Clooney does this too, I’ve noticed. He’ll prolly make Oceans 4,357 as long as it gives him the money to be be involved with stuff like Syriana, etc.
Ed Norton does it. Maybe it would be good if Cage actually found some good scripts with some talented directors and started making 1 arty movie for every 3 silly movies or something.
ETA: Heck, Natalie Portman even raps!
Yep.
Actors and writers have outpriced themselves, and this is a good example.
In the old days actors made good money, but they HAD to work. Now an actor like Cage can make millions and sit back and ONLY do films HE likes. He doesn’t HAVE to work. So the choices actors make start to show. They don’t allow themselves to expand or to try new things.
In the old days stars like Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, Jimmy Stewart, were well off but they weren’t obscenely rich to the point they could dictate everything.
When a person HAS to make compromises they produce better things, in the long run, because they have input from others. When they are rich and surround themselves with “yes men” who only echo back to them what they want to hear, decline happens.
Cage is not the only example the TV, novels, etc are full of them.
I got the sense that Clooney, et al did the Ocean’s movies not so much to make money but just to get paid to hang out with a bunch of pals.
And if he elects to make crap like Michael Clayton again I’m going to be seriously disappointed. (Good Night, and Good Luck, on the other hand, was a great film.)
Stranger
I’d add Christopher Walken to that list, too.
The latest on The Nickster: Not much rattling Nicolas Cage these days - CNN.com
I’m happy with the path his career has taken. I refuse to watch any movie he is in, so now I don’t have to worry about missing anything interesting.
You mean Best-Picture-Nominated Michael Clayton?
That Michael Clayton?
Damn fine movie, and any actor could only wish he made more “crap” like that.
[/Clooney career assessment hijack]
Nobody liked Bringing Out The Dead? Matchstick Men? Adaptation? 8MM?
Even National Treasure and Ghost Rider had some broad appeal, even if they weren’t necessarily good movies.
I think some of you guys are being too hard on the old Nickster. Sure he’s been in some clunkers, but almost every big movie star has. What makes him any different?
I have no beef with Cage.
He’s in some complete crap, but i just avoid watching those films. I liked The Weather Man and Lord of War, and thought he was good in both of them.
Next was completely fucking dire, however.
Yes, I mean that manipulative, ill-researched, unrealistic, trite depiction of yet again another venal megacorporation sticking it to the poor defenseless children, blah blah blah. It appears they just threw the script for Erin Brockovich into a blender with an old VHS tape of Three Days of the Condor, added in a couple of rejected John Grisham novels, dumped in a fifth of J&B, and hit “puree”. Clooney’s performance was fine, but his selection of script was crap.
Stranger
What I can’t figure out is how he got so popular in the first place. I find him utterly unappealing on screen. Some of his early roles capitalized on his odd looks and hangdog mien. But he just doesn’t work for me as a blockbuster star. I love Con Air in a so-bad-it’s-great kind of way and I’ll watch it whenever I catch it on TV, but I find Nicolas Cage so repulsive that I always find myself rooting for Cyrus the Virus. :eek:
That’s hilarious. My ex-husband LOVED those movies. He knew they were crap, but he watched every one he could find. His great favorite was Olivier Gruner, though I don’t know if he was ever any good. (There’s another guy who should be on that list, but his name escapes me at the moment.) Fortunately, he never expected me to watch any of them with him.
Throughout Knowing, Cage looked and sounded totally uncomfortable, as if he would rather have been anywhere else. Some of this might be attributed to the dumb dialogue, but he seemed to be having trouble even getting the words out.
:eek: I rented that one on DVD, and, after about 45 minutes, decided that:
So, I turned it off (a rare thing for me).
Season of the Witch has scored a whopping three percent on Rotten Tomatoes, worse even than **The Last Airbender.
**
To be fair, his character is supposed to be unlikable, so that wasn’t a flaw in Cage’s acting (in this particular case). That said, you didn’t miss anything.
Stranger
Johnny Depp continues to make the occasional weird, arty film. But Captain Jack has been very, very good to him…
People! It’s Nicolas, not Nicholas.
In addition to Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, Red Rock West (a must-see), and Guarding Tess, since his turning point with Leaving Las Vegas I have seen and enjoyed The Family Man, Adaptation (wow!), Matchstick Men (double wow!), National Treasure (though the second one was a disappointment), and The Weather Man. I saw The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which I fully expected to be a boring kids’ movie, and darn if Mr. Cage didn’t impress me. I told someone, he never phones it in. He never acknowledges that this is a silly movie and acts as if it is beneath him. He is always right there in the moment.
So even if he is weird in real life and gives his kid a stupid name and doesn’t handle his money as well as he might, the man is an actor. I am wondering if Season of the Witch might be worth seeing for this reason. Yes, I am aware of the “Don’t bother with any movie released in January or February” rule, but I haven’t seen a movie in the theatre since Deathly Hallows and The King’s Speech is never going to be shown here.
And I think I’ve used up six months’ worth of my italics ration. 
He was in one of my favorite movies of 2010, Kick-Ass. Those of you who won’t see a movie because Nick Cage is in it missed out.
I like Nick Cage. I think most of the movies he’s in that were terrible would have sucked no matter who was playing his part. Not even Daniel Day Lewis could have made The Wicker Man a good movie as it was written. The only real problem I have with Cage is that he accepts roles in too many shitty movies, but if I was getting paid what he’s getting paid I’d sell out too.
Well and don’t forget he’s having money problems now, right? He may not be “selling out” so much as “desperate to raise some cash.”