Nightcrawler: Dan Gilroy writes & directs, Jake Gyllenhaal stars (October 2014)

Rene Russo is married to Gilroy.

AO Scott of NYT one of the few dissenters so far.

His review was a hoot.

only skimmed, i gen avoid til after seeing.

A friend of mine posits that JG in this is a precise living embodiment of the "corporation as psychopath" thesis from The Corporation, which totally fits.

Saw an interview with Gilroy last night where he said that when he and JG were developing the character, they wanted to make him thin and hungry like a coyote coming down from the hills around LA at night.

Saw this tonight. Probably SPOILERS ahead

It's basically a modern-day version of What Makes Sammy Run?, or All About Eve. Some of the scenes with Russo give off a heavy King of Comedy vibe (also mentioned in an equivocal Sight and Sound review I've just read, after seeing the film). Breaking Bad is in there, too. I was less engaged by the film's 'cynicism', which is of course really cover for moral outrage at 'the state of things', than by the thriller/crime aspects - the more creepy and bugeyed JG is, the better the film is.

this was…..not good. gyllenhaal is channeling tom cruises character in magnolia (vocally sounds like him) by way of patrick bateman. 1st like hour feels like endless chugging rock music montages over arguing abt gps directions around LA. yea JGs bug-eyed-ness…idk man i guess i prefer his sisters sad big eyes over his dead calculating ones here

hm according to wiki p its doing quite well

Budget $8 million[3]
Box office $997 billion

There were some great things about this movie, like Riz Ahmed imo, and the unbearable suspense leading up to the Chinese restaurant confrontation, to name a couple.

JG's character as embodiment of the corporaton-as-person is a brilliant interpretation. The movie fairly shouts at you for two straight hours but I was not getting it, the sociopathy and greed and voyeurism all felt kinda 'yeah, and...'

I'm guessing it was unintentional on Gilroy's part but it completely fits, especially the way [spoilers!] Bloom hides his manipulations behind jargon and circular logic, and the way he's rarely "directly" responsible for death and destruction, but sees nothing wrong in orchestrating circumstances that anyone would recognize will end in tragedy, so long as it's to his ultimate advantage.

There was a trailer for Blackhat before my screening, and after the film was over I was telling the folks I went with how Nightcrawler would have been a badass Michael Mann film if it'd been made in the 80s.

I liked it.

A friend of mine posits that JG in this is a precise living embodiment of the "corporation as psychopath" thesis from The Corporation, which totally fits.

― Simon H., Friday, October 31, 2014 3:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that's what I assumed they were going for.

real refreshing to see something (fictional) that's just as cynical and filled with hate about capitalism as i've been feeling lately

and i don't think gilroy was unaware of the JG-as-corporation angle, i thought it was laid on p thick tbh, but i did come at it already having read the interpretation itt. but there's no way to read this as anything but allegory and i'm not sure what else it could be concerned with. it was practically a fable.

love the distinction of his driving a permanently shiny red car and never coming close to getting pulled over despite speeding down city streets every single night, if it wasn't already clear he was immortal

AO Scott gen otm. "Job interview" was my favorite scene.

SPOILERS

You think midway "well i see which one of the principals is going to be offed in the last 10 minutes" and YES YOU'RE RIGHT! There are political reasons engrained in the concept for this, arguably, tho the character is an undereducated, inert drone.

Nice try at showing 21st-century capitalism as fast on-track to universal bloodstained contract work. Needed to go that extra mile of JG and RR orgasming to snuff footage.

laying it on thickly: the heart-tugging scoring when Louis talks about "maybe loving TV news" -- got to be pokerfaced pastiche. Also his spiel on the proportion of local news coverage of violent crime vs social/governmental themes to Russo's producer... needed that flashing "AUTHOR'S MESSAGE" text from What's New Pussycat?

anyway was a #1 squeaker at the box office this weekend, I bet many multiplexers were confused.

by the second half the mood in the theater seemed as cold as it could be and it was oddly quiet when it was over

may I just

http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article2483041.ece/alternates/s615b/Jake-Gyllenhaal-films-a-night-time-scene-for-his-new-movie-Nightcrawler-in-Studio-City-California.jpg

I live in Los Angeles, drive around mostly at night, am working a job based at the television studio where Nightcrawler was filmed, and umm, have watched a lot of Rene Russo movies. Of course I enjoyed this immensely - how could I not? The happy amoral fun-time weakens though whenever the movie tries to make a point. Was worried that Ted Chaough was going to make a Network speech and wreck what is basically a great little gritty b-movie. JG does not blink the entire time.

JG's character may be corporation as psychopath manifest, but also what happens to someone who self-educates from the internet... Sociopathic. All relationships transactional-based. Is into disrupting established business practices. Bet you he's got some Ayn Rand books somewhere in that Elysian Park apartment of his.

Bill Paxton's Nightcrawler character is what happened to Paxton's Twister character after being denied tenure and having to work years in the adjunct trenches.

the most human aspect is he watches and enjoys the occasional Danny Kaye movie

I love that on-camera LA newsfolk are playing themselves in this; nice boost for the profession

i thought this was brilliant. JG was seriously impressive. reminds me of vincent gallo, de niro a tiny bit, and um, ted bundy. he deserves some sort of award. it is didactic but in a weirdly restrained way. it never rams it down your throat. its quietly, modestly didactic, as if it knows trying to make it too obvious isnt even necessary. i never felt it was smug, which it might have been. and they could have made it a black comedy satire, but didnt, which i also liked. it was chilling but for some reason i kept wondering what someone like haneke would do with it (not sure why) and if this would have made it better or worse. the dialogue is pretty stunning though, and i found myself have a queasy admiration for JGs expressionless but pinpoint perfect, almost scientific mode of speaking.

As broad satire, this was okay--as mentioned above, I thought of Rupert Pupkin the whole way through. Also agree that the two or three minutes preceding the restaurant debacle (not the car chase, just Gyllenhaal and his partner waiting) were tense.

In terms of the film's possible message--central conceit would be more accurate--I didn't really buy any of it. Stanley Kauffmann dismissed something similar in his review of Medium Cool 45 years ago (a much better film):

But, right from the start, Medium Cool is infected with the falseness that seems endemic among the new crop of American film truth tellers. The very first sequence: Forster and his soundman shoot a car accident and record the groans of the injured woman on a lonely road. When they get back to their company car, Forster recollects himself and says (the first line of the film): "Better call an ambulance." Phony. It's hard enough to believe that the most hardened newsman would not have called an ambulance before doing his job; but it's impossible to believe that he would have forgotten to call one after he finished--particularly the man this one is later shown to be.

Gyllenhaal's character obviously takes such callousness to a whole other level. So if he's meant purely as a no-there-there monster (like Pupkin, and like Patrick Bateman, also mentioned above), that works pretty well. But as being representative of some virulent tendency of news gathering or the media today, I'd say heavy-handed at best.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DwHdJ7xJeyM/UacNU0trc2I/AAAAAAAAEXs/xM0D1g_WXdY/s1600/dead-haiti-girl-fabienne-cherisma-nathan-weber.jpg

I'd want some context on that photo--the URL says the woman is already dead. Not that those photographers are the picture of nobility, but, among other things, Gyllenhaal films his business partner while he's in the process of dying.

I'm not posting the photo to say that Nightcrawler is fact; I'm posting it to say that it's not necessarily far-fetched, at least not for the things you're criticizing it for. I don't think there's any inherent sense of integrity or truth-seeking among journalists, and the actual day-to-day products of the news industry are so outrageous that feelings of outrage become blunted, are replaced with a heavily attenuated distaste. A story about a sociopathic video journalist reminds me that, yeah, the institution of journalism can accommodate such a person.

I guess people will react differently to that--I know it's had its share of great reviews. Myself, I just didn't find Gyllenhaal credible as a symbol of systemic rot.

putting an allegory for capitalism in your film is one of the easiest forms of critic-bait, tbh.

and as an allegory it's not very interesting or revealing. movie was distracting enough, i guess.

JG's character may be corporation as psychopath manifest, but also what happens to someone who self-educates from the internet... Sociopathic. All relationships transactional-based. Is into disrupting established business practices. Bet you he's got some Ayn Rand books somewhere in that Elysian Park apartment of his.

yeah that whole set piece, from the argument with his underling that sets the stage, through the chase, crash and aftermath was amazing

I also liked Rene Russo pulling the strings on the fly for the broadcast of the home invasion footage

yeah, very Network

Rene Russo was runnerup for best supporting actress in the LA Film Critics awards; she's fine, but that strikes me as faded-movie-star comebackitis.

Dumb movie. Gyllenhaal reads lines as if off cue cards. Thriller bits strictly Sat afternoon cable. Modish cynicism about ratings, etc.

it's a fairly effective junky movie pretending to be something more; the poverty of mallplex fare lets it pass.

by the second half the mood in the theater seemed as cold as it could be and it was oddly quiet when it was over

― linda cardellini (zachlyon), Monday, 3 November 2014 15:44 (2 months ago) Permalink

This is how it was in the theatre tonight when I saw it.

Way, way bleak, and effective.

This was a fun film!

Dumb movie. Gyllenhaal reads lines as if off cue cards.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, December 21, 2014 3:17 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Surely this is the point?

This ruled

Surely this is the point?

― this is just a saginaw (dog latin),

he shouldn't have sounded like polysyllabic words were new to him!

surely this was the point

Nah. This was a sub-Network exercise with a dumb chase.

otm. not even superior trash

this more or less has the same relation to modern refn-ish autism as freejack did to cyberpunk (for a while i almost thought it was a send-up, as if he were deliberately juxtaposing it with beverly hills cop ii)

at least freejack was honest tho, and therefore remains unsurpassed

i hadnt seen photos of him before but gilroy really ought to have starred himself in some stuff rather than the missus; like a young peter weller aging into manhunter's francis dolarhyde

no, it was superior trash

films like this getting elevated while The Homesman dies at the box office still make me shake my head tho

it's not even the best Jake movie of last year!

i think the homesman thing is down to westerns (nobody cares about them anymore) + swank (nobody cares about her anymore)

wait Morbz what did you think the best Jake movie of last year was? Enemy?

thought this was way funnier than network, jake's secondhand mba shit was great

By which I mean, they might crave human contact for their bottomless narcissistic supply hole.

Do sociopaths not like sex and power?

I loved this movie btw, mostly because of the Rupert Pupkin echoes (both characters use borrowed jargon and excessive politeness to create an uncanny valley version of charm; both construct personae and worldviews based on TV and the internet respectively) and the LA cinematography.

Was worried that Ted Chaough was going to make a Network speech and wreck what is basically a great little gritty b-movie.

OTM. Lots of Network in here but minus the didactic monologues.

I like Gilroy's quote upthread: It was when the character of Lou Bloom (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) came into the picture that I realized it was ultimately more of a character study than it was about this unique world.

I did feel it was more about one man than a satire of the media per se. TV news is a world in which this monster can thrive but it's not full of monsters.

surprised people didn't find this heavy-handed. once you get past the pastiche of King of Comedy/Taxi Driver/Network there's just a bunch of implausible junk and the sledgehammer obvious corporation = sociopath allegory - which is a novel character device, but it can't (and doesn't) sustain the movie

like RM/RM, i was more interested in this as a character study than a social commentary.

and there's a damn chase scene.

americans, always with the car chase

RMRM, this movie is nowhere near as ballsy or coherent as The King of Comedy.

True. TKOC is one of my favourite movies. I just liked the homage here. It felt like a shrewd way to update Pupkin but obviously it's a much less complex and thought-provoking film which moves like a thriller rather than a black comedy. Fun though.

my problem w that is that all the thriller elements that followed killing Paxton's crew really strained credibility. I just didn't buy that he could sell footage of him messing w a crime scene and not be arrested/have his evidence seized etc. or drive around at a bazillion miles an hour in a sports car and not get noticed, arrested, or crash etc.

Is people driving fast without getting arrested or crashing a thing that usually bothers you in movies? Because it happens all the time.

it depends on the context. it didn't bother me in Drive, for example, where evading capture/detection is central and integrated into the film. here it primarily bothered me at the post-shootout chase scene. cops would've been all over anybody interfering in a high speed chase that way, but hey happy ending he ends up with multiple vans and a thriving business at the end! yeah right

"corporation = sociopath allegory - which is a novel character device"

it is not rly

well sure there's American Psycho and Alien and probably some others I'm forgetting but idk it doesn't seem all that common to me to have a character so fully embodying corporate-speak

Nightcrawler: Dan Gilroy writes & directs, Jake Gyllenhaal stares

Watched this over the weekend (two sittings because baby) and really enjoyed it. Would agree that it is critical of rather than a critique of the media / news, and most interesting as a (lack of) character study; JG as Lou Bloom was such an empty vessel being filled up with auto-didactic MBA bullshit gleaned from the internet with no critical capacity that it was fascinating. I like that he completely lacked a moral compass. So I suppose I subscribe to the corporations-as-sociopaths angle.

'Nightcrawler' and the Brand Called Lou Bloom™
https://www.popmatters.com/nightcrawler-dan-gilroy-branding-2608121628.html

(heads up/warning, the essay eventually gets around to namechecking Baudrillard)

This is a risible and stupid film and I can’t believe it’s not over yet

Only wound up watching this because I confused it with Foxcatcher and the other thing I thought of watching was an hour longer.

Kinda mad I watched this movie

that was the point maaan

why the fuck do a-listers star in these comic book films

Astonished anyone itt liked this movie five years ago, maybe the things it was being wry about are just that much more omnipresent now but even apart from the commentary aspects this is just an overwrought and unconvincing bucket of dishwater. Like Network rewritten by stupid people.

The sexual menacing of RR by JG doesn’t add anything, isn’t convincing, and doesn’t pay off in any way other than a joke written by a dimwitted teenager about “doing the things I ask you too when we’re in your apartment.”

Haven’t been this mad I watched a movie perhaps ever, what a fart

eh after the first twenty minutes network is also rubbish tbf

Finally saw this on Netflix, and it feels familiar and relevant to our times: the incel protagonist, the gig economy, the idea of parasitic capitalism. As someone whose most stressful moments are negotiating freelance rates, the many many scenes of rate haggling were as suspenseful as waiting for the cops to show up at the restaurant.

Felt derivative of Collateral, in its look and its overt themes and its L.A., and from the start it's hard to believe we're going to be stuck sharing two hours with this guy. But there's nothing wrong with having two L.A. nighttime thrillers with damaged psychos. Loved Russo's character.

This is one of those films after first watch I thought, “10-15 years this will be criterion certified.”

Also had the same reaction to John Wick - but that is a better film.

Didn't feel like reviving the thread but I saw this last year and loved the hell out of it

I didn't get an incel vibe from Jakey boy in this, more like someone for whom sex is strictly a transactional commodity or something

when I think of proto incels I think of Seth Rogen in Observe and Report

Started watching this last week - got as far as Gyllenhaal (sp) negotiating with Russo for the first bit of footage he sells but bailed out because it didn't suit my mood. Will come back though - he's really unnerving in it. Maybe the best performance I've ever seen from him.