Nicolas Cage: Don't Question the Power: Two Generations Views

      I became a Nicolas Cage fan at the ripe old age of 12  (1983) with the film Valley Girl.   He was the Hollywood punker who wins over the heart of preppy Valley Girl, Deborah Foreman.  In the film, he was sarcastic, tough, vulnerable, funny, .... romantic and strong.  I knew I was seeing a different kind of performance.  By the time Raising Arizona was released on VHS, I was first in line to rent it from the Super 29 Grocery Store's video section and watch on my own Symphonic VCR bought with my own money in 1987.   My mom kept knocking on the door to ask why I was laughing so hard.  

     I knew an actor with serious range was upon us, and his next phase of films were quirky cult-level movies, or supporting performances in big budget movies.  By the time Red Rock West and Amos and Andrew were on us, I was his biggest fan.   Jump forward to 2021.  He has been an Oscar winner, a box office action stud, and then gradually suffered what happens to many, the fall to direct-to-DVD.  The difference with Nic is: though he pays his bills with often poorly executed low budget fare (though its well known he gives 100% to projects, regardless of what he's doing and who he's working for) he's also had a ton of fantastic films released in this window of time as well:

The Trust

Joe

Color Out of Space

Mandy

Mom & Dad

Willy's Wonderland

Running With the Devil

Pig

     Not to mention a masterful turn as the host of Netflix' genius History of Swear Words.  Genius.

     Eight years ago, my young film critic kiddo wrote a piece about the world's greatest living actor being a "Punk Rock Actor".   Even though penned in 2013, it's still relevant, and still accurate, though Nicolas Kim Coppola was at a different phase of his career.  My offspring, Aidan Will has wonderfully made appearances on this blog before, so I'm proud to present their work here again.

IN DEFENSE OF NICOLAS CAGE; THE PUNK ROCK ACTOR

There are a lot of horrid, unjust things in this world, a lot of things that piss me off on a regular basis. Nic Cage is not one of them. I become visibly outraged when I hear folks accuse him of being a terrible actor. This is an awful cliché, but I would say that their dislike of him is simply out of a lack of understanding him. He’s not a chameleon. If you want to watch people disappear into roles to the point that you catch yourself forgetting who they are, you have plenty of viewing options: Gary Oldman, Robert De Niro, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, and countless others. Go nuts, they’re all wonderful. But we’re in a completely alternate zone here.

Nicolas Kim Coppola is the nephew of the legendary auteur Francis Ford Coppola, and Talia Shire, and cousin to Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola. Lots of Coppolas in the business, it’s undeniably in the blood. Science, my friends. These people generally know what they’re doing.  

            He has described his own acting style as being like a punk rock performance. And if you take a moment to think on that, you’ll know it’s absolutely true. He plays in extremes. He has no interest in subtlety, his habitual “Cage Rage” is more or less a legend of Hollywood lore, and he doesn’t give a shit if people don’t like it. In his four-star review of Werner Herzog’s 2009 film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Roger Ebert stated of the starring Cage: “He's a fearless actor. He doesn't care if you think he goes over the top. If a film calls for it, he will crawl to the top hand over hand with bleeding fingernails.” The man often considered to be the greatest film critic of all time was a fan.

In his Great Movies essay regarding the 2002 Spike Jonze film Adaptation, Ebert took his praise further than even I do now, stating,  “There are often lists of the great living male movie stars: De Niro, Nicholson and Pacino, usually. How often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there.” Now, I’m not saying that simply because Ebert said it, it’s true; people who know me know that I usually wound up disagreeing with Ebert about 50% of the time, he hated a lot of the flicks that are most beloved to me. But damned if he wasn’t a great writer who could give a great argument, and his opinion, parallel to yours or not, is at least an opinion worth respecting.

            A lack of chameleonic style does not mean an absence of versatility: Cage has been a risk taker over the years, and of course has taken much flak for it. That’s why I’m here. Yes, he’s been in plenty of films that are crap. We’d all be happier forgetting The Wicker Man remake, among others. But consider this, while that film was utter shit, we got to see a man prance through the forest in an anthropomorphic bear costume, and punch a woman in the face. Nicolas Cage did that for us. For our sins. Every cloud has a silver lining. He's gonna be in some bad films, most actors, good or bad, will. But consider the great films for a moment, unlike a large amount of my generation and know that they are more than worth acknowledging the bad ones. Think of Raising Arizona, Leaving Las Vegas, Bringing out the Dead, The Weather Man, Kick-Ass, and more. Think of the fun worth having in kooky action films like The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, Drive Angry and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Internet film reviewer/ independant filmmaker Brad Jones, another defender, stated, “When Cage is having fun, the audience is having fun.” He hops from serious dramas to escapist fun and back again with ease.

            So, if you think Nicolas Cage is not a good performer, I strongly encourage you to reconsider your opinion. If you weren’t open to that idea, then why are you still reading this? Leave.  Take a risk and submit yourself to the hilarity of Raising Arizona, or the descent into hell in Bringing out the Dead, or anything that looks interesting to you. A world of various joys and hurts awaits those willing to lock themselves in the Cage for a couple of hours. Yes, I did just write that. No, I don’t care.

Recommended Cage Viewing:

·         Raising Arizona

·         Adaptation

·         Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

·         Leaving Las Vegas

·         Bringing out the Dead

·         The Weather Man

·         Windtalkers

·         Kick-Ass

The Spectrum Files : Long Weekend

 

     As I have stated before, Spectrum was my film school, or at the very least, submersion into cinema.  I've credited the programmer as being some sort of genius.  The first-run films obviously were what sold the subscriptions, but many, many films they broadcast became cult classics and legendary pieces of cinema in the present day. Spectrum: Ahead of the competitors known as SelectTV, ONTV, and ahead of its time.

     In this case, we're venturing into Oz-ploitation.

     For those not in the know, that's a term for horror films made in the 70's in Australia, and Spectrum exposed me to more than one.  Patrick, The Last Wave, Razorback, etc.   But the one that hit home was actually not just Oz-ploitation, but Nature Run Amok.  Two genres in one.  This film was remade a few years back with a different title, but since Jim Caviezel was the star, I refuse to discuss here. What a massive disappointment of a human being he turned out to be.  Damn fine actor, but a weird Ted Nugent homo-sapien.  Join the James Woods cult, I guess.   Plenty of room.

     I may be immature in this sense, and will probably get over it, because Frequency and Count of Monte Cristo are brilliant, and he wasn't the only person involved in those movies' film making process, so I'll grow up.  Give me a minute.

     Anyway, Long Weekend features a youngish married couple who decide to get away from it all, and do some outdoorsy attempts at bonding which they fail miserably at, because they totally despise each other.   Let's be honest.  They're complete twat waffles, as well.  So they take their tempers and hatred for each other out on their surroundings, a gorgeous woodsy soundscape that doesn't deserve their desecration and pollution and bullshit.  So, naturally, it bites back. 

     So, if the woods, animals and creatures who have suffered abuse fight back, has nature truly run amok? 

     As a youngster, not ensconced in understanding, they were victims of animals who lost their shit.  You know, Jaws, Grizzly, Kingdom of the Spiders, ad infinitum?  As the sun dipped under the horizon outside like a cruller into my mom's Maxwell House, I sat there in my parent's living room compelled, and then horrified at the abrupt and FINAL ending. 

    But I know now that people are turds.  And sometimes we reap what we sow. 

    This movie is available now from Synapse films, distributors of some truly awesome cult classic horror, and some scuzzy shit you probably want to avoid.  I only know that from the catalog. 

     Anyways, you can react two ways to this film.  Depressed is one.  Feeling better about yourself as a person is the other.

     

Samhain Project #20 : Carnival of Souls

      Samhain is a Gaelic word, pronounced (Sah-wihn).  According to the History Channel: It's also "a pagan religious festival originating from an ancient Celtic spiritual tradition,  is usually celebrated from October 31 to November 1 to welcome in the harvest and usher in "the dark half of the year".  Celebrants believe that the barriers between the physical and spirit world break down during Samhain, allowing more interaction between humans and denizens of the Otherworld."

       Today is Samhain, and also the end of my little project.  Also today has a perfect film for the Breaking down of the physical and spiritual world: 

     Carnival of Souls is a tone poem for the damned.   It's a darkened soliloquy, that as good as it looks, it puts you off your guard, because you're uncertain of where it's going, given its realism.  You don't feel any more in control watching this than the lead character is in what's happening to her.

     A young woman is in an incredibly stupid car accident at the beginning, and of the three girls involved, she's the only one who appears to survive.  

     She immediately leaves town, taking an organist job at a Utah church.  She lives in a rooming house while there, across the hall from a quasi-incel who you grow to despise.  Fuck it, you hate him from the jump.  (at least I did.)  The kind woman she rents from and everyone else in her new life is worried about her because she is increasingly and obviously coming apart at the seams, due to the incredibly creepy beings that seem to be stalking her from the woodwork, yet drawing her to an abandoned amusement park at the same time.

     I first saw this on USA's Night Flight circa 1985 and couldn't quite figure out what I was being faced with.  Who could blame me?  I was 14.  However, now I see it as an immense work of visual art with a tight script and solid acting assembled by inexperienced Kansans with limited resources to say the least. George A. Romero (the maestro, rest his soul) himself said the film inspired him to make The Night of the Living Dead (one would think the Richard Matheson I am Legend film The Last Man on Earth probably contributed to that too).  It certainly makes sense, despite the different intensities the two films engender. 

     Carnival of Souls has quite a history behind it that one should research if they have the chance, as all involved deserve accolades for creating something completely unique in its time despite an environment that probably didn't support its stylistic choices.  This was the era of radioactive monsters and Edgar Allan Poe films, after all.  Roger Corman would have never touched this one.  IMDb even states a factoid that the lead actress (and damned good here, I'll note) Candace Hilligoss was dropped by her agent after seeing the film.  It took guts and elbow grease to make Carnival of Souls, and The Criterion Collection noticed that and documented it in 2017.   

     This is a movie saturated with Halloween vibes, and I heartily recommend it.