Latest Updates - Nicolas Cage

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

What on earth were they thinking?!!!

...Not regards the movie itself, but giving this great movie this crappy title.

If you want to hamstring your movie before it's even released, why not give it the same principle title as an already cult classic movie (Starring Harvey Keitel), to make people think it's a sequel to that one... not only that, add the extra qualifiers in there too, to make it sound like cheapo, straight to DVD bargain bin fodder movie that is going to be Godawful?

And I imagine it is this very thing that has put people off watching this from the get go, and why it continues to be overlooked.

Of course, it shares the idea of a "Bad Lieutenant" as does the other one, but this has plenty of it's own beats.

So do yourself a favour, and ignore the title!

Look instead, at the fact that this has, perhaps, the most Nicholas Cage performance Nicholas Cage has ever given... in that it is all, and everything he is and does in one movie, like this is what he's been aiming at all his career, as his character begins somewhat soberly enough, although somewhat morally corrupt, but then goes spiralling out of control with ever crazier antics, and behaviour - Cage goes bouncing off the walls eventually, but it's his portrayal of a man trying to contain it at first, and then the transition to Mr. crazy man that blows you away.

Add to that, it's Directed by Werner Herzog.

Werner Herzog... Nicholas Cage.

....Nicholas Cage... Werner Herzog.

That's the movie you're getting.

....And that's got to be worth a couple of hours of anyone's time.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

This is a wonderful, beautiful movie.

To characterise it, it is like a beautifully shot, slow-burn, lo-fi, poetic, and non-violent (relatively speaking) / pacifist John Wick.

Man in woods with truffle pig has said pig stolen, in a violent raid one night, so he sets out to get it back, with the aid of his young flashy truffle buying entrepreneur associate.

Given how prolific Nicolas Cage is these days, and how a certain amount of stereotyping, and therefore self-perpetuating type-casting means he more often than not turns up in the nuttier end of the movie spectrum, and being nutty and extreme in his performances... You forget he is capable of this kind of deep, understated, subtlety in his acting, which here, is sublime.

...He really captures the essence of a man who has been alone too long in the woods, without much, if any human contact, and so has become a little glacial and non-communicative, or at the very least, non-expressive.

(So the polar opposite of what you have come to expect from him - Needs to do more of this kind of role!)

But the movie, and the story itself, is brilliantly told, starting, as it does, with that Wickian style of simple motivating factor, to set the man in motion, and by degrees, as he goes back into society, and we see him and the character he has become, now set in stark contrast against the world he left behind long ago, and also, the revelations that this brings, as he goes... We learn who he once was, and how and why he went wild in the first place.

The story, therefore, is not about the pig, it's about him.

(The pig is just the reason for him to continue to exist)

And other than the obvious Wick set up, for some reason, Jack And The Beanstalk popped in to my head, as if the Giant succeeded in coming down to earth to retrieve his goose that laid the golden eggs... so a slight suggestion of this being a fable, or modern Neo-Noir (as they call this kind of mood movie these days) fairy tale.

But this is a very artistically shot and made movie, that would probably, in terms of texture, and tone, sit happily alongside something like Drive, or You Were Never Really Here.

Brilliant, and I shall certainly be watching this one again.