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Nightcrawler (2014) vs. Zodiac (2007)

October 31, 2014 Arthur Tiersky 4

If we’ve learned anything over the years from movies about journalists, reporters and TV newspeople, it’s that theirs is a world of ethical and psychological pitfalls. One day, you’re an upstanding citizen doing your job, investigating and helping keep the public apprised of current events, and then, suddenly you’re Kirk Douglas in Ace in the Hole (1951), deliberately manipulating your story to create and prolong the media circus surrounding it. Or you’re Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote (2005), befriending a convicted murderer but privately rooting for his execution. Or you’re Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), ingesting so many intoxicants that you miss the story entirely. Or you’re Hayden Christensen in Shattered Glass (2003) and just flat out making shit up. […]

Gone Girl (2014) vs. Gone Baby Gone (2007)

October 3, 2014 Arthur Tiersky 11

It wasn’t so long ago that Ben Affleck was among the easiest punchlines in Hollywood: A wooden, one-note actor with horrendous taste in projects, a consistent provider of gossip fodder, and the co-winner of a screenwriting Oscar that few believed he actually deserved. But then, in 2007, he made the second-wisest move of his career (just behind ditching J-Lo and settling down with J-Garn): He turned his focus to further developing his behind-the-camera talents, choosing Gone Baby Gone, a twisty, noirish mystery based on a novel about a specious kidnapping, for his directorial debut (and opting to leave the acting chores in the film to his younger, squirrelly brother, Casey). […]