Nick Cage
I’ve been looking forward to writing this piece for
a long time. It killed me to not put Cage as one of my top 10, because I love Nick Cage, but I can make up for it by writing a whole article on him. There are two sides, or faces to Nick Cage; one of them is the highly respected and critically acclaimed actor for such films as Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation and Bad Lieutenant and known for playing risky and interesting roles. The other is a seemingly limitless sell-out, who will do any film role casually tossed his way, with ever-increasing insanity in his characters and poorer reviews. This is the Nick Cage we and know and, well, not love, but more, laugh at today, but he wasn't always like this. But, where does one start with Nick Cage? Probably here:
Yes, Nick Cage is infamous on the internet, with many compilation videos made about him. And with 7 million views, it's clear how popular he is as an internet icon. The why, I think is answered in that video; his performances are often mad, which (Nick like it or not) is fucking hilarious. "What's in the bag; a shark or something?"
Some of the many faces of Nick Cage
Nick Cage acting badly
But Nick is also, or rather was, a good actor though not so famously because any film where Nick isn't driving angrily people don't want to see. Oh, actually no one wants to see Nick's driving films. You don't believe he can be good? Well, I give you a gentle round of applause for your skepticism for it is well placed, but earlier in his career he won an Oscar and Globe for Leaving Las Vegas and received an Oscar and BAFTA nomination for Adaptation.. But those were by far his biggest films in terms of acclaim, but certainly not box office. For Nick Cage is a box office hit usually these days, but not a good one usually. Except this one performance in 2009 in Bad Lieutenant, watch:
And listen to what Roger Ebert said of The Cage:
"There are often lists of the great living
male movie stars: De Niro, Nicholson and Pacino, usually. How
often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there. He's
daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a
limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air. No one else can project inner
trembling so effectively.... He always seems so earnest. However improbable his
character, he never winks at the audience. He is committed to the character
with every atom and plays him as if he were him”
And that's true, Nick is one of the most committed actors alive even if his judgement on what films to do recently has been, well awful. If you look at Cage's filmography on Wiki, you will see his film choices starting to tail off around 2004, where he made National Treasure, then later The Wicker Man, and even later Ghost Rider and Next. This was the beginning of the end for Nick, and from then he has shown good choices in Bad Lieutenant and Kick-Ass, where he's great both times, he has done mostly bad action films which aren't even that big blockbusters. "I never de-robe before a gun fight"
A face-off parody photo of Cage (in Ghost Rider) from when he used to do good films
But he still plays every character he does, whether it is a good or shit roll with full effort and insanity, and occasionally a bit too much insanity. For this I respect Nick Cage.
"What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?"
And if you've still got time for one more Nick Cage montage from Youtube, then turn up the bass for this incredibly well crafted musical interpretation of Nick's career:
Thank you.
