The Movie: The Wicker Man, directed by Neil Labute
Recommendation: The internet.
Reason: The Best Scenes from The Wicker Man
I swear, I could watch Leelee Sobieski get kicked in the face all day. I used to think she might be a decent actress in years to come, but damn was I ever wrong. I mean it, in a movie like this it's hard to pick out a particularily bad actor, but jeez. Leelee stole the show. Nick Cage at least got to stomp around punching people while wearing a bear suit. Sobieski just sucks.
You really don't _need_ to see The Wicker Man. Youtube has it right-the scenes in that now-famous clip are the best of the whole thing. Putting yourself through it is an exercise in torment. I watched it because of the video, and because I'd heard the original was unsettling and creepy. In this...mockery...we get Nicolas Cage assaulting children and kicking Leelee Sobieski in the face. No, I'm not going to stop mentioning that. She really is terrible.
I can only assume Molly Parker was involved in this travesty under duress. That's what I'm choosing to believe, since she's one of my favorite Canadian actresses. I just don't know what else I can possibly say. Watch the Youtube clip. It's all there. I seriously can't improve on the 'commentary' as presented in those two and a half minutes. If you're entertained by Nick Cage punching women while in costume, this is really the movie for you. Oh yeah. And Leelee Sobieski getting kicked in the face.
-157/365 down, 208/365 to go
Showing posts with label nicolas cage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nicolas cage. Show all posts
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Mr. Cage and the Gooey Kablooie
The Movie: The Rock, directed by Michael Bay
Recommendation: We'll say...oh...Roger Ebert?
Reason: "The Rock is a first-rate, slam-bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor." Also, I bloody well love this movie.
Let's talk about iconic moments for a moment here. Movies, like music, books and other forms of art that have a distinct progression about them, follow a pattern of rise and fall. The action, dialogue, intensity, whatever you like, escalates through the movie until there is finally a moment. The climax. THE moment. If you've seen this movie (and even if you haven't), you probably know what this moment is in The Rock. If we can give Michael Bay credit for one thing, it's that he can certainly create one hell of a climactic image.
In The Rock, Mr. Blows-Things-Up-All-The-Time stumbled across an excellent script and managed to blackmail and/or hire three great actors to take the lead roles. They play hard, and the utter conviction that Connery, Cage and Harris bring to their roles lends a strange sort of gravity to what is otherwise an utterly looney story. Who else would take a movie about domestic terrorism on Alcatraz seriously? Though there are shades of later, less how-shall-we-put-this 'good' projects in the performances, the chemistry between the actors is great. Even the supporting cast (including Corporal Hicks!) turns in some solid work. The Rock is, essentially, a demonstration of what the action genre as a whole should be. I agree with Ebert-this is the peak.
Are there problems with the movie? Likely. I can't think of any right now, as the action still has a hold on my head. I love this movie, always have and always will, so thank you to the scriptwriters for giving us a film with cunning and wit. Thank you to the actors, for giving us characters with meat and texture, with more personality than was asked of them. Thank you to Michael Bay. I have never seen a San Francisco trolley do a triple flip outside of this film.
-151/365 down, 214/365 to go
Recommendation: We'll say...oh...Roger Ebert?
Reason: "The Rock is a first-rate, slam-bang action thriller with a lot of style and no little humor." Also, I bloody well love this movie.
Let's talk about iconic moments for a moment here. Movies, like music, books and other forms of art that have a distinct progression about them, follow a pattern of rise and fall. The action, dialogue, intensity, whatever you like, escalates through the movie until there is finally a moment. The climax. THE moment. If you've seen this movie (and even if you haven't), you probably know what this moment is in The Rock. If we can give Michael Bay credit for one thing, it's that he can certainly create one hell of a climactic image.
In The Rock, Mr. Blows-Things-Up-All-The-Time stumbled across an excellent script and managed to blackmail and/or hire three great actors to take the lead roles. They play hard, and the utter conviction that Connery, Cage and Harris bring to their roles lends a strange sort of gravity to what is otherwise an utterly looney story. Who else would take a movie about domestic terrorism on Alcatraz seriously? Though there are shades of later, less how-shall-we-put-this 'good' projects in the performances, the chemistry between the actors is great. Even the supporting cast (including Corporal Hicks!) turns in some solid work. The Rock is, essentially, a demonstration of what the action genre as a whole should be. I agree with Ebert-this is the peak.
Are there problems with the movie? Likely. I can't think of any right now, as the action still has a hold on my head. I love this movie, always have and always will, so thank you to the scriptwriters for giving us a film with cunning and wit. Thank you to the actors, for giving us characters with meat and texture, with more personality than was asked of them. Thank you to Michael Bay. I have never seen a San Francisco trolley do a triple flip outside of this film.
-151/365 down, 214/365 to go
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Get thee behind me, satan!
The Movie: Ghost Rider, directed by Mark Steven Johnson
Recommendation: Broomie
Reason: I like comic book movies, and back when this project was first announced (in the early 90's) I was really hyped. Not so much anymore, but Broomie decided we should see it anyway.
Until some very recent successes, superhero comic book movies have been a bit of a joke. Before X-Men, Spiderman and Batman Begins we had Batman and Robin, a mediocre Punisher, and Judge Dredd. Ghost Rider fell into the latter category, combining bad acting with a boring, by-the-numbers plot, bad writing and an overabundance of special effects for the sake of having special effects.
Eva Mendes would probably do well to look into an acting lesson or eight. She was nearly as bad as Britney Spears in what little I've seen of Crossroads. She just doesn't seem to be very good at what she's trying to do, and she emotes like a brick-painfully and without subtlety. Nicolas Cage phoned it in, but at least he seemed to be having fun with the campiness of it all.
The writing was cheesy, with 'badass' and 'funny' lines so clearly demarcated that I half expected a laugh track to kick in. The special effects were just...there. There was one sequence that I think must have been thrown in just so the special effects guys could create it, since it didn't serve the plot at all. The movie was kind of dumb, and didn't really get across what it tried to.
-103/365 down, 262/365 to go
Recommendation: Broomie
Reason: I like comic book movies, and back when this project was first announced (in the early 90's) I was really hyped. Not so much anymore, but Broomie decided we should see it anyway.
Until some very recent successes, superhero comic book movies have been a bit of a joke. Before X-Men, Spiderman and Batman Begins we had Batman and Robin, a mediocre Punisher, and Judge Dredd. Ghost Rider fell into the latter category, combining bad acting with a boring, by-the-numbers plot, bad writing and an overabundance of special effects for the sake of having special effects.
Eva Mendes would probably do well to look into an acting lesson or eight. She was nearly as bad as Britney Spears in what little I've seen of Crossroads. She just doesn't seem to be very good at what she's trying to do, and she emotes like a brick-painfully and without subtlety. Nicolas Cage phoned it in, but at least he seemed to be having fun with the campiness of it all.
The writing was cheesy, with 'badass' and 'funny' lines so clearly demarcated that I half expected a laugh track to kick in. The special effects were just...there. There was one sequence that I think must have been thrown in just so the special effects guys could create it, since it didn't serve the plot at all. The movie was kind of dumb, and didn't really get across what it tried to.
-103/365 down, 262/365 to go
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Planes, trains and automobiles.
The Movie: Con Air, directed by Simon West
Recommendation: Something Awful
Reason: This was referred to as an uncommonly good action movie.
Some film concepts just sound terrible when you look at them barefaced. An archaeologist who fights nazis? A computer geek jacks into the system and suddenly 'knows kung fu'? An assassin takes care of a little girl after her family is brutally murdered? A planeful of convicts being transported cross-country gets jacked by said cons and mayhem ensues? How could those possibly be good movies? But Indiana Jones, The Matrix, The Professional and Con Air are truly exemplary films. Each has their own appeal-pulpy action goodness, comic book chic, arthouse credentials and in the case of Con Air, a sort of giddy boys-playing-with-toys gleeful insanity that drags you helplessly along in its wake. This is an action movie with the dial racked up to eleven. The plot is simple, the characters broad-strokes, but somehow, it's a gem.
Action and casting, that's where it all comes together. When your script is alright and your technical crew is up to spec, you have to arrange your cast properly. Galaxies collided to bring together the crew that appeared in this film. Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo, John Malkovich, Dave Chappelle, John Cusack...I could go on. Just take a look at the IMDB link up top there and consider the credentials on display. I'm not sure how this cast was brought together. I just know that without all of them, the whole tenuous setup would have fallen apart.
I've already said this movie cranked the dial up to eleven. It's a guy movie. Scott Rosenberg somehow tapped into the little boy in his brain and thought 'I know what I'd like to see in an action movie! Army guys trying to shoot down a plane while they're hiding behind a bulldozer, and then the plane crashes into Las Vegas! AND there should be a car chase! With police bikes and a firetruck!'. And it works. Somehow, someone made it work. The movie was undiluted teenage-boy-fantasy awesome.
-100/365 down, 265/365 to go
Recommendation: Something Awful
Reason: This was referred to as an uncommonly good action movie.
Some film concepts just sound terrible when you look at them barefaced. An archaeologist who fights nazis? A computer geek jacks into the system and suddenly 'knows kung fu'? An assassin takes care of a little girl after her family is brutally murdered? A planeful of convicts being transported cross-country gets jacked by said cons and mayhem ensues? How could those possibly be good movies? But Indiana Jones, The Matrix, The Professional and Con Air are truly exemplary films. Each has their own appeal-pulpy action goodness, comic book chic, arthouse credentials and in the case of Con Air, a sort of giddy boys-playing-with-toys gleeful insanity that drags you helplessly along in its wake. This is an action movie with the dial racked up to eleven. The plot is simple, the characters broad-strokes, but somehow, it's a gem.
Action and casting, that's where it all comes together. When your script is alright and your technical crew is up to spec, you have to arrange your cast properly. Galaxies collided to bring together the crew that appeared in this film. Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo, John Malkovich, Dave Chappelle, John Cusack...I could go on. Just take a look at the IMDB link up top there and consider the credentials on display. I'm not sure how this cast was brought together. I just know that without all of them, the whole tenuous setup would have fallen apart.
I've already said this movie cranked the dial up to eleven. It's a guy movie. Scott Rosenberg somehow tapped into the little boy in his brain and thought 'I know what I'd like to see in an action movie! Army guys trying to shoot down a plane while they're hiding behind a bulldozer, and then the plane crashes into Las Vegas! AND there should be a car chase! With police bikes and a firetruck!'. And it works. Somehow, someone made it work. The movie was undiluted teenage-boy-fantasy awesome.
-100/365 down, 265/365 to go
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Bella Amore!
The Movie: Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison
Recommendation: Dee
Reason: "Cher won an Oscar for this!"
Moonstruck is predictable. That's the biggest problem it has. The story's spelled out from beginning to end, the characters aren't unexpected. But there's a level of genuine...something that really elevates the film above its merely blah trappings. Cher really did earn her award-her character is quite unlike the mega-diva-from-beyond-time that everyone's so familiar with. She has a rhythm, a patter about her speech and her movement that's very fresh.
The rest of the cast has a similar sort of power. They're charming without being saccharine, and there's that same very real quality about them. It's hard to believe they aren't really a big, loving, brawling, shouting family. They were a perfect setting for a decent romantic comedy. Seriously, Nia Vardalos has nothing on these guys. They were legitimately funny. I laughed more often during Moonstruck than I did during My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
My Italian sucks, as you can see above. I'm primarily from the Isles of the United Kingdom, and then filtered through a few generations in Canada. But I can really appreciate the family unit that was created in this film, as foreign as the root of it may be. Pretty good work here.
-73/365 down, 292/365 to go
Recommendation: Dee
Reason: "Cher won an Oscar for this!"
Moonstruck is predictable. That's the biggest problem it has. The story's spelled out from beginning to end, the characters aren't unexpected. But there's a level of genuine...something that really elevates the film above its merely blah trappings. Cher really did earn her award-her character is quite unlike the mega-diva-from-beyond-time that everyone's so familiar with. She has a rhythm, a patter about her speech and her movement that's very fresh.
The rest of the cast has a similar sort of power. They're charming without being saccharine, and there's that same very real quality about them. It's hard to believe they aren't really a big, loving, brawling, shouting family. They were a perfect setting for a decent romantic comedy. Seriously, Nia Vardalos has nothing on these guys. They were legitimately funny. I laughed more often during Moonstruck than I did during My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
My Italian sucks, as you can see above. I'm primarily from the Isles of the United Kingdom, and then filtered through a few generations in Canada. But I can really appreciate the family unit that was created in this film, as foreign as the root of it may be. Pretty good work here.
-73/365 down, 292/365 to go
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
