However, I can’t see the performances in much of his filmography as anything other than “pure acting”:
It's funny how your list skips over what I consider to be his strongest early work - Birdy, Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck - maybe because these aren't generally considered "Nic Cage" movies because his eccentricities don't overwhelm and define them the way some of the others have been. He's still quite eccentric in these, and I think his brand is already established through them. And even early on, we see evidence of the kind of excess (Zandalee, Deadfall) that can occur under weaker direction. Cage fans have a soft spot for these kinds of unambiguous disasters as well just for their goofy appeal.
I think Cage really went off the rails about the time he started going by "Nic", realized he hadn't paid any of his taxes in years, and started a steady diet of making four or five films a year. Since about 2006, Cage has made twice as many films has he had made up to that point, and maybe a half dozen of those have been worth mentioning along with his best work. His brand got boring.
It's funny how your list skips over what I consider to be his strongest early work - Birdy, Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck - maybe because these aren't generally considered "Nic Cage" movies because his eccentricities don't overwhelm and define them the way some of the others have been. He's still quite eccentric in these, and I think his brand is already established through them. And even early on, we see evidence of the kind of excess (Zandalee, Deadfall) that can occur under weaker direction. Cage fans have a soft spot for these kinds of unambiguous disasters as well just for their goofy appeal.
I think Cage really went off the rails about the time he started going by "Nic", realized he hadn't paid any of his taxes in years, and started a steady diet of making four or five films a year. Since about 2006, Cage has made twice as many films has he had made up to that point, and maybe a half dozen of those have been worth mentioning along with his best work. His brand got boring.
The only of those that I’ve seen is Raising Arizona, which was an accidental omission. I thought I’d typed it in. I really want to see PSGM but the Blu went OOP and I discovered my DVD is pan&scan, which makes it a big ol’ nope. I’m planning to pick up Moonstruck when the next Criterion sale hits and my house isn’t in shambles (that recent flash sale felt like a personal attack).
Given that he still delivers at least 1 film worth watching every year, like Color Out of Space and I’m assuming Willy’s Wonderland, I’m far from bored with him even if I get stuck with a Primal occasionally for my efforts.
Given that he still delivers at least 1 film worth watching every year, like Color Out of Space and I’m assuming Willy’s Wonderland, I’m far from bored with him even if I get stuck with a Primal occasionally for my efforts.
I wasn't very impressed with Color, and the ratio is much more like one decent film every three years for me.
The best version of the Lovecraft tale is still Die Monster Die, for my money.
I wasn't very impressed with Color, and the ratio is much more like one decent film every three years for me.
The best version of the Lovecraft tale is still Die Monster Die, for my money.
I think Color scratched the Gordon/Yuzna style Lovecraft itch at a time it was most needed.
Color, Spiderverse, Mandy and Mom & Dad cover the last few years and I’d argue are all more than decent. It isn’t till 2016 that the highwater mark dips low to Dog Bites Man but I didn’t hate that. I hear good things about the Trust from that year.
Definitely give Moonstruck a chance. I’ve enjoyed it over a few viewings and he’s actually pretty good in it. Not great, mind you, but decent.
I’m very interested in seeing it. I have a friend who claims it among her most favorite films so she’s always aghast that I, a devout Cage disciple, haven’t seen it. And she’s right.
I think Color scratched the Gordon/Yuzna style Lovecraft itch at a time it was most needed.
Color, Spiderverse, Mandy and Mom & Dad cover the last few years and I’d argue are all more than decent. It isn’t till 2016 that the highwater mark dips low to Dog Bites Man but I didn’t hate that. I hear good things about the Trust from that year.
I assume you mean Dog Eats Dog? Cage isn't bad in it but Dafoe was clearly the highlight. Shame the movie never tops its opening scene.
I assume you mean Dog Eats Dog? Cage isn't bad in it but Dafoe was clearly the highlight. Shame the movie never tops its opening scene.
That’s the one. The performances were definitely the only reason to watch it and Dafoe does get to shine. I love Dafoe and he is definitely among the actors that can go wherever you ask them but I just don’t understand how Schrader can write a movie with a wild man and not cast Cage in that role.
It was at least better than the released cut of Dying of the Light. I might’ve gotten that name wrong. My brain is conspiring against me as of late.
Pretty sure Mandy is the only Cage film on this list, and that seems fair to me. Moving on...
29. Killing Them Softly (2012, dir. Andrew Dominic)
I understand how some people look at the poor marketing in the poster above and can't help but be disappointed that this is not a film for enthusiasts of erect leather shotgun action, but rather a dispiriting look at some gangsters realizing how pathetic their lives and the system in which they operate really is. The thrill is gone, and the business no longer seems worth the trouble. This disillusion gives the film its vintage 70s feel, but it's not the nostalgic cool that people wanted. The film still has some tense scenes and a cold steel style, but is really a series of increasingly disheartening anticlimaxes. The acting is superb across the board - Pitt, Gandolfini, Mendelsohn, Liotta, McNairy - all different shades of spiritual exhaustion. The film, properly understood, is a devastating indictment.
Lanthimos films always feel like sick comedy to me, even those (Sacred Deer) that aren't explicably humorous. This one is a bit more comfortably comedic, although still pretty awkward in that way (like a joke at a funeral) that inexplicably makes the humor more irresistibly contagious. The absurd conceit (played with stone-straight face) has those without monogamous mates by a certain age turned into the animals of their choice. OK. Swallowing that, we also have a celibate resistence brewing on the fringe, and our otherwise alloromantic couple (Farrell and Weisz) spurned by both sides of this totally rational civil war of sexual mores. In other words, one of the true defining films of this absurdly tribalized decade.
I have been an ardent fan and defender of Killing Them Softly since it released. I was floored by it and couldn’t believe the mixed to negative response. It’s only become more topical in its subtext as well.
It also blew my mind when I realized it’s a quasi-sequel to the Friends of Eddie Coyle.
27. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, dir. Coen Brothers)
A film about a cat, Ulysses, and the journey of his hapless owner, a talented but selfish and resentful folk cad named Llewyn Davis, to track him down and maybe learn some valuable lessons about graciousness, forgiveness and responsibility along the way. Typical caricature humor from the Coens that's deeply moving in unexpected ways.
Yeah, the Higgins' connection. But I don't think Sam Shepard and Peter Boyle could possibly be the same guy.
I view it as a scuzzy James Bond-esque approach. Bernard Lee and Dench won’t be getting confused for one another but they’re both M and are one and the same...
And it’s neat. Dominick certainly had the film on his mind while making it.
Something of a psychedelic Grimm tale about the claustrophic obsession of artistic perfection from our current resident suffering artiste, Darren Aronofsky. A schizophrenic mix of archetype and hallucination and a committed peak performace from Portman renders the self-absorption of perfectionism into a darkly alluring fantasy. The film's primary flaw is that Aronofsky still refuses to acknowledge the deep debt the film has to Kon's Perfect Blue. Because....c;mon, man.
Something of a psychedelic Grimm tale about the claustrophic obsession of artistic perfection from our current resident suffering artiste, Darren Aronofsky. A schizophrenic mix of archetype and hallucination and a committed peak performace from Portman renders the self-absorption of perfectionism into a darkly alluring fantasy. The film's primary flaw is that Aronofsky still refuses to acknowledge the deep debt the film has to Kon's Perfect Blue. Because....c;mon, man.
I prefer Perfect Blue, but both films make for an excellent double feature.
Speaking of self-absorption, I have to admit, I kinda like it when certain films have their heads up their ass, as long as this constriction and moist suffocation is conveyed on screen. Similar to Black Swan, this is the flip side of the perfectionist dilemma, where perfection clearly becomes the opposite of liberation, where one's success becomes albatrosses of empty images and memes that fans and critics use to define (restrict) one's work in a process that's paradoxically venerative and hostile. A perfect film for an era of viral fame, and the audience's sometimes toxic worship/crucifixion fixation on celebrity.
His name is Max, Stu. Another bad take after another.
Except none of this is true. Fury Road was starring Mel Gibson in the 2001 and 2003 aborted shoots. Recasting Gibson was due to his age (and quite likely his then-recent scandals) and not for any purpose of correcting the character's arc. There's no indication, in the film or in Miller's interviews, that Fury Road was intended to erase, or "reset the arc" of, the two previous Mad Max films. Max's redemptive arc in each of the preceding two films is clear on even a cursory viewing: his choosing to do what's right over what's in his best interest. This shift to altruism is also his motive in Fury Road.
Nicely qualified.
How is that a big "moment of redemption" for Max?:
His car was being held hostage, Pappagallo refused to honor the deal he had made with the dead settler, he had been handcuffed and taken prisoner in the compound, and he was being held under siege by Lord Humungus and his men, so he had to offer something for them in order to be freed and get the gas he needed to continue as the lone survivalist drifter he already was. He only did it because he had no other choice in his situation, and there was zero altruistic motive there, since Max abandoned them to deal with Humungus as soon as he got what he wanted, there's no reason to think he wouldn't have just kept driving past the settlers' compound if he didn't need the gas, and it's no more a moment of redemption for him than when he tells the dying settler to save it since he's "just here for the gasoline":
As for Max in Fury Road, it doesn't matter whether Miller ever stated that the film was intended to reset his arc or not, because it's immediately obvious from the film itself that that's what it's doing; in Thunderdome, he was already a redeemed man judging from the way he tried to spare Blaster, tried to later live with the kids in order to help them survive, and eventually is willing to sacrifices himself so they can escape to create a new society, while the Max in Fury Road obviously has no interest in helping, or even just co-existing with anyone else at first, before he learns to care for others again over the course of the film, which is an obvious resetting of his arc back to where it was at the beginning of Warrior. But at any rate, sorry for not acting as if other people should treat my personal opinions as universal truths, y'know.
As for Max in Fury Road, it doesn't matter whether Miller ever stated that the film was intended to reset his arc or not
It matters if you want to claim that Miller wanted to reset the arc. I understand that you want Fury Road to reset the arc. But you can't speak to what Miller wanted to do without considering Miller's thoughts on the matter.
because it's immediately obvious from the film itself that that's what it's doing
It's not obvious at all, the most generous read is that we don't really have any explicit timeline to work with, but nothing that obviously sets the film back to pre-Warrior. But we do know, from Miller's own words, that Miller considered the human commodification angle as a progression, from the previous films' focus on oil, of this world's corruption.
But at any rate, sorry for not acting as if other people should treat my personal opinions as universal truths, y'know.
As the previously quoted statements show, you sometimes have a way of stating your opinion as factual truth. I, on the other hand, am a mere humble witness to the incontrovertible certainty that the supreme Mad Max film is Road Warrior, a truth as pure as snow-melted springs, bright as the sky is wide, I squint and I look away, but I know what I saw, and I'm not going to buy some hot kliegs just because you shine them from on high.
This is, I think, the most authoritative timeline I could find including a list of inconsistencies, and, although Fury Road is considered an alternate timeline ("Miller explained that it was simply easier for him to abandon the continuity of the original trilogy and tell the story of Max strictly as a campfire tale"), Miller also places it definitively after Thunderdome. ("Many times he hinted at the movie taking place '40 years from next Wednesday' as well as being set after Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome - both statements are true"). I'm not familiar with the comic books, but they appear to simply fill in gaps rather than revise the continuity.
Personally I prefer the idea that Hardy's Max is someone who's taken on the name of the legendary man Max Rockatansky mythologized as Mad.
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