Nightcrawler

Dan Gilroy, 2014

Can I Stream it?

3/5

Night owl Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) struggles to find any form of employment until he is excited to discover an underworld group who films newsworthy events and sells the footage to the local television outlets.

Nightcrawler is a menacing nocturnal thriller, with Jake Gyllenhaal channeling a manic energy thats sort of a blend of Travis Bickle and Patrick Bateman with the inappropriate persistence of a TMZ reporter with his Louis Bloom character. But to be fair, Gyllenhaal makes Louis his own and really gives him his own place in the world of deranged movie characters. From the get go, Louis is a difficult character to get behind. He scrapes by, stealing scrap copper and trying to flip it in yards under strict and personally disciplined negotiation. His social cues are a bit unpolished to say the least. Bags under his eyes, with almost an Uncle Fester like purpleness to them. He's a man still trying to find his place in the world. And his world isn't in the daytime. His world is the night-fallen Los Angeles, when all of the shady people come out to play. When he encounters a scene of an accident and sees that there is actually a job where people capture those critical moments for a quick buck, he's hooked on the spot. This form of employment suits Louis quite well, because he is undoubtedly a sociopath. He doesn't hesitate to get right in there with a camera, regardless of the pain or the seriousness of the situation. He is numb to the levity of the situation. His cold shell gets peeled away layer by layer over the course of the film, giving you the impression that you will eventually be exposed to some kind of warmth by Louis. But no, the layers only expose more apathy. Louis is callous, calculating, self serving. He looks upon these crime scenes with open eyes, and nothing behind those chilled eyes feels concerned or empathetic. Perhaps that's one of the most conflicting parts of the story. Sort of difficult to become genuinely concerned about a character like Louis. But much like Taxi Driver, the story isn't really about you getting behind Louis. You sit back and watch in awe. Nightcrawler somehow finds a new way to look at Los Angeles. Gyllenhaal delivers possibly the best performance of his career. He's really showing that he's working on himself as actor, trying to evolve. He's come a long way from Bubble Boy. Nightcrawler is a meditation on our culture of rubber-necking and giving priority to the horrific train-wreck-like events on our TV screens . But it also explores morality through the eyes of a maniac.

Vanilla Sky

Cameron Crowe, 2001

Can I Stream it?

5/5

Publishing empire heir David Ames (Tom Cruise) struggles to put the pieces back together in his life after a horrible automobile accident with lover Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz)

Cameron Crowe is an interesting filmmaker, having taken many directions over the course of his career. He pursued his heart with Say Anything. He pursued his love of music (and of course his own history of journalism for Rolling Stone) with Almost Famous. He pursued personal reflection and personal unraveling in Jerry Maguire. He mistakenly tried to make a more populist kid-pleaser picture with We Bought a Zoo, but that feels like a film that didn't ultimately become what he had originally envisioned. But Vanilla Sky is his most interesting work, his most ambitious work, his most under-appreciated. It's already such a bold move taking one of the biggest actors in Hollywood at the time (Cruise), and disfiguring his face. That aside, he also demanded a big performance from Cruise who really did deliver. There are so many elements at work, some of them so obviously personal to Crowe. The way that this movie looks at love and death, memories, blossoming love. It hasn't been done exactly like this before. The effect of our memories on our subconscious. The impact of dreams. The toxic elements of our life that we fall into. Societal structure, technology, it's really all there. People often criticize this film for being too convoluted, confusing. That's actually quite surprising, because the reveal at the climax really does lay everything out there. The film really builds and builds, getting more complex. The final moments on screen our so powerful and emotional. It should have you questioning your own life, your own existence.

There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane

Liz Garbus, 2011

Can I Stream It?

4/5

You probably heard the news story soon after it happened. One of those terrifying headlines about a wrong way driver that crashed on the highway, killing eight people total including herself. Basically anyone's worst nightmare. If you lived in the Northeast, it felt even more personal because those roads are so familiar. Soon after you probably caught the headline about the toxicology reports coming back stating that the female driver of the maroon minivan had alcohol in her system at the time of the crash. The equivalent of ten alcoholic drinks in her system, and also traces of THC. Perhaps you then judged her like the rest of America did. Assumed she was a bad mother that put her own kin in harms way, despite the fact that her husband came forward and with full conviction said that she would not have been drinking that day.

That woman was Diane Schuler, mother of three. On the morning of July 26, 2009 she said goodbye to her husband Daniel at a campsite that they frequented in the Hudson Valley. He assumed that he would see her soon at their home in Long Island. But hours later the family started receiving phone calls from the children in the car, saying that Aunt Diane was driving erratically and seemed disoriented. The fateful day tragically ended after she collided with an SUV on the Taconic State Parkway where she was driving in the wrong direction. She killed herself, her daughter and three nieces, and three men in the oncoming SUV. The toxicology tests confirmed that she was inebriated during the drive home, a fact that her husband Daniel has firmly denied being possible. And just like that, so many lives just stripped from the world. Utter tragedy.

This chilling (and at times difficult to watch) documentary thoroughly examines the events of that horrible day that tore multiple families apart. It attempts to retrace Diane's steps. There are interviews with family members on both sides. It revisits the scene of the accident. The pain is still present, unlikely to ever really go away. You feel it too. The shock. The sense of mystery. Daniel is resolute, completely denying the possibility that Diane would have drank alcohol and attempted to drive home with the girls in the van. And while there is substantial evidence that confirms that she was in fact intoxicated, it does seem hard to believe as the film really explores Diane the person. What's clear is that she was a caring mother. A hard worker. A loyal friend. A loving wife. Garbus effectively paints an elaborate picture of the good person that was Diane Schuler. It's the unanswered factors that make it so agonizing. The lack of closure. But you come away knowing more about Diane. You can't blame Daniel for fighting to defend her legacy. If the film's mission is to humanize a complicated woman who was quickly dismissed as a reckless killer, it certainly succeeds. 

Some additional thoughts on the film...(SPOILERish ALERT)