‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ isn’t only for super-fans, but it helps to know ‘Con Air’ from ‘Face/Off.’
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent , a knavish meta action - comedy asterisk Nicolas Cage as a heightened version of his oddball offscreen role , opens with a ( non - Cage ) character delight a Nicolas Cage movie . On telecasting , we see Cage playing longhaired ex - Army Ranger Cameron Poe inCon Air , one of the ‘ XC movies that helped the player modulation from eye - bugging freaky conduct valet de chambre to world - save up action hero . Eventually , the scene gets cut off by armed assaulter , launch a kidnapping mystery that will drive the movie ’s secret plan , but in those brief opening moments of couch potato bliss , co - writer and music director Tom Gormican point that his movie will take place in a worldly concern like our own : one where Nicolas Cage is a beloved , if occasionally absurd , trope .
As Gormican hasacknowledged in interviews , there ’s no make this movie , a kidnapping thriller about a renown ( Cage , as himself ) team up up with his biggest fan ( a delicious Pedro Pascal ) to take on the cartel , without Cage ’s willing participation . Other actors have done the self - referential “ play yourself ” matter before — John Malkovich withBeing John Malkovichor Jean - Claude Van Damme withJCVD — but few have the type of lurch , genre - hopping vocation Cage has . His filmography , from early ‘ 80 slay likeMoonstruckandRaising Arizonato late genre experimentation likeMandyandPig , is rife for plundering . His public persona , a self - cognizant performance of celebrity as a wacky magic show , lends itself to takeoff . As a star topology , he ’s almost too pure for a movie like this .
Perhaps for that cause , Unbearable Weight’sreal study is fandom , specifically the way viewers identify with and project themselves onto the actors they revere . Unsurprisingly , the moving-picture show is braid with allusion to Cage ’s study , but enjoyingUnbearable Weightdoesn’t ask a PhD in Cage - ology and it never collapses under the weight of its own reference . Still , there are a handful of key movies , some more obscure than others , you might need to have a passing casualness with for get the most out of the projects ’s madcap sketch of Cage ’s many , many endowment .
Nicolas Cage in ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’|Lionsgate
Guarding Tess(1994)
This light - hearted comedy , let go of in the viewing ofThe BodyguardandIn the Line of Fire , finds Cage act a Secret Service Agent assigned to protect Shirley MacLaine ’s First Lady . InUnbearable Weight , Pascal ’s preoccupied fan Javi find ease inGuarding Tessand draw a parallel between the story and his own life . Along withCon Air , it ’s one of the only Cage movies where a clip appear in the actual film , and its inclusion is indicatory of Gormican ’s freewheel approaching to Cage ’s filmography . Guarding Tessis belike not anyone ’s favourite Nicolas Cage movie , but it ’s special to Javi , a accumulator and aspiring film writer who congratulate himself on bed Cage ’s life history inside and out .
The Rock(1996),Con Air(1997), andFace/Off(1997)
For the function ofUnbearable Weight , this trilogy of action movies , release in speedy succession after Cage ’s Oscar - pull ahead turn inLeaving Las Vegas , represents the pinnacle of Cage ’s career . InThe Rock , he played a scientist who gets recruited to carry through the mankind ; inCon Air , he ’s an Army Ranger tasked with landing a hijacked plane of yard bird ; inFace / Off , he ’s an evil brainiac who gets his face removed and placed on the body of his sworn foe . Each one is a chisel , glimmer diamond of mid-90s expectant budget degeneracy , spectacle , and swagger . AsUnbearable Weightgets more and more unhinged , descending into shoot - outs and car chases , John Milton Cage Jr. gets send for on to swear out in this action movie mould . That Gormican never quite gain the explosive , bullet - bait high of the material he ’s riffle on probably has more to do with a lack of resources than a lack of ambition . Quite simply , they do n’t make ‘ em like this anymore .
The Wicker Man(2006)
For many , The Wicker Manmarked a turning point in Cage ’s career where audiences began to view him as more meme than man . Director Neil LaBute ’s interpretation of the British folk repugnance classic is an odd , bristly work and John Cage ’s performance is one of his most expressive and unencumbered . Everyone remembers “ the bees , ” a scene that launched a thousand memes , but what about the part where hekicks Leelee Sobieski into a wall ? For better or worse , The Wicker Manseeded an idea of Cage as a “ sorry ” actor that has festered and mutated in corner of the internet for over a decade . intolerable Weight , a picture that often feels father by the Reddit beehive - mind , in all probability would n’t exist without it .
Joe(2013)
fast Cage fans know that he ’s always put in the work . Even in the 2010s , a period when Cage star in more than a handful of unremarkable VOD thrillers , he could still be trust on to give an first-class , unostentatious execution in a movie likeJoe , a thriller that finds Cage ’s title character protect a new boy ( Tye Sheridan ) from his abusive male parent . It ’s important because David Gordon Green , the fecund director ofJoe , has a fundamental cameo in the rootage ofUnbearable Weight . Also , in arecentGQprofile , the theatre director reveal Cage brings his own “ amazing bridge player - carved knife ” to the steakhouse , further adding to the ever - expanding Cage personal mythos .
The Croods: A New Age(2020)
What is Nicolas Cage ’s highest grossing movie of all clock time ? While you might assume it ’s one of his Jerry Bruckheimer produced blockbusters , like the earth - trot heist adventureNational Treasure , it ’s actually the animated family unit movieThe Croods , where John Milton Cage Jr. voices the caveman patriarch Grug Crood . The sequel , The Croods : A New Age , get a direct outcry - out in the movie by Tiffany Haddish ’s CIA Agent character . Again , The Croodsreceiving more onscreen love than many of Cage ’s other acclaimed performance expose the guiding principle ofUnbearable Weight’sapproach : the more random the better .
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