Nightcrawler

Here's what's new on the big screen in Athens this week:

NIGHTCRAWLER (R; showtimes): Dan Gilroy (Mr. Rene Russo and brother of Oscar nominee Tony Gilroy) jumps into the director’s chair (he previously wrote Real Steel and The Bourne Legacy) for this hardboiled dramatic crime thriller that brings back memories of the 1970s. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, an L.A. crime journalist slipping from observer to participant in the grotesque stories he is covering. Gyllenhaal looks intense in the trailers, but don’t count out costars Russo and Bill Paxton, who can takeover a film. This flick looks better than its wide-release peer…

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP (R; showtimes): Nicole Kidman stars as a woman who wakes up every day remembering nothing of her past.  This mysterious thriller is adapted from the bestseller by S.J. Watson. Director Rowan Joffe wrote The American, for what that’s worth. It’s Kidman’s costars—Colin Firth and Mark Strong—that have me most excited. 

SAW (R; showtimes): Jiggy’s turning 10 and back to play one more game. I’m in.

HORNS (R): Alexandre Aja’s horror filmography has more flawed hits (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, Piranha) than outright miss (Mirrors). His adaptation of Joe “Son of Stephen King” Hill’s terrific novel about Ig (Daniel Radcliffe), who wakes up one morning with a set of horns and the remaining guilt from his girlfriend’s mysterious rape and murder. Radcliffe and Aja are garnering raves for this fantastical flick. I cannot wait; fortunately, it’s on VOD, and I don’t have to.