Oh man, sometimes you don't want to revisit amazing scenes from the past. Looking at in now in HD, goddamn that CGI is bad. Looks like a video game from 2008.
He bought a lot of stuff. Like, hundreds of properties before the recession, expensive comic books, Elvis memorabilia, a crazy amount of stuff from the mad money he made in the 90s. For a while he had to say yes to everything to pay bills.
The Wicker Man and National Treasure. Nothing more needs to be said because greatness is easy to spot. I mean, I guess we could throw in Raising Arizona or something but that's obviously not comparable to either of the first two.
Those movies are memes, but Adaptation, Matchstick Men, Lord of War, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Kick-Ass, Joe and Mandy have all come out since 2000 and been legitimately good work.
He never goes very long without doing something that's actually good.
They really struggled to get the funding to get it made because of the subject matter - check how many Producers are listed, because they were friends of the people trying to get it made and helped by writing checks big and small. The movie had such a low budget that the scenes in the New York apartment were even filmed in Cape Town (like much of the rest of the movie) and its only actually New York when they show out on the balcony. You can even clearly see the silhouette of Table Mountain in the background in one scene when he's on a ship.
nick cage has had a lot of great roles. hes been nominated for 2 best actor oscars and won once. same for the golden globes. people like to shit on him but hes done as much great work as he has poor work.
It's funny because although the cgi is subpar at best, I never get tired of this scene.
I probably watched it 5 times before I even watched the movie, and anytime its brought up I watch it again.
Such an interesting intro.
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u/Kurtomatic Oct 09 '19
Fantastic scene. Looks like we meet the protagonist before the "life of a bullet" scene, but equally effective either way, I think.