It Could Happen to You (1994)
Director: Andrew Bergman
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Bridget Fonda, Rosie Perez
Charlie Lang (Cage) is a New York City cop. Now you're going to have to stretch your imagination because a big part of the premise of this movie is that he's a good person. One day his wife (Perez) insists that he buys a lotto ticket, which he does. Unable to come up with the cash for a tip at a diner, he offers half of whatever the ticket in his wallet earns to the waitress, Yvonne (Fonda). This ticket, of course, wins $4 million. True to his word, and against the wishes of his wife, he does just that. The rest of the movie is a romantic comedy. There's not much to say about this movie, it's bog standard, the only thing I really have to say about the movie is this: If you write a character into your movie, and that character is a shrill awful person, and that's your intention because they're supposed to be annoying, you're supposed to dislike them, well I'm still going to have a bad time seeing them on screen. Don't do this.
Wendell Pierce is in this movie as Nic Cage's cop partner. That's Bunk! That's fun.
Knowing (2009)
Director: Alex Proyas
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne
John Koestler (Cage) is an astronomy professor and single father, a widower. When his son's (Canterbury) school opens a time capsule from 50 years prior, he discovers an encoded message - what appear to be the dates of, and death tolls of, every major world disaster over the course of the past half century - and into the future. This discovery compels him to act, to understand the message, how it came to be and what he can do to prevent the looming threats. I had heard of this movie, often in the same breath as previously seen Next (2007). What I hadn't heard, and what I am pleased to report, is that this movie is good! The premise risks feeling silly but manages to keep it grounded. Its themes of fate, religion, they're pretty surface level, not particularly novel, but they serve the mystery, the drama, and that part of the movie is surprisingly engaging. Cage and his opposite, Byrne, pull off sincere desperation at times when the movie could really fall apart. Check this one out, it's a good ride.
Pig (2021)
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin
Rob (Cage) is a recluse who lives with his pig (Brandy) in a cabin in the forest outside of Portland. They live a quiet life foraging for mushrooms, which they eat, and truffles, which they trade each week to a man who comes from the city (Wolff) in exchange for groceries and other miscellaneous essentials. One night, Rob's cabin is broken into. He's severely beaten and his pig stolen. This draws him back into the city he once left, drifting like a ghost through his previous life, in search for his pig. It is a quiet, intimate story of grief, of mourning, and it is not just one of my favorite Cage films, it is one of my favorite films.
The Weather Man (2005)
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Hope Davis, Nicholas Hoult
David Spritz (Cage) is a Chicago TV Weather Man with a rising professional career and a personal life in severe decline. He's separated from his wife, Noreen (Davis), who has a long term relationship with a new man. His children are struggling from the divorce - Shelly (Gemmenne de la Peña) has taken up smoking and, in the words of the movie, is "grossly overweight and unhappy". His son, Mike (Hoult), is in a long term drug counceling program after being caught smoking pot. His father (Michael Caine!?) is a Pulitzer prize winning author for whom he is a disappointment. Through the movie, David, as our protagonist, tries to improve these failing relationships, tries to improve his children's lives, but is stymied by his narcissism. He cheats on couple's counseling, he tries to use his job success to buy love. At the end of the day his failures are his own. And if you stop right here, you can imagine a movie with these pieces that says something about this portrait of a man, this empty suit - he's not even a trained meteorologist, he's more or less a green screen actor with a nice smile. Despite this, he's being called up to be the weather man for Bryant Gumbel's national morning show. The movie would have us believe this is an indictment on modern society, on consumerism, but the script is totally incoherent.
Cage plays the part well in the way that only he could because the tone is all over the place. It makes a lot of expository statements that don't fit in with what's actually on screen. Monologues to establish themes that don't fit the facts. He's a bad father, we're led to believe, and while he desires to be a part of his family's life, they're better off with the more stable and healthy influence of their mother... but through the entire movie we see him trying - and even succeeding - to help his daughter with pretty significant social and developmental problems which his wife is never shown to be addressing. It says he's a womanizer but it's not a part of the character, they're brief flashes that have little to do with the rest of the movie, it's information we're told as a character flaw but it isn't true. His son seems totally fine, a healthy, well-adjusted teen boy who smoked pot offscreen before the movie started. It doesn't work, the screen doesn't match the page.
I understand what this movie wants to be but, much like David, it isn't what it wants to be. Watch it anyway - it's kind of fascinating.
