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

he was definitely there to express the familiar journalistic moral, i don't think we were supposed to identify with that dude too much. he's not walter matthau in a face in the crowd

morality, rather

i'm not saying the film didn't think network news was worthless, just that i don't think it was particularly hand-wringy about it, or that the point of the film was that network news sucks

it's also possible that after pro blogging and mba school, nothing this movie assumed about business or media struck me as unfair

heh

i'm not saying the film didn't think network news was worthless, just that i don't think it was particularly hand-wringy about it, or that the point of the film was that network news sucks

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 14, 2015 2:55 PM (6 hours ago)

i dunno about "the point of the film", but its critique is sustained, savage and hardly subtle. basically henley's "dirty laundry" dragged out for another 110 minutes. then again, i suppose you could say that the point is the complicity of the media with sociopathically predatory capitalism.

Well, yeah.

as i said in what you quoted, i agree the film is critical of the media. but its not bemoaning it, contrasting the situation with what should be, or noting some better, innocent world beyond it, etc. the a guy who hates what leo represents is treated as a nuisance, not as a conscience to necessarily be respected.

between this, whiplash, wolf of wall street, gone girl, observe & report, i'm gathering i have a pretty high tolerance for anti-heroism when the film isn't afraid of humor and melodrama. reacting to this movie with some variation on "i get it, i get it, the media sucks" just feels very forest for the trees where i'm at. it's about watching this guy navigate that world. a world the movie has a critical distance from, but isn't clucking its tongue over.

oh yeah, agree completely. but the movie is, nonetheless, a critique of the mainstream news media. we can accept this while also recognizing that its portrayal of local evening news ethics is a natural extension of its larger view of "late stage capitalism" as america's economic/social/moral universe.

i say it's critical of the media, you say it's a critique of the media, obv the twain shall not meet

okay, gotcha. in calling it "a critique", i'm not limiting it to that, but i can certainly see how the language tends that way.

to be clear, i was just laughing at the fact the idea that i don't accept it's a "critique" after posting it's "critical"

the fact. really should proofcheck any post i'm going to start with "to be clear"

i def don't accept the film is basically henley's "dirty laundry" dragged out for another 110 minutes though, any more than Lolita is basically gary puckett's "young girl" dragged out for 110 minutes

well, there's no point in bemoaning it, cuz it's never gonna change in the few decades we've got left, except for the worse.

LOCAL news, not network

i def don't accept the film is basically henley's "dirty laundry" dragged out for another 110 minutes though, any more than Lolita is basically gary puckett's "young girl" dragged out for 110 minutes

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 14, 2015 11:37 PM (Yesterday)

okay, edit to: the film's view of local news is basically http://www.drummerworld.com/drummerworld/donhenley550kjrs23.jpg

you should re-read those lyrics, don't recall nightcrawler talking about how they love to slam don henley

also do you have a different view of local news than "crap is king"?

no! and who doesn't love to slam don henley? i don't fault the film for its view of local news, though as social critique, it did seem almost comically overheated (in a good way). i quite liked the move, if that wasn't clear. i'm predisposed to gyllenhaals.

"movie" is the "move"

i'm just confused why you keep saying "you have to admit it's an overheated critique" when i keep saying the film is a melodrama that assumes the la local media world is shit

my point is simply that the movie mostly assumes rather than argues it sucks, and uses that as the backdrop of an antiheroic story, so merely seeing it as one long slam of the media is to miss the focus of the film.

accent on the word "merely," lest someone think i'm denying the media is getting a slam (a slam no one has actually said is unfair yet).

well, i started out quibbling about "the point", but in the long run, i don't think we disagree on that score. i'm not suggesting that nightcrawler has no concerns beyond its media critique or even that local broadcast news is its primary critical focus. i tried to clarify this yesterday (and a couple posts back), but maybe it got lost in translation. [shrug guy]

apology accepted

lol

keep forgetting it wasn't jim carrey in this film.

ten years ago it would've been.

lol I compared it to the cable guy

Michael Sicinski (giving a 4/10):

"By the by, the subject of accident-chasing newshounds in L.A. has already been broached in a much better film, Richard Dutcher's Falling from 2005. It's grittier, less winky-nudgy, and has more at stake since its protagonist actually starts out with a soul he can lose."

The more I think about this movie the less I like it.

I saw it last night. Lots of fun.

Both silly and heavyhanded, starting with when renee russo's character becomes a literal whore (why would a corporation/sociopath crave human contact anyway)

the more I think about this movie, the less clothes I like on Jake

^^That was Russo's character's view as well.

eh, you're only a whore if a cash transaction is involved
but good point grisso!

sociopaths can be quite narcissistic and vice versa

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