Movies starring Jake Gyllenhaal

In recent years, some of the most outlandish and edgy movies have emerged from South Korea, where directors like Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, and Bong Joon-ho have challenged norms and defied conventions. The results, although not always succes...

There are a number of ways one can categorize October Sky. My preference is to call it Varsity Blues for those who don't like athletics. And, while such a facile description threatens to reduce this movie to a plateau far below its worth, it ...

Maybe it's my math/engineering background, but I found Proof to be fascinating both on the stage and on the screen. Actually, appreciation of the film demands little math knowledge (aside from recognizing that a "proof" is a logical set of equatio...

"Every war is different. Every war is the same." So says the voiceover narration in the closing moments of Sam Mendes' Jarhead. I might add: Every war movie is different. Every war movie is the same. This is Mendes' Gulf War answer to Apocalyp...

Brothers is arguably the most successful remake of a foreign film since Martin Scorsese reworked Infernal Affairs into The Departed and won the Oscar. By remaining rigorously faithful to Susanne Bier's 2004 Danish feature, Brodre, screenwriter Dav...

Edward Zwick is probably best known for his work on television. Along with Marshall Herkovitz, he was a driving force behind two long-running TV series (thirtySomething and Once and Again). He was also an important contributor to many others (inc...

The problem with End of Watch, a gripping police drama, is director David Ayer's stylistic decision to shoot nearly the entire movie tripod-less. Or, to put it another way, there's a whole lotta shakin' going on. Much of End of Watch could almost f...

Whodunits are rarely a good playground for Hollywood films. The average mystery, whether a stripped-down Agatha Christie-esque tale or a more complex endeavor, is too demanding for the structural constraints of a motion picture. As a result, when o...

Nocturnal Animals employs one of the most inventive uses of neo noir tropes and techniques I have seen in recent years. Intense, insightful, and strangely powerful, Tom Ford’s adaptation of Austin Wright’s novel, Tony and Susan, assumes a...

Longing is such a potent element of the human experience that it has formed the fabric of numerous stirring motion pictures. Brokeback Mountain is one such movie - a tale of love and loss, of unrealized dreams, and of lives wasted by denying passi...