The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: A cheeky romp

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, sexual candor, violence and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.22.22

Well, color me surprised.

 

Nicolas Cage has been turning out mostly violent stinkers like a man determined to secure a permanent place in the Razzie Hall of Shame: 39 films (!) in the past decade alone — the pandemic didn’t slow him down a jot — and that’s not including the four animated films to which he lent his voice.

 

Although initially wary of collaborating on a movie script with a newbie writer, Nick
(Nicolas Cage, right) finds it hard to resist Javi Gutierrez's (Pedro Pascal) enthusiasm.

Drive Angry, Rage, The Runner, Dog Eat Dog, Army of One, Vengeance, The Humanity Bureau, Between Worlds, Running with the Devil, Prisoners of the Ghostland … the list seems endless. (Honestly, I question whether some of them even achieved cable/satellite/streaming release; they certainly never played in theaters.)

I therefore approached this one with a gimlet eye, particularly since the exploitative advertising campaign gave no reason for optimism.

 

So much for assumptions.

 

Director Tom Gormican’s send-up of Cage — his career, reputation, fan base and constant financial peril — isn’t merely impudently self-referential; this audacious script, co-written by Gormican and Kevin Etten, is the most meta of meta. It’s a cheerfully deranged valentine to the “Cult of Cage,” those touchingly loyal fans — apparently they are legion — willing to forgive even his most deplorable turkeys.

 

This one’s no turkey. It’s actually quite entertaining, and frequently hilarious.

 

We meet Nick Cage (Cage, of course) down on his cinematic luck, desperate for the comeback potential of a film role championed by his perpetually harassed agent, Richard Fink (Neil Patrick Harris). Nick’s personal life is a disaster; his narcissistic megalomania has poisoned his relationships with ex-wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) and teenage daughter Addy (Lily Sheen).

 

Cage is hard to watch, during these early scenes; his effort to upstage Addy’s 16th birthday is particularly cringe-worthy. He’s also prone to arguing with a younger version of himself — think lanky, long-haired, bomber jacket-garbed Cage Mark 1, from the Raising Arizona/Wild at Heart era — who personifies his worst characteristics.

 

And yes: This display of dual Cages is a deliberate nod to the peculiar twin roles he played in Adaptation. Indeed, identifying all the riffs from Cage’s (better known) earlier films quickly becomes part of the game; some are name-checked, some are film clips being watched by various characters, some are replayed scenes (the one from Leaving Las Vegas being the most obvious).

The Matrix Resurrections: It's déjà vu all over again

The Matrix Resurrections (2021) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max (until January 21)

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.21

Charles M. Schulz sagely observed that a cartoonist is “someone who has to draw the same thing day after day, without repeating himself.”

 

Lana Wachowski, on the other hand, is a writer/director who makes the same movie time after time, while repeating everything.

 

Although not entirely convinced, Thomas (Keanu Reeves) instinctively senses that much
of what Bugs (Jessica Henwick) says is true ... and that his supposed life on Earth
isn't actually what he thinks.

Great gig if you can get it, I guess.

But the utter absence of originality in this fourth Matrix installment is both tedious and disheartening: in its own way, a contributor to the death of imagination. Wachowski — abetted by co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon — apparently can make the same movie ad infinitum, and fans don’t seem to mind.

 

What was novel and mind-blowingly audacious, back in 1999, has become familiar and boring.

 

A brief prologue introduces the feisty, blue-tressed Bugs (Jessica Henwick), a “white rabbit” on a covert mission in what clearly is a dangerous Matrix rabbit hole, seeking clues that will reveal more about “The One,” who sacrificed himself for humanity 60 years earlier.

 

Following that, we drop in on Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), a wildly successful computer programmer who has made a fortune for himself, and his company, with a three-part immersive game called The Matrix Trilogy.

 

Given that Thomas — known in the “real” world as Neo — died nobly at the conclusion of 2003’s The Matrix Revolutions, his appearance here clearly indicates fresh bad behavior by the intelligent machines that control the Matrix. (As a quick recap, all of humanity unknowingly exists within a simulated reality of our familiar world, their physical bodies actually trapped within pods that suck their life force for energy.)

 

Thomas suffers from bad dreams, despite having shakily moved beyond a recent psychotic break that prompted a suicide attempt: a crisis expertly managed by his warmly sympathetic psychiatrist (Neil Patrick Harris). Worse yet, Thomas is confronted by his boss — Jonathan Groff, suitably smarmy and condescending, as Smith — and informed that they’re going to make a fresh sequel to the Matrix game trilogy: something Thomas swore he’d never do.

 

In a bit of cheeky meta, Smith explains that they have no choice; their corporate owners, Warner Bros., will do the game with or without them. 

Gone Girl: A thriller for the ages

Gone Girl (2014) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated R, for strong violence, profanity, sexual content and nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.3.14

Thrillers rarely get the respect they deserve.

Oh, sure; it’s a popular genre that sells plenty of tickets, but such public approbation is viewed with suspicion and scorn, when it comes time to hand out awards. The implication is that thrillers represent empty, pop-culture calories unworthy of serious recognition. Academy Awards go to historical dramas and intimate character pieces.

Back in the day, Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike) enjoyed a storybook
courtship in their beloved New York City surroundings, notably the bookstores both loved
to frequent. Sadly, many relationships cannot survive a crisis ... and this one is about to
be hit by several.

Oscar hasn’t given its Best Picture prize to a thriller since 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs.

That may be about to change.

Director David Fincher’s masterful handling of Gone Girl is much, much more than an impeccable translation of its wildly popular source novel (so rest easy, readers; I’m sure you’ll be pleased). This also is a tour de force of cinematic craft: one of those rare films that ingeniously utilizes every aspect of movie-making magic.

Fincher masterminds each detail with the meticulous scrutiny of a master conductor who pays careful attention to every last instrument, even those that play but a single note during an entire symphony. This is bravura filmmaking at its finest.

Fincher wisely has surrounded himself with a talented cadre of actors, all flawlessly cast, and an equally accomplished production crew. Then, too, he has the advantage of working with novelist Gillian Flynn, a first-time screenwriter who has adapted her own book with the same cunning that turned it into a page-turning best-seller.

Even capable novelists don’t always make good screenwriters; they’re entire different sciences. Flynn, clearly, is adept at both.

And that’s what it comes down to: All the aforementioned talent would be wasted, were the core narrative not up to snuff. Flynn’s storyline is mesmerizing, and not just for its deliciously twisty — even macabre — thrillers elements. She also unerringly skewers contemporary society’s bread-and-circuses infatuation with the mindless media “talking heads” who scurry like rats from one overblown crisis to the next, passing judgment without attempting even the most basic research legwork.

Because, at the end of the day, too many of us prefer such vacuous glitter and glitz, and get a vicarious thrill out of feeling superior to the maligned victim of the moment.

This particular victim-in-waiting is Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), whom we meet on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary: a milestone that doesn’t bring the pleasure one would expect from a guy who, he always insists, enjoyed a deliriously happy courtship and subsequent marriage with Amy (Rosamund Pike). Instead, as Nick strolls into the downtown bar that he co-owns with twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon), he seems ... troubled. Not quite himself.

A neighbor calls; Nick and Amy’s cat seems to have gotten out of their house. Nick returns home, restores their feline friend to indoor safety, and then spots an unsettling mess of upended furniture and broken glass in the living room. And Amy is nowhere to be found.