Nicolas Cage is getting a tribute festival at Metrograph
Nicolas Cage is one of America’s greatest movie stars, and certainly its most distinctive one. His singular genius will be the subject of a retrospective festival at Metrograph, the wonderful independent movie theater in New York City.
IndieWire reports that “Nicolas Uncaged” will present 35mm showings of 10 of Cage’s iconic films: “Adaptation,” “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” “Con Air,” “Moonstruck,” “National Treasure,” “Pig,” “Red Rock West,” “Vampire’s Kiss,” “The Wicker Man,” and “Wild at Heart.”
“Heaped with praise and panegyrics as one of the finest screen actors of his generation, pilloried and parodied as an anything-for-a-paycheck hambone with a weakness for weird wigs and prostheses, Nicolas Cage is a one-man sideshow, a mixture of Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum, Lon Chaney, and a stick of TNT who takes back ‘serious thespian’ prestige whenever he wants to, dives into grindhouse material and Academy Award hopefuls with the same mad enthusiasm, and never seems to be having anything less than a total blast in front of the camera,” Metrograph said in a statement.
“From blockbusters to broody neo-noirs, from dining on cockroaches to hunting for foraging pigs, a tribute to the inimitable and impossible to pin down Nic, a prodigious and untamed talent whose kabuki mannerisms, off-the-wall accent work, and go-for-broke brio have been delighting discerning moviegoers for almost 40 years.”
Cage won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1995 for his performance in “Leaving Las Vegas.” He has so many great or at least fascinating films that that one isn’t included. And Cage fans will surely wonder why not some of his other classics, like “Raising Arizona” or “Face/Off” or “Bringing Out the Dead” or “Mandy.” But that just goes to show that his filmography is packed with unforgettable performances.
The retrospective runs from Nov. 8 to Jan. 2, with select encore screenings to follow. Here’s the trailer for the festival: