Nightcrawler [Blu-ray]

As a former newspaper editor, I can tell you that the "If it bleeds, it leads" cliche is absolutely true. And _Nightcrawler_ takes it to the limit. Dark as it may be, this is one of the best films of 2014. It belongs on the all-time classics list. That''s how good it is. Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) invokes the whole "how to be successful in business" trend that was popular in the 80's. Although that movement is cloaked in motivational blather, which Louis recites constantly throughout the film, the bottom line, in reality, is in "Make the sale at any cost, step on anybody you need to step on, forget about ethics, and treat your employees like dirt, so you can BE SUCCESSFUL." Louis' recitations of business cliches are comedic at first, until the film descends into real darkness. Louis decides to make his living as a "nightcrawler," a freelance cameraman who rushes to the scenes of horrible accidents and murders, films the most grisly footage he can, and sells it to the local news channels. It's distasteful enough in the beginning of the film, but believe me, it gets worse. He starts orchestrating and setting up camera ops, including the ultimate shooting death of his assistant Rick (Riz Ahmed), a homeless young man who helps him out for $30 a night. Throughout the film, Rick speaks for us, the audience, who can't believe what Bloom is doing. He can't believe it, either. So his death is a real tragedy. Ahmed turns in one of the best supporting performances I have ever seen. Renee Russo is excellent as the greedy news TV director who buys the footage from Bloom. In one scene, she tells Bloom that what she wants is footage of crimes committed in upper class white neighborhoods by colored people and minorities. Makes you wonder about the TV news business.....? And Bill Paxton is perfect as a veteran nightcrawler who ends up a victim of Bloom's deviousness. But the prize goes to Jake Gyllenhaal. His performance is incredible. He never blinks. He dispassionately does his thing, meticulously planned and calculated. It's the creepiest performance I can remember since DeNiro in _Taxi Driver_. Gyllenhaal was in his mid-30's when this movie was released in 2014. His acting in _Prisoners_ (2013) was impressive; the same goes for _Enemy_ in 2014. It will be interesting to watch him as he ages. He may end up as the next DeNiro. I hope he stays on track and turns down stupid movies when he gets older. To me, the most disturbing scene is the final one. Bloom has made so much money that he has bought two news vans. and he's hiring several more assistants. He gives them a Tony Robbins motivational talk about climbing the ladder of success, and he concludes by saying, "I would never ask you to do anything I wouldn't do." It's chilling. Do not miss this one!

Great movie

Just finish watching the movie Nightcrawler staring Jake Gyllenhaal and I watch the movie with an open mind and found out I enjoyed the movie most of the way threw. Honestly slow intro to build the storyline up for the main character, then amazing mid section making the movie very enjoyable. Then the ending was just ok, but I shall not spoil the ending to the movie you'll have to watch it yourself to see why mutiple people had issues with the ending of the movie. Although for myself I thought the actors did an amazing job with the characters they were suppose to play and I agree with many other reviewers that Jake is a very good actor and thats why I gave the movie a four star rating out of five stars plus good previews on the disc and a good making of the movie with comments from the actors and director. So oppose to other people I say this watch this movie with an open mind and heart and see for yourself if you end up enjoying the movie as a whole and not for particular segments.

My review is more of a 4.5 Thanks for reading! 𝑰'𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆. 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓 is a 2014 American neo-noir psychological thriller film written and directed by Dan Gilroy in his directorial debut. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis "Lou" Bloom, a stringer who records violent events late at night in Los Angeles and sells the footage to a local television news station. Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, and Bill Paxton also star. The tradition of ‘night-crawling’ has long been inspired by the work of Arthur Fellig (‘Weegee’): a photographer active in the 1930s whose publications featured grotesque and borderline controversial portrayals of crime, death, and significant injury. Fellig’s particular style was developed secondarily to his tendency to prowl the streets looking for emergency services for a lead: with his arrival at some scenes occurring before the necessitated personnel. Fast forward to today, and few people have procured as much attention as the Raishbrook brothers: the owners of Raishbrook Media Group who also work in Los Angeles. Having worked as advisors during the production of 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓, Gilroy and Gyllenhaal were taken on ride-alongs to get a general feel for the scenarios they willingly and enthusiastically engage with: emphasizing the lack of disregard for personal safety required for this line of employment. In need of licenced footage for any of the newsroom related scenes, the Raishbrook Brothers also unsurprisingly made their own available for use. (Sidenote; A mini-series about this group can be found on Netflix entitled 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌; it’s extravagantly self-worshiping at times, but it’s also insightful in spurts) No stranger to roles requiring a transformation, nothing comes close to Gyllenhaal’s metamorphosis into the likes of Lou Bloom. Physically speaking, Bloom’s gaunt appearance was achieved through a loss of approximately 30 pounds (and maintaining an obsessive gym regime while filming): making for a terrifying demeanor when paired with his enormously large and dramatically expressive eyeballs. On paper, Lou is a textbook psychopath, with Gyllenhaal’s performance upping the ante in terms of unnerving suspense and vitriolic pizzaz. Despite some casting choices making for predictable interactions - since social inequity seems to play out thematically as a discreet way of setting the mood - the delivery of 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓’s thrills and conclusions supersedes the perceived inevitability of them. Self-aware and aloof, 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓 refuses to go into detail as it concerns Bloom’s particular backstory, with the omission of this information being far from a coincidence. Interestingly enough, Gilroy has stated previously that an explanation of sorts was originally included in his script, but it was removed with the intent of allowing viewers to project their own thoughts onto the screen with little concern as to whether or not they force a connection with the subject matter in a significant way. To call 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓 an impractical or inefficiently equipped character study would be negligible at best, however, as the narrative is less about who Lou is and more about the domain he inadvertently becomes tethered to. On one hand, there is validation in the complaints that could be made about the exaggeration of Bloom’s pathology as potentially distracting, but when thought of as an illustration of characteristics needed to succeed amongst ethically dubious circumstances (Adjectives like 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆, 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕, and 𝒉𝒚𝒑𝒐𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 come to mind, to name a few). . . much of Loui’s behavior starts to make the tiniest bit of sense. In a self-referential way, it’s equally easy to forget that Bloom is far from acting on his own: speaking simplistically, he’s double-dealing in a line of employment that also depends on a perverse manifestation of supply and demand. The implications are more than capable of forcing some viewers (and, spoiler alert, I’m one of them) into a vector of self-reflection regardless of their relationship with questionable sources of entertainment or news. There’s simply no way that my morbid curiosity (in lieu of being cognizant of my own surroundings) has an effect on a journalist’s own sense of objectivity or integrity. I hope so, anyway. I say this while I doomscroll into the oblivion on a regular basis. I say this while I casually use 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒓: 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂 𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑭𝒊𝒓𝒆 as background noise while I write the very review you’re reading now. On standard devices, the literal space between the buttons used to 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅 and 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 are kept to a minimum, and sometimes even one in the same; It is perhaps in the same way that the metaphorical gap between bystanders and content creators may be codependently attached.

Good movie

tout est bien

A parte de que la peli es muy buena el disco no estaba rayado ni tenía pegotes ni nada raro.

Vale mucho la pena tenerla, además es difícil conseguirla. La adquirí en Blu-Ray, se ve y escucha excelente. Solo tiene audio en inglés pero cuenta con subtítulos al español

Bra packat och snabb frakt som vanligt med prime, supernöjd!

Fantastic. Jake Gyllenhaal is simply brilliant as a psychopathic loner, down on his luck he survives by stealing chain link fencing and selling it to an unscrupulous site manager. He just cannot get his foot in the employment door, so with interest he witnesses a car crash and his first stringer, a night crawler who vampishly videos the wreckage and broken victims, to sell onto a news station. Soon he is scanning the police frequency band and dashing off to the juiciest disasters with his video camera. Jake Gyllenhaal simply exudes this role through his pores, he is Lou Bloom, alone in his shabby dwelling, ironing his shirts and watering his solitary plant, while watching his horror stories on the ambulance chasing news stations. He has no interest or empathy for other people, the victims are just objects to be taped and sold, his apprentice, a great dim-witted Riz Ahmed, is a mere appendage, hired for his GPS cell phone, $30 dollars a night salary and second camera. Rene Russo is a knock out as the sleezy and desperate station manager, 'screw morality is it legal?' she enquires of a lawyer as they watch Lou Bloom's blood spattered opus, a home invasion and triple murder. The black comedy piles on and on as Jake Gyllenhaal liquidates his rival, an excellent Bill Paxton, whose brakes he sabotages and then videos bloodied and broken on a stretcher. The murderers in the home invasion he tracks to a restaurant full of civilians, where he dials 911 and calmly sets them up to be taken down by the police, which he and Riz Ahmed video all the time. Lastly he rids himself of his untrustworthy and constantly winging employee, giving Riz the all clear to camcord the dead criminal, who of course is alive and armed with a handgun. Ghoulishly Jake tapes Riz's last moments and berates him for his unfair bargaining position. When he edits and shows Rene Russo this latest thrilling blood soaked spectacle, Rene literally melts with pleasure, the faces come close, the voices lower to a murmur, Lou gets his huge bonus and the woman of his dreams. In the last scene Mr Bloom has attained the American Dream, he is President of Video Production News, with several unpaid interns, and 2 night crawler vans. Akin to Network, the 70's film lampooning the shallow nature of US news, this is a satire to be savoured.