Holy shit, this compilation of scenes from Vampire’s Kiss beats the Wicker Man mashup any day. Don’t underestimate Nicolas Cage. I believe (unironically) a great actor.This is what I am saying.
Nic Cage has ALWAYS been a great actor; perhaps, in terms of raw talent, the greatest we’ve got. It amazes me that people attack him for his odd theatrical flourishes and off-skew line readings while heaping praise on Johnny Depp for doing the same. It’s akin to criticizing Miles Davis for not staying on the melody. And anyone with half-a-brain and a sense of history that goes back farther than five years should be able to look at Cage’s sublimely bizzaro comic tours de force in films such as “Vampire’s Kiss,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Moonstruck,” and “Raising Arizona” and know that his performances in “The Wicker Man” and (judging from the trailer) “Bad Lieutenant” are drawn from the exact same well. OF COURSE it’s intentional. He’s a master and knows exactly what he’s doing.
The difference between Cage’s and Depp’s career trajectories ultimately comes down to choice of material. Cage will seemingly do anything for a buck (the acting equivalent of NVC’s controversial “swimming pool movie” theory), while Depp is much more selective. In this manner, Cage is much like Brando in the decade before he made “The Godfather,” i.e. the one watchable thing in a string of otherwise-unwatchable movies. And, like Brando, Cage genuinely doesn’t seem to care: he just does his thing, plies his craft and seems to have fun doing it. But when he connects with material that’s worthy of his insanely huge talents — most recently in Spike Jonze’s “Adaptation” — one is reminded of how colossally good he is and it suddenly puts his “slumming” movies into perspective. This, more than anything, is what probably inspires all the anger and hatred: the sense of wasted potential. Why would somebody with such an enormous gift fritter it away on shit like “Next” and “Wicker Man” and “Bangkok Dangerous?” A valid question, perhaps, but, ultimately, who are we to judge?
