SubJeff on 3/10/2020 at 08:52
But Annihilation isn't base on a short story, but on a novel, which is part of a trilogy.
Gryzemuis on 3/10/2020 at 11:01
The Colour out of Space was the first Lovecraft story I ever read. I was probably 10 years old. My mum used to bring home books from the library for my father to read. Mostly sci-fi, but obviously also some horror. I used to read those during the day, when my father was at work and the books lied there unused. I found the story very strange, a little scary. I have always remembered it. Later (as a teenager) I read more stories by Lovecraft. Until I was 20, I had never encountered someone who had even heard of Lovecraft. I guess thanks to the Internet, literature that is considered "not worthy" by the critics has gotten more recognition.
But Nicolas Cage ?
I'm so done with Cage. I can't imagine I like any film he's in. He was in Rumble Fish, and I loved that movie. But the last 20 years ? Last year a friend told me to watch Mandy. She and her boyfriend thought it was awesome. I watched Mandy for 20 minutes, and turned it off. A mutual friend, who was there when she recommended Mandy also watched the film with his wife. And they also turned it off within half an hour. Did Cage make anything worth watching in the last 20 years ?
Well, I guess I'll give Color out of Space a go then ....
Just because it's Lovecraft.
Sulphur on 3/10/2020 at 11:07
25 years ago, but Leaving Las Vegas was the best serious thing Cage has ever done in his career. It's a hell of a movie if there's anything about its story you can relate to.
There's also Adaptation, but that depends on how much you like Charlie Kafuman's extremely meta script.
Gryzemuis on 3/10/2020 at 11:17
Yep, those were long ago. I happen to have seen both in the cinema even, at the time. I liked Leaving Las Vegas. But as I (hardly) drink alcohol, I could not really relate to the story. Adaptation I hardly remember, and certainly don't remember Cage in it. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of Kaufman, but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is in my top-20 of all-time favorite movies. Whathisname is in it, and I never liked him. So maybe Cage being in Color Out Of Space might not be so bad.
I just saw the poster for COOS. I remember from the story that the colour itself was weird, not from this earth. How do you show that in a movie ? Well, the post is clear about that: purple !! Colors from out of space look purple.
Last week I saw a BBC film: "The Colour of Magic". I've read the original book by Pratchett. According to the book, the color of magic is the 8th color. Totally different from the 7 colors we know. How do you represent that on screen ? Answer: also purple !! I wonder what's so special about purple that they pick it in both movies. Any other movies about new colours ? Do they also pick purple to represent it ?
Third example: (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_Purple_(film)) The Color Of Purple. They also picked purple ! The Color of Money doesn't seem to be purple. There's also very little green in that movie. Fuck Tom Cruise, he can't seem to do anything right. The Hustler is 1000x better. (:p Just joking. Except The Hustler. Another movie that's in my top 10).
froghawk on 3/10/2020 at 13:29
From the past 20 years: Adaptation, Matchstick Men, Lord of War, The Trust, Mom & Dad, Mandy, Spiderverse, Color Out of Space
Throw in Between Worlds for the amusing bad movie wild card.
Slightly stretching that range back to 1999, Bringing Out the Dead (Scorsese) is a stellar film.
And really now, if you're going to prematurely judge an extremely slow movie and turn it off 20min in... that's hardly a fair assessment.
The thing to keep in mind with Cage is that he isn't 'out of control', as many believe. He intentionally bringing back silent film style expressionist acting in a new context. It's somewhat of a rejection of the idea that current acting is more entertaining or even realistic. It works in some films and doesn't in others - and yeah, he's done a lot of bad movies. But at least he's trying something different, which is more than I can say about the vast majority of actors.
Sulphur, I feel the opposite re: Kaufman. To me, Eternal Sunshine has not stood the test of time quite as well as Malkovich, Adaptation, or Synechdoche. Still a solid film, but the unlikable characters taking center stage with a simpler narrative doesn't do it any favors in retrospect, particularly as (to me) Carrey's performance doesn't really hold up. I'm head-over-heels in love with Adaptation and Synechdoche on a whole other level.
Sulphur on 7/10/2020 at 17:19
@froghawk: if we're talking about unlikeable characters, Adaptation and Synecdoche are entirely full up of them. I don't believe that any of the (ostensible? perceptual? fuck me how do I even refer to characters when the movie's so meta it Chinese Boxes its own characters) main characters in SNY are likeable; they're complicated, wilful, fucked up, and in the case of the protagonist filled with existential dread that may or may not be relatable, but apart from PSH playing Caden, I'm at a loss to point out anything about him that I liked. I can relate to their sadness and neuroses up to a point, but that's it. SNY is, IMO, Kaufman's best film after Eternal Sunshine because its cycle of discovery and loss and its meta-commentary came from an abstract but at the same time very affecting place.
ESoftSM on the other hand has Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey unfurling a relationship fracturing over time, with the added bonus of an inversion of their character types - Carrey gets the grounded, mopey character, and Winslet is the unhinged firebrand. They're the two that anchor the entire movie because what they're going through is entirely relatable to me, from the initial frisson to the slow poison of knowing each other's faults and weaknesses spiralling into a sadder place before they work out the way forward (or don't! or backwards! Kaufman! Argh!) , and I don't think that sort of drama or performance 'ages'. The narrative is simpler, but people often forget that simplicity is powerful, and its images from the two lying against a frozen lake that's a wall of fractured ice to Winslet's monologue on her childhood - 'be pretty!' - and the house dissolving in the end have, to me, far more resonance because the movie uses all its knife twists and its sci-fi conceit to tell a very human story.
edit: also, since you are a fan of weird and fractured/symbological narrative, please do see Atlanta at some point.
froghawk on 8/10/2020 at 03:53
Quote Posted by Sulphur
edit: also, since you are a fan of weird and fractured/symbological narrative, please do see Atlanta at some point.
The show? Loved it.
And hey, different things connect with different people. Eternal Sunshine is great, but it definitely doesn't connect with me on a personal level anywhere near as much as Synecdoche, and that's really all there is to it.
Sulphur on 8/10/2020 at 04:27
Yup, the show.
And fair enough, preferences account for a lot of what we appreciate in stories.
Sluggs on 8/10/2020 at 06:14
The Raid 1 and 2.
rachel on 13/10/2020 at 12:07
"The Devil All The Time"
Painfully endured the first hour, saw there was still another hour left, checked the rest of the plot on Wikipedia and quit when I saw it wasn't getting better. It's dark, and twisted, and depressing, and I just couldn't stomach more.
Ugh.
Religious nuts and psychos and backwater settings can make for good stories. This ain't one of them.