Nightcrawler

Movies to See Right Now

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John Cusack and Elizabeth Banks in LOVE & MERCY
John Cusack and Elizabeth Banks in LOVE & MERCY

If you haven’t seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to see the CAN’T MISS coming of age masterpiece Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.  Besides Me and Earl, two more of my Best Movies of 2015 – So Far are playing in theaters:

Don’t miss Fabrice Luchini in the delightfully dark comedy Gemma Bovery. The coming of age comedy Dope is a nice little movie that trashes stereotypes. Alicia Vikander’s strong performance carries the anti-war memoir Testament of Youth. This summer’s animated Pixar blockbuster Inside Out is very smart, but a little preachy, often very sad and underwhelming. The Melissa McCarthy spy spoof Spy is a very funny diversion. Mad Max: Fury Road is a rock ’em sock ’em action tour de force but ultimately empty-headed and empty-hearted.

My Stream of the Week is the thriller Nightcrawler, with Jake Gyllenhaal as a highly functioning psychotic. You can stream it from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu and rent it on DirecTV PPV.

Don’t forget that Turner Classic Movies is filling each June and July Friday with film noir in its Summer of Darkness series, hosted by Film Noir Foundation president Eddie Muller – the Czar of Noir. The series schedule includes several favorites of my Overlooked Noir. Tonight I recommend D.O.A. and Caged; next Friday, look out for 99 River Street.

On July 15, Turner Classic Movies features the 1948 film noir Pitfall. Dick Powell plays a bored middle class married guy who is aching for some excitement. In his humdrum job as an insurance investigator, he investigates an embezzlement and meets the captivating Lizabeth Scott, the girlfriend of the imprisoned embezzler. They fall into a torrid but short-lived affair. Just when Powell thinks that he’s back to his normal family life, both he and Scott are dragged into a thriller by two baddies – the sexually obsessed sickie of a private eye (Raymond Burr) and the nasty and very jealous embezzler (Byron Barr), just released from the hoosegow. Jane Wyatt plays Powell’s wife.

Pitfall is especially interesting because it deviates from two prototypical characterizations. Unlike the usual noir sap, Powell doesn’t fall for Scott “all in”; although he has a brief extramarital fling, he’s never going to leave his family for her. And Scott, although she allures Powell, is not femme fatale. She’s not a Bad Girl, just an unlucky one. She has horrible taste in a boyfriend and the bad luck to attract a menacing stalker (Burr), but she’s fundamentally decent. Will her sexual promiscuity be punished at the end of this 1948 movie?

I feature Pitfall in my list of Overlooked Noir.

Lizabeth Scott, Dick Powell and Raymond Burr in PITFALL
Lizabeth Scott, Dick Powell and the looming Raymond Burr in PITFALL

Stream of the Week: NIGHTCRAWLER – Gyllenhaal finally plays 100% psycho

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Jake Gyllenhaal in NIGHTCRAWLER
Jake Gyllenhaal in NIGHTCRAWLER

The all-around outstanding actor Jake Gyllenhaal excels at playing guys who are just a little too obsessive (Zodiac, Prisoners, Enemy) to let you get comfortable with them.  In the thriller Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal gets to play a 100% psycho.  His character is seriously twisted, but in that high functioning way so the other characters don’t suspect it until IT’S TOO LATE.

Gyllenhaal’s bug eyes come in handy in playing the ever-too-intense Lou Bloom, a hustler who talks like a super-caffeinated sales guy, full of the argot of self-help and inspirational speakers.  His bromides about success seem mainstream, but his hyper affect puts off regular folks.  He’s thieving copper when he sees an opportunity to turn himself into a free-lance video journalist.  Nightcrawler is an acid commentary on the TV news world, and Lou has finally found an arena where being balanced is not an asset.

In fact, a cynical TV producer (Rene Russo) finds Lou’s intrusiveness and utter disregard for social boundaries to be helpful.  When placing her order with Lou, she can be entirely unfiltered: “What we re looking for is a woman running down the street with her throat cut”, preferably a “White well-off victim”.

Riz Ahmed, so compelling as The Reluctant Fundamentalist
is unrecognizable here as Lou’s tweaked and shifty homeless assistant Rick.  It’s an effective transformation, and it’s equally great not to see Ahmed stuck playing a terrorist again.

Nightcrawler is successful both as a biting satire and as a charter-driven thriller.  You can stream Nightcrawler from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu and rent it on DirecTV PPV.