Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

:lol: tbf I think he's a good actor. Thoughts on next? I felt the ending ruined it for me, a film with a low impact ending always skewers my opinions on the film.

Yes, Next (along with both National Treasures) are my least favourite films of his. It was a stupid action flick like Drive Angry and Seeking Justice but didn't have that "cool" factor attached. The ending was very anti-climatic, but again, it would have been worse if Nic hadn't been in it :D
 
:lol: I go to a film quiz with a team from work on the last Tuesday of every month. I am quite knowledgeable with films so I am quite high in demand to go to the quiz. However, I have a stipulation: if they want me to be in their team, the team name has to be Wicker Man (The Nic Cage Version) and so that's what we're called :lol:

I hope that everytime you get one right, you shout "NOT THE BEES!!!"
 
Bill, you're conveniently letting Cage off the hook for his inability to say no to whatever trash he's offered

No, Mockney is. I'm just letting the romantic/conspiracy theorist/absurd part of my personality agree with him.



Seriously, this film is only bearable because Cage is in it!


No, it's a poor film because cage is in it. The original was far superior because it was creepy and strange. This film is inferior because Cage is creepy and strange.

Cage is oddly watchable though. His films are like bad reality tv shows. You know you shouldn't be watching them and your brain is screaming at you to stop but you just have to watch the carnage unfold into its ultimately unsatisfactory ending.
 
Raising Arizona is the only Nic Cage movie I like.

Otherwise I no longer even find him funny. I cannot stand him.
 
Robot and Frank - Interesting movie I must say, weird story, but it was ok, would recommend it.
 
Looper. Wow. Sure, we're meant to disengage our brains, and yes time travel travel themed films are invariably nonsensical. I get that. I do. Honestly. But you hope for a certain amount of entertainment value that makes a movie such as this..er... worthwhile. Entertainment could equate to loads of tits. Or perhaps loads of car crashes. Or even better Hewitt Gordon's prosthetic nose falling off during scenes. But this movie fails miserably at almost everything. Set decades in the future, one could be forgiven into thinking we'd see the director's vision of the future. Instead the vast majority of the movie is set in a poxy Kansas corn field... Wow very Blade Runner you're thinking. But anyway a load of nonsensical nonsense later, the film does a very vague parody of Terminator without the score, quality action and Arnie. Rather, we have Bruce Willis doing his 'I'll be back' impersonation in the middle of that poxy Kansas corn field. Look just avoid this movie if you're looking for a good sci fi. In fact avoid it full stop and watch Knowing instead. At least you can laugh at Nicholas Cage.

I watched this. Anyone else think that he could have just passed his kid off to a bunch of lunatic aliens or perhaps an alien kiddy fiddling ring?
 
Lincoln - It's alright. It's very well made, quite interesting at times and Daniel Day Lewis is fantastic, but it takes a while to get into it, and it's just quite a slow process in general. I did enjoy all the politics stuff, despite it being very black and white in terms of Republicans = good and Democrates = Bad (in a total cartoonishly villain way I might add), it was interesting to see Lincoln wrestle with the war/slavery dilemma and what h was prepared to do to get things to go his way.

The film was at it's worst though whenever it got into Lincoln and his family stuff. I hated Sally Field as his wife, thought she was terrible, and whilst I like Joseph Gordon Levitt, he had no place in this film really... all the father/son stuff felt really tacked on.

Anyway, if you like the idea of a film about the process of American Politics, and making deals to get stuff done, or just Daniel Day Lewis being great, then you'll enjoy this... otherwise you can probably afford to give it a miss.

Watching DDL in that though then inspired me to watch...

Gangs of New York- It's far from Scorcese's best work, but it looks fantastic (the first fight scene in the snow is a particular highlight) and Lewis is tremendous in it. It's also an interesting film from the perspective that pretty much every "gang" is reprehensible on some level, and so the lines of who is a "good" guy and who is a "bad" guy do get blurred from time to time... particular for the climax of the film.

I couldn't agree more with that. Also the crying and depression scenes with Sally Field were cringe worthy. It was a bit too cartoonish when Lincoln constantly went into story telling mode. Like when they were bombing the Confederate fort and effectively massacring loads of them and he launches into a story despite being a worrier.
 
I hope that everytime you get one right, you shout "NOT THE BEES!!!"

:lol: I have done this a few times

No, it's a poor film because cage is in it. The original was far superior because it was creepy and strange. This film is inferior because Cage is creepy and strange.

I disagree. I thought the original was bland and very boring. Languid pacing and a story that is quite frankly a snooze fest. The remake is also technically a "bad" film and I think this is because the story is just too irksome for visual cinema BUT Nic Cage (who probably got the wrong script :lol:) makes the film tolerable. Punching a girl in the face dressed as a bear, stealing a woman's bike, NOT THE BEES etc are the defining points of that film and are all down to his bizzare performance :D

That is just my opinion though and I guess it is a marmite film...
 
On the subject of Nic Cage, did anyone see Peggy Sue Got Married was on the other night? I watched 15 minutes but had to abort, that film has not aged well.

However, I come down on the Cage Is Awesome side in this. As far as off-the-shelf, formulaic Hollywood action movies go, Con Air and The Rock are up there with the best. Leaving Las Vegas is one of my very favourite films, and he is excellent in that. He's been in a load of other brilliant films, such as Raising Arizona and Wild At Heart, and lots of other very good films a tier below, such as Lord Of War and 8MM. Even when he is in something that isnt great, I usually find he is one of the better things about the film.
 
:lol: Why do I feel this has become the Nicolas Cage movie review thread. Lord of war was a good film.
 
Argo A great bit of traditional filmaking. A simple story well told. Those who criticse it as simply US propaganda need their head examining. It was a US film about US citizens hiding in a newly fundamental Islamic state. What did you expect? It paid more than lip service to the causes of the Islamic revolution and then got on with telling a great story. One of the better offerings this year. 8.5/10
 
Even Cages better films are utter shit. Con Air and The Rock are shit albeit enjoyable shit. Face/Off is just really really really bad and how he ever won an Oscar for the ordinariness that was Leaving Las Vegas is beyond me and Adaptation was idiotic. The original Wicker Man wasn't a great film but it is a shining light of film making mastery compared to the utter turd of a remake. And every single film that he has made in recent years hasn't just been poor but rather so appallingly bad that straight to DVD would have been a complement. Basically he is a reverse film alchemist who can turn gold to shit.
 
Even Cages better films are utter shit. Con Air and The Rock are shit albeit enjoyable shit. Face/Off is just really really really bad and how he ever won an Oscar for the ordinariness that was Leaving Las Vegas is beyond me and Adaptation was idiotic. The original Wicker Man wasn't a great film but it is a shining light of film making mastery compared to the utter turd of a remake. And every single film that he has made in recent years hasn't just been poor but rather so appallingly bad that straight to DVD would have been a complement. Basically he is a reverse film alchemist who can turn gold to shit.

No it wasn't. It just wasn't quite as bad as The Wicker Man and the like.

I get the feeling you're a Cage Hater...

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EDIT: Without noticing it, this is my 1000th post! :D
 
On the subject of Nic Cage, did anyone see Peggy Sue Got Married was on the other night? I watched 15 minutes but had to abort, that film has not aged well.

However, I come down on the Cage Is Awesome side in this. As far as off-the-shelf, formulaic Hollywood action movies go, Con Air and The Rock are up there with the best. Leaving Las Vegas is one of my very favourite films, and he is excellent in that. He's been in a load of other brilliant films, such as Raising Arizona and Wild At Heart, and lots of other very good films a tier below, such as Lord Of War and 8MM. Even when he is in something that isnt great, I usually find he is one of the better things about the film.

Don't know if you've seen Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Adebisi, but if not you should check it out, it's one of his best performances for me. He's incredible in it.
 
Don't know if you've seen Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Adebisi, but if not you should check it out, it's one of his best performances for me. He's incredible in it.

I think this film was one of his best as Herzog, unlike many directors these days, allowed Cage to express his wild side in this film, hence the performance he got was really good...
 
I get the feeling you're a Cage Hater...

image.jpg

EDIT: Without noticing it, this is my 1000th post! :D

Oh yes. Face/Off was one of the few films that I walked out of the cinema half way through because it was so dire.
 
Argo A great bit of traditional filmaking. A simple story well told. Those who criticse it as simply US propaganda need their head examining. It was a US film about US citizens hiding in a newly fundamental Islamic state. What did you expect? It paid more than lip service to the causes of the Islamic revolution and then got on with telling a great story. One of the better offerings this year. 8.5/10

It's not only the age of massive propaganda from governments (Not limited to the US, of course) but Hollywood as well. Argo is like many American films that love to revise history to suit an agenda - so as a piece of fiction, it's not bad. As a film documenting a true moment in history, it's conveniently timed ahead of more ramping up for war with Iran. Meanwhile, I imagine Canadians just see this as another example of disrespect from their arrogant neighbors to the south.

Programming & films from Hollywood to manipulate viewers politically is not new (Goes back to WWII), just more pronounced & less subtle these days. Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, Won't Back Down, Homeland, 24 etc. are only a few examples.
 
I think this film was one of his best as Herzog, unlike many directors these days, allowed Cage to express his wild side in this film, hence the performance he got was really good...

Completely agree. The film isn't brilliant because of Cage, but it's brilliant because of how Herzog directed Cage. Or maybe didn't direct him! :lol: No but the thing with Cage is that in other productions, he's just too much over the top for the person in charge who has no idea how to manage it. And they often try to mellow it down in editing, but it doesn't change much. Cage is a unique actor, and can be great under the right director (which is probably why he isn't a "great" actor in the sense that so many other actors can be professionals and adapt to different films, he's very one sided). Herzog understood perfectly what kind of beast he was dealing with here, and even though it's probably one of Cage's most demented performances, it never seems over the top like in so many other films he's done.

But I love Nicolas Cage. I love him for the silly films (Con/Air, The Rock, brilliant action flicks), for the dreadful ones (too many to list, but the National Treasure ones are good examples, I'm talking about all those formulaic films produced in quantity every year where he seems to pop up in about 50% of them, they're dreadful but having Cage being so fecking crazy in them just makes them less dreadful) and for the very good ones (and there's a few of those, just like Bad Lieutenant, both a good film and a good performance by Cage). Oh and for Wicker Man, which is just something else altogether.

Back on topic (we should seriously have a Nic Cage thread!), I saw The Descendants yesterday. It got quite a few oscar nods last year if I recall correctly, hard to understand what all the hype was about though. It's a nice story about a father trying to come to grasps with the realities of life, some nice sceneries of Hawaii as well, and it's pretty moving, but it's such a random film. I mean there's nothing special about it, I didn't mind watching it last night but I've forgotten about 50% of it today already. Hard to understand why some films get hyped the way they do sometimes.

However, fun fact, the guy that co-wrote the scenario, Jim Rash, and who won an oscar for it, is Dean Pelton from Community. Mental! :lol:

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Bad Lieutenant was just a good movie and nothing more, I thought. Something like Wild at Heart was far better in every way inc. Cage's performance.
 
Adaptaion was great.

It is great and he's great in it, probably my favorite Cage performance since Face/Off in 1997. But in this century, he's been almost exclusively a paycheck actor

You almost forget that he had some gems in the 90s & 80s, yet now I would avoid any film he's in
 
It is great and he's great in it, probably my favorite Cage performance since Face/Off in 1997. But in this century, he's been almost exclusively a paycheck actor

You almost forget that he had some gems in the 90s & 80s, yet now I would avoid any film he's in

Yes I sort of agree here that he is in a lot of films this century that he wouldn't have been in had he not been in so much debt but that debt is nearly cleared and soon, we will see him in films like Adaptation again. Wait until Frank or Francis is released, it will be brilliant...
 
Since 2000, he's done Captain Corelli, Adaptation, Matchstick Men, Weather Man, Lord of War, Bad Lieutenant and Kick-Ass which weren't 'paycheck' movies I think. But as he's been in about 549 other films, yeah, it's not much.
 
Submarine - A lovely little film. Funny, stylish, sweet. It's been compared to Wes Anderson's work but I thought it was more reminiscent of Hal Ashby / 60's and 70's French films.
 
Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Pretty enjoyable thriller. 8/10

The Last Stand

Pretty enjoyable Arnie. 8/10

Zero Dark Thirty

Pretty enjoyable Osama Bin Leaded. 8/10
 
I cant believe that, it is got to be better than that Bird shit I watched a bit ago, I have even forgot what it is called.


EDIT : I remembered it, Birdemic.

Naturally, I googled this.



It looks awful, naturally, but I refuse to believe there are people out there who are capable of making something this bad without knowing it's this bad. Even Tommy Wiseau is probably aware of his terribleness....Well, by now.

Therefore I've got no choice but to conclude it's deliberately made this bad, by witty and self aware people, and is thus brilliant...Or at least slightly less shit.
 
It's not only the age of massive propaganda from governments (Not limited to the US, of course) but Hollywood as well. Argo is like many American films that love to revise history to suit an agenda - so as a piece of fiction, it's not bad. As a film documenting a true moment in history, it's conveniently timed ahead of more ramping up for war with Iran. Meanwhile, I imagine Canadians just see this as another example of disrespect from their arrogant neighbors to the south.

Programming & films from Hollywood to manipulate viewers politically is not new (Goes back to WWII), just more pronounced & less subtle these days. Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, Won't Back Down, Homeland, 24 etc. are only a few examples.

It was based on real events rather than being a historical documentary and most changes were about simplifying the story and adding tension that didn't exist as we saw it in the film. Canada's role was only slightly downplayed mainly in so far as the film skipped the bit between their escape from the embassy and their extraction. A few other countries did help as much as they could but were portrayed as uncaring in the movie, so they might be a bit miffed. Hardly propaganda though except in the sense that it was told from a US viewpoint for a US audience and everyone knows that it is a story and not history.
 
It was based on real events rather than being a historical documentary and most changes were about simplifying the story and adding tension that didn't exist as we saw it in the film. Canada's role was only slightly downplayed mainly in so far as the film skipped the bit between their escape from the embassy and their extraction. A few other countries did help as much as they could but were portrayed as uncaring in the movie, so they might be a bit miffed. Hardly propaganda though except in the sense that it was told from a US viewpoint for a US audience and everyone knows that it is a story and not history.

However, the timing of the film leaves a sour taste in the mouth... They delayed Lil Wayne music video straight after the Batman cinema shooting, they delayed Spiderman (I think it was) after 9/11 but have no sympathy towards Iran in the release of this...
 
The Grey:

Seriously bad film. It would've been straight to DVD if Neeson wasn't in it.
I would laugh at the completely unrealistic portrayal of the Wolves hunting the men, but unfortunately it'll probably lead to more idiots shooting them on sight so it's actually quite tragic.

Absolute rubbish!