Jake Gyllenhaal’s got something to sell – “I think you’ll want to see this”  

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS 

It would be disingenuous to claim that Jake Gyllenhaal is unrecognizable in NIGHTCRAWLER. It’s hard not to commit Gyllenhaal to memory once you’ve seen him. But it would be true to say that he is less recognizable in Nightcrawler. The effect is not unlike the rubberneck squinting at the new Renée Zellweger, trying to place the differences that unsettle you. The actor dropped 30 lbs to play his new character and lived on the night shift to prepare and it wasn’t for the strenuously faux-noble reason of biographic fidelity. It must be method madness that led him to burrow into this altogether terrific star turn as Lou Bloom, a gaunt sleepless thief turned “journalist”. The big difference with this Gyllenhaal is in the eyes. Those big impossibly romantic orbs have lost all their soft blueness. They’re suddenly bulging from their skull, like they want to escape it. Or like they’re planning to hypnotize you while the mouth delivers its mechanical sales pitch.

And with Lou Bloom, the sales pitch never stop. The night owl approaches each conversation like it’s a job interview, checking off catchphrases and talking points from his mental checklist. This is all well and good for the film’s first reel when Lou is trying to find a job. But when he chances upon an accident one night and sees nightcrawling freelancers filming it, the search is over; he makes it his mission to join this profession. It’s here where his can-do “I’m a hard worker” salesmanship begins to ferment and spook.

CONTINUED, AFTER THE JUMP…

Even after he finds quick success he continues to sell himself or ideas he’s sucked up from a rival (Bill Paxton in typically sleazy mode), or a particular POV. There is nothing he won’t do to learn the ropes, be first at the scene of a crime or accident, to get the most frightening and bloodiest images on tape.

He devours advice from an amoral local news programmer Nina (Rene Russo) working the night shift. Her fear-mongering lessons like “If it bleeds, it leads” he instantly digests in his efforts to become the best in his grisly profession. [SPOILER]. In one of the film’s most chilling early moments, we realize he’ll do anything for a good shot dragging a wounded body — the kind you’re not supposed to move, naturally — just so for a shot. The videographer isn’t above breaking and entering or disrupting a crime scene for the right footage either [/SPOILER]. Lou doesn’t blink at bending rules. In fact, he doesn’t blink at anything. Maybe Jake used up all his blinks with his tic filmed performance in Prisoners (reviewed here) because Lou’s eyes never close; they’re perpetually wide open, like nothing can escape their soulless surveillance.

Nightcrawler is likely to be interpreted as a satire of the news media but isn’t really that. It’s closer to docudrama if you take the news as its subject. If you’ve watched your local news or Fox News, lately, you’ve surely already noticed the fearmongering and sensationalism. The movie doesn’t seem remotely “heightened” around this subject. But it’s got enough stylistic verve with great digital cinematography and the omnipresent void of its inky black nights, that you can feel it reaching for something that’s a much harder target to hit. Perhaps its true subject is vampiric capitalism, where feeding off the desperation, fear, blood and pain of others is how you crawl, no… slither to the top of the food chain.

Though Nightcrawler is tensely edited and short enough to work well as a thriller, it doesn’t quite linger like it should. It spends too long on a subplot about Lou’s clueless “intern” (Riz Ahmed, nominated for a Gotham Awards “Breakthrough” prize) which doesn’t have as strong a payoff as it seems to think. The ending makes thematic sense but feels abrupt. But so what if it doesn’t quite reach greatness? At least it’s reaching! So few movies have ambition and though Lou has a very disturbing definition of “good people” he does have a point when he sells commitment and ambition:

I’m a hard worker. I set high goals and I’ve been told that I’m persistent. What I believe is that good things come to those who work their asses off. And that good people who reach the top of the mountain didn’t just fall there.” 

Lou may be a sociopath but he is persistent and inarguably committed to his warped point of view. So, too, is Nina. Rene Russo’s steely performance will make you curse those Thor movies which always leave her standing majestically in the background with virtually nothing to act. Lou & Nina are fascinating from beginning to end with the two actors delivering must-see performances, the kind that Oscar nominations were meant for. This is especially true in their electric scenes together, which are more and more tightly wound as the movie escalates. Watch them negotiate –  two vampires hoping to feed off each other without spilling their own blood.

Nathaniel Rogers would live in the movie theater but for the poor internet reception. He blogs daily at the Film Experience. Follow him on Twitter @nathanielr.

BY KYLER GEOFFROY

A weekly round-up of the best tech, science, and geek-related news from around the web

 A Kickstarter campaign by MegaBots Inc. is hoping to raise $1.8 million towards the creation of a manned robot combat sport. It sounds like science fiction, but as this video shows, these guys are dead serious about their plans to have giant mechs duke it out arena-style. 

 Responding to Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo test flight crash on Friday that claimed the life of one pilot, Sir Richard Branson wrote “Space is hard – but worth it. We will persevere and move forward together.”

 NASA has finished construction on the first Orion spacecraft – the spaceship that may one day take us to the Moon, Mars, and asteroids in deep space. 

 HP is launching the Sprout – a new PC that blends touchscreens, scanners, and a camera in a way you’ve likely never seen before in a desktop. See the unique computer in action below:

 The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a new report imploring the world community to phase out fossil fuels by 2100 or risk “severe, pervasive and irreversible” damage to the environment and our civilization. Said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side”

 Disney has patented an upcoming search engine that ranks sites on legitimacy rather than on popularity (i.e. illegal streaming sites will no longer be at the top of your search results should you happen to want to watch Star Wars online).

 Entertainment Weekly dives into the upcoming Terminator: Genesys film with shocking plot details and a cover featuring Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor and Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese.

 The New York Times looks at how slow and expensive America’s internet is when compared to other countries. “Downloading a high-definition movie takes about seven seconds in Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Zurich, Bucharest and Paris, and people pay as little as $30 a month for that connection. In Los Angeles, New York and Washington, downloading the same movie takes 1.4 minutes for people with the fastest Internet available, and they pay $300 a month for the privilege…”

 A little late for Halloween, but check out this video below showing the terrifying possibilities of virtual reality horror games: 

 Google announced ambitious new plans for magnetic, nanoparticle-covered pills that could help detect signs of cancer or an impending heart attack by coursing through a patient’s bloodstream. However, significant hurdles remain that must be addressed before such technology becomes medical reality. MIT Technology Review reports: In addition to challenges in delivering the nanoparticles and reading a signal from them, another key question is whether the system will be safe, says MIT professor Robert Langer. Indeed, says John McDonald, a professor at Georgia Tech, “one of the big hurdles we had with magnetic nanoparticles was their toxicity.” McDonald says that “Although anything is possible, I think there may be more effective ways to detect cancer and other diseases at an early stage than the approach envisioned by Google.”

 Check out these 5 eerie space pictures Space.com published to celebrate Halloween.

 A new study finds dark matter – the mysterious “stuff” estimated to constitute 23% of all the mass and energy in the universe (regular matter makes up only 4%) – is being swallowed up by dark energy (the other 73%). Said researcher David Wands, Director of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, “This study is about the fundamental properties of space-time. On a cosmic scale, this is about our Universe and its fate. If the dark energy is growing and dark matter is evaporating we will end up with a big, empty, boring Universe with almost nothing in it. Dark matter provides a framework for structures to grow in the Universe. The galaxies we see are built on that scaffolding and what we are seeing here, in these findings, suggests that dark matter is evaporating, slowing that growth of structure.” 

 Buzz Aldrin returns to Reddit for an AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion on colonizing Mars, life on other planets, and collaborating with Snoop Dogg. 

 A look at some of the therapeutic, educational, cinematic and scientific applications of the virtual reality boom. 

 James Cameron, meanwhile, isn’t all that impressed with virtual reality’s potential. “There seems to be a lot of excitement around something that, to me, is a yawn, frankly. The question that always occurred to me is, when is it going to be mature, when is it going to be accepted by the public at large, when are people going to start authoring in VR and what will that be? What will the level of interactivity with the user be other than just ‘I can stand and look around,'” he elaborated, adding: “If you want to move through a virtual reality it’s called a video game, it’s been around forever.”

 U.S. currency re-imagined to celebrate ideas and accomplishments rather than “codifying myth or legend”

 In one of the coolest interactive ads to come around in a long time, Honda’s new Civic Type R commercial enables viewers to press the “R” button on the keyboard and switch between two parallel stories – one showing a father picking up his kids from school and the other revealing this dad’s night job as a getaway driver. Do yourself a favor and check out the video here. 

 Robert Downy Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man appearances in other Marvel superhero films could reach “double digits” according to the actor. 

 Introducing the Ambulance Drone. 

 The FCC is considering a net neutrality “hybrid” proposal that would allow the agency to control the flow of Internet traffic. The New York Times has more: “But unlike policies previously considered, which treated the entire Internet ecosystem as a single universe, the hybrid proposal would establish a divide between “wholesale” and “retail” transactions. It would apply utilitylike regulation to the wholesale portion, the exchange of data from the content provider to the Internet service provider for passage through to the end consumer. The retail portion, the transaction that sends data through the Internet service provider to the consumer and which allows the consumer to access any legal content on the Internet, would receive a lighter regulatory touch.”

 Scientists are hoping to extend your dog’s life (and one day even your own life) with the anti-aging drug rapamycin. 

 Hands on with Microsoft’s new fitness tracker Band. 

 Meet the woman who teaches robots the art of learning for a living.