NIGHTCRAWLER (2014)

As a cynical, poison-filled, unloved, unliked, dead soul slowly rotting away in a ugly worthless human carcass I related quite a bit with the awkward, unsociable loner Louis Bloom, played brilliantly by Jake Gyllenhaal.  One evening, quite by accident, Louis sees freelance cameraman, Bill Paxton, filming two police officers saving a woman from a burning car.  This gives Louis an idea and next thing you know he's out on the street filming overnight events for the morning news.  He has a natural eye for the more sensational stuff and before long his personal drive has brought him a small amount of notoriety.  This only drives him further.

I enjoyed every second of NIGHTCRAWLER.  The photography by Robert Elswit was absolutely spellbinding, the story had me hooked from beginning to end, the acting by the entire cast was fantastic, nice pace, smart script, satisfying ending.  The only thing that keeps this film out of my favorites films category is it wasn't dark or misanthropic enough for my tastes.  That said, it's a great movie, I just like my dark movies to be really dark.

Highly recommended.

RAD (1986)

Thoroughly entertaining story about a teenage BMX enthusiast who is stoked when a major BMX race is announced to take place in his small town.  He's then super-stoked when they announce that a qualifying event will be held to allow one local racer to compete in the big "Helltrack" race against 19 other professional racers.  Then he's super duper mega-boner-stoked 2.0 when a sexy female racer has the hots for him.

You're not going to experience any extreme emotional moments while watching RAD.  It's just a simple, very predictable and fun 80's movie.  The acting is fine, the race scenes are exciting...the shots with the Lori Loughlin riding her bike are especially funny since it's clearly somebody else in a wig, great 80's soundtrack (the most recognizable song would be "Send Me An Angel" by Real Life) and a strong supporting cast featuring Ray Walston, Talia Shire, Jack Weston and Lori Loughlin.

Fun fact: the actors who played the two twin dudes ended up later on writing THE CONJURING.

[Update 01/03/23: I took some screenshots from the blu-ray, but I kinda like the grainy old DVD ones. I did post a few, but I'm just going to leave the majority of them from the DVD.]

Little girl sneaking herself a handful.