As a filmmaker, Herzog often doesn’t appear to give one good goddamn about his stories.  He slaps them up on the screen so he can plunder them, of unique performances and unearthly beats, in ways no other filmmaker ever born could dream up (or at least dare to tackle).  Fitzcarraldo contains an extended sequence of scurrying masses of indigenous Amazonians hauling an enormous luxury riverboat over the narrow berm of land separating two strands of the same river – and it’s no mystery now, as if the film doesn’t illustrate it clearly enough, that Herzog actually accomplished this.  No CGI in 1982 could do what Herzog did with hundreds of extras and a lot of leverage, and this bizarrely awesome chunk of filmmaking stands straight up from the somewhat mediocre drama around it, a colossus of imagination and cinematic integrity.  Everything else is an excuse to give us such moments of thundering visceral effect.

No shock, and in typical Herzog style, that Bad Lieutenant contains two scenes of such startling conceptual brilliance that the rest of the film feels sort of shapeless, but in a way that seems to give rise to the best parts.  The first involves Nicolas Cage’s drugged detective and a pair of iguanas perched on a desktop, and the tiny handheld camera used to film the sequence.  It’s an odd effect for Herzog, absolutely attuned to the psychology of his main character but perversely tiny in scale, and the comic genius of the scene only grows with its ridiculous duration and the flawless timing of performance and editing that concludes it.  The second involves thugs, guns, and Nicolas Cage’s drugged detective giving perhaps the best excuse in film history for shooting a dead man again: “because his soul is still dancing”.  What follows is a staggering few seconds’ cartoon of psychological malaise so vibrantly timed and rendered that, for the few brief seconds, Bad Lieutenant soars.  We’re in another film.

Ultimately Herzog doesn’t quite know how to build to and from these scenes; they just emerge, free-floating, from the film’s ambient fog.  Which is pleasurable enough, more Touch of Evil (1958) than Abel Ferrera’s Bad Lieutenant (1992), filled with blasts of colorful light and careening wide-angle photography and Cage’s untethered performance.  But all this doesn’t feel intrinsic to anything contained in the film, or inducive of anything beyond.  Bad Lieutenant feels like a rough cut of a much better film, its strongest elements in place but the connective tissue half-formed – a little premie, crying with life but unprepared to fend for itself (the ungainly, weirdly pirated title does little to compensate).  It’s not a new problem for Herzog.  Cobra Verde (1987), Woyzeck (1979), Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) – these are all missing parts, trundling along on vim and enthusiasm instead of cohesive cinematic fluency.

The same could be said of Cage’s performance.  Just prior to Bad Lieutenant’s release in New York, the Times ran an article by Manohla Dargis exploring Cage’s wayward choices as an actor (“Madness or Method? Tough to Tell“).  She’s right to emphasize his broader strokes, like Con Air (1997) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), yet she skims without much comment over Leaving Las Vegas (1995) without moving on at all to what, to my mind, is Cage’s best work to date: Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999).  Cage can ham it up with bravado in The Rock (1996), but he is also capable of extraordinary pathos under the guidance of an intelligent and discerning director.  His Frank Pierce is a moody wisp of a man wallowing in his own guilt and inconsequence – I can’t imagine another actor in the part.  Scorsese convulses his way through Bringing Out the Dead to the tempo of Van Morrison’s “TB Sheets”, heaving and lurching through three nights with a paramedic battling the specter of death on a few hours of sleep.  The film is a violent plane ride, the kind that makes you concerned for the aircraft’s infrastructure, and Cage is the kind of actor who will risk thespian virtuosity for the sake of turbulence.  He’s got the face for it, soft but full of shadows, and when he opens his toothy mouth, the whole thing changes shape.  Perhaps no one else short of Daniel Day-Lewis could consciously lift his gangling arms above a throng of giggling schoolgirls to avoid tarnishing them with his grimy soul.

Knowing that Cage is capable of so much tact, it’s concerning to see him repeat himself in Bad Lieutenant.  The performance is a best-of amalgamation.  I don’t deny that Herzog needed Cage’s abandon; Cage is a star, and Klaus Kinski is dead.  But I wonder if Cage has played himself out, whether he’s got any new facets to show.  The other possibility is that he needs the formal rigor of a Scorsese, rather than the free-form vigor of a Herzog, to find the right balance between honest expression and grandeur.  Under Herzog, he leans too far to the latter, for effect instead of connection.  Then again, so does Herzog – it’s hardly a surprise to learn that he completed two films in 2009.  The other, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, is due for release in December.

Maybe bounding from odd peak to obscure hill is Herzog’s unique place, in world cinema, to keep.  For all of his complete fiction films – Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu (1979) – and documentaries – The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner (1974), Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) – there are his La Soufrieres (1977): dramatic larks of ferocious ambition that somehow fail to come together.  But contained in La Soufriere is a portrait, however formless, of a specific place at a profoundly specific time: an abandoned volcanic island on the frothing brink of eruption.  Who else could make that film?  Who else would dare, at so likely a cost of perfection?  Herzog’s films are experiences, first and last.  They are to be seen and heard and felt, above all, from moment to moment, not as a formed whole.  And he’s among incredibly few filmmakers – with Cassavetes, maybe, and Altman – who are content to begin a film with the conceit of abandoning control over it, in order to recapture a bolder declaration of vitality on the far side of production.

“Seguite la vostra visione.

Formate cellule pirata segrete ovunque.

E allo stesso tempo, non fatevi spaventare dalla solitudine”

.

.

Werner Herzog, all’anagrafe Werner H. Stipetic, (Monaco di Baviera, 5 settembre 1942), è un regista, sceneggiatore e attore tedesco. È un importante esponente del cosiddetto “nuovo cinema tedesco“. Ha prodotto, scritto e diretto più di 50 pellicole, ha inoltre pubblicato libri ed è stato regista di opere liriche (in tutti i teatri del Mondo, la Scala di Milano, il Festival di Bayreuth in Germania, la Washington Opera, l’Opera Bastille, il Palau di Valencia, il Teatro Municipal di Rio, il Massimo di Palermo...).

herzog con kinsky

Tra i suoi film ricordiamo Anche i nani hanno cominciato da piccoli, Fitzcarraldo, L’enigma di Kaspar Hauser, Nosferatu il principe della notte, Woyzeck, Kinski il mio nemico più caro (che ha minacciato di uccidere qualche anno fa!)… Ha appena presentato 2 film e un corto al Festival del Cinema di Venezia, e ha lanciato a Los Angeles la Werner Herzog’s rogue film school, con lezioni anche inconsuete (come l’arte dello scassinatore, l’aspetto atletico di essere regista, la neutralizzazione della burocrazia, tattiche di guerriglia… andate a controllare sul sito del corso www.roguefilmschool.com).

Director: Werner Herzog

Although Nicolas Cage has made some… peculiar… choices in his acting career, you can still count on him to deliver a great performance with a meaty role every couple of years. There was “Adaptation” in 2002, “The Weather Man” in 2005, and now we have his latest great performance in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”. Where this role differs, however, is that Cage is pretty much up to the same schtick that he brought to the table in efforts like “The Wicker Man”. He’s preposterous and completely over-the-top. An actor with so little restraint, however, is the perfect fit for a film by one of cinema’s greatest eccentrics (and, I would argue, one of our greatest living directors), Werner Herzog.

Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a New Orleans detective who, in the films opening sequence, injures his back in the process of saving a prisoner from Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters. Heroic this was not, however, as McDonagh was initially perfectly content with keeping his swiss-cotton underpants in tact.

The back injury leads to Vicodin, the Vicodin leads to cocaine, and before you know it McDonagh is raping young girls, aiming guns at elderly nurses, and hallucinating break-dancing souls. The film, to make the understatement of the decade, is wild, and most peculiarly is how Herzog chooses to set this lunacy in a completely naturalistic environment. He appears to be playing it straight, even when we take a brief interlude to get the point-of-view of a hallucinated reptile.

Where the film suffers is in the actual police procedural subplot. The murder investigation is not of much interest – it’s so dull, in fact, that it distracts from the film’s central relationships. The lack of restraint by both Cage and Herzog, on the other hand, will thwart your efforts of completely losing interest.

Herzog’s latest is a terrific mess of a film, a piece so delightfully obscene that you quite literally need to see it to believe it. It may not all work, but lesser Herzog still displays more audacity and invention than just about anything else at your local multiplex.

M-am plictisit de poezie, nu mai e ca la inceput

de unde deduc ca poeziea e o forma de femee

sau ca poeziea m-a facut femee (cu adevarat) daca tot ajung sa zic asta

dar nu pentru ca poeziea e plictisitoare prin ea insasi

ci pentru ca ea  nu e nimic mai mult decat cum e cum e prin mine

Poezia poetului este un pinguin antartic

care nu e nici metafora, nici simbol, e un construct cultural pe bune

si real, aparut intr-un video-documentar facut de tata Herzog

in care e filmat

cu lux de amanunte si narat un pinguin debusolat

Ca-ntr-un cuvant spart sau ca-ntr-un poem de EElliioott

trei pinguini/trei magi pornira ei frumos la drum

fara cuvinte multe

unul din ei, oricare practic, o lua frumos spre litoral

sa se hraneasca

al doilea se-ndrepta spre colonie, ca sa-si cloceasca oul

sau ca sa faca oua

si ultimul veti spune dragi copii? Ultimul, cu el ce drum s-a mai ales?

Ei ultimul, ultimul o lua tot inainte, inspre antarctica

pe marea de gheata pinguinul plutea spre munti

WARNING! MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Once in a great while, a movie comes along that is so insane, so crazy, so completely out of its mind wild, that you almost can’t believe what you are seeing. BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (or THE BAD LIEUTENANT PORT OF CALL: NEW ORLEANS as it’s written in the opening title) is that movie! It’s the most delightfully cracked out movie about a crazed drug addict policeman I’ve ever seen in my life. It is not one of those so-bad-it’s-good movies at all. This movie is the result of some very talented artists getting together and having a great deal of fun making a really cool, weird, funny and surreal cop movie.

I don’t know if this is an actual remake of ABEL FERRARA’S brilliant 1992 BAD LIEUTENANT, which is an agonizingly hellish character study of an out of control cop, that is played with amazing intensity by HARVEY KEITEL. There are several similarities in both the plot structure and character details, but this new BAD LIEUTENANT is a much different beast altogether. The original was much more serious and there was very little sympathy for the protagonist, who wasn’t even given a name, but referred to only as The Lieutenant in the end credits.

The new BAD LIEUTENANT is named Terence McDonagh and is played with comic exuberance by NICOLAS CAGE, who hasn’t been this awesome since LEAVING LAS VEGAS. His career of late has been spotty to say the least, with a few great movies like ADAPTATION and LORD OF WAR, mixed in with a lot of big budget action fluff. It’s been awhile since he’s really cut loose in a role and he tears this movie up with his energy. This is the CAGE of VAMPIRE’S KISS and RAISING ARIZONA. The manic, funny and inventive CAGE who makes the most out of each take. His character is a man addicted to crack, coke, heroin, vicodin, gambling and sex, who abuses his power at every opportunity he gets, and yet he’s a very likable guy. Even though his methods are totally crazy and completely unpredictable, he’s a really good detective and he gets results, as he breaks every law imaginable in the process. CAGE’S performance is a tour de force! He should get 10 Oscars!

HARVEY KEITEL as the o.g. BAD LIEUTENANT, whom is quite different from...

NICOLAS CAGE'S BAD LIEUTENANT! Those old ladies deserve it, trust me.

How this movie came together is beyond me. I can’t imagine there’s been a clamoring for a BAD LIEUTENANT revisit over the 17 years since the first. When I first read that WERNER HERZOG was directing a remake, I thought “The legendary German filmmaker responsible for FITZCARRALDO, NOSFERATU, GRIZZLY MAN and RESCUE DAWN wants to do a reboot of BAD LIEUTENANT? Huh?” It’s an odd choice indeed, but HERZOG is an odd director and he has made a very odd film and I’m so glad of that. His BAD LIEUTENANT is given humanity right off the bat, where with the original you really have to search for something to feel sympathetic for.

NICOLAS CAGE and WERNER HERZOG must have had a blast making this movie.

The film starts off in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, with detective Terence McDonagh (CAGE) and his colleague (VAL KILMER) emptying out a fellow officer’s locker. They come across a criminal still locked in a flooding cell and in an act of heroism, McDonagh jumps in to save him, injuring his back in the process. He is prescribed vicodin by a doctor and when we see him a year later, he’s become a full blown addict who’s graduated to crack, coke and heroin. He also has a bad gambling problem that gets his bookie (BRAD DOURIF) a bit testy.

When he’s put in charge of an investigation to find whoever was responsible for a drug related multiple homicide (in the original it was a case involving the rape of a nun), he throws himself fully into the assignment. The movie then swings back and forth between CAGE’S working the case and engaging in his own criminal activities. One scene he’s interviewing a suspect and gathering clues, the next he’s robbing drugs from a young couple of club goers and forcing the guy to watch him fuck his girlfriend.

EVA MENDES is great as the BAD LIEUTENANT’S  hooker girlfriend. Despite the fact that their relationship is based on doing drugs together and ripping off her johns, they actually have a few very tender scenes together. There’s a moment they share concerning a hidden silver spoon that’s downright heartwarming. No shit!

FAIRUZA BALK shows up as a corrupt traffic cop with some really nice boots and BRAD DOURIF is typically terrific as CAGE’S bookie, whom unlike his character’s counterpart in the original, joins the rest of us in falling for the BAD LIEUTENANT’S charm. Also, the rapper XZIBIT turns out a really well executed performance as Big Fate the gangster. He too, is a totally likable scumbag.

EVA MENDES as the BAD LIEUTENANT'S girlfriend.

"Shoot him again, his soul's still dancing!"

There are individual scenes in the new BAD LIEUTENANT that are sheer brilliance. One of my favorites involves a crack hallucination CAGE has involving two iguanas, that’s set to an old blues tune. The scene just keeps playing out,  supremely confident in its own complete absurdity and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Another one involves a group of gangsters being shot down. CAGE, in the midst of another drug delusion, exclaims to the killers, “Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing!” The camera then pans over to someone dressed like the fallen gangster, breakdancing in the middle of the room. It’s fucking AMAZING!

The film was written by WILLIAM FINKELSTEIN and I’m curious if it was his intention to pattern it after the original BAD LIEUTENANT, or if it was an original idea and the marketing department attached it to the FERRARA film. There are a few similarities in the plot, but overall this is a far different film and stands on its own as a great piece of cop noir. FINKELSTEIN’S previous work as a television writer for NYPD BLUE, LAW & ORDER, L.A. LAW and COP ROCK have served him well and he has written a truly unique and funny film.

WERNER HERZOG’S direction is probably what sends this movie sailing over the fence the most. His attachment alone is what takes this film from being a simple cop thriller and turns it into an art-house masterpiece. It’s his genius in taking such care with the little moments, (like CAGE reading a child’s poem about a fish) that make this a much more enjoyable BAD LIEUTENANT than we’ve previously seen. Not that ABEL FERRARA’S film is any less great or powerful, it’s just a different sensibility with the exact same subject.

Which is why I’d like to see a BAD LIEUTENANT franchise develop out of this. My pitch is this: each new film is the exact same formula – drugged up Lieutenant tries to solve a case he’s assigned while on a self destructive gambling and crack binge. It’s a different city, director and lead actor each time. A franchise that continues to remake and take a new spin at the same storyline. I think that would be cool. BAD LIEUTENANT: LOS ANGELES directed by DAVID LYNCH and starring ROBERT DOWNEY JR.; BAD LIEUTENANT: DALLAS directed by the COEN BROTHERS and starring MATT DILLON; BAD LIEUTENANT: PARIS directed by ROMAN POLANSKI and starring GERARD DEPARDIEU; and BAD LIEUTENANT: MIAMI directed by LARS VON TRIER and starring DON JOHNSON (now that would be REALLY crazy!).

See BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS because it is an awesome piece of crazy independent cinema! It’s like smoking a rock out of your lucky crack pipe, without the withdrawls and iguanas. I leave you with trailers for both the original and the new one. Enjoy!

Lasciatemi prima scrivere quanto sia frustante scrivere di un autore che si sta imparando ad amare. Punto. Mi consolo con questa scusa ufficiale: Harmony Korine è un regista sconosciutissimo in Italia, per non dire un po’ dapperttutto nel mondo, perciò il mio “scrivere a vanvera” si prefigge prima di tutto lo scopo di far conoscere Korine. 

2)Man in the mirror 

Raccontare la storia di questo film potrebbe risultare una faccenda piuttosto divertente per un recensionista, “un po’ trallalero-trallalà”, americano (da cui pare che in Italia fra i vari entusiasti recensionisti si stia istituendo una scuola di ….?pensiero metanfetaminico?) che pressappoco ve la racconterebbe così: è Michael Jackson quello a passeggio per le strade di Parigi che corre in una pista di go-cart e fa le prove dei suoi balletti per strada e canta in una casa di riposo per anziani? Eh sì gente e a quanto pare sempre a Parigi questo ballerino incontrerà niente di meno che Marylin Monroe che è sposata con Charlie Chaplin e hanno come figlia niente-di-meno-che l’enfant prodige del cinema degli anni 30 Shirley Temple. Sì, wow wow, e se non vi è chiaro o non è ancora abbastanza nella stessa casa dei due coniugi Chaplin ci vivono anche James Dean e quel mulacchione-mulattone di Sammy Davis jr, questo perché lo sguardo di Korine è davvero inarrestabile e anticonformista e antihollywoodiano perché….bè perché, ma-che-diavolo-ne-so io è che sono andato in bagno perché mi scappava una cagata pazzesca a furia di mangiare pop corn imburrati al formaggio che quando hanno spento le luci e mi sono trovato nella sala sbagliata perché, giuro,volevo andare a vedere Pirati Dei Caraibi – Ai confini del mondo e non volevo arrovellarmi il cervello per scrivere qualcosa di orginale su qualcosa che mi pare originale. Ecco più o meno la storia spiegata da un recensionista piuttosto esaltato, se escludete la seconda parte. Se volete la storia vera e propria bè più o meno guardatevi il film che io ho trovato solo in inglese sottotitolato in inglese. 

3)Beat it 

Mister Lonely è la storia di un uomo solo, geniale fino a qui, come è solo lo spettatore quando guarda un film, ora forse il discorso si farà più interessante. Korine riesce a debilitare lo spettatore di ogni sua difesa innalzata contro lo schermo cinematografico, prima adulando lo spettatore, immergendolo in una tela di colori che rendono la realtà filmica l’unica possibile via da percorrere. Ciò che succede ai personaggi, ovvero indossare delle maschere e andare a vivere in una realtà davvero più colorata e che ci consenta di esprimerci al meglio è ciò che ci succede ogni giorno grazie a social network quali facebook e myspace e messenger o per le generazioni più, adulte, che non sanno usare internet semplicemente la televisione. E ora non usciamocene con le solite cose trite e ritrite sui social network e la televisione tanto ormai sono i media i primi capaci ad avere una coscienza autocritica e se volete anche autoironica. Il fatto che Korine ci porti in un’altra dimensione non è detto che subito dopo non ne sconfessi la realtà stessa. E qui vorrei cambiare tono, perché se è vero che scrivere di film è come fare film, è anche vero che lo scopo di uno che scrive di film è quello di prolungare l’estasi dello spettatore uscito dal cinema. 

4)Thriller  

Essere consapevoli che rincorrendo i nostri sogni siamo simili ad armi ancora scariche, essere consapevoli, cioè, che portare nel presente i sogni, materializzarli in desideri, equivale ad ucciderci. Entrare a far parte di un sogno che fa parte di altri sogni. Lasciare che i nostri corpi siano sospesi nel vuoto, che siano solo dei riflessi per il presente ma una speranza per il futuro, per una folla abbandonata a se stessa. Ci sono ferite ovunque, c’è stanchezza e sfiducia poiché camminiamo in un sentiero pieno d’individui, ognuno si sente diverso, vede cose che altri non vedono, sente cose che altri non sentono. Alienati, disconnessi, confusi. Gli animali non hanno un fardello così pesante da portare, la scelta di essere un altro diverso da me stesso, la scelta di essere i propri sogni. Avere un corpo non adeguato per questa scelta è un dispiacere non per noi ma per chi ci guarda. Dobbiamo arrenderci all’idea che la civiltà ha fatto acqua da tutte le parti. Perché siamo così truccati e falsi, perché siamo più simili al vomito per le strade, specie animale che fugge le tenebre e le ombre, e non ha più dove andare, sempre e ancora alla ricerca di qualcosa, di troppo vicino e caro per essere visto, qualcosa di fin troppo umano, che ci mette davanti alla meravigliosa banalità di essere troppo nudi. E così nudi, possiamo solo tornare a piangere davanti ad un sole che questa volta ci sorride, aspettando pazientemente di portarci via. 

5)You Are Not Alone 

E bè infine sì. Infine non siamo soli, che vogliate crederci o meno, e questo film ve lo farà credere. Questo film vi farà piangere se abbandonate ogni difesa, ogni preconcetto, perché si sa che ogni volta che si vede un film si innalzano delle barriere che ci proteggono e che sfruttano le emozioni per puro divertimento o se volete “distrazione intellettuale”. E Korine non concede pietà, Korine è un santo purificatore che ci mette nella condizione di provare emozioni che sfaldano le nostre false convinzioni, che ci facciano diventare più umani. Korine è il regista in grado di creare quelle immagini in cui Werner Herzog spera tanto. Contate pure le scene che vi faranno lacrimare, io sono arrivato a cinque.

by Lewis Manalo

Really? I read about Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School in tandem with this promotional noise for Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. But really?

It claims to be “not for the faint-hearted; it is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs and wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lockpicking or forging shooting permits in countries not favoring their projects. In short: for those who have a sense of poetry.” It doesn’t seem very oriented towards technique.

But do you really need Werner Herzog to tell you how to do anything if you’re the type of ruthless soul his film school is for? If you need Herzog to tell you how to lie, cheat, and steal to make film, you probably don’t have the cajones to lie, cheat, and steal to make a film.

Just make a damn movie if you feel like it. Why pay to attend someone else’s publicity stunt?

West Germany 157m, Colour
Director: Werner Herzog; Cast: Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy

Klaus Kinski plays Fitzcarraldo, a once-failed entrepreneur with a love for the opera who attempts to earn a fortune in rubber to finance his dream of building an opera house in the small Peruvian city of Iquitos. To realize his dream, he must embark on a seemingly impossible venture of transporting a steamship overland with the help of the local Indian population. Herzog bridges the gap between fiction and reality as he transports the 320 ton steamship at great peril with the aid of the local native populations. The result is a visually stunning film with incredible performances by Kinski and the supporting cast, including the many hundreds of extras who risked life and limb in the production (Klaus Ming November 2009).

You decide.

The cool seal noises start at around 0:35. Personally, I hope they are alien Terminator robots. The Apocalypse has never been so cuuuuuute!

(via Zooillogix)

I’ve been frequently told that I think too much, tend to go overboard on the analysis of all things great and trivial. I torment myself and others with too many, “What does it all mean?”

Why are you looking at me that way?  Okay, I know. You are wondering how I am able to consume copious hours of reality television. The answer: I give brain a mini vacay from thinking with a promise to resume its usual task once the show, or in this most recent case, the movie,  Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, is over.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which opened last Friday, starring Nicholas Cage, is quite predictable even in its unpredictability. But if you love your Nick Cage over-the-top and chomping on the scenery like El Chubracabra, this is the film for you.

Directed by Werner Herzog, the film has Cage (Terence McDonagh) as a not-so-great cop gone bad but still doing what he needs to do for the sake of the greater good even it’s bad. Get that?  Don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.

Nicholas Cage and Val Kilmer in 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans' (photo: Courtesy of Fanscape)

You see, the story takes place in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. The levees have broken. The police station is flooding. In an effort to save a prisoner trapped in a cell in which the water is rising rapidly, Cage dives in. He saves the prisoner but injures his back.  To ease the pain, a doctor prescribes some medication. Cage takes it as well as his own self-prescribed meds. He particularly likes the kind that come in powder form — if you know what I mean. Cage uses rather unconventional means of scoring drugs. I don’t want to reveal anything. Let’s just say he has a gun and a badge and is not afraid to use it.

Although Cage, who was promoted to Lieutenant following the heroic rescue, pursues drugs like it was his job to do so, Cage’s real job is to investigate the drug-related, execution style murder of a Sengalese family.

Eva Mendes in 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans' (photo: Courtesy of Fanscape)

The film follows Cage as he attempts to keep it together enough to track down the criminals. Oh, if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, he takes time to get a little loving and a hit of the good stuff from his high class hooker, addict girlfriend played by Eva Mendes (Frankie Donnenfeld). Mendes’ performance, a take on the hooker with a heart of gold — kind of, sort of — is top of the line B-movie quality…Now, wait a minute, I’m not saying she is bad. Not at all. She gives a good performance in a very limited role.

Xzibit, Nicholas Cage and Cohorts from 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans' (photo: Courtesy of Fanscape

Every cop film needs a villain.  Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans has one in rapper turned actor Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner (Big Fate), the drug lord sought in connection with the murders. He is surprisingly good, giving a calm, measured performance in contrast to Cage’s wild man antics.

Another surprise, a rather odd one, is the film’s supporting cast which includes noted actors such as Jennifer Coolidge, Irma P. Hall, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Val Kilmer as Cage’s partner.  To say that they are underutilized, would be an understatement.  The truth of the matter is that it’s Cage’s film and everyone is there in service to him. Now is not the time for breakout performances.

I’m going to do a bit of thinking right now. I do have to say that I expected a better treatment of New Orleans as backdrop. There was no sense of place or reason why the story needed to take place in this particular location at this particular time.  As it is filmed, New Orleans looks like just another blighted American city, not one so keenly etched into our collective consciousness.

Well, enough of that.

Nick Cage fans. You get your man just like you like him – - bigger than life, wild, with a healthy dose of camp.

Enjoy.

Almost lost me, then it didn’t! One great lieutenant! 8/10 [IAN]

Buy it

Attempted to go see “A Serious Man,” went to the wrong theater and caught this saw this on a whim.  Glad I did.  It’s not at all what I think most would expect after seeing the trailer and was a real treat.   Werner Herzog is ill, man.

Since I mentioned the wide release film that would conquer the weekend’s box office last week, Friday, I might try again this week: Twilight: New Moon. Ugh, since it’s the lead, there’s a pic of it, but, again, I ain’t seeing it.

Need I say why? I expect it to be just a contrived teen melodrama dressed up with the mythos of such archetypical characters of vampires and lycanthropes (not that all those movies are bad, it’s just a watered down version for the romance novel crowds). The worst part about it is that this new Twilight Movie is it helmed by the Hollywood hack Chris Weitz, who, along with his writers, offer the blind idealization of Hollywood’s interpretation of teenage life. It’s ironic that the first film’s director, Catherine Hardwicke, made her mark directing Thirteen, a movie about the complicated relationship between a young teen and her wannabe-cool-but-ultimately-messed-up mother. She just so happened to have co-written that movie with then 15-year-old Nikki Reed, an actress in the two Twilight movies.

As a matter of fact, none of the wide release movies this week appeal to me. The Blind Side, looks like another schmaltzy underdog sports story that doubles as a star-vehicle for Sandra Bullock. I’d expect to be a predictable torture, which is what I hate most about those kinds of movies. I take no pleasure in watching a movie where I know exactly how a story will not only turn out but how it will develop.

Then there’s Planet 51, which (by the trailer that I had to endure too many times to count alone) I can tell is just another CGI excuse to condescend to children. Dumb CGI movies like these (the last one I actually made it to the theater to watch was Shrek 2) insult the intelligence of children. What’s worse is that many of those children have not developed the aesthetic sensibility to know this. It’s crap filmmaking serendipitously designed to indoctrinate young minds to want to watch simple-minded Hollywood crap. As if this writing, the flick is dropping hard on the Tomato meter (at 15% as of this writing).

Planet 51’s “ingenious” idea to depict a human astronaut as an alien in an alternate planet stuck in the nostalgia of 50s American culture is just an excuse to retell the same old stupid jokes through some simple-minded twist in telling the story. One of the great similar animated sci-fi films of the last century is the French-Czech production Fantastic Planet, which, at least according to the experience shared by one of my film-loving friends, would blow the minds of any child headed to boost Planet 51 at least to number two at the BO this weekend. Watch the opening scene here:

This friend, when much older, told me about receiving a video tape of this movie and recalling, as a child, how it so disturbed him, as well it should have.Imagine humans on some strange planet whose dominant humanoid inhabitants are actually so large, that a human fits in the palm of its hand. These creatures then treat them either as pets or trivially toy with them in the wild as humans do in the real word with ants and flies. It was presented then as a criticism of the oppressive communist regime that then rules Czechoslovakia.

Before I digress more, let me just say Fantastic Planet is one of the greatest sci-fi films of the 20^th Century, and deserves a look if you have not seen it.

There are interesting movies coming out this week, at least in limited release. Master Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is set to release his second consecutive movie starring Penelope Cruz, Broken Embraces, a combination that resulted in one of his best ever films, 2007’s Volver.

Then there is my favorite German filmmaker currently working Werner Herzog, who
has his second Hollywood film coming out (after the Christian Bale-starrer
Rescue Dawn): Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans of a bad cop to the Nth power, Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel. I’d even be keen on seeing what sounds like a nice departure for John Woo. Red Cliff is set in China during the rule of the Han Dynasty.

OK, so two predictions for this weekend’s BO: New Moon, of course, number one, and Planet 51, number 2. Hey, if anyone plans to see them let me know and what merits you might actually find in them…

In the meantime I am left to hunt out Almodovar’s and Herzog’s new releases… Anyone know where they’re playing in Miami?

Here it is. (Click on “trailer” to see the trailer – by default it loads a clip of the movie, rather than the full trailer.)

I am late on this because I’ve been trying to pretend it isn’t happening.  I mean – one of my favorite directors (Werner Herzog) does a remake of an unpleasant movie starring one of Hollywood’s most unreliable actors (Nic Cage) who is almost always in crap especially of late and also Xzibit is in there for some reason?  What the holy fuck is that?

But then I read two things: 1. The movie isn’t a remake or even a sequel, but rather an unrelated story with some barely-connected narrative concerns (yes, Cage does play a police lieutenant of questionable moral fiber); 2. Cage’s performance is being compared – favorably – with the insanity of Klaus Kinski in his prime.  So I had to go watch the trailer.  Twice.  And now I know that the number of times I will see this movie on opening day is one of these:

A. one time

B. half or less of a time

C. five or six times.

But there ain’t no zero on that list, Diane.  Y’all better know dat.

When Werner Herzog’s remake/sequel of Abel Ferrera’s Bad Lieutenant was announced, it gave Internet cynics fodder for an endless stream of articles chuckling over how absurd the whole project was. Was this ridicule triggered by the potential folly of recreating a project as uncompromising as Ferrera’s original? Was it the standard cineaste’s resistance to recycling older movies, or the thought of recycling something made so recently? Or was it that Herzog had cast Nicolas Cage? Without a frame being shot it was already being heralded as a disaster, as if Herzog’s legendary take-no-prisoners attitude had suddenly metamorphosed into some kind of dementia. When the trailer arrived the derisory laughter increased. Cage’s reputation as the bad movie actor du jour has become so entrenched in popular thinking that the obviously intentional humour of the trailer was treated as evidence that Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was another Wicker-Man-style disaster waiting to happen. The reality is that Herzog’s crime drama will more than likely disappoint those who were hoping for a failure, but thrill everyone else.

Cage portrays Terrence McDonagh, a police detective who inherits the mantle of Bad Lieutenant after injuring himself during a post-Katrina rescue. After this quick origin story we see McDonagh in the grip of an addiction to painkillers and coke, deep in debt and stealing drugs from criminals. The only thing that separates him from the perps he chases is his dedication to the job, especially his determination to bring to justice the drug kingpin Big Fate (Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner) who he suspects is responsible for the murder of an immigrant family. So far, so Keitel. McDonagh, however, is lucky enough to have a girlfriend (Frankie, played by Cage’s Ghost Rider co-star Eva Mendes) who just so happens to be a prostitute on a downward spiral of her own. Though neither of them are particularly admirable people, they seem to care for each other. As they become more absorbed into a depraved world, this connection seems to be the one thing that might save them.

The similarity to Ferrera’s original is obvious, but whereas that movie was harrowing and dark, Herzog brings an unexpected sense of possibility and even joy to this tale. Avoiding the tortured and oppressive air of Catholic guilt that made the original so distinctive, Herzog gives McDonagh a chance at redemption that doesn’t revolve around appeasing an indifferent God, and thus generates a sense of unexpected uplift. Additionally, while Ferrera set his movie in a decaying New York, Herzog takes metaphorical advantage of New Orleans’ recent history and the attempts of the citizens to rebuild their city, efforts that echo McDonagh’s own. Even at its darkest Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is filmed in almost constant brightness, and it helps that Herzog has filled the supporting cast with amusing eccentrics played by terrific character actors like Vondie Curtis Hall, Jennifer Coolidge, Fairuza Balk, Michael Shannon, and Brad Dourif. Also included is a subdued and underused Val Kilmer as a cop lacking even McDonagh’s vanishing moral core.

All act as amusing foils for Cage, but special mention must be made of Shea Whigham as abusive mob goon Justin who appears midway through the film to abuse Frankie. His dopey attitude and woozily delivered threats are sure-fire crowd-pleasers. Perhaps that’s the most surprising thing about Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Even though the trailer featured a number of amusing moments, the refreshingly breezy tone of the movie is a surprise, even though it features murder, sexual abuse, drug-taking, and old-lady-menacing. While Ferrera was determined to send the viewer to hell with Keitel, Herzog takes a cue from William Finkelstein’s script and makes a movie that does all it can to send the audience home with a smile on its face. The lackadaisical approach does come at the cost of narrative momentum: several scenes in the movie meander without purpose, which is something you wouldn’t expect from a seasoned TV writer who has worked on L.A. Law, NYPD Blue and Murder One, though the demented elements of the movie seem to tally with his work on lost TV classic Cop Rock:

It’s possible Finkelstein was partly responsible for the unconventional plotting, but even so, Herzog has little interest in the usual rhythms of crime dramas, happily chasing diversions or playing genre conventions for absurd laughs. He’s smart enough to keep an eye on the needs of the plot — especially the question of how out of control McDonagh actually is, which leads to some satisfying surprises in the final act — and to make sure we see the depressed human behind the outrageous bad behaviour of our protagonist, but he also has a need to drop in random instances of The Weird, often involving animals. A crocodile gets a memorable cameo, but it’s the iguanas that will stay with you when you leave the cinema. Nothing can prepare you for the already legendary Iguana-Cam. Herzog will be pleased to know that this scene brought the house down at the London Film Festival screening we attended. It is a completely deranged moment, a perfectly timed comedic aside, and impossible to forget. (If you wish to experience this scene in its proper context, avoid this clip until you’ve seen the movie.)

Herzog’s unpredictable take on the genre would not work without a strong performance at the core of it, and he is lucky to have Cage on his side. Herzog has found an actor of almost Kinski-esque intensity to guide his movie, someone who understands exactly what he wants and can collaborate as an equal, if this interview is to be believed. It often feels as if each of these imaginative artists has goaded the other on to greater weirdness. Nevertheless, even when the movie threatens to disappear into a cloud of peculiarity, their intelligence brings us back from the brink. Even the most formally or narratively daring moments in the film feel right, as if the movie couldn’t have been made any other way; eccentricity without the desperate quirkiness of a lesser filmmaker like, say, Richard Kelly. Without Herzog the movie would probably have stayed on a familiar genre path, and without Cage Herzog would have been forced to work with someone lacking in the ability to fuse madness with sincerity. Their collaboration is truly fortuitous.

Much has been made of Cage’s manic scenes, which range in tone from darkly funny to troubling, and sometimes both simultaneously. (Again, skip this if you wish to remain unspoiled.)

Less has been said about the humanity of Cage’s performance. While never having a scene as memorable and cathartic as Keitel’s astonishing breakdown in church from the original movie, Cage litters the movie with panicky moments where we get a glimpse of a man who knows he has gone astray. While Harvey Keitel’s lieutenant seems barely aware of his soul’s need for salvation until he collapses in church, McDonagh seems to know things have gone wrong and tries to correct this. Fans of Ferrera’s movie might complain that the remake loses focus by showing a man consciously scrambling to get back to a state of virtue, but what would Herzog gain from replicating Keitel’s downward trajectory? McDonagh’s desire for absolution generates a tension between his goals and his actions that powers what would otherwise be a fragmented and unsatisfying movie.

Cage brilliantly portrays McDonagh’s regression into a state of adolescent impulsiveness. His colleagues and acquaintances seem baffled or annoyed by his delinquent behaviour — both his unintentional outbursts and the rare moments when he harnesses his weird energy to do good –and only Frankie seems to want to help him. Casting Eva Mendes — a naturally charming actress capable of more than she is usually given to do — is another of Herzog’s masterstrokes. Her chemistry with Cage was one of the few truly great things to come out of Mark Steven Johnson’s terrible Ghost Rider.

This is easily the most layered and entertaining work Cage has done since Adaptation — not to mention his most likeable performance — and is enough to trigger hope of a new great Age of Cage. Even some of his more eccentric choices — such as suddenly imitating Ed Sullivan for about twenty minutes and then stopping with no explanation — make a weird kind of sense by the end of the film. His work here runs the risk of being little more than a series of gimmicky outbursts, but it often transcends mere flash to become something more profound, both comedic and tragic. McDonagh has become possessed by something alien and primal — something so destructive it’s almost a form of demonic possession — and it is thrilling to see him battle against it to reclaim his soul. The final, unexpected image will warm even the hardest heart.

But hey, if that’s not enough to convince you to see the movie, just go for the iguanas. You’ll thank me.

Finally:  a movie about Buddhism!  : )

This is just a quick reminder that UWest’s Religion & Film Series will continue tomorrow with a screening of master filmmaker Werner Herzog’s 2003 documentary Wheel of Time.  The legendary, iconoclastic Herzog is perhaps best known for his films Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, Encounters at the End of the World (last year’s Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature), Fitzcarraldo, The White Diamond, Nosferatu the Vampyre, and Aguirre, the Wrath of God. The film is described this way by the All Movie Guide:

Celebrated filmmaker Werner Herzog turns his attention to one of the largest Buddhist gatherings in the world in this documentary.  Thousands of Buddhist pilgrims travel to the village of Bodh Gaya in India (the place where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment) to take part in the Kalachakra Initiation. As the visitors stream into Bodh Gaya, many traveling on foot and often stopping to prostrate themselves as a sign of devotion, a team of monks create a beautiful and intricate sand painting on Mount Kailash, which is scattered to the winds by the Dalai Lama at the end of the 12-day celebration as a symbol of the impermanence of existence. Herzog documents the ancient rituals of this ceremony as well as profiling the Dalai Lama and some of the many Buddhists who travel to India for this event.

I’m personally quite fond of this film, and even named it one of my “Five Great Films about Buddhism” for elephant journal.

A funny clip of Herzog talking to His Holiness the Dalai Lama is embedded below.

The screening starts at 7 p.m. in Room ED309.  It is free and open to the public.  A discussion will follow.  We hope to see you there!

Recently I defended Michael Bay (while simultaneously expressing how odious his movies can be), and now I rush to the defense of another man used as a lazy punchline to a billion deeply unfunny jokes about bad cinema: the acting colossus called Nicolas Cage. As with Bay, Cage is treated like a cautionary tale about how that vile, Chthonic monolith called Hollywood can drive people insane with greed, how talented individuals can lose their way and begin a descent from making art to making dross. He is accused of sleepwalking through films, cashing checks, appearing in unworthy crowd-pleasing dreck, and working with anti-cinematic infidels. His personal life is raked over (he keeps impulsively marrying women! He calls his kid a silly name! He buys too much crap!), his eccentricities treated as signs of mental illness, and his success used as example number two in the case against modern culture (example one being the success of Bay). Only Ben Affleck is treated with less respect, a fact that I intend to address in a future post where I defend him too. (I’m serious about that. Affleck is awesome.)

There are millions who seem to love to take a short-cut in thinking and just refer to Cage as a has-been with no understanding of what a joke he has become, though Cage’s most famous critic has been Sean Penn, the former friend who once told the New York Times, “Nic Cage is no longer an actor. He could be again, but now he’s more like a…performer”. This was said around the time that Cage appeared in two Bruckheimer productions — The Rock and Con Air — which seems to be the one thing an artist can do that will sink his credibility. Why did Penn single out Cage for that and not Cage’s co-stars Ed Harris, or Sean Connery, or John Cusack, or John Malkovich? They’re respected actors who have won awards and are considered to be fine actors, but Cage falls into the line of fire for moving from carefully considered character pieces like Leaving Las Vegas to action movies, three of which he did in a row (the third being the classic John Woo SF actioner Face/Off). His wildly broad performances in those movies were almost certainly a factor, but then he has always given broad performances, within which lie subtle moments (see also Wild At Heart, Birdy, Peggy Sue Got Married, etc.). They’re entertaining displays of eye-rolling crowd-pleasing acting pyrotechnics, but there’s a soul there too. This is what I think of as getting The Full-On Cage Experience, with madness and soulfulness tied together. Penn could never pull off anything like that. When he mugs, he ends up wrecking the movie.

By all that’s holy and unholy, how much better was Penn in Milk, or Dead Man Walking (incidentally, that’s one of my favourite screen performances of all time)? It’s not even a fair competition. Besides, this accusation, insinuating that Cage is no longer an actor, is rich coming from someone who appeared in I Am Sam. I’ll take an entertaining and unpretentious actor having fun playing a demonic avenger with a flaming skull than some humourless chide wasting his talent on Oscar-baiting bullshit like that any day of the week. Sadly, Penn’s not the only one who thinks Cage has pissed his talent away. In this little essay, Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman compares Cage to Dr. Wesley T. Snipes, which is prescient considering Cage’s current tax woes, but while Snipes has descended into Direct-To-DVD hell, Cage is still working on big-budget movies and smaller curios, still attracting the viewing public, and still cranking out performances that are — at best — thrilling, and — at worst — merely entertaining.

The one argument that genuinely annoys me is the one where Cage is cranking out piss-poor, lazy performances since his last truly astonishing performance in Jonze and Kaufman’s Adaptation. I’ve often said that I think his work in that (along with his work in Leaving Las Vegas and Raising Arizona) deserves a coveted Shades of Caruso Free Pass…

…but of all the movies he has made since, only three performances really disappointed me: his work as Benjamin Gates in the first National Treasure movie, where he seemed awfully tired; his creepy performance in Next, the empty action thriller adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s clever short story; and his catatonic turn as a greasy-haired loser assassin in the disastrous remake of Bangkok Dangerous, which I suspect he took so he could get a holiday in Thailand. That last one really did give me cause for concern, but Gleiberman likes to make out that Cage is regularly signing on for “grade-Z genre schlockers”, which apparently include Ghost Rider and The Wicker Man. Neither of them are good movies, but they were not developed as low-budget cash-ins. Ghost Rider was obviously meant to be a big comic book adaptation, with a pretty good cast and a $110m budget, and even if it was absolutely dire, it was made with love by fans of the character, of which Cage is one.

The Wicker Man is a dumb-ass movie by any standards, but it’s made by Neil LaBute, who was once a promising director. He could have turned in a thoughtless remake of the excellent original (which would fit under Gleiberman’s umbrella of “genre schlocker”) but instead made something personal, for better or worse. For all it’s faults it’s obviously of a part with his other movies, dealing with his favourite themes of misanthropy, deceit, misogyny, fear of opening up to others, and gynophobia. I’ve occasionally argued that The Wicker Man is a satire on male fear of impotence and castration, a paranoid comical fantasy about a scheming cabal of exaggerated feminist ballbreakers who are out to destroy the penis, turning all men into drones and semen-donors whose sexuality is merely a sacrifice of power to the almighty womb in order to replenish the earth with children.

Sadly, even if this was LaBute’s intention — and even if Cage was in on this project for that reason alone — it’s still ridiculous and poorly made and filled with wonderfully camp moments. Cage maintains that the comedic aspects of the movie were not lost on him. In an interview with Spike Jonze, Drew McWeeny discusses meeting Cage, and Jonze is full of praise:

Jonze: I love [Cage]. We had the best time working together. He really works and focuses.
McWeeny: His publicist was a little wary of me being there, I guess, because he doesn’t do a lot of press and he doesn’t allow press around a lot, but he really was very accessible once I’d been there for a few days, and he kind of warmed up to me. And he was really just fascinating. I loved chatting with him about stuff.
Jonze: Totally chill.
McWeeny: Yeah. And I think far more self-aware than most people think. Like I think some people think Nic is in this vacuum and doesn’t realize how crazy some of his performances are. I got the feeling he was totally aware of how people perceive things. We were talking about THE WICKER MAN, and he was like, “How do people call that an unintentional comedy? I’m in a bear suit kicking Lelee Sobieski in the throat. I know it’s funny.”
Jonze: He just takes it so seriously that nobody knows how to take him. Like PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, I was like, “What is that?” Like I was 15 so I didn’t really know.
McWeeny: I just love how you can always count on him to push things further, like VAMPIRE’S KISS. He ate a roach, man.
Jonze: And also just the insanity of that performance, just the balls-out fearlessness.

Is it enough that Cage is aware of the ridiculousness of the movies he is appearing in? For me it is. I strongly suspect Cage is the most easily bored person in the world, and unfortunately that is paired with the ability to get work in movies that pay millions of dollars for him to spend on cars and comics and castles. Some of the films he has been in lately are truly awful, and I would never argue that they weren’t. Neverthless, I watch them for those flashes of manic commitment from Cage — The Partial Cage Experience — that delight me so. Are they valid acting choices, or is he merely trying to entertain himself while he trudges through formulaic populist bilge? As far as I’m concerned, even if he’s merely trying to entertain himself, he succeeding in entertaining me, and surely that’s what counts.

The only other popular actors that delight me as much are Clooney (who can do pathos and comedy equally well), Streep (who is always the best thing about everything she has ever been in), and maybe Jeff Bridges. Even those fine actors have not given me as much pleasure as Cage does, even when you forget about his early, golden years and concentrate on this bizarre stretch of poor movies. Since Adaptation we’ve had the insanity of Not The Bees…

…a literally hysterical fiery transformation…

…a Shout-Off with Rose Byrne (who is utterly overmatched, despite her invention of the word “chuldren”)…

…a run in with an obnoxious know-it-all child (the best part of which is how he treats the kid like an adult for most of the scene)…

…and a frustrating teaser of what could be his finest hour, if ever Rob Zombie got the money to make it…

His willingness to make fun of himself is the thing that keeps his crazy public and professional persona viable, and though many of his actions seem completely deranged, I honestly believe he’s playing a trick on us. Can someone who makes a series of adverts like these really be unintentionally weird?

(N.B. Anyone who has a sense of humour about themselves gets a break from me. Even the reportedly tyrannical and insensitive director Michael Bay gets points for playing up to his image with this commercial for Verizon:)

I’m a fully paid up Cage fan. For entertainment value, he can’t be beat. To see a person with such intelligence, quirkiness, restlessness, fearlessness, and energy do his thing in such big-screen movies is a rare thrill. If I squint I can see why Cage is now considered a hack by critics and film-watchers, because it’s easy to confuse being in a terrible movie and actually being terrible, but I worry that maybe people are also turned off by his intensity and his allegiance to the weird. The odd soporific performance aside, perhaps what baffles people the most is seeing him devote so much energy to projects that they feel don’t deserve it. Personally, I think that’s admirable. He’s getting paid enough, after all. Dance, you fucking monkey! Dance for your millions!

And yet even though I revel in his passionate and unpredictable work in crud, I’ve become concerned that we would never get another performance out of Cage that is as electrifying as his best work (disclaimer: I’ve not seen Lord of War or The Weather Man, and some have said he gives solid, rounded performances in both). Once upon a time he would work with Lynch and Scorsese, and the performances he gave were over-the-top yet grounded in some kind of emotional profundity, but lately those performances — while entertaining, memorable, and stronger than popular wisdom would have you believe — are lacking that extra fire. Well, I’m happy to report the return of The Full-On Cage Experience, as he takes on the task of being the 21st Century Klaus Kinski. More on that tomorrow, when I review Werner Herzog’s excellent Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.