Tag: Jake Gyllenhaal

Road House was watched early from a screener. It is being released on March 22th, 2024.

Who is Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) ? Good question. When we are introduced to him, he is about to fight in some sort of ring match for a pot of cash, but the guy he was going to fight saw his face, and ran out of there. Easiest win ever.

And at this event, he meets Frankie (Jessica Williams), who runs a bar in the middle of nowhere Florida, called Road House. Two words. She needs a really good bouncer. They are fine with their place being a little bit of rough housing, but apparently some nasty people are getting there and causing some ruckus. And they want things to get on the up and up again. They need to drive away the ruffians, so they can go and just do their jobs and have fun.

So she offers Dalton, a shit ton of money, to be there for around a month, to train up her people and help out.

But sure enough, DARK FORCES ARE GATHERING – okay, that is too serious. Some people want to destroy the Road House, more or less, and Dalton didn’t know what he signed up for. But they also don’t know about Dalton’s past either.

Also starring Conor McGregor, Beau Knapp, Billy Magnussen, Daniela Melchior, Franklin Romero Jr., Hannah Love Lanier, B.K. Cannon, Joaquim de Almeida, Lukas Gage, Travis Van Winkle,  Chad Guerrero, and Post Malone.

Whenever Jakey stares at me, I feel it all over.

ROAD HOUSE! The original was an interesting movie overall. It had some stars, some fights, and a very dumb ending, if I do say so myself.

The good news is, this remake also has some stars, some fights, and a very dumb ending.

Now, that is being a little bit harsh. But I just wish there was more Road House in Road House. We got Jake on a boat and in the town. We get a lot of bad guy scenes in other random places. We even get hospitals. And honestly, the 2nd half I feel like I am barely in the Road House. Longer set based action scenes on different boats, and chase scenes, so we can eventually get the bigger fights we want. You know, Gyllenhaal and McGregor.

Are those fights intense? You betcha. But the 2nd half of this film just devolves into standard action movie and I lose so much interest. I don’t care about the crime in the threats. I want the drunk fights at the bar and the bigger story should just be happening there. And like, you know, better plot. Yeah, I would have loved that too.

As a remake, this one should be satisfying to those who like old Road House. It has its own highs and lows and most people will likely find this entertaining enough!

First, Jake Gyllenhaal was announced to be Mysterio. Then they said it was only a rumor. Then they confirmed Gyllenhaal for Mysterio! Could it be? One of my favorite young-ish actors playing my favorite Spider-Man villain? Is this the best time line?

Well, real life tells me no, this is not. But Spider-Man: Far From Home is the end of Phase 3 of the MCU after the very big Avengers: Endgame. It knows it can’t be as big as that last movie, so it needs to something unique to close out the phase, to bring some aftermath closure.

But lets talk more about Gyllenhaal. First of all, this is not his first time playing a superhero! A lot of you have forgotten, but after Vincent Chase starred in the mega-hit Aquaman in the 2000’s, he decided to go against his contract and not film the sequel Gyllenhaal stepped in  and it was okay. But a lot of people don’t do good in their first superhero role. Just ask Ryan Reynolds!

Oh my god, he is so dreamy.

Events after Endgame are wrecking with everyone’s lives. Some people grew for five years, others are in a changed world. A few of our heroes are now gone forever (really though?) and others need to step up. And Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is now still in high school. Can he be that hero? Can he be the new Iron Man?

Eh, life is hard, and the world is safe for now. So let’s go on vacation. It’s summer. He needs to grieve, he needs to be a kid, he needs to put Spider-Man for awhile. He wants to woo MJ (Zendaya) off of her feet in Paris. Paris?! Yeah, a school trip to visit science places in Europe, with his best friends and frenemies. Good, no villains in Italy.

What’s that? Weird large elementals, destroying parts of Europe? Apparently they came from some other dimension. Maybe some time warp after all the infinity nonsense? All we know is that Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) has fought these elementals before, seems to be able to defeat them, and came from an Earth that killed his entire planet. Sad times. Maybe he can be our new Iron Man?

Also starring Angourie Rice, Jon Favreau, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Marisa Tomei, Martin Starr, J.B. Smoove, Tony Revolori, and of course, Jacob Batalon.

Who was this movie about? Mysteriooooooooo.

Spidey, Spidey, Spidey. What cha gonna do? What cha gonna do when they rely on you?

Far From Home does not pull as close to as many punches as Endgame, and not even on an emotional level. I didn’t cry. It was a relatively safe movie, very local, and on its own doesn’t fully feel like a closure to Phase 3. It does help explain some of the post-snap snafu and that is nice. It moves Peter’s story on and that is nice.

What it does well is when it goes really full Mysterio. This master illusionist going off on illusions was really cool. That is something comics and cartoons can do with ease, but in a movie? Well, it worked well. I wish we got to see Bruce Campbell do it in the 2000’s, but that is okay. Gyllenhaal was great in what he needed to do, but it is not his best acting either.

Now I have a big gripe with the mid credits scene. No spoilers. It is probably the best mid or post credit scene in this films history. It is amazing. And it is important. It really should have ended the main film pre-credits and not be seen as an extra. I know all of the credit scenes count as the film, but for purists, really, give me that moment before the credits role. Let the closure be real. Don’t make it extra.

Spider-Man: Far From Home will do well, and honestly, probably should have come out a little bit later. People are still riding a post Endgame high. Their endorphins have not been superhero reset, and overall it is a decent superhero movie without reaching the better heights.

Sorry Gyllenhaal. Please do more hero work.

Before Velvet Buzzsaw, Dan Gilroy has directed only two movies, and he is the writer of both of those films. The first one was Nightcrawler, a genius film and clearly one of the best of the year. It is haunting, and Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of his best performances of his life.

The second one was Roman J. Israel, Esq., which people like to ignore. I mean, Denzel Washington was nominated for acting from it, but it didn’t have Gyleenhaal so no one cared. It was not was well received as his first film.

This brings us back to Velvet Buzzsaw, which Gilroy again wrote and directed on his own. And because it is more horror based and has Gyllenhaal in it, people were notably excited and declared it would be just as good as Nightcrawler! Being released on Netflix isn’t an issue, because Netflix movies can be good!

People like to hype, I guess I am saying.

Nothing scarier than hearing I would have to analyze and judge pieces of art.

It is really hard to pick a main character to really talk about in this movie, but they want us to focus on Gyllenhaal with advertising, so I will. Morf Vandewalt (Gyllenhaal), probably a fake name, is an art critic in LA, one of the most famous and prestigious. He does fine work, people like him, he knows how to describe things like any elitist art man.

One of the galleries he tends to review at has a young fledgling art dealer, Josephina (Zawe Ashton), who is having a stressful time in life. To top it all off, some man dies in her apartment, she finds the body, it makes her late for work and she is demoted. After finding out that all of his items are to be destroyed per his wishes, she checks on his cat and finds hundreds to thousands of pieces of art, all originals, all haunting and powerful.

This? This could be her chance. You know, to deceive some people, act like it is her client, sell his art, get big in the community. Everyone is instantly amazed by the art, including her boss (Rene Russo), they want in on the action, want a piece of that huge jackpot of money they are about to create.

But as soon as more research goes into the now deceased artist, they find he had a troubled past, and has a good reason to have wanted all of the artwork to be destroyed.

Also starring Billy Magnussen, Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, John Malkovich, Natalia Dyer, and Tom Sturridge.

Everyone uses the same Gyllenhaal staring picture in their reviews,
I WANT A DIFFERENT ONE OKAY?

Velvet Buzzsaw, both the title, and the premise, is one that is able to draw you in slowly. It is set in a world that most of us are not a part of, dealing, making, selling art and making it a focal point of their lives. The rich, the elite. And that makes it a good film to have people die in.

Too many horror films are killing off our teenagers at record numbers. What about these rich people? The snobby elites? Why not watch them die in creative art fueled ways?

The concept is fine, but it definitely lacks the creep factor. It doesn’t seem to fully embrace the thoughts of horrors, and instead we get a strange drama/horror hybrid, where enough people definitely die, but never in ways that really seem exciting to talk about. The final death was a bit wicked, but other than that, it is mostly generic crazy death things.

It would be more memorable if it just went harder in the genre, but this movie plays it safe. We don’t have enough horrors set in museums, which are clearly some of the creepiest places to be. This adds to the list, but doesn’t top that list.

I really do love Paul Dano.

Since I first saw him in Little Miss Sunshine and Ruby Sparks, he has been consistently in some of my favorite and highest rated movies. He doesn’t seem to phone it in, he gives it his all, and I love him every time. And sorry, I didn’t notice him earlier with There Will Be Blood, as I was too distracted by Daniel Day-Lewis.

This film, Wildlife, however does not star Dano. Instead, it was directed by Dano, his first feature film, and also partially written by him. He had help in that it was based on a book, and the screenplay was also written by his Ruby Sparks costar, Zoe Kazan.

An actor’s first directorial film can have a big impact on the future of their career. Who knows, maybe they direct better than they act. Maybe their direction sucks and they will just go back to acting only. There can be a lot writing on the line for him, and he is still in his early 30’s at the time of doing this film. Good luck Dano, and whatever happens, please don’t stop acting.

Shit, we’re missing one of the stars in this picture. We have an actor loose on the set!

Joe Brinson (Ed Oxenbould) is just a boy, living with his parents, trying to get his world view on. Set in 1960, we don’t even have that JFK inspiring moon speech yet, just a lot of deaths in Vietnam and economic booms. Booms for everyone but the Brinsons, that is. The dad (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been moving his family around for awhile now, due to changing jobs. And when he gets fired, he doesn’t want to take his old job back again, because of pride or some silly nonsense. This does not please the mom (Carey Mulligan), who wants to make sure their family is safe and content enough to get what they need, even if they are not rich.

So what does the dad do? Well, there are some wildfires out there in Montana, so he takes a job to help put them out. Hours away from his home and family, in a dangerous position, for less money. And then he is gone.

So now Joe has to live with his mom who is slowly unraveling over these series of events, feeling a lack of love and like she has no say in the world. Joe doesn’t want his parents to fight, but it seems that he is just a passive beast in his own life. Can there be reconciliation? Well, Bill Camp plays a richer older man, so let that answer part of the question for you.

Ah yes, look at all that family bonding.

For those who are easily distracted, Wildlife may be a harder film to get through, especially the first half. It is a drama by nature and by execution. We have a small cast, a majority of this film is just Oxenbould and Mulligan. Doing what? Well, existing.

I will say it picked up in the second half a lot, when Gyllenhaal’s character did leave. Not a slight against him or anything, because he did act quite well like his usual self, they just didn’t have a lot of the more intense scenes until after it occurred.

In terms of acting, the only reason Gyllenhaal won’t be talked about much is due to the limited nature of his character. Mulligan is a force in this film though, carrying so much on her face and in her sarcasm. She is the main reason people will be talking about this film in the future, and surely will be nominated.

Oxenbould was okay, but felt like a passive vessel for most of the film. The viewer was Oxenbould, powerless to effect what was unfolding on the screen.

Overall, I might forget about Wildlife within a year or so, but it is a smaller film that is full of acting talent and is a great stepping stone for Dano’s career.

When is the last time we got a good western?

Oh, you mean like, every year over the last decade? Hells yeah.

Since Westerns went out of style, we get a lot less of them, and they end up being a lot higher quality. Not when we were oversaturated with the westerns decades ago. They were like the superhero movies of their time.

Needless to say, this year we already had a western Damsel, that I for sure did not see. But I saw The Sisters Brothers, which has a chance to be the western of 2018. And if not, then sure, Damsel.

Damsel probably doesn’t have a bearded Gyllenhaal though, sooooo…

Set somewhere in the 1800’s, the brothers Eli (John C. Reilly) and Christian Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix) are good at killing and a bit proud of it. They can take out a whole group and walk away unscathed. Some say it is thanks to their dad being a straight up killer madman as well. And some people say…well, they only say that one thing.

They work for The Commodore, a man who runs a large area with his wealth and outlaws. If someone steals or messes with him, they end up dead. And now the brothers have to try and catch up with a prospector (Riz Ahmed) who stole something from the Commodore. Trying to catch up to someone before they make it many states away can be quite the burden, especially if they don’t exactly know where he will be.

Thankfully, another worker of The Commodore, John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), has been following the prospector and keeping notes along the way for the brothers to follow. He is a writer, not a killer, so he couldn’t do anything that could cause a person that much pain. Even though it would make things simpler.

But when the prospector and the author start to develop a friendship, with dreams of making it big, then anything can change.

Also starring Carol Kane, Rebecca Root, and Rutger Hauer.

“If there is a place you need to go, I’m the one you need to know, I’m the map!”

Let me just say, before I get really into the movie, that this film had the most infuriating credits intro I have ever seen. Apparently a lot of companies were behind this one, and so they had to show them all at the start, you know, for legal reasons. And it started with one at the bottom of the screen in a strange shimmer color font.Then the next one appeared directly on top of it. And so on. And some lines had more than one group. Overall, it was 7 rows of words stacked on top of each other, filling in the black screen, and for whatever reason, it made me angry.

Making me read down to up? Just filling things up and not fading anything away? I was mad.

And the film really didn’t make me happy. It is not a comedy or anything, a serious drama, with the occasional jokes. About two brothers, overall, who are good at killing people and have to go around killing a lot of people. And it is also a lot about the prospector and Gyllenhaal’s character.

The Sisters Brothers is about a few characters. It is definitely not about the story. The plot is pretty poor. It feels really long and drawn out, not to showcase great shots, because the shots are just okay. The acting is decent, it has some moments that are cool to see. But we also have night scenes with not great lighting, because they are going for realistic, and that is a shame if those things are big events, like the introduction or when main characters get hurt.

I was disappointed with The Sisters Brothers. This is not a knock on Reilly, Phoenix, Gyllenhaal, or Ahmed, who all acted wonderfully. But the film put me to sleep and felt like it was going nowhere fast.

A couple years ago I saw Patriots Day, against my better judgement, and it felt wrong.

It was #TooSoon, the movie. It felt like it wanted to be a documentary, but also to use a lot of famous actors. It would have been amazing as a documentary, as the footage and all of that exists. Instead, we had Marky Mark running around Boston, making those actual areas relive the moments, including when the final guy was caught in the boat, which seemed to be filmed on location.

That is uncomfrotable.

And now we have our second movie about the Boston Marathon bombings, which I clearly skipped for awhile for similar reasons. Am I ready for a story like this one? Stronger is clearly being hailed as a real story of a survivor, and will end with me most likely crying in happiness.

Does it end with a happy kiss and terrorism finally defeated?

Jeff Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a free spirited Boston man, who has an energetic family, loves his Boston teams, and loves to joke around and have fun. So a stereotypical Boston man. He is also in love with Erin (Tatiana Maslany), an on again off again relationship. Right now it is off, so to win her back, he helped her raise money for his Boston Marathon run, and promised to be there at the finish line!

And he was there. Right in the blast of the bombs going off before Erin made it to the end.

This left Jeff very damaged, but he was saved by some onlookers, taken to the hospitals, who helped amputate his legs so that he could survive. But he had no legs. And now the city of Boston is looking to him as a symbol of their ability to grow from this tragedy. He has promised to walk again, and wants to be in the spotlight, he thinks. But the pressures put on him by the community drive him into relapse after relapse, feeling like a worthless potato. His mom (Miranda Richardson) is trying to help him, but it is doing the opposite.

Can he be Stronger, not just for himself, but for an entire city?

Also starring the following people, mostly as his family: Richard Lane Jr., Nate Richman, Lenny Clarke, Patty O’Neil, Clancy Brown, Kate Fitzgerald, and Danny McCarthy.

One day you wake up, no legs, and being used by the Bruins.

I went in expecting to hate this film, and sure enough, it surprised me. I expected a typical feel good story of someone struggling to eventually get through PT and start walking on false legs. I expected the long anguish scenes of surgeries, of his girlfriend crying by his bed, and all of that. But it is different. This one feels real.

Having the main character want to get better (obviously), but hated the spotlight and hated the pressures on him. His family was overbearing, random citizens walking up to him on the street making him out to be a martyr (which he obviously didn’t ask for or want) felt heartbreaking. This guy had a lot of eyes on him, when he never felt special. He also was feeling survivor’s remorse over the others who died because they weren’t saved as quickly as him.

This whole thing is a lot more about PTSD than some overcoming great challenges story, which makes it a lot more powerful. Sure, he eventually did overcome them, but it focuses more on the challenges you don’t expect someone to overcome.

And of course, the main reason to watch this – Gyllenhaal himself. A powerful actor, especially at transforming into a character. His voice and appearance was a bit funny, reminding me of his Bubble Boy self, but it definitely felt like a man who had lost his legs. Great, fantastic performance, to a much better than expected film.

This is part of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Week at Gorgon Reviews!

Look, I am a big fan of all of these classic board games being turned into movies. Clue is the golden standard, and that was over thirty years ago. So why not a movie about the board game Life?

The good news about Life is that it is so expansive of a game, you can basically make it about anything, as along as it involves growing up, getting a job and family, a career, and eventually retiring. Anything could happen to you in between that. You could win a Nobel Prize! You could play the stock market. You could just not at all do anything worth while.

As long as you don’t set it in a fantasy realm, or in outer space, or anything like that, it could count as a movie about the board game.

What the fuck is this? Is this in Millionaire Estates?

Aboard the ISS, we got a lovely crew of people, crewing around, doing science, being astronauts. They grab a probe returning from Mars, hoping to analyze some soil and maybe see if they can find life. And guess what! They do! A tiny tiny microorganism, but it is life not from Earth. Hooray science!

Everyone is stoked, the world is stoked, some kid wins a contest and names it Calvin, big celebration, we are not alone! But maybe w should be alone?

Things start to go wrong on the space station. Calvin starts to grow, Calvin starts to show intelligence, and Calvin needs to eat to survive whatever he can on the ship. And you know who that means.

It means these people! Hiroyuki Sanada, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds.

The poor ISS gets destroyed and fucked up in so many different movies.

Obviously this has nothing to do with the board game, that is just a joke, but this film still has a shitty title. Life is too vague, has certainly been a title before, and isn’t as ominous as they had hoped.

I first avoided this film because it came out on my birthday, and everyone knew that Power Rangers was the bigger story there. Also despite having actors I knew in it, I thought there was not way it would be a good film.

And guess what? I actually did enjoy it. Sure, on the surface, it is basically just the movie Alien, but with a different Alien and not in deep space. Actually, it is extremely similar to Alien, including having people ignoring quarantine rules in order to doom everyone. However, we don’t get a badass female protagonist, we just get people continually sacrificing themselves for the greater good of humanity.

Despite its lack of originality, I still enjoyed it. The ending had me very tense and on the edge of my seat. The acting from Gyllenhaal and Ferguson was decent enough, and Sanada’s character made me feel incredibly sad.

I would say objectively it is not a bad thriller/horror film at all. It does get a bit messy at points, a little bit confusing not being familiar with the layout or everything they are talking about. There are plenty of worse films out there that won’t scare you, so might as well give Life a shot.

I didn’t know a whole lot about Okja going in, but I did see a few posters and just knew, just knew, I had to see it. Like, as soon as possible.

I also definitely thought it was a horror film, a foreign South Korean horror film. About a beast? I don’t know, the name and poster sort of scared me.

But then the advertisements got a bit more flashy, and I realized this was going to be a film bigger than itself. I also heard that it was directed by Joon-ho Bong, an established director who I have only seen one film of before, Snowpiercer. Yeah, I bet you saw Snowpiercer as well. One of the better indie “Have to see this movie!” campaigns over the last few years.

And this time, his film is right away on Netflix, allowing that same sort of campaign to happen, but for even more people.

But come on, we all came for the gratuitous sexual overtones.

Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), new CEO of Mirando Corporation, has taken over from her father, a controversial man. It is a meat factory, and she is introducing a new superpig that they have bred/discovered/something like that. And over 20 of these pigs are being sent around the world to various farms, to see who could raise the biggest and best super pig in 10 years time, with the winner being crowned in a giant event.

And now, ten years later, we get to meet Okja, a superpig, living in the mountains of South Korea. Okja is being raised my Mija (Seo-Hyun Ahn) and her grandfather (Hee-Bong Byun) alone and really don’t want to let Okja go. But they come, they love Okja, and take him away. They even brought Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), famed TV animal show guy, but that doesn’t soften the blow.

So despite their best attempts, Okja is still taken, so Mija decides to chase after them. Fuck the corporate people taking her friend over the last decade. It turns out she isn’t the only one after Okja either. So is the Animal Liberation Front, an animal rights group, who apparently tries to practice non violent behavior. They want to free Okja and bring down Mirando Corp.

Oh joy, caught between animal rights groups and a meat company, Mija just wants to be alone and happy with her family and friend.

Also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Paula Dano, Steven Yeun, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Lily Collins, and Devon Bostick.

I’m glad they told me this was a pig, because if not, I would have assumed…well, lets go with hippo dog.

Okja, for a lack of better words, is an experience. The very first scene is so bright, vivid, and Tilda Swinton, that you are immediately wondering just what sort of film you have gotten yourself into. But it will drive your curiosity and you will find yourself needing to sit through to see where the fuck it is going.

And then after the opening, we get quaint wilderness, giant pigs, and subtitles, so immediately a lot of people may be turned off. A whole lot of this film is subtitles, along with English language, because it is set in the real world and it wants to be authentic. Also because the director is of course Joon-ho Bong and he probably wants to represent his country in the movies he is making.

The characters in Okja, besides Mija and her family, are downright zany. They go to the extreme and bring characters outside of their normal roles. Gyllenhaal is super weird and has a higher pitched voice, it is a bit bizarre to imagine him the star of a successful animal reality show. Like a gone stupid version of Steve Irwin maybe. And Dano? He normally plays the eccentric strange character, but compared to other members, his Animal Liberation Front frontman seemed a bit…ordinary. A guy who would go to great lengths to get what he wants, sure, but relatively normal.

The CGI for the beast was pretty good, but it was still pretty awkward at times. Watching random characters badly interact with Okja as it is stomping and running around leaves a lot of room for error. But it never took me out of the experience.

Okja is a dark film at times, a light film at other times, and balls to the wall in a few other parts. It is probably one of the best Netflix Original films ever made, it just doesn’t feel like one of the best films I have ever seen. But a very strong film regardless and one that a lot of different ages and groups would enjoy.

I wasn’t able to see Nocturnal Animals before it came out, mostly due to screening conflict. But without knowing the plot of the film, I was interested in the cast alone.

But given that I wanted to see it, the title did a lot of work with only two words.

Nocturnal. Animals. It sounds mysterious, secretive, and of course, primitive. It riles up a lot of fears, especially for those people afraid of owls.

Jake Gyllenhaal already had a good year thanks to Demolition, so regardless of how this one went, I consider it to just be bonus Gyllenhaal.

And a bonus amount of this guy, who I didn’t recognize in the film.

Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) is miserable. She lives in a giant house, with her husband (Armie Hammer). She is an art director, but feels like it is all junk. They are close to being poor, selling their items, waiting for a big business deal to come through, but she doesn’t care. She cares that her marriage is just a shell and pointless.

Then she receives a package from her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). He is a writer, she criticized him a long time ago, he just didn’t write from his heart. But now he has a new story, one he says was inspired by her, to write from his heart, even dedicated to her. It is even called Nocturnal Animals, his old nickname for her to explain her insomnia.

The story is about a family, a husband (Gyllenhaal), his wife (Isla Fisher), and teenage daughter (Ellie Bamber). They are driving through Texas in the middle of the night, heading to a vacation, empty roads, no signal, simple. Until they do catch up to a few cars, who are up to no good and willing to make a few choices to ruin a few lives.

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Robert Aramayo, and Karl Glusman as some bad dudes, Michael Shannon as an older, smoking cop, and Laura Linney as Susan’s mom. Real mom in this story, not the book mom.

But also all of these people are fake anyways because: acting.

Nocturnal Animals made me feel a whole lot of emotions. Fright, scares, hope, sadness, angst, tension, extreme sadness, indifference, and even a bit of confusion. Needless to say, I was on the edge of my seat from some parts of the film, and sinking into it later to try and escape the pain.

Nocturnal Animals tells a story, a story in a story, and it does both points so goddamn well. It both made me want it to never end, and to subsequently hurry up so that it could potentially become a sunshine, happy ending. But it sticks to its tone guns and it delivers exactly the perfect ending at the conclusion.

Everyone involved with this project should simultaneously be slapped and hugged because of what I imagine they had to go through to really convey those emotions. The acting, cinematography, directing, fuck, even the costumes, why not. It all just feels so planned to maximize the angst I felt inside.

This movie is extremely hard to talk about because in all honesty, it is something that should be experienced. It isn’t for the feint of heart, it goes into some heart wrenching areas. But if you give it a shot, you will get a smart film that doesn’t hold your hand, some of the best performances of 2016, and a story that will stay with you for a long time afterwards.

I just checked my watch, and yes, it looks like we are at the point where I will just about see anything if you tell me that Jake Gyllenhaal is in it.

I don’t even need to list his last few years of excellent films. But I will talk about 2015. Southpaw was divided, but it made my top of 2015 list. Everest wasn’t as universally loved either, but it took me on an emotional thrill ride and I still gave it a 4 out of 4. Although, sure, that one had less Gyllenhaal being amazing.

I don’t have a damn clue what Demolition is actually about, but knowing one actor in it has made me happy to watch it.

It is like the opposite effect of Robert De Niro now.

Heck, if Jake could just dance for 90 minutes I’d call the movie a roaring success.

Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in finances, super rich, and married to Julia (Heather Lind), but she just died in a car accident. Davis was the passenger but he only got a few scrapes. This really fucking sucks. Sure Davis might not have been the most emotionally invested person ever, but he still loved his wife and she meant the world to him. She also meant the world to her parents, Phil (Chris Cooper) and Margot (Polly Draper). Oh, Phil happens to be Davis’ boss. They are both wrecked over this, but Davis seems to feel almost nothing. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t scream, it is like he is still in shock and is empty inside.

None of this helps when he decides to go to a vending machine and spend $1.25 on a bag of peanut M&M’s, which fails to drop. What the fuck vending machine. So Davis sends a complaint letter to the company and accidentally lets them know a lot about his life. He then writes follow up letters, making sure they know the whole story. This is very personal, but hey, its Davis’ way of finally talking about his issues.

This eventually leads him to Karen (Naomi Watts), the entire PR department, who feels connected with Davis despite being a complete stranger. She has a 15 year old son (Judah Lewis), is dating the boss of the company (C.J. Wilson) and has her own issues, but hey, no one is perfect. Maybe one day these two will meet. Davis, a grieving man, and Karen, a lost soul. But that might be too hokey and romance like. Fuck romance, this is about losing a loved one not finding one.

Also starring Malachy Cleary and Debra Monk as Davis’ parents.

Yes, in demolition we get to see a guy demolish shit. The title isn’t just a metaphor!

Jake Gyllenhaal plays an unstable character? Check. Jake Gyllenhaal acts really well? Check. Jake Gyllenhaal takes his shirt off? Check check check.

Like usual, Gyllenhaal delivers. He gives us a quirky dude who the audience will cheer for and hope for the best. But this is a comedy/drama. Things aren’t going to just be happy. Jesus, his wife just died. He needs to let it out and grieve and do something to honor her in his own way. He is worth the price of admission.

As for this film, it is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, who more recently directed Wild and Dallas Buyers Club. Those were nominated for Oscars, but I don’t see this film getting any nods. The film, despite tear educing and funny, just didn’t have enough closure. Closure in both the actual plot, and the side plot involving Watts.

Watts felt really underused for this role. It deserved to be something bigger or better. She was just wasted for the small role, given her more recent success as an Oscar nominated actress. Oh well.

Did I mention we get to see Gyllenhaal dance and lose his mind? That’s fun.