There is a saying that it doesn't matter what they talk bad, but let them talk. It applies to Nicholas Kim Coppola better known as Nicolas Cage.
My first exposure to this controversial actor was in Francis Ford Coppola's Peggy Sue Got Married, which I rented in beta format. Cage was the co-star of Katleen Turner in a film of a particular journey into the past that may change the protagonist's future.
Already here the actor begins to give hints of a type of character that could be played as a caricature, just listen to that voice.
Later, in the same format I rented a work by the great Alan Parker called Birdy, a beautiful story of friendship and admiration of two friends who for one reason or another are traumatized by the Vietnam War, one is strong Al Columbato (Nicolas Cage) and the other is a weak boy named Birdy (Mathew Modine), who evades his reality by believing he is a bird. The final scene has a gimmick.
I saw both films in 1986, and adopted Birdy as one of my favorite films.
The following year I saw two of Cage's crazy but good performances, Norman Jewison's Moonstruck where Ronny Cammareri (Nicolas Cage) and Loretta Castorini (Cher) fall in love under the influence of the moon and the Cohen Brothers' Raising Arizona.
In Rasing Arizona Cage really looks like a flesh and blood cartoon.
Back in the 90's I enjoyed an unclassifiable and wild work by David Lynch called Wild at Heart with drama and black humor where Cage is a convict named Sailor Ripley who decides to run away with his girlfriend to the city of New Orleans, being both chased by mobsters hired by his girlfriend's mother.
Excellent performances by Cage and Laura Dern, and a very frenetic film with quirky characters.
I remember the light and forgettable Honeymoon in Vegas, It Could Happen to You where Cage plays an acceptable role. They are not bad movies.
From 1995 to the year 2000 for me would come what would be Cage's fabulous and successful five years with films like Kiss of Dead, Leaving Las Vegas, The Rock, Con Air, Face-Off, City of Angels, Snake Eyes, 8mm, Bringing Out the Dead, Going in 60 Seconds, and The Family Man.
For his performance in Leaving Las Vegas he received the Oscar for Best Actor in 1995.
During these five years (1990-1995) I had a video club together with my girlfriend where all these movies presented an incredible rotation, to the point that we had to make several copies of the same, (in VHS) since in more than one occasion by the use these were scratched and disappeared certain parts of the film.
I heard many opinions I heard, about: a cold, refined, out-of-control psychopath (Little Junior), a self-destructive alcoholic writer (Ben Sanderson), the action hero who rescues hostages from Alcatraz prison and prevents missiles from being fired at the city of San Francisco (Stanley Goodspeed), the former military man and convict (Cameron Poe) who unknowingly finds himself on a plane full of assassins ready to escape from him, the killer Castor Troy who is implanted with the face of FBI agent Sean Archer, the corrupt detective Rick Santoro who uncovers a grand conspiracy during a boxing match, the private detective Tom Welles who delves into the hellish world of the corrupt detective Rick Santoro who uncovers a grand conspiracy that takes place during a boxing match, the private detective Tom Welles who delves into the hellish world of the FBI's Sean Archer, the corrupt detective Rick Santoro who discovers a great conspiracy that occurred during a boxing match, the private detective Tom Welles who delves into the hellish world of pornography, the paramedic Frank Pierce haunted and tormented by the people he could not save, the expert car thief Randall "Memphis" Raines, the Wall Street broker who on a good night changes his life and finds himself married to an old girlfriend, the angel who falls in love with a mortal and therefore decides to become human.
Cage demonstrates his versatility in the genres of thriller, drama, suspense, action, comedy, romance, an integral actor, who among others has been requested by directors such as Barbet Schroeder, Mike Figgis, Michael Bay, Simon West, John Woo, Brad Silberling, Brian De Palma, Joel Schumacher, Martin Scorsese, Dominic Sena, Brett Ratner.
I thank you Nicolas Cage, because your movies had a very big importance for me financially, you helped me and my girlfriend to equip our home.
I enjoyed John Woo's Windtalkers, a coruscating war movie where Cage plays a Marine Corps sergeant assigned to protect Navajo workers, and Adaptation, a Spike Jonze film where Cage plays Charlie Kaufman (producer, director and screenwriter in real life), and his twin brother Donald Kaufman, reflecting the creative stagnation of a screenwriter. The film is a bit complex, but I found it entertaining.
National Treasure and its sequel Book of Secrets are action-worthy works in which Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), a historian and cryptology buff with degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT and history from Georgetown University, descends from a family of treasure hunters.
In Lord of War he is Yuri Orlov, a Russian arms dealer. It is a Peter Weir film of restrained action with large doses of realism.
The movie is good, but I found Nicolas Cage's performance to be very average.
The Wicker Man is a remake of a cult film shot in written and directed by Neil Labute is a horror film, not because of how scary it is, but because of how horrible it is. Here Cage is police officer Edward Malus investigating the disappearance of a girl in a strange village.
Oliver Stone's World Trade Center is a more serious work inspired by real events and tells the story of police officers John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Peña). It tells the story of the cops' efforts to rescue people after the collapse of the twin towers.
Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance are very loose and inaccurate adaptations of this Marvel character, in Next is a magician who can see the future 2 minutes ahead being the best of the film Jessica Biel, and not exactly for his performance, Knowing by Alex Proyas stands out for its visual section here, Cage is a skeptical professor named John Koestler who will be involved in an investigation related to some numbers written on paper in the past by a girl on a paper that 50 years later falls into the hand of her son. These numbers reveal events that have already happened and others that possibly indicate the end of the world.
In Kick Ass he is Big Daddy, appearing briefly as Hit Girl's superhero father, in The Sorcerer's Apprentice he is Balthazar Blake, apprentice to the wizard Merlin and a powerful sorcerer who trains an apprentice in the middle of 2010, Season of the Witch is a movie that entertained me where Cage is o Behman a deserter from the Crusades who must accompany a young woman accused of being a witch, in Drive Angry he is Milton a furious driver who pursues the culprits of the death of his daughter and the kidnapping of his grandson, at the same time he is pursued by the right hand of the devil.
Left Behind impressed me, because of the bad acting and the pseudo religious criticism it transmits, it talks about the moment of the rapture reflected in the Bible. Here Cage is a pilot who is unfaithful to his wife and because of his actions he stays on earth.
Mom and Dad is funny, acid and surreal, where parents after a massive epidemic attack their children, and here Nicolas Cage unleashes his unleashed acting style.
Panos Cosmatos' Mandy is a dreamlike, nightmarish film where Cage transforms into an avenging angel, a film worthy of Nicolas Cage's acting style. It is too violent for some people.
Willy's Wonderland is an entertaining action comedy where a man whose car breaks down is tricked into taking over an amusement park, where animatronic dolls come to life to commit murder. Here, Cage doesn't utter a single word.
By now the last movie I saw of Cage is The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent which he filmed with Pedro Pascal, in it Nicolas Cage is Nick Cage. It is a parody of himself, you can see on screen that he enjoys every line of dialogue, in a way it is a reflection on the current Hollywood cinema, it is a comedy and at the end it becomes an action movie.
This actor is so prolific that there is a long list of work that I have not seen, (and others that will escape this list), from him: Vampire's Kiss, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , Bangkok Dangerous, Stolen, The frozen Ground,,, Joe, Tokarev, Outcast, Dying of the Light, Pay the Ghost, The Trust, Dog Eat Dog, USS Indianapolis, Army of One, Inconceivable, Running with the Devil, Kill Chain, Primal, Prisoners of Ghostland, Between Worlds, Color Out of Space, Grand Isle, Jui Jitsu, Pig. If we look at the professional and not so professional reviews of many of these films (not all), we can only recoil as they emphasize how bad they are. The exception on this list might be Pig which I have been told is an excellent drama.
Nicolas Cage has, for economic reasons, been forced to impersonate Dantesque caricatures. I previously published a post on The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Link Here and in it I explain the reasons why he has had to star in so many movies.
Now, there is a type of content that spreads within social networks that represent an idea, concept, opinion or representation called meme. It is a cultural manifestation that communicates values and opinions in a collective imaginary.
In the case of Nicolas Cage these represent a connection with his audience if this actor was not famous for his good and bad interpretations and for his gestures surely there would be no memes of him.
Judging an actor is often complicated, it all depends on what the person believes is good or bad, we all have different tastes, and what is bad for some is good for others. As a moviegoer I have admired some of Cage's performances, and hated others, I have been amused with some films and bored with others in itself Cage is a style of acting.
Many of his performances border on madness, and for this he has already earned the status of mythical and cult actor capable of acting in any genre that comes his way, with a gift for music and without fear of making a fool of himself. This is versatility, and many actors would like to have this gift.
Thank you very much for stopping by, I hope you had a good time, I have not talked much about the personal life of this actor because I already published some peculiarities of his life in another post of which I leave the link in previous paragraphs.
This is my post related to The Movie Star of the Week: Nicolas Cage Link Here. I bid you farewell until a future opportunity.
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