The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (4/5 Stars)

 

It appears that I will be talking about Jackie Chan for two movie reviews in a row. That’s okay. I love talking about Jackie Chan. In the 1980s, Jackie Chan made a series of movies that were not great in any classical sense because the plots, to put it mildly, they were contrived, that is deliberately created to showcase martial arts sequences.)Also, since Jackie Chan made family movies, the action itself was contrived so that nobody died or was hurt too bad). This is the sort of thing that movie critics get haughty about. But, as far as I am concerned, these are great movies because what they excel at, the physicality, creativity, and humor of the martial arts is unsurpassed in cinema. Sometimes, a movies contrivance in pursuit of showcasing a certain excellence is the draw.

Enter “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” starring Nicolas Cage as himself. What Nicolas Cage has been doing in movies for the past forty years has led to many jokes, memes, and YouTube Compilations, the best of which has to be a four minute compilation entitled “Nicolas Cage Losing his Shit”. The thing is that Nicolas Cage has been in a lot of bad movies and is prone to taking acting choices that are interesting/loud. To take his most emotional scenes and cut them together without context is a lot of fun and also very unfair. Something seems to be happening to his celebrity that I can best define as the “Keanu Reeves is Sad” affect.

There was once a meme called “Keanu Reeves is Sad”. It was just a picture of Keanu Reeves on a bench eating a sandwich. He was alone and looked sad. It went around the internet and lots of people laughed. Keanu was a really good sport about it. Then those same people seemed to feel guilty about it, and ever since. Keanu has received an upswell of goodwill. They all went to see John Wick.

Now Keanu Reeves is a good action star and “John Wick” are good action movies. Nicolas Cage is not a good action star (I mean come on). He is though a good actor, or at least a very interesting one. He has won an Oscar that was deserved (Leaving Las Vegas). But what he is best known for is trying really really hard to elevate mediocre material. This basis of competence and the fact that we all made fun of him and feel bad about it, I think is the reason why “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” exists. It is a movie contrived to give Nicolas Cage as many moments of throw down acting as possible. That is the point of the movie. They threw in a kidnapping plot, a drug lord, and the CIA to tie the threads together. But what you want to know is this:

Does Nicolas Cage give a scene reading in a desperate and inappropriate manner? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage quit acting and cry about it? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage have conversations with an imaginary friend, himself 20 years younger? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage leave a man behind in dramatic fashion? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage take LSD? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage say “The bees! The bees!”? Yes (although that scene was perhaps too contrived even for me)

I was surprised by how well this movie worked. I think the main reason it does, is not Nicolas Cage, but who is acting opposite to him. Nicolas Cage is invited to a birthday party of a drug lord named Javier Martinez (played by Pedro Pascal) who is a big fan of Nicolas Cage. There are two levels of awkwardness that need to be handled here. One is how Pedro Pascal’s acts toward Nicolas. He has a true appreciation for Nicolas Cage, and is also aware that his level of appreciation might be creepy to Nicolas Cage, so he is shy and guarded about it (while also being really excited that he is hanging out with Nicolas Cage). Nicolas Cage, on the other hand, notices this and is cool about it. That is, he is not freaked out, and in a weird very Nicolas Cage way, decides to match the weirdness. A good example is the scene where Nicolas Cage is given a tour of Pascal’s Nicholas Cage memorabilia den. Pedro Pascal owns a life sized sculpture of Nicolas Cage from the movie Face/Off. Seeing this statue of himself in this guys den, Nicholas Cage calmly asks how much it costs.

“$5,000” says Pedro shyly.

“I’ll give you $20,000 for it.” says Nicolas Cage

“I’m sorry, it’s not for sale.” says Pedro (truly sorry and hoping not to hurt Cage’s feelings)

Then the contrived plot devolves into an action climax which turns into a movie that there is a premier of. Demi Moore plays his estranged wife. You get the idea. I recommend it.

Top Five Nicolas Cage Movies (No Particular Order)

1. Pig

2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

3. Leaving Las Vegas

4. Honeymoon in Vegas

5. Peggy Sue Got Married.

Pig (4/5 Stars)

 

The “John Wick” franchise stars Keanu Reeves as an assassin retired from the life whose dog is killed. So he comes back and kills a lot of people. “Pig” is sort of like that. It stars Nicholas Cage as a chef retired from the life whose truffle pig is pignapped. So he comes back and devastates a lot of people emotionally.

This is a simple movie. The setup is as described above. Nicholas Cage lives alone in the woods with his pig. He strolls the woods looking for perfect truffles which he sells to a young wanna-be restaurateur (Alex Wolff) for big money. The truffles are then used to enliven the dishes of pretentious Portland restaurants. Nicholas Cage speaks little and does less. He has no technology, no electricity or even a phone in the woods. Then one night, a couple of junkies break into his shack and steal his pig. Nicholas Cage goes into the city to search for it. The movie is competently made has some sublime moments and a few confusing scenes.

Since there really isn’t much action and the plot is bare boned, the movie relies on the acting. And here Cage and the supporting actors put in fine work. Nicolas Cage is well cast in the main role. The man himself has been sort of in the movie wilderness for over a decade now as well. He does about five films a year almost all of them straight to video (I hear they are terrible, but admit I have not seen any of them). As an explanation, he says that he needs the money (he has made bad financial decisions before like buying a castle in Bavaria) and that he likes to work (he says that when he does not have the structure of a work day, he can be pretty self-destructive on his own). So it works to see him come in from the woods, walking around the city and refusing the take a shower or put on a fresh set of clothes. In one particularly good scene he explains to his anxious co-star that none of this matters. Every 200 years the Pacific Northwest suffers a catastrophic earthquake, the last occurring approximately 200 years ago. Those that survive the earthquake will die in the resulting tsunami. Cage delivers this line in a perfect monotone. It’s pretty funny.

Playing the foil is Alex Wolff, who I have seen several times before (Hereditary, Jumanji, Patriot’s Day, Bad Education) but still did not immediately recognize. I think it might be because his skin color seems to vary wildly depending on the lighting. I’m sure to recognize him next time. He does a serviceable job of not really holding his own with the Nicolas Cage character.

Pig has some sublime moments usually consisting of two men in a room talking to each other about meaning, grief, and pigs. It also has some confusing scenes. At one point, we are transported into an underground fight club for restaurant workers. Except it isn’t really a fight club. The fights consist of one person tied up and the other just punching them a bunch of times. I’m still not sure what that was about. But overall, I would recommend this movie. It’s likely better than the other four Nicolas Cage starred in this year. (Although I must admit I am generally intrigued by a movie coming out next year called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent in which Nicolas Cage plays an actor named Nic Cage. That sounds fun.)

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (4/5 Stars)

Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse war written in part by Phil Lord. This man has been instrumental in bringing to prominence a very 2010s subgenre of movies. Previous examples of his work are 21 Jump Street and the Lego Movie. What these movies have in common is a consciousness of previous source material that goes beyond being meta and continues into a weird quirking of the "suspension of disbelief". These movies are insisting that a fake universe is real to its characters and that the fake reality rules should apply instead of real reality rules. A good example is Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, whereby the characters are sucked into a video game and realize the world they inhabit is not governed by physics or biology but video game rules.

You wouldn't think that should work in a dramatic sense because when anything is possible, there should be no stakes or suspense. But the rules have kind of changed in the last twenty years, in part by gamer culture (which I will speak of later) and in part by a TV show named Community. (Obviously there are a million different threads that produce culture, but I do feel this show must have been instrumental). Community introduced a character named Abed who was so ingrained in the workings of genre storytelling that he could seemingly predict what would happen in the very TV episode he was in. Other characters would chide Abed that reality wasn't like a TV show, but they would generally be proven wrong becuase they were characters in a TV show. Over-time, Community became less a TV show about what characters did in certain situations, and more about how already established characters would react if they found themselves in a completely different TV genre. That is the situations didn't change in Community. The TV show's genre, and thus the cliche genre rules, changed.

This type of storytelling probably wouldn't be possible without something like gamer culture. By that I mean, the ability for an entire audience of people to have spent more time studying the rules of a fake universes to the point where it might make sense for a story to be using different rules of realty. I guess you could trace this back to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth, the enormity and details of which were so developed that the place became real in the imagination. Nowadays, vast landscapes of fantasy come out every couple of months. Much of this can be crowd-sourced, with different people contributing their own stories. Think of the expansiveness of the Star-Wars Universe. These are not simply movies. There are dozens of novels and several 30-50 hour video games. Wookieepedia, the StarWars encyclopedia has granular descriptions of various races, planets, languages, specifications of different weapons and vehicles. There are historians of these fake universes who curate online encyclopedias and obsess over what is canon, a mind-boggling absurd notion that tries to differentiate the fake-actual events from the fake-fake events of a completely fictional storyline.

But amazingly, if the universe becomes detailed enough, its reality can become something approaching real and drama/pathos/humor can be derived from it. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse is such an example. Now you know this story as this movie will explain to you at least six separate times. Peter Parker was an unassuming teenager from Queens, New York. He was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spider-Man, a friendly neighborhood crime-fighter who works as a photographer for the Daily Bugle and falls in love with his highschool sweethear Mary Jane. He has a particularly good origin story that involves a beloved uncle that counsels him the "with great power comes great responsibility" and whose death occurs because of Peter's inaction. The original Spider-Man story has been told three times already in the last twenty years, first with Tobey Maguire, than with Andrew Garfield, and currently with Tom Holland in the main role. (As a NY Times critic pointed out, Spider-Man's defining characteristic is his youth, thus he must remain forever young, and thus the many reboots). Over the last sixty years, there have apparently been many spinoffs and satires of this story. In this movie, all of those universes merge.

The science is hazy but goes something like this: Every version of Spider-Man that has been created in any comic book or movie lives concurrently but in different universes. A bad guy named KingPin is creating a big machine underneath Brooklyn that will meld this multiverse. Spider-Man (the original Peter Parker) tries to stop him but gets sucked into the machine. This sucks the other versions of him into the original universe. Now instead of one Spider-Man, there are at least six.

I had no idea how out-of-hand this universe had become. Apparently, none of these characters are original to this movie. But we've got Miles Morales, teenager from Brooklyn. Gwen Stacey, best friend of Spider-Man who becomes Spider-Girl after Spider-Man's death, Peter B. Parker the middle-aged version of Spider-Man recently divorced and out of shape (voiced by Jake Johnson), Spider-Man Noir a black-and-white private detective Spider-Man from the 1930s (voiced by Nicholas Cage), Penni Parker, an anime japanese school-girl from the year 3100 who utilizes a Spider-Man robot, and finally, the one and only Peter Porker, Spider-Ham, a cartoon spider who was bitten by a radioactive pig, works for the Daily Beagle, and can float through the air while smelling a delicious pie (voiced by John Mulaney).

Visually, the movie is very impressive as it utlizes all of the different animation styles from the various Spidermen in the same movie. Animation, especially computer animation, makes for great action sequences, and this movie is very impressive in that capacity too. The heart of the story belongs to Miles Morales who we see gaining his powers, going through the tribulations of high school, and losing his beloved uncle. Certain stories are special to us. "If it was never new, and it never gets old, it's a folk song" says Llewyn Davis in Inside Llewyn Davis. This too applies to Spider-Man.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (4/5 Stars) December 20, 2009

Iguana Law in Full Effect

Watching Bad Lieutenant, I found myself unable to guess where the story was going. Being an avid movie watcher, not knowing what would happen next has become rarer over the years. Most movies follow a certain genre outline and then vary on the theme. I found no such outline here. The dialogue, the camera shots, the characters, the locations all felt like they had been built up organically. Of course I never saw the movie that this movie is based on. Maybe it isn't as original as I think it is. I am at least sure though that there weren't any long shots of iguanas in the first one. Surely that is a signature touch from the director Werner Herzog, a man who dearly loves his animals. (Grizzly Man, Aguirre Wrath of God)

Nicolas Cage stars as a newly promoted lieutenant. We first see him being honored for saving the life of an about to drown prisoner in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. During the ordeal he hurts his back. The doctor informs that he will be experiencing back pain. How long? he asks. He is told, for the rest of his life. The pain is so bad that after awhile the painkillers just won’t do. The lieutenant becomes addicted to cocaine, a substance he spends a good amount of movie time trying to figure out how to get more of. One way is to stake out a nightclub and shake down especially doped up people leaving from it in the name of the law. What a bad guy. 

But this movie isn’t just about addiction. Fifteen minutes into the film the lieutenant is put on a penta-homicide. A drug dealer named Big Fate (played by Xzibit) murdered five people in a house in New Orleans ninth ward execution style. Then there’s other subplots involving Cage’s girlfriend prostitute (Eva Mendes) troubles with a local crime lord, Cage’s several overdue gambling debts Cage, and difficulties in getting a witness to the murder to testify. It’s a lot on the plate for a constantly doped up cop to deal with. 

This is the first real great role that Cage has had in a long while. It’s the sort of performance that usually would get attention (he’s stooped over, high on crack, sporting an accent, and is way over the top!) if Nicolas Cage hadn’t already been honored for that sort of performance before (Leaving Las Vegas, that time with alcohol). 

The plot twists and turns and slowly but surely the cop gets deeper and deeper into a massive hole he’s digging for himself. Along the way we meet several familiar faces in supporting roles. Val Kilmer as his partner, Michael Shannon as the property room attendant, Fairuza Balk as a lady traffic cop, and Jennifer Coolidge as his beer guzzling mother in law. These are the type of character actors you like in every role you see them in and wish they had better and bigger roles in other movies. It’s always a pleasure to watch them interact with each other. 

And then what do you know, there is a somewhat happy ending, which possibly could happen in real life but almost never does in the movies. Why not? Because there is usually such a thing as movie justice. If a character has been bad the entire time, even a main character, he either repents, gets his comeuppance, or tragically receives both. Here that doesn’t really happen.

This is the first Herzog movie I have reviewed but it certainly isn’t the first I’ve seen. I have also seen Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, Fitzcarraldo, and Aguirre The Wrath of God. As different as all of those movies are, they all take place in an unforgiving world where men suffer at the uncaring whims of mother nature. This nihilism is sort of on anti-display here. The bad lieutenant gets away with everything and even gets to save the day while doing it. In short, he gets very lucky. Nature in the form of soulless crocs, iguanas, and other coldblooded reptiles simply look on. It sort of makes you feel like going to an aquarium, stare at the fish, and wonder in awe as to what the hell the world is all about.

World Trade Center 10/27/06

I have always been an Oliver Stone fan, from the first time I watched Platoon and JFK. After seeing those I quickly raided Blockbuster of everything Oliver Stone: Wall Street, Midnight Express, Scarface, Nixon, Natural Born Killers. Ive even seen Any Given Sunday and somewhat like Alexander. This movie is so different from the rest of those movies. So different.
There was somewhat a consensus when this movie was first mentioned that it shouldnt be made. It was too early and please anybody but Oliver Stone. A gifted filmmaker yes, but his works are great thrillers that include angry monologues, sensationalist spectacles, and controversial topics. How can that type of filmmaker be trusted with September 11th. Most people thought it couldnt. I can truly say Oliver has proved everyone wrong.
This movies main feeling isnt fear or anger or pathos of any kind. What permeates this movie is love. Its a whole big fat basket of good American apple pie and Jesus love. He doesnt show planes hitting the towers, he doesnt mention terrorists at all. He limits the movies view toward those that responded to the attacks with only the desire to help. The most cynical piece of language uttered is the word "bastards." This is said by a cop in Sheboygan, Wisconsin who afterwards took his whole company to New York, set up a barbeque at ground zero, and fed everyone.
Nicolas Cages performance is also a bit of a triumph. It probably wasnt easy creating a character who doesnt move for that last hour and a half of the film. 
I assume that every character in this film is an actual person. That makes me proud to be an American. I felt proud when the cops stepped forward to go into the building and try to save some of the people even though the sight of the fire was especially frightening. There is also a great scene in which Jimeno is carted out of the hole and there is a great line of firemen and cops there to help move him quickly and safely to the hospital. This is the type of goodness that moves people. I would guess that most people who cry at this movie are probably doing so because they are touched by the charity of those involved in the aftermath not because of the horrible acts that occured beforehand.

Lord of War 09/24/05

I was surprised when I entered the theater. I thought I was going to see an action film. What lay in store instead was a moral film about violence. For a movie that has alot of killing and sex, this film also has alot of conscience. In fact it pounds the ugly truth about arms sales the entire time. What a film. It is unique in a sense. The main character is played by the charming NIcolas Cage. He's funny, he's smart, he knows what he's doing. But he's also a deplorable human being. We may laugh at his charm and antics in the first hour, but after awhile it dawns on us how bad this person is. It's odd to hate and love a person at the same time. Although it is enjoyable to watch him, half way through the movie I was hoping by the end he would get shot or contract Aids. A happy ending for this character would just be depressing. Anyway if you enjoy thinking, this is one action movie that just might work for you.