[divider top=”no”]

via Laura Fissel

The ‘Burbs – This spoof on the horror genre is just as funny today as it was in the ’80s. Hanks is thoroughly enjoyable as Ray Peterson, a curmudgeonly middle-aged suburbanite who gets sucked into spending his week of vacation snooping into his next-door neighbors’ lives. Not a profound film by any means, but the cast is spot on, it’s got a bit of a twist, and is good for a few guffaws.

[divider top=”no”]

via Josh Crabb

Nightcrawler – This potentially could be my favorite Jake Gyllenhaal movie after a couple more views. He’s been pretty good in a lot of different movies, but Gyllenhaal disappears into this role as Lou Bloom. He’s a smarmy huckster without a conscience, a byproduct of the American, consumerist mindset to get the people exactly what they want, and what you want, at any cost. Lou Bloom is a slightly overblown but fairly accurate picture of what the darker corners of the American Dream looks like.

A much cooler aspect of the movie is how it presents the city of Los Angeles. I’ve been watching Num3ers as of late with my wife, and LA is always presented as sunny, hot, and glitzy. Nightcrawler shows us the shadowy, glowing perpetual dusk of the LA nights; which is kind of inherent in name. It’s a more emulsified presentation of LA, fitting for the movies characters and their intentions. Writer/director Dan Gilroy crafts a compelling narrative through story and setting. It’s one of my favorite movies of 2014 and definitely worth your time.