen it since it came out so I'm a little misty on things that I might criticise specifically. I think it is one of a handful of films that really nails the 'if it bleeds, it leads' mentality and it would play well alongside - Ace in the Hole, Sweet Smell of Success, Network & Natural Born Killers
Ross Skilton
2022-04-07 21:18:05 +0000 UTCI like it quite a bit. The main criticisms I’ve seen is that it’s too over the top/unrealistic but to me that was the point. It’s meant to be more of a satire of how depraved our media has become due to their focus on profits.
Stephen
2022-04-07 20:32:32 +0000 UTCFirst time I saw it at the cinema and I think it was my favorite movie back then in 2014. Strong director debut. Yeah, Jake Gyllenhaal is fantastic here. When I watched the film years later I liked it even more. It's not a masterpiece but very good experience.
Oskitello
2022-04-07 20:24:34 +0000 UTCIf you’re into the Christine Chubbuck story, I highly recommend the movie Christine with Rebecca Hall. She’s fantastic in it. And I think it’s a better movie than Nightcrawler.
Bennett Oliver
2022-04-07 20:01:33 +0000 UTCLiked the movie, but besides Jake Gyllenhaal, not a lot of strong characters (or performances) that stuck out to me. I’ve seen the movie once, but from what I remember I wasn’t the biggest fan of the third act; it didn’t really go anywhere unexpected, still a pretty engaging watch though.
Mees
2022-04-07 20:00:10 +0000 UTC
