February 2011
6 posts
3 tags
Conclusion
After 30 days and 30 films, I’ve come to this conclusion. Nicolas Cage is not a bad actor. He just has bad taste. Cage can bring unparalleled emotional intensity to a role; if you need someone to charge bravely off the beaten path of human behaviour, this is your man. This energy can wonderfully fill out the right characters. Take Wild At Heart (1990): in most films, Cage’s Sailor...
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#30: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)
Finally, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice draws an end to our rocky cinematic journey. It’s suitably average: underbaked and often very silly, but more entertaining than terrible. This Disney family adventure capitalises on the current popularity of urban fantasy, with Nicolas Cage as the titular sorcerer. A few months ago, I read an interview with Cage in SFX Magazine in which he said that...
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#29: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans...
I actually met Nicolas Cage once. Two weeks before I started this blog, I finished a shift at work and there he was in the street, smoking a cigarette. Immediately, my inner intrusive jerk took over, and I walked up and said hello. He wished me a merry Christmas, which was awesome. I didn’t tell him about my plans for the 30 Days, because I figured it would start me on the road to a...
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#28: Knowing (2009)
There’s something a little retro about Knowing. Most of it feels like a ’90s disaster movie; it should have been made in the wake of Deep Impact. All the trappings are there: the obsessive hero has a scientific profession and an old but spacious wooden house, he and his son are dealing with the death of his wife, and at one point he hangs out in an observatory. I could have watched...
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#27: Bangkok Dangerous (2008)
Bangkok Dangerous lives up to its title: it’s set in Bangkok, there’s a recognisable quantity of danger, and it’s stupid and confusing. Nicolas Cage plays a lonely American hitman named Joe, who travels to Bangkok for One Last Job to kill some guys for some other guys. Then the guys who hired him also want to kill him or something and none of it makes a lick of sense. Joe is...
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#26: Next (2007)
For a film about a guy who can see through time, Next is pretty straight-forward. Rubbish Las Vegas magician Cris Johnson can see two minutes into his own future. He’s content to use his powers for gambling, but the FBI would prefer him to track down some nuke-toting Euro-terrorists. Unfortunately for them, Cris doesn’t want to get involved, and he isn’t sure he could help them...
January 2011
26 posts
4 tags
#25: Ghost Rider (2007)
Well, I thought as I settled in to watch Ghost Rider, this shouldn’t be too bad. I find most comic book movies are tolerable at the worst, the notable exception being Daredevil. Unfortunately, it turns out Ghost Rider is written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson, the same guy responsible for Daredevil, and as the film began and Sam Elliot told me about the time “one ghost rider was...
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#24: The Wicker Man (2006)
This day had to come eventually. Next up, it’s the film that spawned a thousand YouTube clips and a violent hatred of Nicolas Cage in almost everyone unfortunate to see it. Finally, it’s time for The Wicker Man. The Wicker Man is a terrible film, and notoriously so. The script is asinine, the acting is stilted, and as a remake it is wholly unnecessary. The original 1973 film was...
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#23: The Weather Man (2005)
I know what you’re thinking, and no, I didn’t misspell “wicker”. Despite the similar names, The Weather Man is a world away from its notorious cousin. This is a quiet, wintry little film, with no bees in sight. Cage plays Chicago weather man David Spritz (he changed his name for the job), a failed writer and amateur archer. His career is taking off, but his personal life...
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#22: Lord of War (2005)
For those of you who thought Leaving Las Vegas was too happy, here’s a film with lots of mutilated children. Lord of War stars Nicolas Cage stars as cynical arms dealer Yuri Orlov. The film, which spans several decades of Yuri’s rise and rise, is dominated by Cage’s laconic narration. Initially I took the omnipresent narration and year-skipping to be an introduction to the main...
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#21: National Treasure (2004)
In 2008, the BBC created an archaeological adventure drama called Bonekickers, which featured a team of passionate, globe-trotting archaeologists. Every week the archaeologists suffered a series of ludicrous conspiratorial plots in order to track down famous historical artefacts (among them Excalibur, the True Cross, and, er, Roman hand grenades) and then casually destroy them. Bonekickers was...
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#20: Matchstick Men (2003)
Not a lot of people have seen or even heard of Matchstick Men, which is a shame as it’s actually rather good. Con artist Roy Waller (Nicolas Cage) is financially successful, but struggles with a variety of mental disorders, including agoraphobia, compulsive behaviour and both physical and verbal tics (“Pygmies!”). However, when his psychologist helps introduce him to his...
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#19: Adaptation (2002)
Here’s one for the metafiction-loving lit students. Adaptation is a film about the film’s writer trying to write the film itself, which is an adaptation of a book which itself is about the writer of the book trying to write the book, which is based on an article. This review is a little late because I rather fittingly had writer’s block, which means I’m now blogging about...
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#18: Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Good morning, class, and welcome to your second day of GCSE drama. Can anybody guess-a what-a we-a will-a be-a studying-a today-a? Yes, you - what’s your name? Nicolas Cage? That’s right, Nic, today is Accent Day! Okay, Nic, let’s say you’re an Italian soldier called Captain Corelli. Why don’t you try giving your character an accent? Oh, well done, Nic, well done!...
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#17: Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
Once again, Nic Cage returns to Bruckheimerville with disappointingly inactive action flick Gone in 60 Seconds. Cage plays a retired car thief saddled with the absurd name Memphis Raines and a useless younger brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi). When Kip fails to deliver 50 stolen cars to a local crime boss, Memphis has one night to complete the job and save his brother’s life. Aside from his...
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#16: Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Just as City of Angels drags us into the shadowy valley of despair, Quality Cage returns, with a little help from Martin Scorsese.
Bringing Out the Dead fittingly begins with Van Morrison’s “T.B. Sheets”, drenching the film in the mood of a bluesy fever dream. Cage plays exhausted New York City paramedic Frank Pierce. Frank is tired of picking up the same miserable passengers...
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#15: City of Angels (1998)
Remember back in my Moonstruck review when I said that afterwards Cage stayed well away from romantic films? Unfortunately, City of Angels attempts to prove me wrong, with very unnerving results. City of Angels, a remake of the German film Wings of Desire, begins with an immensely creepy shot of Nicolas Cage watching a sick child, who he soon abducts. “Can Mommy come?” the girl asks....
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#14: Snake Eyes (1998)
Despite the cheese promised by its embarrassingly lurid poster and Nicolas Cage’s embarrassingly lurid shirt, Snake Eyes turns out to be a satisfactory conspiracy thriller. Cage plays the now unfortunately-named Rick Santoro, a corrupt Atlantic City cop who finds himself investigating a political assassination at a boxing match. Gary Sinise and Carla Gugino co-star as Rick’s military...
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#13: Face/Off (1997)
The one Nicolas Cage film that truly holds a special place in my heart is probably not one commonly regarded as his best. It’s not Leaving Las Vegas, or Adaptation, or Raising Arizona. No, it’s the one where he co-stars with John Travolta and says things like “When this is over, I want you to take this face and burn it.”
In Face/Off, FBI Agent Sean Archer (Travolta)...
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#12: Con Air (1997)
With the Oscar incident marking the mass extinction of the early low-budget Nic Cage films, we now enter the first Action Cage era, which continues through the end of the decade. After Leaving Las Vegas, Cage first went on to do Bay-Bruckheimer blockbuster The Rock, but I cut it from the 30 List in the interest of diversity: Con Air sounded like more fun, and I refuse to skip Face/Off. My...
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#11: Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Oscar night comes early to 30 Days of Nic Cage. At last, it’s time to watch the film that won him his only Academy Award: perky fish-out-of-water comedy Leaving Las Vegas, in which Cage stars as a hard-working but frumpy FBI agent who must pose as a beauty pageant contestant in order to - wait, that’s a nightmare version of Miss Congeniality. My apologies. In reality, Leaving Las...
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#10: Guarding Tess (1994)
Today is a milestone for 30 Days of Cage: with film #10, we’re already a third of the way through the marathon. Only 20 more to go! Time to crack open a bottle of champagne or a hive of bees to celebrate. Unfortunately, #10 is not a film worth celebrating. Guarding Tess is a limp comedy in which Nicolas Cage plays a secret service agent tasked with protecting a former First Lady, played by...
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#9: Deadfall (1993)
Sometimes it’s the smaller roles that leave the biggest impressions. Take abysmal crime drama Deadfall, which blandly stars Michael Biehn as con man Joe. One night Joe accidentally shoots his dad, who cryptically orders him to recover some stolen cake from his estranged uncle, and so Joe sets out to find his uncle and avenge his old man’s stolen cake. Yes, it’s as stupid as it...
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#8: Wild At Heart (1990)
Although both films came out in 1990, it doesn’t take long to work out that Wild At Heart is no Fire Birds. For one, Cage’s character sports the rather unique name of Sailor Ripley. Then there’s the opening scene, in which Sailor smashes another man into a bloody paste, accompanied by the music of thrash-metal group Powermad and the screams of Laura Dern. Several years later,...
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#7: Fire Birds (1990)
Fire Birds is a film about helicopters. Helicopters flying, helicopters shooting missiles, helicopters exploding. Helicopters flying into and out of sunsets. Terrible helicopter double entendres. Fire Birds has made me hate helicopters.
In Fire Birds, a group of American pilots are given a mission to destroy an unnamed drug cartel. We are repeatedly told that the cartel is based in South...
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#6: Vampire's Kiss (1988)
I pressed play on Vampire’s Kiss expecting to put an end to the run of decent Nic Cage films. Now that the credits have rolled, I can’t say if what I watched was at all decent, but it was definitely the most fun I’ve had so far. Raising Arizona couldn’t make me laugh as hard as I did at Vampire’s Kiss. Birdy couldn’t make me cry, but as I watched Cage eagerly...
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#5: Moonstruck (1987)
Ordinarily I probably would not watch a romantic comedy starring Nicolas Cage and Cher, but therein lies the magic of 30 Days of Nic Cage.
In Moonstruck, unusually hot accountant Cher gets engaged to the bland but cheerful Johnny, then immediately falls for his opera-loving baker brother Donny, played by Cage. She agonises, he pleads, a bunch of lively old coots teach her some lessons about...
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#4: Raising Arizona (1987)
This is the one where Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter steal a baby. Raising Arizona was probably the first Nicolas Cage film I ever saw: my parents rented it for me when I was a kid, and I remembered it fondly. Twelve years on, I’ve become the sort of person who’s happy to watch The Big Lebowski several times a year, so I still enjoyed Raising Arizona, although I haven’t got too...
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#3: Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Sad news, friends and readers. I had originally intended to watch The Boy in Blue, in which Cage plays a 19th century Canadian rower named Ned Hanlan, who, IMDb informs me, “was one of the first scullers to successfully utilize the ‘sliding seat.’” Riveting as that sounds, 19th century rower biopics are not especially popular, so nobody in town seems to stock The Boy in...
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#2: Birdy (1984)
One year after Valley Girl, Cage has worked his way up from teenage silliness to Sundance. An initial glance at Birdy’s plot summary left me wary: Cage plays battle-scarred ‘Nam vet Al, who struggles to coax his best friend out of a breakdown which has left him believing he is actually a bird. Visions of cage throwing melodramatic PTSD meltdowns and punching birds immediately danced...
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#1: Valley Girl (1983)
Our journey begins with Nicolas Cage’s first major film role as non-threatening punk-dork Randy in Valley Girl, playing the part of star-crossed lover with Deborah Foreman’s titular Valley girl Julie. Valley Girl is a fairly unexceptional teen love story, told mostly through montages, a solid new wave soundtrack and gratuitous shots of breasts, but its basic formula had a huge...
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Introduction
In early 2007, my best friend and I decided to rent Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man. Excited, we walked down to her local video store and began to scour the shelves, but we could only find the original. Bracing ourselves for the embarrassment, we approached the counter and asked the clerk if they stocked the Nicolas Cage remake. The clerk’s eyes immediately narrowed and he lurched...
