Movies I'm Looking Forward to in the Fall of 2015: 'Nightcrawler'

Jake Gyllenhaal co-starred in one of my favorite movies of recent years, David Fincher's "Zodiac," and I liked him in a couple of his earlier efforts, "Donnie Darko" and "Rocket Boys," too. (Plus, he was a kid in that classic Robin Williams episode of  "Homicide.") He's always been pretty good at playing an innocent guy, often tossed into a dark, scary situation that's a bit more than he can handle.

Which brings us to "Nightcrawler," which was a big hit at the Toronto Film Fest and features a slimmed down version of Gyllenhaal -- so slim, in fact, that something looks distinctly wrong about him. Which, judging by the plot of "Nightcrawler," is the whole point. Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, it's the story of a guy who earns money in the morally murky world of "freelance crime journalism" in Los Angeles. It co-stars Bill Paxton and Rene Russo (nice to see her back on the screen) and has been described as a cross between "Taxi Driver" and "Network," two of my all-time favorite films. (And two that competed for Best Picture back in 1976 -- an award that, believe it or not, "Rocky" won.)

All that sounded pretty promising all by itself -- and then I saw this trailer...



And now, I'm really excited. Love the use of that repeated slogan at the end, which starts out innocent and corny and quickly becomes something else entirely.