sadly, strangely every week i see he's in another straight to video b movie. how come he can't get a role in a theater movie anymore? his career ended about 10 years ago right after the last ghost rider and national treasure movie and drive angry. pathetic. he's sadly not going to be like robert de niro where he's in big, theater movies until he dies/is 86 years old. nic's career ended at 45 years old.
shareI don't know. There's always TV.
I can see him on the new NCIS.
I don't consider that such a sad thing.
Actually, if I could plan a "perfect" film actor career, it would be to hit it huge, be a megastar for a couple years, then hunker down deep into some A+ grade indie films, and then get obscure and have people stop talking about me except for a bunch of really dedicated film geeks. I wouldn't want to be "it" for too long, or else you're chasing fame. I'd want to chase art. I'd want to make my bundle and then just do great work.
Okay, Cage isn't following that trajectory exactly and he does as much junk (clearly (?) for paycheques...hard to tell with Cage...) as he does top-quality art flicks. But he does crank the occasional "Color Out of Space".
Color Out of Space was certainly interesting. Probably not a film I'll ever watch again, but I don't regret the time I spent to watch it once.
There have been a few more gems since things started going south for him. Drive Angry is fun and I actually kind of liked Season of the Witch as well. Joe is good. Mom and Dad wasn't bad. I haven't seen Mandy but I know it was well-reviewed.
I kinda want to see Season of the Witch. It looked like it could be awesome in that '80s sword & sorcery kinda way.
Color Out of Space I usually describe as "upsetting, but in a good way". It's a rare horror gem where, even once you kinda figure out where it's going you still (a) don't know *exactly* where it's going, and (b) you're still mortified by what's going on. Yeah, I don't know if I'll dip into that one again, but it was worth watching and I'd highly recommend it to any horror fans.
If you're looking for an old school sword-and-sorcery kind of film then Season of the Witch just might satisfy you. The third act is disappointing but overall I thought it was a fun film. I went into it with low expectations and it exceeded them.
That's a good way put it when it comes to Color Out of Space. I'm not sure if you're aware of who the director is, but there was a documentary made about him called "Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau." It's quite interesting. Color Out of Space was something of a comeback film for him after several years in exile.
Season of the Witch isn't alone, and is kinda in good company, if it has Act III problems; lots of movies have third act problems, including some majorly great films.
I feel like somebody else recommended Lost Soul to me as well. I've heard of The Island of Dr. Moreau, of course, since it's widely known as one of the great blunders in cinema history. I'm definitely interested in a documentary about the guy that made it. Thanks for the recommendation!
It seems that you might be properly conditioned to enjoy Season of the Witch. If you tend to like Nic Cage in general then I think you should go ahead and check it out. Not sure if you're very familiar with Claire Foy but she co-starred in this film back before anyone knew who she was.
In regard to Act III problems, I agree. It seems like screenwriters often know how to start a story and carry it along, but many times they aren't too sure how to wrap the story up in a satisfying way. This is true of novelists as well.
The Island of Dr. Moreau was to be directed by Richard Stanley, and he did get the production started, but he was ultimately fired and replaced by John Frankenheimer. The making of that film was definitely a clusterfuck. Watch the doc to get the full story. The Island of Dr. Moreau was released in 1996, and while Stanley did make a few small documentaries between then and now, he didn't direct another narrative film until Color Out of Space.
I don't know from Claire Foy, but yeah, I'll check out SotW.
Christopher Nolan is one storyteller who, in my opinion, often gets lost in the final 1/3 or 1/4 of his films, and for the best reason. My theory is basically that he respects his audience too much. He tries to stay two steps ahead of people he assumes know every trick and twist in the book and he winds up making such a tangle knot out of the plotline because he wants it to surprise people. But he just winds up getting tripped up on cleverness. So, it's kinda nice to be treated as intelligent by a director in Hollywood, I just wish he'd straighten out the plotholes some times.
I'll watch the doc. Color Out of Space was really cool and very...yeah...upsetting.
Claire Foy was in the first two seasons of The Crown on Netflix and she was excellent as a young Queen Elizabeth. If you are at all interested in period pieces about Britain during that time you should definitely check it out. She also played Neil Armstrong's wife in First Man, and she took a crack at the Lisbeth Salander character in The Girl in the Spider's Web, but sadly the writer dropped the ball on that one and the film just wasn't very good.
In regard to Nolan, one thing I have noticed about him is that his films seem to be drifting into more and more abstract territory, and the plots are becoming more and more incomprehensible. This trend has culminated in Tenet, perhaps his most abstract, most difficult to understand work. While I appreciate his ambition and desire to be a truly original storyteller, I thought he was at his peak between 2005 and 2010, when he made The Prestige (my favorite film of his), Inception and the first two Batman films. These films, especially The Prestige and Inception, also presented some challenging concepts, but they were more accessible than everything he made after them.
I haven't seen The Crown or First Man.
That's my favourite Nolan era, too, although his first film - Following - has a lot of really great stuff in it. The film does get a bit complex at the end, though, foreshadowing what is to come...
Finally got to Season of the Witch; it was really enjoyable! The plot twist at the end actually made a lot of earlier stuff make sense, which is what you want in a plot twist. Although it's far from an airtight plot or a perfect film, it pretty much accomplishes what it set out to do.
The minimalism (for most of the movie) was cool. It was just a group of people in the woods. It didn't rely on a lot of flash and flair (until a bit later, anyway). The climax fight was a bit b-movie, but in a great way.
I did wish that they'd gotten more into the mind games en-route to the monastery. I felt like they kept aiming a little bit at something like The Thing or basically any time there's a story where dissension can be sewed in the ranks. Along these lines, I also would have liked a bit more ambiguity about the is-she/isn't-she-a-witch to let me worry over whether or not they should trust her, kill her, deliver her for trial, etc. So, yeah, more conflict there and more backstabbing/betraying/tension throughout.
My other complaint is that they didn't flesh out the characters enough. They were more physically struggling than emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically. They did this a *bit* with Cage's character, and they doled out scraps of development to others, but I really wanted to know these guys better and to get a feeling for their worldviews - why they'd be sympathetic or vile towards the witch/notwitch, what they want out of the journey, etc.
But overall it was a solid, modern Sword & Sorcery and we don't get a lot of those. Even the atmosphere had that grimy '80s fantasy vibe. The only thing missing was Jim Henson-style monsters. So, yeah: great recommendation, and I really liked it. The wolf forest was some of my favourite stuff.
Nice write-up!
I should rewatch the film. Reading your thoughts let me know that it's been long enough since I watched it that I don't remember many of the specifics.
It definitely goes B-movie at the end. Personally, I probably would've preferred something more cerebral because the third act feels tonally incongruous with the rest of the film, almost like it's part of a different movie. But maybe I would feel differently upon a rewatch. In any case, as I said earlier, it doesn't break the movie.
I thought the question over whether or not she was a witch was handled pretty well. I remember being uncertain going into the end, so in that sense the way the story was handled was effective for me.
I agree that we just don't get many of these kinds of films anymore. It does feel in many ways like an old school sword-and-sorcery film, in the vain of something like Excalibur or Krull (albeit with fewer hard fantasy elements).
The RT critics score is only 11% and even the audience score is only 30%. That's way too low. It seems these days that with certain kinds of movies people are just pre-disposed to not appreciating them. I think that's a real shame. In this case, I would normally blame it on a knee-jerk reaction to Cage's presence, as he is now known for spending most of his time making a certain kind of film and I think many now go into ALL his movies with their minds made up that the films are going to be bad, but Season of the Witch really came pre-fall, before he descended into the depths of straight-to-video madness.
I'm really glad that you got to the film and that you enjoyed it! I may give it a second look in the near future and chime back in with some additional thoughts of my own.
SPOILERS BELOW (for anybody stumbling on this conversation...)
I didn't really mind the B-movie stuff... the zombie monks were awesome. The CGI demon wasn't too bad, although I find myself thinking, "They used a puppet/model in Dragonslayer and it looked way more monstrous." There's an alternate ending I found where it's just the girl's body possessed the whole time. It's pretty spooky. It works.
Perlman's knight's demise was horrifying, though. Loved that. He's burned up and turned to ashes. Cage's death, too, with the repeated wing stabs to the back... Those elements are missing from the alt-ending, though.
The girl is just too strong to possibly be anything but a supernatural agent. She physically overpowers multiple, full-grown men, fresh from warfare. They're in shape. She's 90 lbs. By the time they're heading over the bridge and she's lifting the kid (tiny though he may be) with one hand...yeah, I wasn't questioning her power. Now, they might have had her dripping poison in their ears to convince them that witches were just misunderstood, not servants of evil. Cage's character in particular would have been ripe for corruption there. Perlman a bit, too, and of course the guy who thinks she looks like his daughter. Ironically, the altar boy and the priest would be the most aggressive, look like maniacs, and then the twist would prove them right.
That's more what I wanted: more psychological and emotional conflict sewed by the demon. It would have gotten deeper into the characters' personalities and goals, too.
11%/30% is WAY too low. I'd give it a 6/10 or thereabouts. That's a score I give to movies where if you like the genre, you'll like the film. I'm a sword & sorcery fan, so I dig it. If somebody wasn't really into that style...they'll probably get bored or roll their eyes or maybe they won't suspend disbelief or ignore the plot holes long enough to enjoy it.
Yeah, check it out again!
There is nothing better than a Cage movie night. He's still cool.
shareHe'll always be cool. If he can make as many shit movies as he's made in the past 10 years and still be a fascinating character, then he always will be.
I'm a Nic Cage fan for life. I'm thankful that he still occasionally makes films that are genuinely interesting--Color Out of Space was the last one--but I do hope that he has a final phase of his career where he recaptures some of his former glory and makes a few more real hits.
His career peaked with Leaving Las Vegas and the Oscar. Since then it's been straight downhill. I haven't seen any after that I would consider worth seeing.
shareWhat's the weather like up on your high horse?
sharewhat about snake eyes or bad leuitenant: port of call, new orleans or bringing out the dead? or 9MM?
shareYou mean 8MM. Yes, I liked that one, but better to see George C. Scott's 1979 film Hardcore. I didn't see Bad Lieutenant unless you mean the original Harvey Keitel 1992 one which was interesting. Bringing out the Dead? Eh, not my thing. But most of his other films which I've seen are just generic crime films or remakes; and everyone better admit that Knowing and The Rock were both terrible. I double down that his peak was Leaving Las Vegas which I loved. He didn't come near a repeat of that success as far as I can see.
shareyou really have to watch bad leuitenant: port of call, new orleans. you can watch it for free on tubi.com a free streaming movie website. all you have to do is fill out a form that doesn't have any personal info except your email address. anyway it's a great and artistic film. it was directed by a director i'm sure you've heard of, werner herzog. he directed the nosferatu remake in 1979 called nosferatu: the vampire.
snake eyes was directed by brian de palma so it might be worth watching just for that fact.
yeah, he's done. his career is over and has been for the last 15 years. he just doesn't know it or believes he can make a comeback but he can't bc he's too old now to be a movie star. he might make a great movie every now and then but it won't be a big movie, it will be straight to video.
oh dude dude you missed a movie when thinking about his last great movie being leaving las vegas and i did too though, face/off. one of the best movies ever made.
i don't know how i forgot about it when thinking about his possible last great movie after leaving las vegas. face/off is a masterpiece. it's a work of art and a really great film with a great and original story. it's kind of like the departed, it's a crime drama.
oh and adaptation, how in the world did i forget about this after leaving las vegas film? it's superb and a masterpiece.
I'll check them out. Wasn't into Adaption though.
shareDafuq?
Most of my favorite films of his came after LLV.
The Rock, Face/Off, Family Man, The Family Man, Adaptation, National Treasure and The Weather Man are all great. Matchstick Men, Lord of War, Knowing and Joe are a tier below, but certainly worth watching.
Most Oscar winners do the big fade out after winning.
shareThe thing is - he was never a good actor. His voice is monotonous as fuck. He can't really do emotions - \
Essentially, he is on Keanu Reeves level as an actor - but hey, if Keanu Reeves is making a comeback of sorts (which I find surreal - his acting/charisma is still utter shit, but at least he does take martial arts training quite seriously and that may help to explain his comeback), Nick can do that as well, once he finds that narrow alley of roles he excels in.
I don't get the problem people have with his career. When it comes down to it he had his time in at the top then he fell off. Big freaking deal. Nobody stays on top forever, but atleast he gets to keep working in the industry.
sharebc it's sad. he'll be in any movie no matter how crappy or how not good for his career, i.e. straight to video. actors who didn't do either of these things are marlon brando, robert de niro, harvey keitel.
shareThe guy is clearly still working and career has not ended. He is probably working harder than he ever has in his life.
He is bound to end up in a lower budget cult classic, even if its by chance due to the high volume of work. Cage > De Niro (a manlet who plays masculine roles)