OPO: Nicolas Cage's Worst Movie

waht

8mm is the worst film ever made so it walks this.

I really do not get the love for Adaptation, such a cop-out of a film

Cage IS decent in it - he pulls off the twin thing well - but I remember feeling the film didn't take advantage of its best ideas.

His accent in Peggie Sue Got Married is something to hear.

Adaptation = Eternal Sunshine without the twee emo crap and narcissism (ok, less narcissism)

but... they're completely different movies about completely different things! And Adaptation has an even shittier twee-Hollywood-happy ending!

Adaptation is a great movie.

Eternal Sunshine = Adaptation without the meta crap and narcissism.

you people are crazy.

STEP AWAY FROM THE BIKE

I don't understand why anyone would think its so great to make a shitty film that tries to explain away its shittiness with a completely transparent "I MEANT to do that, because I'm rebelling against Hollywood" subtext. Its way more smug and self-serving and boring than anything in Eternal Sunshine - which is probably the most moving, genuinely emotional "romantic comedy" I've seen in at least 20 years.

Eternal Sunshine = Adaptation without the meta crap and narcissism.

that's funny!

i think i find the characters in Adaptation more interesting. more adult anyway...i think the subjects of grief and love in that film are more subtle, and definitely less sunk into the detritus of a failed relationship that isn't that interesting to begin with.

i think, however, that a lot of the problems with Sunshine are more due to Gondry and the performances than the script as written. it required a more detached eye, for my taste.

I don't want to get into this Adaptation v. Eternal Sunshine zero-sum game. I don't think Adaptation's "smug" at all, though. it's fucking weird and awesome.

so i guess im saying Jonze/Cage >>> Gondry/Carey

(and Kate Winselt is the onlyl reason Eternal Sunshine is even watchable as the sad sack bullshit it is!)

I guess its safe to say Adaptation won't be winning this poll

I think part of the problem with Cage is that he's been making movies really often for so long without much obvious aging or physical change, and the marketing of like 70% of those movies has made them indistinguishable from each other, even once you've seen them. One called The Family Man and one called The Weather Man and another called The Wicker Man (plus Matchstick Men!), at least 3 movies that take place in Las Vegas, and I don't really know the difference between Windtalkers and Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I like The Rock and 8mm in a kind of campy way, I like Raising Arizona and a few others more sincerely (Lord Of War looks promising), but really they all kind of blur together and his character/performance is only really unique or distinct in a handful.

and I don't really know the difference between Windtalkers and Captain Corelli's Mandolin

one's set in the European theater the other's in the Pacific theater

i don't think adaptation is smug at all. it's worried about smugness, it contemplates smugness, but if anything it's anti-smug. and i think the ending is funny and smart and coherent with the rest of the film.

I like him more than Morbius does, and yet somehow have seen way fewer of his films

I like Adaptation a lot, I just like Eternal Sunshine better.

i don't think adaptation is smug at all. it's worried about smugness, it contemplates smugness, but if anything it's anti-smug

this holds true for two thirds of the film, then it collapses in on itself. The problem: criticizing the ending means you're not "in" on the joke.

what joke?

"It's only a movie, written by a guy who can't think of an ending."

is Birdy the only film for which he shaved his chest? (and even at 20, that was a lotta work)

a question for the ages

vs the question of why ppl wanna rehash goddamn Charlie Kaufman fights that are 3 years old

he's terrific in Wild At Heart and Red Rock West.

seriously it'd be great if some journalist asked Cage the chest-shaving question in an interview for whatever shit he's working on now

no one is terrific bearable in Wild At Heart

He's also got the biggest toes of any major Hollywood actor.

FACT

PRINT IT

I kind of want to see National Treasure 2 - never saw the first one, but this one looks goofy and not at all serious.

Good sometimes, but seems to act a lot for paychecks - always easy to spot the ones that are going to be crap (like the one where he walks around Manhattan w/ bow and arrow??!) and avoid them. Doesn't really deserve kudos (fuck an Adaptation) or hatred.

He shaved his chest for Valley Girl.

I enjoyed both Lord of War and Matchstick Men.

I also like the Rock and Con Air for what they were.

8mm and Gone in Sixty Seconds are two of the worst movies I've ever seen.

He shaved his chest for Valley Girl.

nope. I thought so too, and looked it up, and his chest hair is right there on the poster.

http://videodetective.com/photos/053/002239_26.jpg

not only does he have chest hair, she can't stop staring at it!

There is a horrible touch of the David Schwimmers about that picture.

(like that's the worst thing about it)

do only non-brits rate michael caine these days?

in the uk the flatness of his accent was like being elbowed in the nose back in the day, more upsettingly potent than the ugliest stones song blah blah -- but non-posh accents on tv and film have shifted way towards the operaticly expressive in the britain (in my lifetime) (in fact in most of your lifetimes) and today it reads like overdone comedy shtick, a humorous straight-man character actor do-less tic even in his really strong early er "britpop" films (ipcress file, italian job, get carter blah blah)

wait, are you saying you like Caine or not, mark s?

accent nuances are lost on me, but I love him. he made me sob and sob in Children of Men

I most definitely remember the chest hair in Valley Girl.

Wanted to see The Weather Man but figured with NC's recent track record I could wait.

(also, Caine has given 2 of his best performances in the last few years in The Quiet American and Children of Men)

Now Michael Caine's Worst Movie - where would you start?!??!

The Hand. Demonstrably worse than Jaws 4

also, Lord of War is the best movie no one's ever seen.

It was OK, but hardly great. Not fault of Cage, but it was Ethan Hawke that dragged it down

He trimmed his chest hair into a V for Valley Girl. There was definite shaving going on, just not the entire chest.

i'm not a huge fan, no* -- i guess i was just putting up the possibility tht brits had soured on him more for reasons beyond his control than non-brits, bcz accent has been mobile in complex ways (incomprehensible to non-brits and rightly so no doubt), and he kinda hasn't mobile along with this

the souring isn't actually to do with his qualities as an actor, more to do with the effect of social fashion on the style of his acting (so he could pop right back in again, easy)

*the ipcress file is great but it's partly because it's so hyper-dour it's funny

"It's only a movie, written by a guy who can't think of an ending."

but no! (sorry morbs, i didn't get to have this fight 3 yrs ago.) the ending is the "adaptation" part -- the unfilmable Susan Orlean book evolving and adapting to fisurvive in a new environment (big-budget hollywood). just like the orchids do, etc. the whole thing is a riff on biology. or biological processes as an analog to artistic/creative processes.

survive, i mean. "fisurvive" is not a word.

yeah, that's correct. i think the reading that adaptation's all injokey and emptily "meta" is a pre-reaction to the movie--it's not actually like that.