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Movie Review: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

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In the history of Hollywood, there has probably never been a more unusual acting career than that of Nicholas Cage. On the top of the world, with a best acting Oscar in 1995 for “Leaving Las Vegas”, to some high profile and money making action movies, to some very bad real estate investments over several years, leaving him bankrupt and an acting career that was over, except for some very bad B movies that went straight to DVD. Then add 4 bad marriages, including even Lisa Marie Presley and Cage is now married for a 5th time as of February 2021.

The new movie with a strange title “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is the first time since 2009 and the release of “Knowing” that a Nicolas Cage movie has actually been released to theaters and not to DVD. Since 2009, Cage has made no less than an incredible 45 DVD movies that have never been released to theaters.

Ironically this film stars Nicolas Cage as himself along with the realities of his acting career and his huge financial debt, and his entire acting career dependent on the ever changing opinions of producers and directors that he has to sometimes beg to get an acting part. At one point in the early stages of this story, Cage actually tells his agent that he has decided to “quit acting”. Considering how bad things have been going for him for so long, is an easy decision to believe. The problem with acting in Hollywood is that even if you were at the top, it never means that you will stay there, and all it takes are a few huge financial bombs for other people in charge to consider you a losing proposition. If that happens, coming back can be almost impossible. Another example of this is Bruce Willis, who has been making bad B movies for almost as long as Cage.

With Nicolas Cage, he had to continue to make movies, to continue to pay off his debts caused by over spending and overleveraging himself into buying too many houses that eventually left him bankrupt. The brilliance of this film is that it shows for the first time, what it can be like to be someone like Nicolas Cage, coming to accept that his career in acting might never be close to what it was. We all like to see a success story from someone who has fallen and hopefully this new movie will mark a new beginning for Cage. However like Mickie Rourke proved in 2008 with “The Wrestler”, just because you make a comeback does not mean that your new success will last.

As far as this movie being funny, it is at certain points, but never laugh out loud funny. The premise is somewhat funny. “Cage is invited to visit the Island compound of a known Weapons dealer who is a huge fan, and before he knows it it is forced to work with the CIA as an informant”. What works here is the growing friendship between Cage and the Weapons dealer, played by Pedro Pascal and some of the scenes between Cage and the CIA agent played by Tiffany Haddish (who also has an incredible hardship story herself, before making it in Hollywood). This movie can be slow in certain areas, but there are enough interesting points that connect and ultimately keep your attention throughout the whole two hours.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a too high 89%, with my rating around 80% and a solid recommendation with the hope that Nicolas Cage has in fact made a major comeback.

Movie Review: Father Stu

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In the world of producers and movie making, its all about buying that hot story before anyone else does, so down the road, if your lucky it might be made into a movie. True stories are always the best when it comes to movies, especially if the story is great and the film is made with quality. The surprising thing about “Father Stu” is that the story, which is good, does not seem strong enough to make a movie about. “A former boxer, down and out on his luck, tries to be an actor in Hollywood, and then a butcher in a Super Market, finds the right woman, only to get into a major Motorcycle accident where he is almost killed. While in a coma he sees a vision and wants to become a priest – only to get a rare muscle disease that robs him of most bodily functions”.

Not to give anything else away, most of this story is engrossing, although boring in too many areas, making what could have been much better just an average movie. The acting is good throughout with Mark Wahlberg as Father Stu, and Mel Gibson (who seems to have survived as an actor) as his father. The most interesting aspect of this production is the extreme weight loss and weight gain Mark Wahlberg had to do within the timeline of this story, that has to be very dangerous to anyone’s health.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Father Stu are an understandable 41% with a much higher audience rating. My rating is a passable 65% with no recommendation to see this film.

Movie Review: Everything Everywhere All at Once

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Some days ago, I first heard about the new movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once” on Tik Tok where one person was raving about how great this film is. Some days later one of the stars of this film, Michelle Yeoh was on the View, where Whoopie Goldberg said, “you must see this movie”. Some time later I found out that the Rotten Tomatoes ratings were as high as 97% and critics were raving about how crazy and unusual and good this movie is.

When I saw this horrendous and monstrous mess of 2 hours and 19 minutes – I was expecting something very good or even great. I could not have been more wrong, or more disappointed at the strange insanity of what I saw. People get transported around by pressing green buttons on their ears, they put plastic eyes on their forehead. For some reason there is a giant bagel that has strange time travel powers, that eventually winds up as a hairdo on one of the characters. People karate fight with giant rubber penises and they dance around with giant rubber hot dogs instead of fingers. A Chinese family has some problems with the IRS and they visit an IRS agent played by Jamie Lee Curtis (who looks like she is 85 years old) and during the interview Evelyn, played by Michelle Yeoh gets transported to different times – for reasons unknown. There is no sense here, no logic, no continuity, no story, just a long and insane series of crazy scenes that as a viewer I could not wait until they were over. This movie also fools those – like me – who wanted to run from the theater, with a false alarm “THE END” scene, where I thought the agony was finally over. I thought this was especially cruel, considering how alarmingly bad this horrible mess was to sit through.

I remember thinking, what was the thought process here with this horrible movie, just about the worst one I have ever seen? Why make this level of sheer garbage? What was the point of all this?

As far as the very high reviews on both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, the only thing that makes sense is that the critics were paid off to give positive reviews. Nothing else really makes sense. This film is not a movie, its just insanity connected together by a screenwriter and director on LSD.

This disastrous production gets my lowest ever rating of a zero. Do not be fooled by paid-off critics and save 2+ hours what is arguably the worst film ever made.