Thursday Movie Picks: Journalists/Reporters for Print/TV

Happy Thursday everyone! Did you know that there’s only 99 days to go until Christmas? Sorry. 

In a week where politics seems to have taken over the radio and TV in the UK, I’m more than happy to switch off and  immerse myself into movies, and what better way than with Wanderer’s Thursday Movie Picks? This week we’re looking at Journalists/Reporters for Print/TV, and here are my picks:

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013) is a British to the bone Comedy about a chain of events which sees DJ Presenter/Reporter Alan Partridge’s radio station being taken over by a group of corporate big-wigs. The situation worsens when Alan (Steve Coogan) upsets a colleague who then decides to hold everyone hostage. In a crazy turn of events, Alan becomes a hostage negotiator between them and the Scotland Yard. I was dragged kicking and screaming into the cinema for this, but it was actually a lot funnier than I expected. Complete silliness of course, but good fun!

One of my favourite films of last year, Nightcrawler (2014) is the story of Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a desperate man trying to get into the world of crime journalism. As he becomes more and more successful, his morality blurs into the point of darkness. I initially overlooked this film completely but I’m so glad I gave it a go in the end, it really left me cold by the time the credits rolled. Our full review is here.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) is a movie based on the book of the same name by Stieg Larsson, in which a journalist seeks the help of a female hacker to find a woman who has been missing for forty years. This is the only version I’ve seen, I’m yet to watch the Daniel Craig version, but I just loved how gritty this was and how true it stayed to my vision of the book. The book is definitely worth a read, too!

Review: Nightcrawler (2014)

Somehow, Nightcrawler just fell under my radar when it came out last year. I tend to avoid the cinema during October, I’m not a horror fan at all and if the screens aren’t full of horror films, they’re playing horror trailers! I’m just like ‘I came to watch Horrible Bosses 2*, why am I seeing trailers for Annabelle**?!. By the time I’d heard of Nightcrawler and knew what it was about, it had finished at the cinema. Pants! Thankfully, I got my hands on a copy in time for Jenna staying over for film night! I totally missed this at the cinema, I saw it on the side of a bus in December and got all excited until I noticed that it said October waaah!!

In Nightcrawler, a shockingly thin Jake Gyllenhaal plays the role of Lou Bloom, a guy desperate for a job who finds himself making a living out of filming horrific car crashes and crimes and then selling the footage to the news. Lou hires himself an apprentice, Rick (Riz Ahmed) to listen to the police radio and give directions to Lou. What starts out as already unsettling takes continuous turns for the worst as Lou’s greed for money grows.

I would blindly follow Jake Gyllenhaal into any film he made, but I would have watched this no matter who was the lead actor. The plot just sounded that good. In the beginning I felt sort of sorry for Lou, despite his joblessness he had the drive and the cheeky charisma to succeed, but it’s certainly unsettling to realise that this world that Lou finds himself in happens all the time in the real world.  The thought of this is terrifying, excuse me while I go and lock my front door!!

This is the kind of role that Jake Gyllenhaal just owns. He was brilliant in Donnie Darko, and I’ll happily watch any kind of thriller if he’s involved. Lou’s relationship with Rick was fascinating to watch as Lou would make a transition from Rick’s friendly and enthusiastic mentor to just completely losing it within a heartbeat. He was truly scary!  This is probably one of the best roles I have seen JG in, he owned it completely.  It was one of those roles where you forget who the actor is because you are just totally sold on the character.  Rene Russo really shone to me as well, the scenes of those two together were electric!

I found myself completely hooked and on edge throughout the whole film, as Lou crossed the line between a morally grey area to downright wrong. There’s a shot of Lou right at the very end of the film, and I won’t spoil it for you, but there’s something you spot that was in another scene ages before, and it suddenly dawns on you that even though you’ve seen Lou do some terrible things, there was so much more that he did that we as the audience never got to see.

I found this really entertaining (even if I have a few naps throughout oops!) and scary to be fair, I found some of the scenes quite disturbing and uncomfortable, was that just me?  The fact that people out there actually do this and potentially set up these situations and cause serious accidents and even deaths.  

My face at the very end was a mixture of shock and a grin at how awesome the whole thing was. There were a few quiet moments where not much happened but other than that, this would have been in my Top 2014 films for sure! Those moments were the odd ones where I had a little doze! ;-)

I don't think I thought as much as this as Allie (maybe because of my mini-naps!!) but I definitely enjoyed it and Gyllenhaal was at his best.

*It probably wasn’t Horrible Bosses

**Also probably not Annabelle. More likely the goat in the shower mobile phone advert. Was it EE or 3?