Welcome to day 1 of my weekly movie blog. I’ve never written a blog before, so this is a new concept for me. While I’m sure I probably won’t have a great deal of readership for quite a while, I think that my daily musings concerning my weekly filmic choices deserves some form of journaling. It just so happens that the all powerful inter-web has convinced any jerk-off with a computer that their words are worth being shared, so my constant inner-monologue now has a conveniently titled venue to be forced upon the world. The observations I’ll share here aren’t secret or guarded by any means, but as well as being carefully articulated, are in fact just opinions. In the infamous words of Sir Sean Connery, “Welcome to the Rock.”
Each week, I will choose a film related theme, attempt to watch 5 films I haven’t seen before related to that theme, and every day, share a bit of personal insight regarding the film I’m currently watching. In honor of the latest “#1 movie in America,” Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, I will be writing a week long retrospective of the career of the man whose career was once exciting and artfully passionate, but ultimately succumbed to the greed, which it seems Hollywood is built on. The 5 films I have chosen are as follows;
1. Wild at Heart (1990) Dir. David Lynch
2. Tempo di Uccidere (1991) Dir. Giuliano Montaldo
3. Leaving Las Vegas (1995) Dir. Mike Figgis
4. Bringing out the Dead (1999) Dir. Martin Scorsese
5. The Weatherman (2005) Dir. Gore Verbinski

This list was chosen due to certain qualities I feel each of these films possess, more unique than others. While certain films crossed my mind for sheer mind-numbing ridiculousness (Snake Eyes, World Trade Center, Amos and Andrew), each of the 5 I selected has a notable director, performance or international significance. Although I probably should watch them in chronological order, i've chosen to just watch them as they come. The first I watched was Gore Verbinski's The Weatherman (2005). I distinctly remember watching the trailer for this film on the apple.com trailers section at my dads house when it came out, and being slightly intrigued. There is a scene shown in the trailer where Cage walks the streets of Chicago with a bow and arrow on his back that always seemed interesting, but clearly not interesting enough to watch the film until now. The trailer sells this movie as a seemingly unrelated sequel to The Family Man (2000), but in reality, it has far far more complexities than the aforementioned family drama. Cage's hair is mind-bogglingly toolish (like most of his films), and his performance, while similar to others in the past is maybe his most fresh in years. He still possesses the vapid, empty, charmingly clueless character from Family Man and Moonstruck (1987), but his delivery here showed me layers of his character I never expected. Both comic and tragic. The supporting cast is uninteresting, with Michael Caine turning in maybe his worst American accent of all time as Cage's father, but the star of this film is the script. The writing here is so clever and sharp, it makes you forget that you're watching a supposed "heart warming family drama." Cage curses and hurls insults like a child in one scene, while narrating the transitional moments with the most endearing of voice-overs in others, reminding you why you loved Morgan Freeman's iconic Shawshank Redemption (1994) voice over so much. All in all, the pacing of the film is what sells it. The calm tone of the anxiety in Cage's character, Dave Spritz is so honest, that you aren't even taken by surprise when the untraditional un-hollywood ending comes out of nowhere. I can honestly say that I haven't enjoyed a Nicolas Cage film this much in years. Also, congratulations to Gore Verbinski for directing something worthwhile other than Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3.
-Ben