Movies We've Seen Recently

[Turtle]

Joe (2013)
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Gary Poulter
An unintended throughline here, Cage again plays an ex-con in Joe. A story of poverty set in rural Texas, this is a portrait of three men: Joe (Cage), an emotionally distant but ultimately kind working man with serious anger issues; Gary (Sheridan), a young man trying to support his family and free them from the abuse of Wade (Poulter), his lazy, violent, alcoholic father. The story itself isn't complex, isn't breaking any new ground - Joe sees in Gary a version of himself, a hard working young man struggling against abusive authority, and takes on the role of adoptive parent to make sure Gary doesn't follow his own footsteps. What really drives this movie is the focus on the performances and they are all terrific, gripping, at times uncomfortable to watch. I hadn't heard of this movie before watching it, it's won awards but it slid under my radar. I didn't know what to expect going in, but what a reward. I highly recommend this movie.

Kill Chain (2019)
Director: Ken Sanzel
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Anabelle Acosta, Enrico Colantoni
This is an amazon streaming distribution. This should mostly tell you what you need to know, but what the heck, I got time. The owner of a desolate Columbian hotel (Cage) is accosted in the night and buys himself some time by telling them the story of how he came to be in possession of the place. The story is pretty broad - bad people doing bad things, bad people becoming good people on account of all the bad things they've seen, revenge, consequences, you get it. This movie is fine. Decent? Standard. Competent. The worst thing a movie can be is boring and this movie manages to hit just north of there. It's got a few good individual scenes and a lot of pretty blank overall narrative. I can't recommend it, you shouldn't go out of your way for this one, but I'm not mad I watched it.

Grand Isle (2019)
Director: Stephen S. Campanelli
Stars: Nicolas Cage, KaDee Strickland, Luke Benward
Tense. Clumsy. This is like 60% good and the other 60% is bad. Buddy (Benward) is a struggling young ex military father trying to make ends meet. He gets a job to fix a section of fence for Walter (Cage) with a bonus for fixing it before a hurricane sweeps in. Walter is a fucking lunatic. The fence is broken from a burglary that turned into Walter locking his front door and shooting this man in the back. Do not trust this man. The hurricane rolls in and Buddy is stuck in this house waiting out the storm. The good part of this movie is the front half, it is genuinely uncomfortable as you're watching this everyman deal with a murderous alcoholic and his seductress wife (Strickland) who is attempting to tempt him directly in front of her belligerent husband. It really falls apart in the back half when it needs to start paying off. It's so predictable and yet also, at times when it should be predictable, it is sometimes worse? Like you expect it to pull a turn, and then it doesn't do that at all, and it's not like it does something better, it just does nothing. The nicest thing I can say about this movie is that Cage plays a wonderful antagonist. He's positively menacing. Wish the script was better. Kelsey Grammar is here in a small role as a Louisiana sheriff, he's decent enough at it but it's really a character actor kind of role.

Primal (2019)
Director: Nick Powell
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Famke Janssen, Kevin Durand
Would you believe that I'm not picking the order of these? I wouldn't. The last three movies came out nearly in the order that I've ended up watching them. Frank Walsh (Cage) is a Poacher Wildlife Acquisition Specialist on his way to deliver his latest shipment of exotic animals, including a rare white jaguar. Simultaneously, the CIA has its own dangerous beast aboard the ship: A wanted assassin (Durand) being sent back to America to face justice for his crimes. This may surprise you, but the assassin breaks free and is seeking to take control of the ship and escape. The writer has seen good movies but they clearly don't know what makes them good because this movie is bland as hell, from the plot to the characters, all terrible. It's trying to do kind of a reluctant anti-hero thing with Walsh but it can't pull it off and making him very obviously, from the first scene of the movie, a wildlife poacher is a bad fucking start. Janssen's character especially is just kind of insultingly bad and pretty deeply misogynist. This is a bad movie, don't watch it. There's a scene where Nic Cage shoots an arrow through a man's shoulder and it's just like half way through on each side, that's pretty good.

[Turtle]

Dream Scenario (2023)
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Stars: Lily Bird, Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson
Paul Matthews (Cage) is an ordinary, boring, insecure, college professor. A father of two teenage girls, one day his youngest (Bird) tells him of a dream she's been having where despite her imminent danger, he stands around and does nothing. This bothers him, but it bothers him even more so when a colleague has a similar dream - and then his students, and then, it seems, everyone else. He begins appearing in the dreams of people worldwide and is swept up in a bizarre form of fame and later, infamy. I really enjoyed this movie. It reminds me, non-derivatively, of Charlie Kaufman's work. A real surprise, highly recommend it.

Racing With the Moon (1984)
Director: Richard Benjamin
Stars: Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern, Nicolas Cage
A coming-of-age story set in 1942, Hopper (Penn) and Nicky (Cage) have been drafted and are facing their last few weeks in town before shipping off. Hopper pursues love with a local rich girl in what's a pretty standard wrong-side-of-the-tracks romcom with a bit of a twist. The story takes a turn for the dramatic with Nicky - his girlfriend is pregnant and he needs money for an abortion. The story is a bit meandering at points and in the moment the transition from romance to drama felt stiff but it's generally good for what it is. Penn is the lead while Cage is taking more of a support role as an energetic, charismatic, irresponsible teen and he's a lot of fun in it. Not to mention, young Cage here is a real hunk.

Seeking Justice (2011)
Director: Roger Donaldson
Stars: Nicolas Cage, January Jones, Guy Pearce
One night while Will Gerard (Cage) is playing chess with a coworker, his wife Laura (Jones) is violently assaulted and raped. In the hospital lobby, distraught, he's approached by a man (Pearce) who claims to represent a group of like-minded men who can help him. They know who did it, they know where he is, and if given the signal, will Seek Justice, since the underfunded and corrupt System can't. He initially declines but eventually takes them up on their offer, entangling himself in an underground ring of vigilantes who ask him to take increasingly extreme actions as he desperately tries to cut ties and return to a normal life. As far as the movie goes, this is a straight crime thriller. It's the kind of movie that's neither good nor bad enough to be worth watching. It doesn't help that the backdrop of all of this is The Society of Men Whose Wives Were Raped and how that made them feel. This movie is deeply misogynist. Laura exists first to get hurt and then to be threatened, it's rare she has a scene in this movie where violence has not occurred or is impending.

Red Rock West (1993)
Director: John Dahl
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, Lara Flynn Boyle
Now this is a Flick. Michael (Cage) has driven from Texas to Wyoming for a job he doesn't get on account of his bum leg and his honesty. Looking for work elsewhere, he finds himself mistaken for a hired killer, takes the cash, and warns the target. What ensues is a midwestern themed noir featuring Dennis Hopper as the actual hitman and Lara Flynn Boyle as the dame with more going on than it seems and they are both going full tilt. Cage really takes a back seat. I wouldn't call it a favorite but it's got a lot going for it, it's a good ride. Dennis Hopper wears a fantastic cartoonish black texas suit. Seriously, look it up, he picked it himself!