Happy Friday. Today’s recommendations are Jake Gyllenhaal-led thrillers that have us thinking, “how has he not won an Oscar yet?”
In movie news: In the Heights, a movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical of the same name, will open the Tribeca Film Festival this year. The 20th edition of the festival is aiming to be the first in-person film festival since the pandemic began.
Something to make you smile: Youn Yuh-jung gave yet another incredible speech upon winning the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for Minari. Watch here.
Zodiac ♌️
Zodiac tells the very true and very terrifying story of the infamous “Zodiac Killer,” who terrorized the San Francisco bay area in the late 1960s and early 70s. The movie follows three men obsessed with figuring out who the killer is: political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), journalist Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), and detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo). Here’s the trailer.
Why it’s great: I often cite Zodiac as my favorite David Fincher movie — although if you ask me any other day that might change. It’s a dark and menacing crime thriller on its surface like Se7en, mixed in with an investigative drama. But Fincher is doing a lot more when you dig deeper. It’s a disorienting story. He plays with time and place to confuse you and put you in the headspace of the characters. Those characters are complex and motivated to a fault — Gyllenhaal’s Graysmith is borderline obsessive. You realize then that this isn’t a police procedural. You’re not watching to solve the mystery — you’re watching to solve the characters. 162 mins.
Enemy 🕷
Enemy follows Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal) is a college professor living an unremarkable life. That is until he watches a movie and discovers one of the actors (also Gyllenhaal) looks exactly like him. He becomes obsessed with learning the identity of his doppelgänger, but what he finds is even crazier than he — and us — could imagine. Here’s the trailer.
Why it’s great: Enemy is a puzzle that needs — and wants — to be solved. However, director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Javier Gullón don’t make it easy for you, which makes the movie so fun to watch over and over again. They’re careful to give you clues and hints — some obvious and some you have to work for — that will guide you to some conclusion. But the real joy of the movie is that everyone’s conclusion will be different. Gyllenhaal gives two of his best performances as very distinct characters that share some bond. Look out for the small inflections he uses to differentiate the two. It’s masterful. 90 mins.
Nightcrawler 📹
Nightcrawler is about perpetual hustler Lou Bloom (Gyllenhaal) and his endless pursuit for success. One night, after witnessing stringers—freelance video journalists—recording footage from a car accident he finds his new line of work. As he dives deeper into the L.A. underbelly of crime, he maybe becomes too involved in getting the story. Here’s the trailer.
Why it’s great: Nightcrawler takes clear inspiration from two of my favorite Martin Scorcese movies — The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver — but it’s careful to emulate and not imitate. Instead, Lou Bloom is a wholly original and terrifyingly compelling anti-hero. His extreme obsession with his new career is offset by the fact that he’s actually good at it—for all the wrong reasons. As he defies any moral standard to get his story, we watch almost helplessly as people around him become pawns in his game rather than actual humans. And while a lesser movie would mine that for pure horror, Nightcrawler asks whether or not that’s already happening anyway in our society.
📽 P.S. You can see every movie I’ve ever recommended right here.
🍅 I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes! You can find new movie reviews here and here.
Gyllenhaal is going to finally win an Oscar for some mediocre historical drama in about 20 years and it's going to be classic Academy.
Great shout on the Scorsese influence in Nightcrawler. One of my issues with Joker was that it copied Taxi Driver/King of Comedy as opposed to hinting at those movies within its own original story, like Nightcrawler did.