There are no monsters in "Nightcrawler," starring Jake Gyllenhaal and opening Friday. Not the fangs and horns kind, anyway.
Gyllenhaal plays Lou, a weird loner with little back story who ekes out a living in Los Angeles by selling scrap metal and occasionally stealing stuff. Then he chances onto the scene of a bad car wreck swarmed by cameramen eager to film the carnage for sale to ratings-hungry television stations. Suddenly Lou is inspired to pursue a new career path, as it turns out there is profit in misery and disaster.
Although Lou is an amoral creep, you might find yourself wondering about halfway through the movie: "Who's the real monster here?"
"The problem is the society that created him and rewards him," director Dan Gilroy said during a recent interview. He signed up his star in Atlanta, while Gyllenhaal was here filming "Prisoners," a thriller in which he starred as a guy on the right side of the law.
Gilroy's wife, Rene Russo, plays a television producer so desperate for an edge that she overlooks Lou's oddball tendencies.
“Whenever I travel, I watch local TV news,” Gilroy said. “The patterns were becoming part of my subconscious. It seems like the world is becoming more and more reduced to transactions.”
To prepare for the project, Gilroy, a former journalist, binge-watched local news and went on ride-alongs with actual crime photographers.
“The first night, we got to an accident scene, roaring along at 100 mph, and got there before the cops,” he said. “They took footage and soon had the footage sold to networks. It was really bleak.”
‘Nice Guy’ Ryan Gosling poses for photos in Buckhead
Speaking of movies set in L.A., Ryan Gosling is in Atlanta filming "The Nice Guys" with Russell Crowe. The project takes place in 1970s Los Angeles, and concerns a private detective who stumbles onto a conspiracy while investigating a porn star's death. The vintage setting probably explains the mustache Gosling was sporting when he stopped by the Buckhead Diner for dinner on Saturday. We're told he came in with his manager and ordered the Maytag Blue Cheese chips and "sweet-heat" Thai chili calamari. Nice guy that he is, he posed for a photo with some of the Buckhead Diner staff.
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