Review of Nightcrawler Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler is a fantastic psychological thriller that will keep you in the edge of your seat. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal an American actor widely known for both his classic good looks and his previous movie credits such as Prisoners and Brokeback Mountain. Nightcrawler is a dark, gritty film whose leading character will send shivers down your spine. Jake Gyllenhaal did an phenomenal job as the ambitious fast-talking cameraman Lou Bloom. Gyllenhaal lost 30 pounds for this specific role and his weight-lost definitely helped to intensify his character’s creepy persona. In Nightcrawler Gyllenhaal is seen as a serious actor and his portrayal of Lou Bloom definitely deserved the attention it received from both critics and audiences. Nightcrawler is a phenomenal film and I, Gabriela Aceves, University of Texas at San Antonio student highly recommends it. …show more content…
Los Angeles is beautiful and the locations picked where perfect for the dark and gloomy nature of the film. Nightcrawler is definitely not a film for younger audiences. It features gritty, bloody, and frightening scenes that will leave an impact on you even after you finish watching the movie. The scene when aspirating business man Lou Bloom and his assistant Rick arrive before the police in the site of a home invasion in an rich area of Los Angeles sent shivers down my spine. In this particular scene Bloom enters the home and records the murder victims. He showed no remorse in regards to the murder victims, throughout that whole scene all that mattered to him was capturing the perfect footage. Lou Bloom was a manipulative man who took advantage of those around him starting with his assistant Rick who (SPOILER ALERT) died on the job due to Bloom’s
One of the main products of this movie that popped out to me was the stars. They all seemed to be great actors even though I only knew one of them. For example, I thought that Ian Michael Smith did a great job portraying Simon Birch. He made the movie cute and funny all at once. I also thought that Joseph Mazello did a great job portraying relatable feelings in the movie. You could tell by his facial expressions what his mood was. All the actors did a great job and I can’t pinpoint one of them who did worse than the
The adrenaline, which surfaces within a nightcrawler, creates questionable integrity when looking for the perfect and best-selling stories. Dan Gilroy’s film Nightcrawler, demonstrates the sacrifices made by Lou Bloom, the main character, to feed his ambition. The film portrays modern day media coverage by demonstrating how ambition can make any nightcrawler unwise when obtaining stories. In which the video means more than the story. According to a conversation between Nina Romina, Channel 6 news director, and Lou Bloom, Nina says, “Well, graphic. The best and clearest way that I can phrase it to you, Lou, to capture the spirit of what we air, is think of our newscast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.” This is an important quote
Peterson was a master manipulator who lived a double life. He was always trying to get everyone to feel bad for him losing his wife and baby, but when actually he was the one who killed them both. “Peterson felt his pregnant wife, Laci, to be an albatross around his neck, that he longed for “freedom” and the ability to pursue many women, that he was financially insecure and anxious to get his hands on the $250,000 insurance policy he had taken out on his wife,”(World Socialist Web Site). All Peterson wanted was to kill his wife and to get money to run away with his mistress, Amber Frey. Someone has to be cold-hearted to escape married life and upcoming fatherhood. If anything, it should have been a joy for Peterson knowing he was going to be a new father. This sparked an instant uproar around America because Peterson killed his innocent family. It was soon known all around the world because of the instant communication like social media, which was
The film stars Jack Nicholson as hard-boild detective, Jake Gittes, and Fay Dunaway, as Evelyn Cross Mulwray. Unlike The Big Sleep, the title Chinatown is referenced frequently throughout the film to symbolize a dark imbalanced universe filled with cheating, murder, water corruption, incest, sexual abuse, secrets, and violence. Early on the film, Chinatown is associated with cheating when Gittes shares a dirty joke, “A man who is bored with his wife decides to “screw like a Chinaman.” Chinatown represents a place of corruption where law enforcement does as “little as possible to help.” Jake holds a pessimistic, cynical, and apathetic view of the world because he feels powerless to the injustice and underlying forces of corruption and power in both Chinatown and Los Angeles. According to Gillian, two traditional conventions of film noir in Chinatown are themes of corruption and depravity. For example, Jake Gittes describes working for the D.A. in Chinatown: “I was trying to keep someone from being hurt. I ended up making sure she was hurt.” And that is what happens here. Here, Jake leaves Chinatown because he tried to help a woman, but his intervention inevitably hurt her. The injustices of law enforcement and conspiracies follow him on his venture to L.A, most notably with his former colleague Lt. Lo Excabar and Noah Cross who “owns the police” and practically the whole town. There is a clear animosity
Lawrence is not part of the movie as much as one would like, but once she is in the scene, she is convincing and perfect for the part she is playing.
Night of the Living Dead is a movie released in 1968 in America directed by George Romero premiering on October 1st of the same year (Romero). The movie follows the character of Barbra and Ben and other five persons trapped in a certain farmhouse in a rural town in Pennsylvania which is attacked by a large of group non-living human beings which are not named with characterized features of a monster (Romero). In the onset of the film, the main character Barbra and her brother Johnny drive to the rural town of Pennsylvania for a customary visit to the father’s grave. When in the cemetery, Barbra is attacked a strange looking man who had been walking around the cemetery. An encounter with strange persons who aggressively
Friday night lights shined on the Vandeblit Catholic High School’s stadium field as hundreds of students and fans gathered to support their fighting terriers at the 2002 homecoming game. After two quarters of some great football action, it was finally time to announce the 2002 homecoming king and queen. As football player Andre Melancon stood on the sideline he anxiously awaited the results. Surprisingly his name was announced as homecoming king. Leaving the sideline he maneuvered to center field to except his crown, queen, and title with pride. Little did the fans know this would not be the greatest accomplishment of Andre’s life. Andre stood there with pride and excitement, but also a desire to be a part of the priesthood.
For this reason Night of the Living Dead raises the question of whether the film represents historicism or formalism, making it a movie before its time. Post modernism in film is known for pastiche elements of previous history, genres, and styles, yet it is most popularly seen in more recent movies. Romero used pastiche, even though this term was not yet coined, by mirroring this movie off the historical events of racism and the era of Martin Luther King Jr. This idea is very well captured when watching the film, especially at the end. There was quite a bit of controversy over this movie as well, given the main character/hero of the film is an African American male. The movie takes place in home just outside a local cemetery, swarmed by zombies, forcing the not so similar characters to try and get along in order to
Coraline Have you ever wanted to read a book that keeps you on the edge of your seat and at the same time you are scared of what’s going to happen next? Well, if the answer is yes then Coraline is the right book for you. This wonderful book was written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean. I chose this book because I had never read a good scary story in my entire life. This book is supernatural fiction.
The director Antoine Fuqua vision for this film was to bring that intense love-hate relationship onto the big screen and showcase it for the world to see. To ensure a convincing film setting, Fuqua shot on location in some of the most hardcore neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Fuqua also wanted to show the daily struggles of officers tasked to work in the rougher neighborhoods of cities and how easy it can be to get caught up in a street life filled with killers and drug dealers. Overall the film displayed the city of Los Angeles in a different perspective. One which m...
Conflict in life is inevitable, so the way one deals with conflict will affect one’s life significantly. This idea of conflict and its great influence is often portrayed through literature. In the film, Unbreakable, the author M. Night Shyamalan makes powerful use of characterization to suggest the idea that an individual in the midst of conflict can be driven to believe and take actions that impact their life dramatically.
Monsters Inc. is an incredible animated movie (by Pixar Studios, 2001, and directed by Pete Doctor) about monsters working in a scare factory. Proudly, the scare factory – a pillar in the community – is a workplace in a monster world where monsters scare children. Through a high-tech system, doors are brought to the factory that, if activated, allows the monsters to enter the child’s room through the youngster’s closet. The scream produced by the child creates energy for the monster world, so that monsters can do everyday things, such as quickly turning on a light or vacuuming the carpet. However, this is not an easy job because children are extremely toxic to monsters (who tremble when a child is near), and are also becoming increasingly hard to scare. With lessoned screams, Monstropolis (the monsters’ world) is experiencing a scream shortage. Who will save the day?
In most fairy tales, there is a quest structure that the protagonist follows through. The typical quest structure is as followed: an ideal happiness, disruption of the ideal happiness, tasks to reinstate happiness, and finally the reinstating of happiness. The cycle is never broken. In Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, this quest structure is abandoned. Unlike the typical quest structure, the protagonist, Coraline, undergoes a coming of age quest in which the quest structure deviates from the typical structure. Coraline’s quest signifies her coming of age when she overcomes what Freud calls her “infantile complexes,” which then allows her to break the typical quest structure by abandoning her childhood and embracing her adulthood.
We all have heard of Spider Man. He was the average teenager until he was bitten by a radioactive spider. I like Spider Man but I believe there are a lot of things missing in his movies. The police and government are portrayed poorly, as to assisting Spider Man or lack there of. Spider Man goes about doing his own thing, outside of the law. He is something we can all relate to and I believe that is why a lot of people like him. Most people would say they want to be like Spider Man because of his cool super human powers. I believe it would be a lot of hard work, dedication, and a lot of responsibility. Think about this, you would have two lives to live as a completely different person. You would have to keep up good grades, make some money to live on, support your family in one life, then save people, fight crime, and kill villains in the other life. It would be way to overwhelming for me.
...movie which demonstrates his acting ability is when his character enters cerebral palsy mode as he struggles to get into his vehicle and get home. Throughout this film audiences see DiCaprio push his boundaries as an actor. He is truly successful in drawing viewers in with his strong and believable performance.