Movie Review Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler (2014)

Directed by Dan Gilroy

Written by Dan Gilroy

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed

Release Date October 31st, 2014

Published October 30th, 2014

This article contains spoilers for the movie Nightcrawler. If you haven't seen it, see it and come back for this article. If you have seen it, be sure to share your thoughts in the comments. 

“Nightcrawler” tells the story of Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a professional criminal in search of a job that can combine his blind ambition with his lack of a moral compass. He finds such a job when he witnesses a professional cameraman, Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), crawling over policemen and firefighters to get as close as possible to a fiery car accident. Joe’s ethos is ‘If it bleeds, it leads.' Lou never knew such a job existed; one that could nurture his lack of empathy and his blind ambition. 

Nina Romina (Rene Russo) is the perfect enabler for Lou Bloom. His equal in blind ambition and desperation, Nina is the 3rd shift News Director for the last place network in Los Angeles. When Nina meets Lou, she’s not all that impressed but desperate for a top story with some blood on it, she buys Lou’s footage and he gets his foot in the door. When next they see each other Lou has gone to some obviously ethically challenged lengths to get footage inside of a home that was struck by bullets from a drive by shooting. While Nina’s colleagues recognize the trouble with the footage, Nina has dollar signs in her eyes and buys the footage to air as the lead on that night’s newscast.

In Joe Loder and Nina Romina, Lou Bloom finds a unique parentage. In meeting Joe Loder and finding out what he does for a living the true Lou Bloom is born. When Joe rejects Lou, refusing Lou's attempts at friendship and job-seeking, Lou goes into business for himself and finds a welcome mothering figure in Nina. We can see in their first interaction that Nina has a soft spot for the soft spoken and unassuming Lou. When Lou begins delivering one big exclusive video scoop after another her pride in her pseudo-progeny bursts forward like that of a proud mother.

Things become twisted as Lou competes with Joe for scoops and the rivalry turns violent when Lou literally attempts to kill Joe by sabotaging Joe's mobile news van. If you posit Joe as a father figure to Lou by his having inspired Lou's new profession then the symbolism here becomes very important. Lou has eliminated the competition for the attention of Nina, also his top business competition and rival for Nina's money.

Then Lou turns his full attention to Nina, first demanding a date and when his advance is rebuffed he goes further by demanding a sexual relationship. Having removed his main rival for Nina's attention and money, Lou has a grave advantage over Nina and presses that advantage to take what he wants; sleeping with his surrogate mother/benefactor, sealing his true identity as a psychopath.

In the end, "Nightcrawler" is the story of Lou Bloom's journey to realization of his true nature. Yes, he was a psychopath before the movie began but once he meets Joe and Nina, the evolution towards accepting his true nature begins. We see him explore his amoral world, find his footing in a place where his lack of empathy, concern for others and blind, frothing ambition are welcome traits and in finally taking Nina as his conquest and vanquishing his rival, we find a man fully realized in all his psychopathic glory

Horrifying as it most certainly is, this strange arc makes Nightcrawler an endlessly fascinating character study. In Jake Gyllenhaal we have an actor capable of giving Lou Bloom's growing mania and lack of empathy a wide range of expression. Gyllenhaal's ability to switch gears from sniveling conniver to over-confifdent badass is something impossible to look away from. The birth and quick evolution of Lou's new persona, the perfect expression of his unwell psyche, is utterly riveting. 

Dan Gilroy's crisp, clean direction, gives remarkable life to the story of Nightcrawler. The film's imagery is vital and viscreral, it couches Lou Bloom in a very recognizable reality that he can stand out from as he becomes more and more deluded and dangerous. Lou Bloom both fits in perfectly amid the outsized characters who chase the news and stands apart from them as his actions express the the often ugly extremes of our modern news culture.

And yet, there is so much more to Nightcrawler., Each relationship Nick carries out in Nightcrawler is rife with meanings that can be parsed for days. I mentioned the pseudo-parental figures of Paxton and Russo and just take a moment to consider those relationships in the context provided by Nightcrawler. Each is rife with taunting questions about the parent child dynamic, the boss and subordinate dynamic and the passive and aggressive dynamic, the one that arguably defines much of Nightcrawler as Lou quickly moves from passive bystander to the aggressor in every aspect of his life. 

Movie Review Paddington

Paddington (2014)

Directed by Paul King

Written by Paul King 

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi

Release Date November 24th, 2014

Published November 23rd, 2014 

The trailer for “Paddington” is among the worst I have seen in some time. Based on the trailer one would not be incorrect in the assumption that “Paddington” will be another in a series of insulting takes on beloved children’s properties such as “The Chipmunks,” or “The Smurfs.” The trailer features gross out humor, bad slapstick and, worst of all, not one, single, solitary laugh.

That was just the first trailer. The second trailer only seemed to pile the dirt higher on the film’s grave. The follow up trailer introduced Nicole Kidman as the film’s villain, a taxidermist determined to make Paddington the next prize in her museum collection. Ms. Kidman’s career has been on a steady decline for some time now and her status, plus the general awfulness of both trailers seemed to signal doom for “Paddington.”

So, imagine my surprise when upon seeing “Paddington” I did not find a steaming pile of Smurf like offal. Imagine, in fact, expectations so lowered by awful marketing that I found myself delighted by “Paddington.”  Yes, the lowered expectations helped, but truly “Paddington” is really quite unexpectedly good.

“Paddington” features the voice of Ben Whishaw as the titular bear, a rare breed from deepest, darkest Peru who learned to talk from his grandparents who were visited by an Englishman in some timeless realm. The Englishman invited the bears to come visit him in England any time and when poachers begin poking around the forest, Paddington is sent off to England for safe keeping.

During World War II as London was besieged by German bombers, children were evacuated from the city. Some of the children were orphaned by the bombings and to give them a new life in a new town they were often given only a cardboard sign around their neck asking that someone please take care of them. Knowing this story, Paddington is given a similar sign upon his arrival in London.

Found by the Brown family, including mother Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), father Henry Brown (Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville) and their two children, Judy (Madeline Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), Paddington quickly finds a new home while also beginning his search for the Englishman who once invited his family to England.

A rather convoluted backstory introduces Nicole Kidman as Millicent, the film’s villainous Taxidermist. That the role is not a complete embarrassment to the one time box office star and Academy Award Winner is something of a triumph. You can sense from the beginning that this is a movie Kidman made so her children could see her and yet the compromise somehow doesn’t harm the performance. Kidman hams it up to surprisingly good effect in “Paddington.”

First time feature director Paul King makes “Paddington” work by creating a very simple, pleasant tone. The film is gentle and sweet and, aside from the abysmal bathroom sequence seen in the trailer, avoids being simpleminded and pandering. Smartly no effort is made to make Paddington hip or modern, the film exists in a time warp, it’s very own universe with familiar rules, save for the fact that bears can talk.

Aside from the bathroom scene from the trailer, the fact that no one in England finds a talking bear odd is the film’s biggest flaw. I hate it when a movie makes the fantastic seem common place. Aliens, superheroes, and talking bears are something to marvel at if they’ve never been seen before. Avoiding how unusual a talking bear is plays like a joke that only the filmmakers found funny.

I generally don’t care for movies that are described as ‘Gentle’ or ‘Pleasant’ but I didn’t mind it so much in “Paddington.” Something about the plushy “Paddington” invites ‘Gentle’ and welcomes ‘Pleasant.’ Had the marketing campaign played up the gentle and pleasant aspects of “Paddington” rather than the one, outlying scene of misguided antics, I might have even more appreciation for “Paddington.”

Movie Review American Sniper

American Sniper (2014) 

Directed by Clint Eastwood 

Written by Jason Hall 

Starring Sienna Miller, Bradley Cooper 

Release Date December 25th, 2014

Published December 21st, 2014

One scene in “American Sniper” wraps up who Chris Kyle truly is. Set atop a rooftop in Iraq, among a group of other snipers protecting a convoy, Chris Kyle spies a chance to kill a rival sniper. This rival sniper, a former Olympic shooting champion from Syria, has been picking off American soldiers from an incredible distance for some time now.

The rival sniper is about 1000 yards away and Chris can just barely make out his presence from a brief flash of light. The shot is nearly impossible but what makes the situation even more dangerous and compelling is that Kyle cannot make the shot without tipping off nearby insurgents to the presence of American soldiers on the rooftop.

Here is where Chris Kyle is truly revealed: will he take the shot and compromise his own safety and that of his fellow snipers for the chance to kill his ultimate rival? All at once we come to know Chris Kyle as competitive, dangerous, loyal to a fault, vengeful, protective, arrogant and devoted to a very particular cause: protecting the men on the ground.

Kyle takes the shot and remarkably, though 1000 meters away, he does take out his target. The shot then alerts the insurgents who quickly converge on the building. In this moment a new Chris Kyle is born, a vulnerable, frightened and remorseful man who in the midst of the coming chaos calls his wife to declare that he’s ready to come home. Bear in mind, in this moment, there is no guarantee that he will leave this rooftop.

Bradley Cooper infuses this scene with gut wrenching authenticity. Chris Kyle’s time as a soldier ends in this moment and the grief, relief, fear and catharsis arrive in waves. Director Clint Eastwood amps the scene with powerful, confident angles, quick cuts between Kyle, his wife back in Texas, an approaching sandstorm and the blur of faceless enemies rushing into the building.

The tension of this scene exhausting in the best possible way as we have been on a rollercoaster of emotion already and the scene plays like the last major climb and climactic drop. Many of us will never know the exhilarating fear brought about by actual life or death combat and this scene is likely as close as we will ever get.

Many critics have claimed that “American Sniper” is a jingoistic celebration of a warmonger. This dismissal of the film ignores the many conflicting emotions at play in the rooftop scenes. In the space of several minutes Chris Kyle is revealed as a man of great determination, skill and patriotism as well as a man who is quite vulnerable, dangerously competitive and arrogant and carrying enough guilt to have developed a death wish.

It’s not clear if Chris Kyle wants to die, the call to his wife seems like an indication of something to live for, but here he is initiating a situation that very likely will get him killed. That he is willing to die so that others may live is noble but the scene does not portray a noble sacrifice but rather a man in a fit of pique, defying orders with an agenda all his own. To this point, Chris Kyle has been a model soldier and yet he defies orders and likely got men killed in his single minded pursuit of his own goal.

Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper do not cower from the uglier side of Chris Kyle’s life in “American Sniper” and the rooftop sequence is a fine example of their complex and thoughtful take on his life. At every turn of “American Sniper” we in the audience are invited to see to Chris Kyle and make up our own mind whether we find him heroic or not. This is not hagiography, as the rooftop sequence indicates, this is one of the most raw and honest portrayals of the complexity of being a soldier ever put to screen.

Movie Review: Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher (2014) 

Directed by Bennett Miller 

Written by E. Max Frye, Mark Futterman 

Starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo

Release Date November 14th, 2014 

Published November 12th, 2014 

Single-minded to the point of obsession and with a documentary dedication to real-life stories and themes about the corrupting influence of money, director Bennett Miller uses his films as a prism to look at the world. From Capote to Moneyball and now in Foxcatcher, Miller's dedication to exposing hypocrisy and greed while reveling in fascinating real life stories has turned out three consecutive masterpieces. 

“Foxcatcher” tells the terrifying true tale of the events that led to the death of American Olympic wrestler David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo). Although Schultz is really only a supporting player as the story plays out, his death and the eerie signals of tragedy float over every aspect of the film. Much of what we see centers on Schultz’s brother, and fellow Olympic Gold Medalist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), who fell under the spell of his brother’s murderer John Du Pont (Steve Carell) just as he was training for the Olympic games in 1988. 

The relationship between Du Pont and Mark is not unlike that of Truman Capote and the killer Perry Jones in “Capote.” Capote takes advantage of Perry’s lack of intelligence to get what he wants, but his obsession with what he wants ends up consuming him. The same goes for Du Pont as he sees Mark as a pathway to being considered a great leader of men, the coach of the next great Olympian. Capote, of course, doesn’t become the villain in the way Du Pont eventually does, but their single-mindedness is similar as is their quirkiness and the outsider qualities with which both men wrestled their entire lives. 

Billy Beane, too, had outsider qualities that likely appealed to Miller. Beane was a standout ballplayer in high school who was seen as a “can’t miss” prospect. And then he missed. Beane then found his niche as a talent scout. With a single-minded purpose and the use of Jonah Hill’s Peter Brand, Beane began a quest for greatness with his often tactless reflex of powers. Beane is portrayed in Moneyball as a mercenary negotiator who stayed clear of his players so he could continue to remain a mercenary when deciding their fate. 

All three stories share single-minded determination and purpose that leads to either grand tragedy or grand triumph --- or, in the case of “Capote,” a mixture of both in equal measure. The style of all the stories is reminiscent of a documentary, because the most compelling scenes often depict two people in a room in a sort of talking head conversation that recounts the details of their lives in illuminating fashion. The tactic is most obvious in “Capote,” in which the legendary writer is essentially a documentarian with words instead of a camera. 

Some of the best scenes in “Moneyball” are between Pitt and Hill while reviewing their philosophies, with Pitt’s Billy Beane coaxing Hill’s Brand into revealing the cold-hearted numbers behind his baseball philosophy. Numerous scenes throughout “Moneyball” play out with people in chairs being interviewed about their intentions. Beane talks to the management team of the Cleveland Indians, trying to make a trade and being grilled about his unusual approach to choosing players. In one scene, Beane is interviewed by his team’s owner in a comfortable leather chair. Then Billy interviews Peter Brand about what would come to be called “Moneyball.” This approach continues until the film ends with Beane in an interview for the Boston Red Sox general manager position. 

In “Foxcatcher,” the relationship between Mark Schultz and John Du Pont essentially begins with an interview. Du Pont requests that Mark come to his home in Pennsylvania for a conversation. They end up in Du Pont’s trophy room, where Du Pont asks Mark about his family, his workouts and his goals. It’s a revealing scene for both characters, but we get our best sense of Mark as someone who is easily impressed, a quality that is his eventual undoing as Du Pont proves to be spectacularly unimpressive aside from his incredible wealth. 

The corruption of money plays a key role in a devastating scene in “Capote.” The most compelling scene depicts Clifton Collins Jr. as the infamous killer Perry Smith, who reveals that he and his partner killed the Clutter family because the criminals believed the family home had $10,000 inside their Kansas home. In the end, Smith and his partner walked away with $40. The senselessness of the cold-hearted slaying is heart-wrenching.  

Money is in the very title of “Moneyball,” which includes incisive commentary on how finances have corrupted Major League baseball. For a time it seemed that buying players was enough to purchase glorious championships -- the purity of simply playing the game and winning was being overshadowed by contracts and press releases. “Moneyball” is ironically shown as an impure way of choosing ballplayers, but it actually celebrates playing the game in the most fundamental way. “Moneyball” undermines the big-money teams by simply beating them in an actual game, and not in a boardroom with a contract. 

Finally, in “Foxcatcher,” money is the poison that flows through the life of John Du Pont. Money isolated him from reality. The disconnect between Du Pont's fantasy of himself and his sad reality was directly related to his unending wealth. Money, too, was David Schultz’s downfall. Although Schultz surely was not a greedy man his desire for a comfortable, steady job working for Du Pont caused him to overlook a number of warning signs about the millionaire eccentric. These red flags sent even his less-than-astute brother Mark fleeing the Foxcatcher estate. 

Single-minded purpose has driven greatness and tragedy since the beginning of time. Money came along later to provide further incentive and invite madness. Miller captures this reality in pseudo-documentary form. He shows his viewers that single-mindedness and money can combine for greatness or for tragedy or both. 

Movie Review The Interview

The Interview (2014) 

Directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco, Randall Park 

Release Date December 25th, 2014 

Published December 24th, 2014

I was more than halfway through watching the new comedy "The Interview" on my computer when the darn thing just shut off. I had just reached the scene where Seth Rogan's Aaron and James Franco's Dave Skylark are about to interview Kim Jong Un (Randall Park) and are coming to terms with their potential executions when my computer simply shuts down. Thankfully, the issue was not a cyber-attack, but merely an aged laptop overheating. But it does make for a perfect story about watching "The Interview."

No film in 2014 has been discussed in print and by pundits than "The Interview." Having taken center stage in the cyber attack on Sony Pictures, "The Interview" finally arrives for audiences to finally judge just how offensive the film truly is. To the film's credit, there are no holds barred in attacking the myth and legend of Kim Jong Un. That said, the film is not exactly weighty, with most jokes surrounding a concept called "honey-dicking."

"Honey-dicking" is a term used when one man is attempting to seduce another man by pretending to be all the things that the seducer wants in another person. In this case, Kim Jong Un pretends to be cool and gives Skylark his dream friendship based on what he knows about Skylark's affinity for basketball, women, tanks, etc.

So you can see this is not exactly high-minded satire that earned the ire of North Korean leadership. Still, it's not hard to identify what the real Kim Jong Un might find offensive about "The Interview" beyond the simple matter of the premise, which is his assassination. The Supreme Leader of North Korea is portrayed as a borderline psychotic manchild who loves Katy Perry songs and has serious daddy issues.

For his part, Skylark is an easily misled doofus who falls for Kim Jong Un's act very quickly, only to watch in horror when the dictator shows off his crazy side. James Franco is a pure joy to watch in the role of Dave Skylark with his big goofy grin, oddball slang and general flightiness.

It's up to Seth Rogen to ground the humor of the picture and he does an admirable job. Though I would not in any way call the film realistic, Rogen and co-writer/co-director Evan Goldberg create a strong pace and energy for this off-the-wall premise to exist. In front of the camera Rogen is his typically goofball self, only slightly more mature than usual. Slightly more mature.

"The Interview" is quite funny at times, drawing most of its humor from Franco's unique line readings and the terrific enthusiasm of all the performers. Park is a true scene stealer as Kim Jong Un. Park has the same joy of performance that seems to drive Franco, and the two have an exceptional comic chemistry.

Does "The Interview'' deserve to be some kind of celebrated cause? No, it was merely thrust into the midst of chaos rather than actually being the cause of it. The film is rather slight overall, less memorable -- aside from the controversy -- than Rogen and Goldberg’s far superior films "This is the End" and "Superbad."

Take "The Interview" out of the context of the current controversy that swirls around it and it might not have made much of an impression. It's not a bad movie. It's actually a pretty good version of the bro-comedy we've grown accustomed to with Franco, Rogen and Goldberg. It is, however, aside from the controversy, not that much more than a typical bro-comedy that likely would have faded quickly from theaters over Christmas without North Korea choosing to act as an accidental press agent for the film.