nicolas cage, the greatest entertainer of our - or perhaps any - generation (a POLL)

Juria316
5 months ago
I love how Nicolas Cage has become a genre.

Obvious choice in retrospect

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/04/nicolas-cage-joe-exotic-tiger-king-miniseries

Saw Pig, the Nicholas Cage looks for his pig movie, tonight and I was pretty floored. Don’t miss this one…

It could be summarized as John Wick meets The Truffle Hunters. But by the third course act it's really much more.

Got Snakes on a Plane vibes from the trailer but Nic Cage seems like the kind of actor who could actually pull this off

I think he did. Certain elements of the Portland culinary underworld, as presented in this movie, strain credulity. But Cage's performance works in this setting.

Question for anyone who knows more about restaurants than I do: is molecular gastronomy still a thing? I was under the impression that it had died with El Bulli, in part because of Noma and the hype around foraging.

I want to see Pig but I don't go to theaters anymore. Once it pops up on Amazon or Hulu or someplace I'll definitely check it out.

is molecular gastronomy still a thing?

In the context of Portland, no. I don't think it ever took hold here to begin with.

is molecular gastronomy still a thing?

It's been two years since I've been to a top-end restaurant, but imo what happened is that those techniques have been more broadly absorbed by top-end "fancy" restaurants. Even top-end places that don't advertise themselves as molecular gastronomy may use aggressively modern elements/techniques within whatever else they are doing.

is molecular gastronomy still a thing

Absolutely, but I think so many of its attributes and trappings are just common practice now that it's not really called that.

The real culinary frontier is elemental gastronomy.

liked this a lot. seemed like all that stuff was just a vehicle to say "none of this is real," as Cage's character doesn't know or care what's happening in that world anymore. restaurant scene was great - "old world, uh, traditions."

It's kind of a shame that Cage has been in this cycle of ott kitsch and gun for hire shit, as I keep hearing nothing but good things about this.

Got Snakes on a Plane vibes from the trailer

I didn't see the trailer but this is definitely not that kind of movie. Watched it last night, it's excellent and very touching, and I like the extremely weird implication that there's some underground of chefs running a fight club (this whole scene was kind of incongruous with the rest of the film but it added a nice surreal touch). Cage seems a lock for an Oscar nomination.

ok I guess I really do need to see this, leave it to Cage to make something like this actually good

pig is such a soulful and beautiful film

Brad OTM.

I went to a free viewing of Mandy and I can report it's still amazing even the third watch through

more people in every trade/artform could stand to be told "none of this is real"

pig is such a soulful and beautiful film

Ha, yer such a mark. It's one of your best qualities, mind you.

I watched it this past weekend when it popped up on Hulu; it was... better than I expected. But come on; it's set in a world every bit as fantastic as JOHN WICK or ROAD HOUSE, and Cage as nearly silent avatar of What Really Matters is totally absurd. There's not one Dead Wife but TWO! But I'll give it this much - the movie sells it so well you only laugh afterward. Scott Seward called it "a dumber Nomadland for Chuck Palahniuk fanboys" and that's dead on.

"a dumber Nomadland for Chuck Palahniuk fanboys" can not possibly be "better than you expected"

It has the virtue of being completely original and mostly successful at bringing off its premise; it's the intersection of film and ILX's quiddities-of-the-NYT thread. Maybe the year's sharpest political film.

watched and very much loved Pig over the weekend

if it was a dumber palahniuk he’d have been fucking the pig imo

I didn’t buy a lot of bits of the script but Cage sold the dialogue like he meant it. He’s made to emote and act out some really iffy concepts and somehow sell them, imo

Ha, yer such a mark. It's one of your best qualities, mind you.

one of your best qualities is your complete inability to see beyond your narrow-ass tastes so thanks

y’all just namechecking palahniuk just because there’s an brief underground fight club scene in the movie? idk, think better

Pig

it totally depicted the outrageous rituals and trend-chasing that defines any kind of scene without resorting to straight realism, which is distinct from the fictional world of assassins in john wick and the deep interrogation of masculinity in fight club but then again maybe these different things are all the same

Road House was a much deeper interrogation of masculinity than Fight Club. Palahniuk’s best book is Invisible Monsters.

I love movies about work. This one was curious about food culture and the politics of food sourcing. It may be why I liked the writing and directing of the Wolff character so much. We've seen these underachievers before; his sadness and sincerity and just-smart-enough air touched me.

otm

I left Pig a little bemused but not untouched - however its virtues were thrown into sharp relief by my next Cage screening, the irredeemable Prisoners of the Ghostland.

Irredeemable? That film is going to rule and you cannot convince me otherwise

I’m mildly bristling at “underachievers” here. I don’t think Arkin’s character necessarily wanted his son to achieve anything, in that he was as dismissive of him as he was unable to let go of his wife

That's fair.

Irredeemable? That film is going to rule and you cannot convince me otherwise

― imago

No, it's awful nonsense with a couple of nice sets.

are you a fan of any of Sono's previous work

Haven't seen it. This didn't entice me to.

that is all i needed to know

the film will ruuuuuule

have to say i'm with unperson, this was fun and all but ends up being about as deep as a puddle. its great to see cage actually trying & succeeding to act, he's extremely watchable & gives the role more than it deserves. but i'm bored silly by 'damaged stoic hardman trying to Get Back That Which Has Been Stolen' when its done this self-seriously - Point Blank was 50 years ago ffs. at least John Wick had a sense of camp.

y'all are acting as if this movie ends violently

I expected it to go Point Blank and JW and it didn't.

it's a meditation on loss and the ways it obstructs us from true human connection and healing and, as alfred said, it is also about work, about craft, and the ways capital separates us from the dignity of that craft, and fair enough if y'all have seen so many movies that cover this ground both simultaneously and richly while also being funny, poignant, melancholy, and constantly making, ime, unexpected narrative turns, but i haven't and i loved it. also every character the film dwells on has a wonderful, three-dimensional arc, and the movie looks stupidly beautiful. i am a mark, though

the film will ruuuuuule

i’m a big sono mark and think norikos dinner table is an all time great movie and also thought he was on a nice streak lately (loved escher street) but… ghostland is just a mess that doesn’t work at all. worst sono i’ve seen and i must’ve watched like 15 or 20 of em at this point. and it’s particularly disappointing bc it’s gonna be the first exposure a lot of people get and will keep em away from the good stuff, like we’re already seeing on this thread. total bummer.

Thanks bgm - that makes me much more likely to check out his other stuff than certain other posters' 'you're not in the cool club' crowing ;)

D:

lol np

fwiw, depending on your tastes, tag, noriko, antiporno, why don’t you play in hell?, or himizu are all a significantly better way in imo

(x-post)

the half of "why don't you play in hell" that i watched was very much a good time

Time to redo the poll, folks: Nicolas Cage To Play Dracula In Universal’s ‘Renfield’ Starring Nicholas Hoult

pig was not very good

why not?