Vampire’s Kiss
This actually happened to a buddy of mine.
Anyway, this is a one or two star movie with a five star Nic Cage performance in it.
Every so often I try to make it through a series of Nic Cage films just because the completionist in me can’t help it and because you never know when the next Pig or Joe could be lurking in the shadows.
This viewing of Last Kiss was prompted by the latest wild interview Cage gave to The New York Times.
I don’t want to give anything away but there is a reason I think he’s one of our finest actors and perhaps one of the greatest bullshit artists of all time.
I don’t think he’s lying to us or the interviewers or the world at large. I think he’s lying to himself because he has to in order to justify himself. He has to convince himself that he’s doing art and not just cashing a check even when he is starring in what most of us would recognize as 0 star dreck.
There was an interview with Bill Murray where he said he took the Garfield movie because he thought the Coen Brothers were doing it. Then when he realized that he got the names wrong and what he had signed up for it was too late.
But instead of backing out he read the script and said to himself, “I can fix it.”
Maybe all actors do that or maybe just the guys and girls who need a check.
I dunno.
But I believe in Nic Cage.
So the one thing that I want to draw your attention to is that amazing accent Cage is living with in this film. That accent is from outer space. But it’s clear that it’s what the character things a wealthy successful young New Yorker should sound like.
So it isn’t Nic Cage acting it’s Cage’s character doing a something with more and less emphasis depending on who he’s with at the time.
Cage is a big comic book guy so maybe he will enjoy this reference. You know when he reads a blog as he is want to do.
Issue 14 of Nth Man: Beyond World War III has statement on it’s cover that has never left me since I saw it in 1990. The comic was written by Larry Hama and drawn by Ron Wagner.
Galactus the giant world eating Jack Kirby and Stan Lee creation is being bullied by a demonic creature that is bigger than him and another person towers over them all.
And the demon says, “There are worlds within worlds little man!”
Lord of war
Two good Nic Cage movies in a row. I feel like I hit … snake eyes 🐍.
Anyway deadly funny and a decent amount of tension. It falls apart when it’s about anything (marriage problems, addiction) other than gun running.
But it is very very good when it gives you that inside look at the criminal enterprise and personalities involved.
Predictable in parts — I literally said, “car bomb” before it happens in the flick — but not so predictable that you can call it all.
Cage’s final speech to his law dog adversary (Hello Ethan Hawke) is not quite up there with the final comments in Casino, Goodfellas, Fight Club and the utterly perfect Killing Them Softly.
But it is a sneaky rage filled little diatribe. There is solid work here all around. Precious few explosions but the speechifying mostly makes up for it.
Spider-Noir
It’s good. I’m enjoying it. I’m only a couple of episodes in so a full review is not something I want to do.
Cage doing Bogart with some super hero hijinks thrown in. And Brendan Gleason as the heavy! Just excellent work.
I should probably watch it in Black and White like Cage wants. But I’m a heathen.
The color pops though.
Dark Highways 
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