Showing posts with label love story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love story. Show all posts

#45 Adaptation.


#45 Adaptation
Year: 2002
Director: Spike Jonze
MPAA Rating: R
Epic Co-stars: Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, that guy from Office Space
Running Time: 114 min
Cage Time: 
Cage Kills: 
Cage Flip-outs: 1
Skyler's Review: 
Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is writing a screenplay about the Orchid Thief and wants to stay true to the book and not snesationalize it with sex, action, love, just for the sake of Hollywood.

I'm already ruining this review. I can't spell. Without those red squiggles, I can't spell a thing. I'm so pathetic. No one will want to read this review. But maybe that is OK, since I am keeping with the movie. Who cares about the audience. If the audience doesn't like it they can read some other blog. It's not my responsibility to write garbage just because the average internet user has the equivalent of a 2nd grade education. I do want them to like me, though.

This movie is worth watching if just for seeing TWO Nicolas Cages on screen.

Dr. Cage also plays Charlie Kaufman's fictional twin brother, Donald. Donald lays around all the time on the ground, and wants to also become a screenwriter, but wants to go to a costly seminar about screenwriting that almost sounds like a scam. Charlie says this is stupid, because a seminar will never help you write something new, which should be the goal for all writers.

 This isn't going well. This isn't interesting at all. I wanted to write something interesting and original, and I'm just sitting here and can't even think about how to recap this movie. I can't find an anmiated gif for this review. I'm terrible.

The story Charlie is writing is about a man (named Laroche) who goes into the swamps in Florida and poaches orchids. He takes Seminole tribe members with him to try and avoid the law, saying that the natives are allowed to poach plants. The goal for Laroche is to poach the 'ghost orchid', which is very rare. Then he plans to cultivate them and sell them for a bunch of money. Then if people can buy the ghost orchid in stores, the flower would be better protected from poachers by decreasing its rarity. Also, you can make drugs.

Why don't girls look at me the way they look at Nicolas Cage. Is it because I'm bald? Women just like confidence; how can I have confidence if I am bald? Maybe I can grow a mustache. I think women like mustaches, or at least a certain kind of woman. I wonder if I would know what to do with the kind of woman that likes mustaches. What if I can't grow a mustache?

The meta-Cage of this movie is amazing. Not only is there Nicolas Cage playing two people (Charlie and Donald), but at one point you get to see Nicolas Cage play Donald acting as Charlie. Good stuff.

Laroche is all about passion and collecting. All he wants is orchids. Before that, he was obsessed with other things. At 10 years old he collected turtles  until he gave up on them and trashed his collection. Then at 17 he collected fish, then one morning woke up and said "fuck fish" and now won't step foot in the ocean. Then he moved on to collecting something else.

If I can just end this review with an exciting animated gif, people will still like it. It doesn't even need to fit with the rest of the review. The audience won't care. I'll find a gif. That's what this needs.

As some point in the movie, we realize that the movie is a meta-movie, because the movie that is playing out is the screenplay that Charlie is currently writing. This becomes clear when Charlie has a breakthrough about how to start the movie. He repeats an echo of what we actually see as at the start of the movie. Toward the end, Charlie writes something and then we see it happen on screen.

This is obviously not from the movie, but is pretty awesome.
Movie quotability:
  • Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out?
  • You are what you love, not what loves you.
  • I can't believe I got shot.  Isn't that fucked up?
Plot Holes:
  • None.


CAGEamatic
Cinematic
Skyler
Exceeds Expectations
Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James
4.80/5
4.50/5
Martine
!Stayed in the CAGE!

#42 Captain Corelli's Mandolin


#42 Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Year: 2001
Director: John Madden
MPAA Rating: R
Epic Co-stars: Penelope Cruz, Christian Bale, Olivander
Running Time: 131 mins
Cage Time: 90%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 1
James' Review:  I must admit that my expectations were pretty low going into this one which is the prefect place to be just before being MILDLY ENTERTAINED!  Reviews from friends told me this was going to be a slow going chick flick with plenty of overacted emotional trash, but what I actually got was a medium moving chick flick with a shamanic Cage totally nailing his role as an eccentric Italian falling in love with a pretty hot chick.

Dr. Cage plays Captain Antonio Corelli; a WWII era Italian Captain stationed on a small Greek island.  Luckily for Captain C and his buddies, the Italian forces in Greece aren't playing too big of a roll in Hitler's master plan.  This leaves plenty of time for them to drink, sing, almost blow themselves up, and most important of all: try to bang the locals.  All this is very easy to do with only a single German soldier on the island who is too overwhelmed with lazy Italians to have any authority.  It isn't until the German army comes back to town and messes with the Captain's hot new love toy that he finally straightens up and grows a pair to defend the ones he loves.



As with Next, I'm pretty sure the whole purpose of this movie was to allow Cage to make out the a beautiful woman who is not his wife.  Success!
Although the flip-out count is painfully low in Captain Corelli's Mandolin there are a few bright moments that can keep even an action loving Cage fan mildly interested.  First off, even though Cage isn't explosive, he still entertains with a mediocre italian accent and some ridiculous eccentricities like counting off forty-five bars of silence before playing a solo on his mandolin.  His character oozes with such confidence that almost everything he does is entertaining because it's delivered in a slightly restrained yet classic Nouveau Shamanic style.  Second, Christian Bale fans will enjoying seeing him in a slightly different role than usual.  The best way to describe him would be "douche bag", yet I think most of the ladies will agree that he still looks pretty hot.  And finally, there are at least a half a dozen sets of boobs.  Most of these are from random Greek women which are great, but the attentive viewer will be rewarded with full dual nippage from the beautiful Penelope Cruz.  


The unfortunate reality of this film.
Although Captain Corelli's Mandolin doesn't pack the usual Cage punch with crazy flip-outs,  high flying explosions, and memorable lines, it does provide a unique role for Dr. Cage to impress us with once again.  A short hair cut allows him to portray a mildly attractive man while his er of confidence allows him to charm the audience almost as much as he does Ms. Cruz.  The main problem here was the length of the film.  Had it been cut about 30 minutes shorter and not such a test on my attention span, my tits would have been out there for Cage right next to Penelope's.


Movie quotability: total crap
  • "This is terrible. I was so happy five minutes ago, looking at his butt... and now he's crying." -Shauna (of Christian Bale)
  • "That is a purely psychological effect." -Penelope's dad, of a 'miracle' healing
  • "I long to feel something... even if it is only pain." -Penelope; "Oh, you're going to be feeling something." -James; "A shot of Vitamin C, heh heh." -Skyler
  • "Bella bambina at two o'clock!"
  • "Fuck off. If you don't know what 'fuck off' means, you're welcome to come in and we'll show you. We refuse to surrender to a nation that we have defeated in Albania, and we reserve the right to surrender to a German officer of significant rank. So fuck off."
  • "He even sings Shamanic." -Skyler
  • "Loves enters by the eyes and also lives by the eyes, take it from me."
  • "When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is! "
  • "This makes me realize I should write a note to Nic Cage before something like this happens to ME. That's the whole point of this movie." -James

Plot Holes:
  • None, a flawless script.


CAGEamatic
Cinamatic
Skyler
Acceptable
Acceptable
Shauna
James
2.19/5.00
2.74/5.00
Martine
! Stayed in the Cage !