Hiatus

I hope all is well with my readers! It has been a shaky few months on this blog as new beginnings have been on the horizon for a few months now. My schooling is almost complete, and I am about to transition from being a student to becoming an instructor! This has meant a lot of planning on my end having to take place - the interview process, the hiring/onboarding process, and the preparation of my class materials for the upcoming semester at a new University. I had hoped to have made some updates during the "summer break" that I had, but that did not seem to work out as planned. I had also projected that at the pace I was operating, I could have completed my project by now - how lofty a goal was this! 

Where does that leave the state of the blog? I will continue to post reviews as time permits, but gone are the days where I can wait until my deadlines to complete lesser assignments and use my time as I please. I have new responsibilities, new career trajectories, and new opportunities that require my full attention. but I am not forgetting this project. I will continue to review movies as I have spare moments - I have a review for Longlegs coming in the next few days. But life must take precedence over my spare projects. 

My support page is still available for those that want to use the power of the coin to encourage my next review, especially if the reviews trickle down and dry up like they have the past few months. I would like to continue this project, and your financial support would help guilt me into producing more content. I do not have recurring payments set up - I don't want to put anyone in the situation where they have the option of spending money with no return. This will be individual transactions either for a specific review, or just a tip of appreciation. However, I will continue to release reviews for free if no one pays me to do it. I started this project over one year ago for a personal goal, and it will remain a passion project. Never feel obligated to tip me.

That is probably too many disclaimers, but I will summarize: 

1. I will continue to review Nic Cage movies, the process may just be slow;
2. I will not charge for review access, ever;
3. But I do have an incentive process if you want more content.

City of Angels (1996) - Review

City of Angels starts as if it is going to take you along Nic Cage's angelic duties as Seth, trying to heal the citizens of Los Angeles, as he discusses the various things that angels have missed their opportunity of participating due to the duties they have been assigned from the beginning of man with another angel, Cassiel. Cassiel, played by the late Andre Braugher, plays the straight man against Seth's fascinations toward a human surgeon, Maggie, portrayed by Meg Ryan. This fascination towards Maggie is mostly because she does what humans rarely are able to do: catch a glimpse of their angelic presence before their appointed time of death.

Seth's developing romantic interest in Maggie is sad, not because she cannot interact with him - she eventually can at Seth's willing projection - but because he cannot feel anything that his temporary human form can touch. This makes his longing to have human experiences even stronger, especially when he meets a former angel, a Mr. Messinger (Dennis Franz), who explains his life as one that was filled with joy once he settled down  with his now wife, whom he has never told of his former nature.

City of Angels was a fun watch nearly thirty years later; it was a breath of fresh air to sit back and relax for almost two hours without my senses being assaulted by superfluous and rushed plot tensions. The plot tension was evident from the very beginning - Seth's desire to live like the humans do, but reluctant to give up his calling and the associated blessings that accompany it. What follows are the philosophical musings between humans and angels as to which calling is more noble: to usher souls to their final resting place or to exhibit free will and experience the desires of the flesh. I put up with a lot of incredulous contrivances when it comes to fiction, however, this conceit was too much for me. While it is a charming exploration of a sort of spiritual Romeo & Juliet, this rendition romanticizing the union of angels and humans, something that flies in the face of the orthodoxy that I hold to. I didn't want to make it too much a sticking point in my review, however it just warranted a mention because of its importance to me. Otherwise, if that doesn't bother you, City of Angels is well worth the tonal relief that it can give you, a far cry from modern reliance on action.

Birdy (1984) - Review

Birdy is a drama film starring Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage. It centers around the efforts of Sgt. Al Columbato to help rehabilitate his childhood friend whom everyone refers to as "Birdy", for his fixation on birds throughout his adolescence. Sgt. Columbato is fresh from his initial recovery from facial reconstruction surgery caused by mines on the Vietnam battlefield and is desperate to regain a sense of normalcy after he himself starts to struggle with losing grip with reality as he tries to reach his friend.

Where Racing with the Moon took a look at the innocence of men before they go to war, Birdy picks up observing the effects of war on the men coming back. This could not be more true since Columbato is himself being observed for troubling psychological behavior while trying to bring his friend back from an already shattered state. Even without any flashbacks, Cage is able to show that Columbato and Birdy have a deep relationship, bringing out an emotional range that I praise in his later movies in one of his first feature films. Al and Birdy form a deep bond in their high school years after Birdy is confronted by local kids who play pick-up baseball in an adjacent lot. After some initial teasing, Al finally puts an end to the torment as he realizes that there is no reason for Birdy to be subjected to it; even though he initially strikes up a friendship to gain a profit by training carrier pigeons, Al sticks with Birdy as Birdy's fascination turns into an eventual hyper-fixation with avian life. I was deeply saddened by Birdy's development in the film, but not because he does anything negative - his fixations are constantly combated by his mother and other children, while there are few people in his life that offer him unconditional love and support (his father and Al). Because the flashbacks take place in what I could assume would be the 50s or 60s, due to the immediate Vietnam connection, mental health care was most likely stigmatized and not very accessible or welcoming for Birdy to achieve any diagnosis that would help him cope with society. The tragedy of Birdy, the character, is that at the start of the movie it is established that he may be too far gone already. Learning more about his fixation with birds cements this already revealed tragedy as Birdy's mind is too fractured and he has finally gotten his wish, which he has had since a teenager, to become a bird.

I was enthralled by Birdy. I didn't know what I was getting into by looking just at the poster for years, but I wasn't expecting a psychological drama. Modine's portrayal of Birdy throughout the film is captivating, especially when his portrayal of the nonresponsive Birdy is a vehicle of progression of character for Cage's Sgt. Columbato. Modine having to handicap himself, to force himself to strip away all emotion during the main plot is a testament to his strengths as an actor. The strength of Birdy is cemented in its abrupt ending, where the audience is left unsettled by the ambiguity. Has the psychosis ended or has Al succumbed to his own? The credits rolling immediately forces the audience struggle with this question, and has forced me to consider it as well for almost a week before sitting down to write this review. I wanted to have an answer as to what I believe the ending of the movie meant to generate a discussion, but nothing I could reason out was satisfying as a conclusion as the filmmakers intended. I will recommend this movie because of the tension that it is still able to generate in audiences nearly forty years after its release. Despite being one of Cage's earliest of movies, Birdy continues to showcase his potential as a leading man even as Cage featured in another pre-war drama (Racing with the Moon) in the same year.

Racing with the Moon (1984) - Review

Racing with the Moon is a drama film - directed by Richard Benjamin - set in a small California coastal town. Sean Penn plays Henry "Hopper" Nash, alongside Nic Cage's Nicky, who both have signed up for the United States draft during World War II. In this liminal time, Hopper and Nicky still have their remaining time to explore whatever youth they still have. During this final exploration, Hopper falls in love and develops a relationship with Caddie Winger, portrayed by Elizabeth McGovern, despite his and Nicky's unfounded assumptions that she is of a higher social status than them. 

Racing with the Moon feels as though it was tailor made for me: it is a slice of life film of a forgotten time, and a forgotten place, that plays out low and slow. I have waxed on about the importance of expressing real human stories in previous reviews, but Racing with the Moon particularly shines in its authenticity of expressing some taboo subjects on screen. Sure, there are clumsy attempts at romance by Cage's Nicky, but these attempts are to flesh out his already established explosive nature - where he nearly lays out Crispin Glover in the beginning of the movie in the bowling alley which Nicky and Hopper work. But clumsy romance is what you might expect of someone who is already known to be hot-headed, let alone a teenage boy on the edge of becoming a man forged by war. The relationship between Hopper and Caddie is pure joy to experience despite the eventual reveal that Caddie doesn't belong to a rich family, but her mother works as a housemaid for the rich family whose house they live in. For almost the entire movie, their relationship is forged and continues despite their individual insecurities about the information they both possess about themselves and each other. Hopper's relationship is the mature counterpart to to Nicky's brash and immature nature. Even moments where Nicky could and should be shamed for callously breaking cultural taboos, he is only shamed by his own immaturity, which adds more weight and evidence to the maturity of other characters.

As stated above, I love a good slice of life movie, and Racing with the Moon captures the spirit of the pending loss of innocence of the two male leads and the struggles that they faced before truly letting the innocence slip away. Nothing that occured in the movie felt inauthentic. In fact, the suspension of disbelief that I usually try to have with film solidified into something more; I was truly lost and captivated in the narrative captured by the filmmakers. I wasn't looking at a fresh Nic Cage, I was looking at Nicky. I didn't see Sean Penn, I saw Hopper. I didn't see any incongruities in the performances displayed and was allowed to be enchanted by the pure art before me. Racing with the Moon stands as an example of what many films aspire to do to its viewers, and what very few achieve, even today. You would do well, regardless of any affinity to Nic Cage, to watch Racing with the Moon and get lost in its exploration of youthful joy, even in the face of certain danger.

Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) - Review

The movie commands great star
power, but fails to capitalize with a
lackluster execution.

Honeymoon in Vegas is a romantic comedy movie starring Nic Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker, and James Caan. Nic Cage plays an everyman private detective, Jack Singer, who is deeply afraid of marriage due to his mother's insistence at her deathbed that he remain unmarried. This upsets his longtime girlfriend, Betsy (Parker), who has waited a significant amount of time for Jack to come around. Under threat of Betsy leaving him, Jack suggests they go to Las Vegas that weekend and get married. Jack's anxiety continues to push the marriage further in the day, only for him and Betsy to be trapped in the plans of a seasoned gambler, Tommy Korman (Caan),  who is determined to take Betsy as his own wife through an underhanded poker scheme.

Honeymoon in Vegas is a fun and snappy movie, but it is a movie that shows its 31 years of age in every sense. Being born a couple years after this movie was made, I am really only aware of how the culture boomed technologically towards the year 2000. I bring this up in order to highlight the reasons why the movie ultimately falls short for me; save for the last maybe 20 years, humanity has never been so connected with each other than they are now. The movie does attempt to address the fact that Jack does have limited ways of tracking Betsy and Tommy across the country as Jack and Betsy's relationship falls apart, especially since Jack is an established and mildly successful private detective, but I ended up having to throw my hands up as he always is one step behind finding the new pair through pure serendipity. At the end of the day, I have to admit that Honeymoon in Vegas is supposed to be viewed with whimsy and aloofness, otherwise I may find myself to be more judgemental than I should. I did find joy looking back at Cage's involvement in this movie with a Vegas setting, most particularly with the international Elvis convention subplot subtly poking its head in at every turn. I say I find this vicarious joy because I know of Cage's long obsession with the King of Rock and Roll, ELvis Presley. This is especially true of when the subplot comes to the fore at the end of the movie as Jack has to join a plane full of Flying Elvises in order to get back to Vegas in time for thwarting Tommy's plan to marry Betsy. Having to don the light-up flight suit seems like a culmination of everything outside of Jack to gain the confidence he needs to show Betsy just how much he does care for her. 

I have to mention the performances in the movie briefly. There is not much for me to say about the performances in the movie, as the characters all seem average to me; even the ever-so-successful professional gambler, Tommy Korman, seems like an average guy toward the end of the movie. Beside the many Elvises sprinkled throughout the movie, the only character actor present is Ben Stein, who portrays a nameless older man whom Jack berates for spending ages to purchase an airline ticket weeks in advance, an older man who is an obstacle for Jack as he tries to pursue Betsy from town to town. 

I remember enjoying this movie when I watched it years ago, as I added it to my collection, and I still do enjoy it. It is a fun romp, but trying to think about the movie critically brings my excitement to recommend this to anyone else down to almost nil. It is a weird point in Cage's filmography, as he is transitioning to more mature roles - as opposed to his many coming-of-age roles of the 1980s. I feel as though he is trying to find the roles that he best inhabits and can bring to life on the big screen, but Honeymoon in Vegas is not something I can recommend to anyone today, 31 years later. It is a product of its time in the most negative sense, and is not a diamond in this rough patch of filmography.

Raising Arizona (1987) - Review

Raising Arizona is a crime/comedy film directed by Joel Coen starring Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, William Forsythe, and Frances McDormand. Nicolas Cage stars as H.I. McDunnough, a repeat convenience store robber, who falls in love with a police officer named Ed (Hunter) and attempts to live an honest life and start a family. The two are told that they are unable to have children and set out to kidnap one of a set of quintets that are made famous because of their association with a local businessman, Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson) and his wife (McDormand). The couple encounter setback after setback as reality crashes in around them as authorities seek the safe return of the lost Arizona baby.

Films from the same era usually fall victim to feeling dated because of the prominent use of current media and technology to appeal to the audience of that time. The focus of Raising Arizona is reliant on the situational comedy that H.I. and Ed find themselves in. The opening monologue establishes the unlikely couple, felon and police, and establishes that what you are going to see is due to the complexities of their different backgrounds. Despite their differences, the two characters work so well together as they try to navigate the consequences from illegally obtaining their new baby boy. Cage shines as he can be as zany as he can be while inhabiting this role, as being an oddball is a requirement to be a character in this movie; his command over the range of the extremes of the broad spectrum of emotions is a positive in Raising Arizona. John Goodman and William Forsythe as escaped convicts also have great chemistry with Cage and Hunter and, until later on in the movie, they seem to be neutral observers that do not threaten the constitution of the new family. The humor sprinkled throughout keeps the action moving at a great pace and obfuscates the timers running in the background of when the next thing is supposed to go wrong. The story the movie tells is incredibly tight; there is no superfluous action, and everything has a purpose. Even when there are quiet moments in the movie, the audience knows that there is something lurking around the corner due to the precarious situation H.I. and Ed find themselves in. Raising Arizona is a master class in storytelling and remains a classic piece of film history nearly 35 years later. This is a piece of Cage history that should not be missed by anyone, whether they are engaging in a similar project or not. 

It killed me to not write so much about the ins and outs of this movie - I just imagined someone clicking on this review hoping to get something more than what this review actually turned out to be. For someone who has not seen the movie, it is worth seeing even without knowing every little nuance of film-making and discovering the magic of the story for yourselves. I wanted this to be a record of the high praises that I have for this movie as I move through the project.

Trapped in Paradise (1994) - Review

Trapped in Paradise is a 1994 comedy film starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz, and Dana Carvey. The three play brothers Bill, Dave, and Alvin Firpo. Dave (Lovitz), a con man, and Alvin (Carvey), a kleptomaniac, are recently released convicts remanded into the custody of their brother Bill (Cage), a restaurant manager who struggles to keep his own nose clean. After hearing about a bank with lax security in a rural Pennsylvania town, the three rob the bank only to start encountering trouble from trying to escape the town, aptly named Paradise, from state police, FBI, and a pair of locals. Over the course of Christmas Eve, the three each find themselves charmed by the small town and attempt to change their natures.

Trapped in Paradise is a finished product that is just a shame in its released state. How can a movie starring Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey be anything but funny? In fact, the movie tries at every point to be a comedy, but only elicited a couple small chuckles toward the end of the movie - with a runtime of nearly two hours, this made for a pretty bland experience. The interplay between the three protagonists was quite humorous, even if it didn't elicit any laughs, while capturing the brotherly spirit any dysfunctional family. What tanked my enjoyment of the movie ultimately was reducing Carvey down to a caricature of his comedic self. Lovitz playing the same comedic straight man that he always seems to play was not detrimental to my experience, but his character, much like Carvey's Alvin, stayed flat the entire time. Cage's Bill Firpo continues his streak in this time in his filmography as trying to establish himself as an everyman. In fact, Cage stands out in this movie for being as normal of a person as possible, even though Bill is still a more subdued version of his brothers. Sean McCann as the police chief of the idyllic town and Richard Jenkins as FBI agent Peyser were welcome faces to see throughout the movie, which the movie could have used more of, even if they were featured fairly prominently in the ending scenes of the movie. While Trapped in Paradise is full of raw acting talent, it really failed to come together. Trapped in Paradise is too focused on reducing the output of Lovitz and Carvey for both to shine as comedic roles, and while the performance by Cage was appropriately grounded, it does not save this movie from being in the pile of forgotten Christmas tales.

The Family Man (2000) - Review

The Family Man is a 2000 holiday-drama film starring Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni, also starring Don Cheadle and Jeremy Piven in supporting roles. Nicolas Cage plays Jack Campbell, a Wall Street executive, whose relationship with his girlfriend Kate (Leoni) 13 years earlier ended with the extended time apart due to Jack's post-college internship in London. After encountering a man (Cheadle) trying to rob a convenience store, who sends Jack to an alternate timeline where he and Kate never ended their relationship. Navigating his new life with Kate, Jack must figure out what he really wants in life - a life filled with meaningful relationship, or his lifestyle of decadence.

The Family Man is a great modern remix of classic holiday stories, namely A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life. Jack Campbell is the Ebenezer Scrooge of this story, a man who is consumed by greed and sees the Christmas holiday as an impediment to the function of his business, and also a man who sees all of his personal relationships as transactional. Jack must be shown what his alternate self found of value in order to reevaluate his life decisions once he comes back to his point of origin. I make a comparison to It's a Wonderful Life in the opposite sense: Jack's glimpse into the other reality is not a glimpse of the lives of others around him ever without his presence, but it is a reflection of what his life is if he chased what he should value in life more so than his current shallow life. Usually when Nic Cage plays an "every man" type of character, he is wildly out of place. His predicament in this movie is what subverts that for Cage; he is still an every man, but he is so wildly out of his environment, literally and figuratively, that it plays to his advantage. The shock to Jack's system makes him the oddball in a situation where this is the normal. I thought that the daughter of Jack and Kate figuring out that he is not the Jack that everyone else knows was a great touch as children are incredibly perceptive to changes in their environment. Her helping Jack reorient his life so that he can be a functioning adult was not only charming, but funny. The infrequent visits by what is seemingly a supernatural being portrayed by Cheadle are always filled with humor, which plays on Jack's initial anger about his relocation, but later is still angry to see Cheadle, this time not wanting to go back to his empty life. Jeremy Piven is a good every man and confidant to the alternate Jack, and is someone who always tries to keep his best friend on the right track. Last, but not least, we have Téa Leoni's performance as Kate. Whatever relationship that Jack and Kate had in this reality was the best relationship that anyone could ask for, and it really shows in her performance once Jack is planted in the middle of her life. In my eyes, Leoni steals the show as she makes the audience able to forget that we are viewing a movie and lets us get lost in the story. 

I have seen The Family Man years ago when I picked up the BluRay and quite enjoyed it. I knew that the movie dealt with finding the joy and meaning in the relationships that you have, but I didn't imagine that it was going to give me such a reaction as it did. I think the older that I get, the closer I get to the ages and life circumstances of Jack and Kate in the glimpse of reality, the more I relate to the message of the movie. Even though this movie spans more than just the Christmas holiday - the movie actually spends as little time possible on the actual holiday - the film now hold a place on my shelf for a Christmas movie. It's not the best choice for a Christmas movie, but it is another choice in the sea of tried and tested, and frankly overplayed staples. It also sits at the height of Cage's ascent to stardom and is a nice gem out of the rough that is to follow in later years. I would definitely recommend cozying up on the couch with a blanket and spending some time getting lost in this fantasy story, a story that takes what works with older stories and making a charming modern twist on those revered and dominant holiday stories.

Jiu Jitsu (2020) - Review

Jiu Jitsu is a science fiction martial arts movie starring Alain Moussi as Jake Barnes a member of a paramilitary group that was formed to combat an extraterrestrial in ritualistic jiu jitsu combat. Starring alongside Moussi are familiar names such as Frank Grillo, Nicolas Cage and Tony Jaa. Some lower profile actors starring in this movie are JuJu Chan, Marie Avgeropoulos, and Eddie Steeples. 

I would be a liar if I told you I was looking forward to writing about this movie. I watched it late last year or earlier this year after my wife found it in a Redbox locally, and it broke my heart to watch the movie and stomp on the heartfelt sentiment of her supporting my Nic Cage completionist streak. The movie starts with Jake being assaulted by an unknown force and obtaining amnesia after jumping off of a cliff and hitting his head on rocks below the water surface. The exposition of the movie flows from this point, as after being reunited with his previous crew, it is learned that Jake was the one who came up with the plan to defeat the alien in combat, but has to be reintroduced to every facet of the previously established plan for his, no, our benefit. Each member in Jake's group is an experienced martial artist, which shows in the choreography throughout the entire movie. Indeed, the fight choreography happens to be the defining characteristic of what is good for the entire runtime. Despite having a multi-million dollar budget, the shortcuts that are made to make sure that the project became a finished product are glaringly obvious: there are filming sequences that are done early in the movie that are done from a first-person perspective. Great. That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that the filming for this scene is internally inconsistent; Jake is being escorted by Jaa's character out of a military installation where he has been held prisoner after recovering from his initial combat encounter at the beginning of the movie. Again, this would be fine if at one point Moussi didn't deliberately put down the camera that he has been carrying for the alternative perspective and fights several soldiers before coming back to the camera and picking it up, continuing the first-person perspective escape. Another glaring style choice is the use of comic book panel transitions to move between acts. The way in which they are used points to an uncertainty in the technical know-how to transition from one scene to another. The script could be a possible root cause of this problem. The writer may have been able to plan all the movie's setpieces, but lacked the foresight to allow scenes to go from Point A to Point B.

That's really more than what I wanted to say about this movie. I didn't have an outline to follow when starting this review, so I allowed myself to get to this point by happenstance. I even thought this was going to be more of a blog post than a review, much like what I did with Army of One. Before I end the review, I did want to comment on Cage's performance as the jiu jitsu master, Wiley. We learn that Wiley was the previous "chosen one" that the alien deemed fit for final combat, but failed six years prior. We meet him as the washed up chosen one, a familiar trope for Cage; I have reviewed a few movies so far where he has inhabited this role: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I would say that his performance in Jiu Jitsu is more reminiscent of Balthazar Blake in The Sorcerer's Apprentice than that of Ghost Rider, however. His character isn't this aloof idiot, but someone who is still capable of training those who are tasked with the completion of finishing the ritual combat conditions. Overall, I would not recommend this movie to anyone, not even to someone who enjoys the occasional bad movie - Jiu Jitsu is the Predator your mother promised that you had at home, and not even in any good way. However, if you are a glutton for punishment, as I have been in my quest to review the good and even the very bad Nic Cage movies, not even the opposite of a glowing recommendation will stop you from consuming this movie. 

Valley Girl (1983) - Review

Valley Girl is a comedy and romance movie starring Deborah Foreman and Nicolas Cage as the two leads. Deborah Foreman and Nicolas Cage portray high school students Julie and Randy in Los Angeles, although from two different worlds. Julie is the titular “Valley Girl” who is being romantically pursued by Randy, a punk from the heart of the city, after a chance encounter at a party in the Valley which Randy and his friend Fred (Cameron Dye) crashed. Julie’s life gets complicated as her friends and her ex-boyfriend, Tommy (Michael Bowen), are continually unsure about her sudden interest in Randy, as he is far too wild for the seemingly tame Valley-lifestyle. Besides her parents, everyone in her life tries to convince Julie to ditch Randy and come back to a relationship to her abusive ex, Tommy.

I really enjoy slice of live movies that capture the spirit of the times. I published a review over Fast Times at Ridgemont High fairly recently, and I think the object of comparison is fairly easy. The atmosphere is highly sexually charged, the music is representative of the time, and the portrayals of the lives of the high school aged characters feels genuine. In some sort of reversal, the movie focuses heavily on the female cast more so than the Cameron Crowe classic. But that is where the comparisons between the two really end. The movie is really strong as it shows the burgeoning romantic relationship between Julie and Randy, not by including protracted scenes of the two sharing dialogue to learn more about each other, but by showing their relationship grow through a montage. The chemistry between Foreman and Cage is very strong in this movie, and the direction of Martha Coolidge shows clearly in this section of the movie. Despite being corny with its very dated dialogue, I genuinely found several parts in this movie clever and very funny. Despite all of its strengths, the lack of a cohesive script really shows. There is one subplot, and the connection to the rest of the movie is very tenuous. One of Julie’s friends, Suzi (Michelle Meyrink), hosts a party early in the movie which many of her classmates attend. One classmate, Skip, becomes enchanted by Suzi’s stepmother, Beth (Lee Purcell), who tries her best to seduce the unsuspecting boy. This subplot of will they end up having a sexual relationship does very little to the rest of the story. This lack of connection to the rest of the story also is present in one particular scene in the movie where Julie dumps Randy and sends him into a spiral. As Randy is dumped and Julie goes back to her abusive ex-boyfriend, the scene when she makes Randy aware their relationship is logically set up by previous scenes, but the portrayal of this scene didn’t transfer the sense that this relationship was over. Did I perceive this scene from Randy’s viewpoint, where the event would be confusing? Were there breakdowns in the portrayals of the characters that I have come to know in the hour or so before? I’m not too sure which is true, or if there is another option. But I am sure that this very pivotal scene did not achieve what it was supposed to achieve in its mode of communication.

Valley Girl is very charming. I had this very low on my list because it is an early Cage movie, and I was anxious to see how well he performed early in his career. I’ve seen Fast Times, where he does not have much screen presence in the two to three scenes he does appear. I’ve seen Moonstruck and Raising Arizona, which are a couple of my favorite movies of all time, where Cage shows his vast range of portraying the human experience. After watching Valley Girl, my anxiety was quieted as Cage shows during many points where he has his fun and zany side come out trying to win Foreman’s Julie after his initial dumping, and he is able to show genuine joy and love toward Julie and showing her the world outside of her little bubble. I have a very limited audience that I can recommend this movie to; I would recommend this movie to anyone who can sit through brief moments of erotic coupling. Valley Girl is pretty thin and hardly a movie at times, but it ever so slightly catches the magic of the early 80s and the two cultures the two characters of Julie and Randy represent.

Humanity Bureau (2018) - Review

 Humanity Bureau is a sci-fi/thriller that stars Nicolas Cage as Noah Kross, a government worker in a post-second civil war America, who is tasked with evaluating the "efficiency" of certain individuals to determine if they deserve to remain in their communities or if they are to be relocated to a rehabilitation community referred to as "New Eden". After killing a former politician who was violently resisting the relocation to New Eden, Kross is tasked with evaluating a mother and child, Rachel and Lucas (Sarah Lind & Jakob Davies). Because of the interaction with the politician before and learning that New Eden might not be as benevolent as the government makes it out to be to its citizens, Kross decides to go rogue and try and save this mother and child from certain death from the government that he had faithfully served for years. 

This movie is a victim of its own ambition. The various locations that the trio travel to are only identified as being located in a war-ravaged area by being vacant of any people in a desert-like location. But beneath the very poor set design and direction is a script that tries to expose the humanity of a very plausible, at the time (2018), future of America based upon the fears and anxieties present in the country fomenting for decades. The future government that rules this new country is a mix of the fears of both liberal and conservative ideologies in America - it is a corporate-like fascist country that has placed the value of its citizens onto their own abilities to provide value to society. By way of analogy, Humanity Bureau is a less-developed and less thoughtful Minority Report. I don't like to compare movies to one another very often, but it is difficult to avoid the comparison when an iterative product does not accomplish what a similar product has done before. Humanity Bureau fails to introduce the audience what the main concern to the protagonist is in the way that similar movies do. This may be a strong twist if it wasn't already clear that New Eden is a location where individuals are killed so that society can preserve its resources for the "more productive" or "more efficient". The only clarity that is obtained at the reveal of the twist is that New Eden is in fact a real place, but it is a death camp patterned after Nazi activities during WWII. The tension that is felt during the movie from Cage's Kross is him not wanting to tell this family the true nature of the settlement. By the time it is made clear why the tension exists, I felt beaten down, suffering through the slightly better than Birdemic: Shock and Terror quality computer graphics and set design. 

I frankly was exhausted to care by the end of the movie as to its conclusion because of all of these factors coming into concert. As I had said above, there is a human story that wants to be told at the heart of the movie, but it fails to break out of the limitations of its own budget and scope. I can see the appeal of telling the story of a post-apocalyptic America and an Edenic Canada in the context of an United States that is going through an existential leadership crisis. The movie would have suffered even more if the script aged even further and lost its relevance before it could attain the budget and talent needed to bring it to life. Cage's Kross is a fairly sympathetic character throughout the movie, but the other factors involved wore me down and I eventually stopped caring before the end of the movie came to pass. I would understand watching this movie as a matter of completeness, much as I am doing now, but I would not recommend my worst enemy to expose themselves to this product.

Face/Off (1997) - Review

Face/Off is a 1997 action film directed by legendary director John Woo starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta as the dueling antagonists Castor Troy and Sean Archer, respectively. After a personal manhunt following the murder of his son, FBI special agent Sean Archer finally nabs international criminal extraordinaire Castor Troy, a man on Archer's radar far before his involvement in the aforementioned killing. Archer is tasked with going undercover as Troy as the FBI is made aware that there is a lingering bomb threat for the city of Los Angeles from Troy that he cannot be any assistance in solving; Archer undergoes a revolutionary plastic surgery and voice modulation to assume the identity of a comatose Castor Troy to ferret the necessary information out of Troy's coconspirators. Unfortunately for Archer, Troy wakes from his coma during this mission and violently assumes the identity of Archer through the same surgery process. The two men continue their feud, now with their roles reversed; the prey has now become the hunter, and vice versa.

Face/Off has always been my favorite Nic Cage movie, if not one of my favorite movies of all time. Each line and visual cue is packed with symbolism that is all addressed by the conclusion of the film. This might seem very concerning knowing that the runtime is just over two hours, but every minute is active. Any second that could have been wasted is left on the cutting room floor, which serves to keep the audience's attention. The setting shows the limits of its timelessness, with the only thing taking me out of the suspension of disbelief I usually try hard to suspend myself being the technology systems that the director and producers thought was so cutting edge, if not trying to forecast what unrealized technology might look like. Otherwise, the story never failed to keep me enthralled each and every scene. I would be remiss to wait any longer to discuss the performances of not only Cage and Travolta, but everyone else as well. The conceit of the actors having to swap each other's characters; trying to figure out how Cage would portray Travolta's Archer trying to mimic Cage's Castor Troy and vice versa is such a monumental feat of acting that actors without distinct personalities and tics would have a difficult time achieving. The range of acting that they would also have to engage with is also a monumental task. It is not only an achievement to cast two actors who each have unique personas, but that those actors can emulate each other is the other side of that monumental accomplishment. The performances of everyone else involved is equally astonishing, having to inhabit their characters enough to show the appropriate confusion by the incongruities that happen after the main switch occurs.

I watched this with my wife and one of my oldest friends. Usually I would have to fight to maintain my wife's attention during a Nic Cage movie, but this film captured her attention once she realized that the high status I attributed earlier in this review was not just a flippant statement. We all had a good time watching this movie, especially when I realized that I was to write a review for this project. I highly recommend that anyone interested in the body of work of Nic Cage would go out and watch this film, if not own it for your own personal collection. You still get the crazy Nic Cage that some of us have come to expect and enjoy, but you also have the zaniness of John Travolta shining through. All of that wrapped in a highly stylized packaged that can only be presented by John Woo.

Renfield (2023) - Review

I hope this month's lineup of movies has been enjoyable for you as it has been for me. There have been some hurdles that have come my way to complete this month's themed project, but I have tried my best to overcome them and deliver this project to you. I will be returning to non-New Orleans set movies after this post, and will be as consistent as possible as my semester winds down these final months. Enjoy!

Zandalee (1991) - Review

Zandalee is a romantic tragedy starring Judge Reinhold, Nicolas Cage, and Erika Anderson. Reinhold is a former poet, Thierry Martin, who has taken up work at his father's former company and abandoning his artistic pursuits. This is a point of contention with him and his wife Zandalee (Anderson), who notices the lack of passion Thierry has for his life and for her as he pursues maintaining his father's legacy. Johnny Collins (Cage), an artist and former colleague of Thierry, enters their life and begins ongoing romantic liaisons with Zandalee. The film focuses on these three as they move through the next seasons of their lives, dealing with the consequences of their circumstances.

Zandalee is a heartbreaking study into the lives of people who have lost their aim in life. Reinhold's Thierry is a conflicted soul who has taken up a profession that is contrary to his artistic nature, which drains his passions for the things that should mean the most to him - most importantly his wife. Anderson's Zandalee still has the passion for her husband, who continues to neglect her sexual desires, and is similarly tortured about how her circumstances have changed. This leads her into the arms of Thierry's friend Johnny, who since the moment he lays eyes on Zandalee has pursued her relentlessly. Johnny's lifestyle of continuous hedonism and debauchery acts as a rift between the married couple with no clear discernable goal for the remainder of his life. The tension between the three members of the love triangle carries through all of their interactions, not even just between each other. The progression of the characters through this tension and their realization that their lives are falling apart shows the raw skill that each actor brings to their role. The chemistry that Reinhold and Cage have is strong in their first and last reunion in a film since Fast Times at Ridgemont High a decade earlier. Reinhold's pent up anger in Thierry's newfound, buttoned-up persona and Cage's anarchic antagonistic role are perfect complements to one another as their conflict comes to a head. Likely due to the character driven nature of the story and the continuous ratcheting up of the tension, Zandalee feels much longer than its hour and thirty nine minute runtime, however that is not to its detriment. Even the brief appearances of Steve Buscemi as a ne'er-do-well on the streets of New Orleans leads to a moment where comedy meets tragedy, when his playfulness extends to the same sense of somberness that is pervasive throughout the movie. Because of the highly sexualized nature of the film, it is difficult to recommend to anyone and everyone. Zandalee is a gem nestled deep within Cage's filmography. It is not a normal occurrence for Cage to engage in a study of love, grief, and loss, and I wonder if he will enter this deep and fundamental aspect of the human condition later in his career. 

Grand Isle (2019) Review

Grand Isle is an action/thriller starring Nic Cage, KaDee Strickland, Luke Benward, and Kelsey Grammer. A new father, Buddy (Benward) is down on his luck to find a job to provide for his family. He is offered a fairly lucrative contracting job just outside of  NOLA to fix a stretch of fence before a hurricane comes in. The owners of the house are Walt (Cage) and Fancy (Strickland) a couple that are in a toxic marriage. Walt is a Vietnam war veteran who can't seem to get over the terms of his dismissal from the Marines, and Fancy is a woman who is hung up on building a family despite her body's inability to conceive a child. Caught in the middle of the hurricane, Buddy must survive the night at the couple's house while Fancy tries to seduce him and Walt is antagonistic for a variety of motives. Detective Jones (Grammer) is a hard-boiled interrogator who is trying to piece together why Buddy murdered an individual despite Buddy's pleas of innocence.

I started watching this movie with very low expectations. I had not heard of this movie until I was scraping data for my checklist, and that threw up a red flag for teh quality of the movie I was going into blindly. I found myself surprised about the structure of the story and how it would tie together near the end; at some point, I had forgotten about the A-plot of Buddy being interrogated. The story was presented as a whole block of flashback with no voiceover, allowing the audience to be engrossed into this young man's story of the harrowing night before. The acting was also good in a technical sense: the characters' motivations were clear from the performances and nothing on the surface of being inconsistent was actually lacking. The couple, Walt and Fancy, were introduced as toxic or unstable - individually as well as being paired together. Walt is the perfect character for Cage to use as an outlet for his famous zaniness - a jealous, volatile, disabled vet trying to live up to the glory days he never had. The only reservation I had after the movie had ended was that I was being left to want for more. Once the interrogation ends, there is no cat and mouse to conclude the movie. There is no suspense in the "Will they or will they not believe Buddy" and there is no suspense as to the fate of Walt and Fancy - the movie ends twice, essentially, and became burdensome to watch after the first conclusion, with almost 10 minutes or so left to wrap up any loose ends for the second ending. I was pleasantly surprised with the movie and am glad that I watched it. I can't recommend that someone go out of their way to watch Grand Isle, but it was more pleasant for me to watch than it had initially let on.

Wild at Heart (1990) - Reivew

I included Wild at Heart in this collection of "New Orleans" setting Nic Cage movies after finding it in a list online. There is a sequence that takes place in New Orleans, however that scene is brief. I nevertheless placed it in this sequence of my project because it was watched as part of my initial list of movies based in New Orleans.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) - Review

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a crime drama starring Nic Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, and Alvin Joiner (Xzibit) and directed by Werner Herzog. The film follows the corrupt Lieutenant Terence McDonagh (Cage) who is hopelessly addicted to various narcotics to cope with the pain of an injury sustained while working during Hurricane Katrina. His corruption is enabled by his police partner Det. Stevie Pruit (Kilmer), who struggles with violent tendencies that get in the way of his own police work. Frankie (Mendes), is a sexworker and frequent fling for McDonagh who is an unstable supplier for his drug habits. McDonagh shows that he is a capable investigator as he is trying to manage his life seemingly crumbling around him due to his addictions as he is trying to solve the murder of a Senegalese family who have crossed the drug lord "Big Fate" (Xzibit).

Bad Lieutenant remains puzzling to me, even after rewatching it nearly ten years after my first exposure. There are elements of the movie that I really like, such as the sprawling corruption that McDonagh finds himself navigating not only to fuel his addictions to various narcotics, but his ongoing gambling debts as well. The portrayal of this addiction by Cage oscillates between larger than life and grounded deep in terra firma, and Cage is a man who is right for the job. There are a few sequences that border on the surreal that are explained by him being high at the time which are welcome to break up the harsh reality; these moments really act as a kind of black comedy, distracting even for a moment from the seriousness of the events of the film that come before them. I was not a fan of the way the movie started with what seemed a polished edit of the scene in the jail where McDonagh is deliberating whether to save an inmate from the rising flood waters of Hurricane Katrina, and shifting to almost a documentary style shooting. This seemingly drastic shift could be seen as anachronistic and jarring serving as a detriment to the quality of the movie, but as I sit with the movie more, I see it as an expression of Terence's state of mind as he becomes more encumbered by his drug use as time goes on; in other words, his perception of the world is unapologetically shown to the viewer as time progresses. 

But what is it that bugs me about the movie? I think it has to do with the lack of closure that it provides. At the end of the movie, McDonagh is at the same place ethically as he was at the beginning. I do not want to provide an edict that all movies must provide closure - some stories require that tension and ambiguity with the viewer to maintain its impact. It may just be my own personal sense of justice that gets in my way of sitting with the ending, as I chafe trying to prove why my sense of justice for this officer is better than the eventual portrayal on screen. Do I want him to be held accountable? Do I want him to become clean from his vices, like everyone around him? I certainly do. But I think the film achieves its goal of making the viewer uncomfortable by the continued promotion of corrupted individuals and how they are able to circumvent punishment by the law because of the positions they abuse. I think that this movie is required viewing for those who are interested in Nic Cage and his career, only because I think there is a greater need for discourse surrounding movies that leave the viewer unsatisfied. Take Inception as an example. Does the totem stop spinning at the end of the movie? Because it is not shown on screen, as Leonardo DiCaprio's Cobb walks away cutting the scene away from the conclusion of whether he remains in a dream. That isn't the point. The point is he is finally able to join and enjoy his children. What is the point of Bad Lieutenant? I think the point is that no matter what, some corrupt officials may never be found out, instead to be rewarded for their usefulness. Regardless, I believe that this movie can bring us into an aspect of human life that is challenging and unrewarding. And that is okay.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) - Review

Credited as "Brad's Bud" 

Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a year in the life snapshot of a group of characters hoping to find love the way their culture tells them they should, among other day to day struggles they find themselves in. Judge Reinhold and Jennifer Jason Leigh play Brad and Stacy Hamilton, respectively, an older brother who is facing the reality of life outside of high school as the end of his term is staring him in the face, and a younger sister who desires to experience sex and intimacy like her friends but needs help finding out what that means to her. Brian Backer plays a shy and awkward teen, Mark, who is trying to get the attention and approval of Stacy with the help of Robert Romanus' Mike Damone, a sleazy ticket scalper who tries to take advantage of any situation he's in to turn it to his benefit. Sean Penn portrays "the stoner", Jeff Spicoli, who thinks he has found a way to live the easy life at others' expense, most often his overqualified history teacher. Forest Whitaker even stars as this high school's star football player.

Fast Times remains a classic, even 40 years later. This movie is a testament to the fact that no matter how much the world changes, the struggles and desires that teens face remains the same. The movie zips through a school year and a variety of situations that never seemed to go too slow, or too quickly. The pacing is wonderful, and it never feels as though scenes were crammed in or removed to come to a satisfying conclusion. I was surprised to learn that the story came from Cameron Crowe, writer of other classic films (Say Anything..., Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, etc.) - of which Almost Famous, my father introduced to me far earlier than I could have enjoyed it. Fast Times strikes the fine balance between being about nothing, but about everything at the same time. As a final note of praise for Fast Times, I really found one of the final scenes in the movie involving Brad and Stacy outside of an abortion clinic very heartwarming. I appreciated the fact that Brad was nonjudgmental and non-moralizing of his sister and her situation, but decided to love her and give her what she needed in one of the most difficult moments in her young life. 

The movie has a few non-speaking appearances for Nic Cage, his earliest in his listed credits on Wikipedia and other information sources. I included this movie in my project not just because the actor was present for a few frames, but also because the movie is still really good. It may be slow toward the beginning, but the movie does come to full steam and stay there until the final moments. Fast Times is remarkable in the way it delivers the story, but also the talent that came together to produce the final product. Not everyone had an illustrious career after this movie, but there are a surprising few that have contributed their tremendous talent to this film and many others in subsequent decades.

My Review Process

I didn't have a blog scheduled to run in August, so I wanted to slow my reviewing of movies down a tad this week to give myself time to think of something. I had initially thought of posting one review a week, save for the extra posts for when my wife wanted to watch something out of sequence on my list of "to-do" for this project or for when a movie comes out in theaters and I am able to to catch it in the midst of my busy-ish schedule. But the hope of one per week was dashed against the rocks when I realized that despite two titles I want to review at certain times, I would be reviewing movies for over two years. I like doing this project, don't get me wrong, but there are certain things that I would enjoy doing even one year into the future that this project would get in the way of: the start of my new career, potentially parenthood, among other things not even thought of quite yet.

I started this project during a month-long break from school earlier this summer, and I was watching movies at a fairly fast clip. I wouldn't even put words into a document until I had about three reviews waiting to be written. Oh, but never more than three. I never have even considered uploading information about four or more movies into my head and not reviewing them for this blog. Watch-Watch-Watch-Write 2 reviews -Watch-Watch-Write 3 reviews-Watch-Write 1 review, etc. The process is fairly inconsistent in that manner, but it helps me contextualize Nic Cage's movies with each other, even if they have no other connection (year, quality, etc.) than the actor himself. I also try to give a fairly short synopsis of the movie in question, followed by one or two sections that make up the subjective portion of the review. This helps me get the reader up to speed on the jist of the movie if they haven't seen it, explain what potentially drew me to this movie before, my feelings about it, and if those feelings have changed over time. I don't think I'll ever get to the level of professionalism of a Siskel and Ebert, as that is not where my passion in life lies, but I do want to produce a product that people can relate to themselves and maybe trust me to give them some decent movie recommendations. I even produce reviews, if I am so inclined, from movie recommendations from friends. 

I am writing this blog on July 14th, posting this Aug. 3rd, but I have scheduled reviews out until Oct. 31st at this point to make sure I can accomplish this task in a manner that satisfies my stated goal of doing this as quickly as possible. Just as I am zooming through my courses at school to become an authority on my studied subject, I aim to be some sort of authority on Nicolas Cage's filmography. I used to be self-conscious of my older brother making jabs at me for allowing myself to watch low quality movies so easily, but that doesn't matter to me as much anymore. I appreciate the wisdom that he was trying to teach me: not wasting my time with movies that have no meaning or bearing on how I view the world or that are hardly enjoyable. But I feel as though my niche has always been giving the lesser known and lesser quality a shot, knowing that I will rarely find the diamond still caked with dirt, but a diamond nonetheless.

Ghost Rider (2007) - Review

I wanted to get it out at the top that I watched this movie with my wife and one of our closest friends. Their involvement in the process was mentioned further down in the review, but we could not help ourselves tearing this movie apart as we watched it. We watched the extended cut, which is supposed to give more insight into the movie than the theatrical, but boy oh boy did it just make us more upset that it was dragging this flaming bag of turds on longer than it should. I don't think that it is necessary to write a short blurb warning you about what you are about to read, but this movie just about broke my resolve to see this project until the end. Don't fear! I still have gas in the tank, I just need to watch some of Cage's better movies to give me a recharge. I hope you enjoy this review!