He was reminded that when he and Gyllenhaal toured L.A. with a nightcrawler named Howard Raishbrook they saw "a horrific car accident where three young girls had been ejected onto the street — bloody, awful, they were screaming in pain, we couldn't look.
Next week, for example, we'll see Jake Gyllenhaal in his new movie Nightcrawler.
"I'm not voting for Nightcrawler — that was really unpleasant," says one.
Nightcrawler has done well, with four nominations, including of course an acting nod for Jake Gyllenhaal (although Riz Ahmed is entitled to feel disappointed that he did not get a best supporting actor nomination) and it is an excellent film with a very contemporary feel, although based on a traditional Hollywood theme: the depravity of television and particularly television news.
Jake Gyllenhaal might well be the frontrunner as best drama actor: his leading turn in Nightcrawler as the adrenalin-junkie sociopath selling newsporn crime video footage to the TV networks is terrific.
His slithery, straight-faced intensity, coupled with that of the gloriously resurgent Rene Russo, brings necessary conviction to Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler (eOne, 15), a media satire that walks a compelling line between the sordidly serious and the seriously silly.
Other highlights included two standout comedies - Noah Baumbach's While We're Young and Chris Rock's Top Five - and a widely-acclaimed media satire starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler.
But as he goes to ever-greater lengths to get some blood and guts on video, his intern comes to question whether his new job is worth the (negligible) pay.For a film that comments so stridently on the current economy, "Nightcrawler" is oddly dated.
And, as a result, he undermines whatever satirical points Mr Gilroy's film might have made.To paraphrase that New York Magazine headline, the trouble with local TV news in "Nightcrawler" isn't its ghoulish viewers or its cynical executives.
It's curious, then, that "Nightcrawler", a blackly comic thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, should present such a well-worn motto as if it were shockingly radical, especially considering that so much of the film is intent on being contemporary.
But "Nightcrawler" seems to exist in a pre-social-networking world, which means that while it can be tense, atmospheric and unsettlingly funny, it has nothing to say about the ways we make and consume the news.Another problem is that Lou is, in short, a weirdo.
