Caged

A friend of mine and I were talking this afternoon about the career arc of Nicolas Cage. He has a new movie out today called "Knowing" which looks about as compelling as most of the other films he's been in over the past 4 to 5 years. Ten years ago, he was at the top of his game starring in one of the best action movies I've ever seen, "Face/Off", and showing dramatic chops in films that easily could've been crap ("City of Angels", "Bringing Out The Dead").

He was still good in the early '00s, most particularly in "Adaptation" in which he played twins who were writing screenplays. Since 2005, his films have been downright intolerable. Not that I've seen many of them, but a quick look over at RottenTomatoes will tell the tale. Here are a few of the ones I'm referring to: "The Wicker Man", "GhostRider", "Next", "Bangkok Dangerous", and "National Treasure 2". My favorite movie columnist was discussing this very issue in a piece I came across a half hour ago.

Will the Cage of old ever return? Probably not, but thankfully he made a minor masterpiece about 5 years ago that I was lucky enough to see on the big screen. It's called "The Weather Man" and I highly recommend it.