Jake Gyllenhaal

News, Reviews & Features

Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home but back to brilliant basics

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 28th June 2019

The epic, end-of-times extravaganza of Endgame left us with many questions: Has the timeline now been irreparably changed? Who are the Avengers now? Where the fuck did Valkyrie suddenly get a flying horse? And also, how does the world adjust to half of its population now having a five-year age gap? What about all the parents that missed out on seeing their children grow up? All the spouses that remarried in that time? All those people that were snapped out of existence while on their way to return something to a shop, only to be brought back and find out that their receipt is now five years out of date? If those questions are going to be addressed at all, it isn’t happening with this first film out of the gate since the 'snapback'. No, this is just very much Spider-Man back to doing whatever a spider can.

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Review: Velvet Buzzsaw paints a dark canvas but is worse than the sum of its p-arts

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 8th February 2019

A few years ago I had a bit of an epiphany regarding my personal relationship with art (such as it is that the purpose and understanding of art as a human endeavour is the result of a complex mish-mash of evolutionary need and life experience resulting in a unique perspective held only to oneself imho). It was around the time of political unrest in a country - not going to say which one but it was one of those problematic countries you see on the news often, don't like the gays much - where a group of artists had collaborated to send a satirical message to their government which was more than likely going to see them turn up in a ditch. It was an act that made me question my complete self: would I, a comically stereotypical white man, ever do anything so profoundly brave with my creative output? I mean besides calling Nigel Farage a cock on Twitter? Probably not. I'll probably just carry on ascending to middle class via osmosis, stopping to tut whenever Netflix raise their prices by 20p so they can continue making mediocre originals.

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Southpaw ad saved by last-minute reference to other boxing movie

Movie News | Ed Williamson | 16th July 2015

Upcoming Jake Gyllenhaal film Southpaw has been saved from obscurity at the eleventh hour by a journalist's agreement to be quoted comparing it to another boxing movie.

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Nightcrawler

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 2nd November 2014

There's an uncomfortable undercurrent to Dan Gilroy's seedy thriller Nightcrawler that I didn't quite identify until after the credits had rolled and the stank had worn off. The tale of a grim opportunist named Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) who weasels a career out of being the first lens on the crime scene, Nightcrawler is equal parts slick and sick, portraying the denizens of the neon-soaked Los Angeles nightlife as creepy-crawlies squirming under a rock. It's Gyllenhaal's unforgettable creation, however, that sticks in the memory: with bug eyes, sunken cheeks and a moral barometer on the fritz, I eventually realised that Lou Bloom is to paparazzi what Tony Montana is to gangsters - a totemic figurehead that suggests all you need to succeed is an excess of motivation and an absence of conscience. Filtered through this lens, Nightcrawler becomes the scariest movie you'll see all year.

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Well played, Nightcrawler PR team: Lou Bloom is now on LinkedIn

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 15th October 2014

Media savvy try-hard Lou Bloom just requested I add him on professional social network LinkedIn, despite the handicap of being entirely fictional. It's fun, though - a bit like being matched with Patrick Bateman on Tinder.

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Top 10 films of our lifetime #4: Zodiac

Movie Feature | Ed Williamson | 23rd September 2014

Possibly the most underrated movie on this list, Zodiac was nominated for a big fat ZERO Academy Awards, which is insane, because it's by far the best film David Fincher has made this century, and it's teeming with quality: flawless cinematography, invisible CG magic, and a cast groaning with talent. Testament to its thrilling three-hour running time is the fact that only after I had finished watching it recently did I realise it marked the first meeting of Avengers 'Science Bros' Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo - Ali.

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Prisoners

Movie Review | Neil Alcock | 20th September 2013

On a list of fantasy dads, Hugh Jackman's got to rate pretty highly. There can't be many actors who you'd want to drop you off at school, teach you to shave or come round and fix your boiler. Clooney? Too pretty. Downey Jr? Too easily distracted. Cruise? Too weird. But even though he's younger than them all, Jackman's got "ideal dad" written all over him, which makes him enormously watchable in the role of protective pop in Prisoners. That is until he transforms into a screaming demon of furious, misguided, hammer-wielding vengeance, at which point I'll take back my actual dad thanks very much. He might not be Hugh Jackman but at least he doesn't perforate your eardrums every time he opens his mouth.

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#LFF2012: End Of Watch

Movie Review | Matt | 4th October 2012

As we welcome the BFI London Film Festival into our lives once again, get ready for a spate of reviews of worthy, awardsy type films that illicit an emotional response different to our usual "fuck yeah, that roundhouse kick was awesome!". And End Of Watch is as good a film as any to kick off proceedings, being a GRITTY, REALISTIC cop drama that reminds us that crime on the streets of LA is GRITTY and REALISTIC and OFTEN QUITE HARROWING REALLY.

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5 potential sequels to Source Code

Movie Feature | Ali | 31st March 2011

With Source Code sure to be a big smash ("It's Groundhog Day meets Inception meets Quantum Leap meets Prince Of Persia!"), Duncan Jones had better start thinking about sequels. Think no further.

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Source Code

Movie Review | Matt | 17th March 2011

As Moon sky-rocketed Bowie sprog Duncan Jones on to the exciting list of Talented New Filmmakers to Watch, it also automatically placed him on the sinister register entitled Don't Fuck Up the Next One. Now, while I'm going to try to keep this review relatively spoiler-free, I can reveal that, thankfully, he didn't. (*whispers*) It's really good.

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