“Something truly goddamned strange is going on!”
The last time writer-director Dan Gilroy teamed with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo the result was the cynical neo-noir Nightcrawler, which proved to be a thrilling, unsettling look at the world of television news and the hunger for sensationalist stories. A few years later, the team behind Nightcrawler returns with Gilroy setting his satirically cynical eye upon the art world in the upcoming horror thriller Velvet Buzzsaw. The first trailer for Gilroy’s bloody evisceration of wealth and pretension is absolutely wild, skyrocketing Velvet Buzzsaw to the top of many people’s most-anticipated movies list.
When Gyllenhaal’s art dealer character is given a set of stunning painting by a dead artist, he immediately puts them on display where the admirers from all over the far reaches of the art world are seduced by the haunting images. However, they’re not just haunting images because they’re visually arresting; they’re haunting images because they’re actually haunted. There’s always something lurking under the surface of your favorite works of art.
Velvet Buzzsaw will debut at the Sundance Film Festival in the coming weeks ahead of its debut on Netflix on February 1, 2019. Joining the headliners of Gyllenhaal and Russo are Toni Collette, John Malkovich, Zawe Ashton, Natalia Dyer, Tom Sturridge, Daveed Diggs, and Billy Magnussen.
The official synopsis for Velvet Buzzsaw:
Velvet Buzzsaw is a satirical thriller set in the contemporary art world scene of Los Angeles, where big money artists and mega-collectors pay a high price when art collides with commerce.