Scientists on the International Space Station are bringing back a sample from Mars, which turns out to contain -indeed- Life. It starts out as a single celled organism, but it doesn’t take long for it to grow into a complex creature. Not surprisingly, as it grows and develops, it turns out not to be too friendly and soon this newly hailed Life form becomes a threat to all on board, and beyond…
A successful Los-Angeles-based artist Susan Morrow (played by Amy Adams) is sent a manuscript of a novel by her ex-husband Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal). The story is one of violent abduction and grips her, causing Susan to recall her earlier brief marriage to Tony and the issues that caused it to fail. As the tale unfolds the plot of the novel starts to have subtle parallels with her former marriage…
Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) loses his wife in a car accident in the opening scene of Demolition. As his once seemingly perfect life falls apart, his behaviour becomes more and more erratic. Davis has started writing complaint letters to a vending machine company since one of their machines malfunctioned in the ICU where his wife died. In these letters he discloses personal information – irrelevant for the complaint at hand, but piquing the interest of customer service rep Karen (Naomi Watts). Karen tracks him down and they connect.
In 1992, Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), a Kiwi mountaineer, was the first to establish a commercial tourist business guiding (fit & wealthy) amateurs up Everest with his company Adventure Consultants, for $65,000 per person. With such an appealing income, other entrepreneurial mountaineers followed suit, offering the same climb for less money. Hall had a strong reputation for reliability and safety, and amongst the other mountaineering companies was known as The Mayor of Basecamp.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays Billy Hope, a boxer raised in an orphanage in Hell’s Kitchen where he met his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams). The movie starts when Billy is on top of the world as reigning boxing champion living a lavish lifestyle.
Maureen has always been the loving and sensible one, making the decisions for the family. She is starting to get worried that the boxing is beginning to get Billy punch-drunk and wants him to slow down before he becomes a permanently dribbling mess.
Despite its mainstream lead, this is an arthouse movie. And a boring one unfortunately… It’s hard to describe why without spoilers – it is one of those movie that needs analysis during and after viewing to make sense.
Close… but no cigar…
Nightcrawler is the story of Louis Bloom who by chance decides to work his way into filming accidents and crimes and selling the footage to the local news station.
I enjoyed the movie. The story is ‘interesting’ in an American Psycho kind of way, the atmosphere is dark and the cinematography is pretty good.
A long, somewhat clinical approach to the story of the Zodiac Killer by David Fincher. At the same time it builds good depth in the main characters, and it does not get boring despite is 2.5 hour running time.