Let me introduce you to Nicholas Cage, father to Weston and Kal-El Cage, nephew to Francis Ford Coppola, cousin to Sofia Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, and ruler of the Universe.
No seriously, all that's true.
Cage has been subject to quite a lot of ridicule in the last few years. People tend to hate him, and when asked why most of them answer with a film title.
It's rarely ever the same film.
From Ghost Rider to The Wicker Man, Face/Off to The Rock, Knowing to Season of the Witch and The Sorcerer's Apprentice to Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Nick has wowed audiences, and not in the good way. People take exception to his over-the-top moaning and groaning, but rarely pay attention to anything of worth the poor guy turns out.
Anytime somebody laughs at Drive Angry, I come right back at them with Adaptation. Thought he was ridiculous in National Treasure? I'm guessing you forgot he was in Kick-Ass. Thought World Trade Center was limp, you've obviously never heard of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Raising Arizona or Leaving Las Vegas.
Now, you may accuse me of selective criticism, I've hit this block in my argument before, but how I get over it is this; Nicolas Cage is like a river, a wild beast.....actually no.
Nicolas Cage is an explosion.
That's exactly what he is. He walks onto set, reads the script once, throws it to his side the shouts out to the people present "Are we ready to do this?" People panic, they hastily try to turn their cameras on so that they can capture this performance, but too late, he has exploded.
The fallout is horrible. The cast, crew (and sometimes the audience) are wandering around in a daze, only able to hear him shout; ringing in their ears "I'm like a prickly pear, I'm like a prickly pear". They cant remember what his hair was like, they can't get his dripping flesh to come off their faces. Their suffocating in Cage and all they can taste is him in the back of their throats.
Such is his power, his energy as an actor and goddammit I have to say I admire it. Nowhere else in popular culture can we find anyone who gives themselves so wholly to the role they are given. Being a sometime actor myself I feel ashamed to be in the same world as Nick Cage, and not because he's awful, but because he outshines the rest of us.
The problem with Jor-El, sorry, I mean Nick, is that he's too powerful. Such a blast of energy he gives to his performances, it is rare for a person to come along who's able to deal with him. But when they do, the results can be amazing.
Look at what Kaufman and Jonze did with him in Adaptation. (The only other film to gain him attention as an actor from the Academy.) He is so amazingly riveting in that film, and completely pulls off not only two authentic-seeming separate characters, but also a believable relationship between them. Check out his performance in Herzog's Bad Lieutenant. I sat down to re-watch it last night and found myself amazed as I realised how subtle he is in the film. I only realised upon re-watching that the way he holds his body throughout the whole film screams back-pain, which is debatably the root of all his character's problems.
Also, when has anyone ever been so suavely, extremely Over The Top, yet still in their comfort zone? A romantic would say that Cage is on a quest to push out the comfort boundaries for the ordinary Hollywood star. I wouldn't quite go that far, I mean the guy wants to make a lot of money, but he certainly has his very own way about it.
In my mind I see Jonze and Kaufman grabbing an arm each of the Cage and ripping him bodily into both Charlie and Donald. I can see Herzog violently wrestling him like a bear (as Herzog probably does in his spare time, trying to out do the memory of poor Timothy Treadwell). The basic gist of what I'm trying to say here is that Cage is great, but insane, and to bring him back down to our level, he must be controlled. Like a Nuclear Reaction, when it gets out of control, it's good for nobody except the explosion.
So, long Blog short, my point is that Nicolas Cage is supreme, but must have that strong presence to reign him in, to sometimes tell him NO, and to give him a quick, but firm tap on the ass when he does well.
Right, I'm done.
Enjoy these, you may have seen them, if you only want to watch one, my favourite is the last one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eExfV_xKaiM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKp29ZcslOM
PJD OUT!
P.S. Remember, somebody out there had to write and direct all of those films that are terrible. Something to think about.
Wednesday 9 May 2012
Monday 7 May 2012
Marvel's Avengers Assemble feat. Jeremy Renner As Way Too Hot For An Ordinary Man
Avengers, eh? Pretty awesome, eh?
Yes, Avengers hit our screens in Ireland recently with quite a bang, and I have to say it deserved it, I'm not going to turn this into some sort of film review show, but I will be talking about films a lot, FYI.
So anyways, there has been some interesting debate online about who is better Whedon or Nolan? It's pretty entertaining to read I must admit. The best I saw was when a naive YouTuber posted on an Avengers trailer that he believed the film was good, but thought Nolan had perfected the comic book movie. One had to give the comment special permission as it had been so inundated with 'Negative Votes' and 'Spam Reports' that it had been blocked to protect ordinary Youtubers from the horrors of independent thought. Oh, YouTube, we can only admire.
Fanboys out there flock to Whedon and say that Avengers is the best super hero film ever made (a statement I'm guilty of myself after having seen it), not aware that in two months time they'll be gargling Nolan's balls and throwing out their porn ISPs for pictures of Tom Hardy in a banana-hammock.
My own opinion has fluctuated, however. In the beginning I loved it and thought nobody could best it, but then a dear friend remarked on the perfection of Batman Begins and it got me thinking. Both of the films are as close to perfect as one is going to find when it comes to comic book films, but both are also very different from each other and I had a slow, most probably belated, revelation as to what was going on.
Marvel's Avenger's Assemble, to use its full title, is the peak of what one could call the classical comic book/super hero film. The tropes of the films are now set in stone, after years of mediocre to bad superhero films (Captain America, Thor, Green Lantern, X3: The Last Stand and Spiderman 3) we have finally gotten the huge crossover film that everyone has been waiting for, and it has delivered. But instead of widening the door for more of the same type of film, which it most definitely will do, I see Avengers' biggest plus side being as a marker for the slow demise of the classical super hero genre. No more will we see tired directors and uninformed screenwriters coming together on half-baked insults to loved characters, what Avengers has done is proved that a movie like this can work, but most importantly that it can work with a little artistic integrity behind it.
Note that I said the demise of the classical hollywood super hero film. I think we will see from now on more super hero films that will follow Nolan's theory of reinvention and re-defining the characters with a sharper auteurist twist. Say what you will about Avengers, blockbuster, crowd pleaser, whatever, it was most definitely a Whedon film and hopefully we'll see a recurrence of what Hollywood went through over 40 years ago when they decided to start giving new, interesting and relevant artists money. This frame of mind produced some really great movies like Taxi Driver. Hey Hollywood, Martin Scorsese says thanks. But seriously though, we have already seen super hero films swerving for something a lot more promising with films like Kick-Ass, Red, Super and obviously the Dark Knight trilogy.
Also, to further prove that people like what people like, not what Hollywood likes, Whedon proved himself even further with Cabin in the Woods. How frikkin' awesome was that, eh? eh? eh?
Okay, I'll stop doing that.
No seriously, though I really think he has not only proved that he can make money for his boss, but also has opened up the doors for a little more experimentation with pop-culture auteurs.
Also, does anyone else out there think he made Avengers intentionally dark? To combat 3D? Anyone?
And what do people think about a Firefly reunion? Many people hold out a hope and light a candle in their windows ever night for one, but personally I don't think it'll happen, I mean the ending of the last film was just so happy, particularly when Wash said "Hey Zoe, let's go home and be in love forever and never stupidly die because our God is a grim and pessimistic one and we can have kids and I'll teach them how to fly without any steering apparatus and which switches to flick and the importance of dinosaurs and how to grow moustaches, but only in flashbacks, and you can teach them how to kick ass and be awesome and have curly hair. Yea, let's do that. And they'll never ever ever say anything ridiculous about soaring leaves on the wind. Okay? Okay? OKAY? Good." I mean, where can you go from there?
Love!
P.S. Sorry for the dramatic blog Title 'Evil be Thou My Good'. Dunno what I was thinking. I'll get around to explaining that soon. After I HAVE RULED YOU PUNY HUMANS IN WORLD DOMINA-no, sorry, I mean next time or whatever.
Second Love!
Yes, Avengers hit our screens in Ireland recently with quite a bang, and I have to say it deserved it, I'm not going to turn this into some sort of film review show, but I will be talking about films a lot, FYI.
So anyways, there has been some interesting debate online about who is better Whedon or Nolan? It's pretty entertaining to read I must admit. The best I saw was when a naive YouTuber posted on an Avengers trailer that he believed the film was good, but thought Nolan had perfected the comic book movie. One had to give the comment special permission as it had been so inundated with 'Negative Votes' and 'Spam Reports' that it had been blocked to protect ordinary Youtubers from the horrors of independent thought. Oh, YouTube, we can only admire.
Fanboys out there flock to Whedon and say that Avengers is the best super hero film ever made (a statement I'm guilty of myself after having seen it), not aware that in two months time they'll be gargling Nolan's balls and throwing out their porn ISPs for pictures of Tom Hardy in a banana-hammock.
My own opinion has fluctuated, however. In the beginning I loved it and thought nobody could best it, but then a dear friend remarked on the perfection of Batman Begins and it got me thinking. Both of the films are as close to perfect as one is going to find when it comes to comic book films, but both are also very different from each other and I had a slow, most probably belated, revelation as to what was going on.
Marvel's Avenger's Assemble, to use its full title, is the peak of what one could call the classical comic book/super hero film. The tropes of the films are now set in stone, after years of mediocre to bad superhero films (Captain America, Thor, Green Lantern, X3: The Last Stand and Spiderman 3) we have finally gotten the huge crossover film that everyone has been waiting for, and it has delivered. But instead of widening the door for more of the same type of film, which it most definitely will do, I see Avengers' biggest plus side being as a marker for the slow demise of the classical super hero genre. No more will we see tired directors and uninformed screenwriters coming together on half-baked insults to loved characters, what Avengers has done is proved that a movie like this can work, but most importantly that it can work with a little artistic integrity behind it.
Note that I said the demise of the classical hollywood super hero film. I think we will see from now on more super hero films that will follow Nolan's theory of reinvention and re-defining the characters with a sharper auteurist twist. Say what you will about Avengers, blockbuster, crowd pleaser, whatever, it was most definitely a Whedon film and hopefully we'll see a recurrence of what Hollywood went through over 40 years ago when they decided to start giving new, interesting and relevant artists money. This frame of mind produced some really great movies like Taxi Driver. Hey Hollywood, Martin Scorsese says thanks. But seriously though, we have already seen super hero films swerving for something a lot more promising with films like Kick-Ass, Red, Super and obviously the Dark Knight trilogy.
Also, to further prove that people like what people like, not what Hollywood likes, Whedon proved himself even further with Cabin in the Woods. How frikkin' awesome was that, eh? eh? eh?
Okay, I'll stop doing that.
No seriously, though I really think he has not only proved that he can make money for his boss, but also has opened up the doors for a little more experimentation with pop-culture auteurs.
Also, does anyone else out there think he made Avengers intentionally dark? To combat 3D? Anyone?
And what do people think about a Firefly reunion? Many people hold out a hope and light a candle in their windows ever night for one, but personally I don't think it'll happen, I mean the ending of the last film was just so happy, particularly when Wash said "Hey Zoe, let's go home and be in love forever and never stupidly die because our God is a grim and pessimistic one and we can have kids and I'll teach them how to fly without any steering apparatus and which switches to flick and the importance of dinosaurs and how to grow moustaches, but only in flashbacks, and you can teach them how to kick ass and be awesome and have curly hair. Yea, let's do that. And they'll never ever ever say anything ridiculous about soaring leaves on the wind. Okay? Okay? OKAY? Good." I mean, where can you go from there?
Love!
P.S. Sorry for the dramatic blog Title 'Evil be Thou My Good'. Dunno what I was thinking. I'll get around to explaining that soon. After I HAVE RULED YOU PUNY HUMANS IN WORLD DOMINA-no, sorry, I mean next time or whatever.
Second Love!
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