For style, Stuffed-Aria gets a 4. An establishment for take-out and delivery, there are no frills about it, delivering maximum fullness at a minimal price, with a unique version of pizza. And for overall quality, I guess they get a four. Aside from the excessive heft of the pie, I couldn't find anything wrong with it. So Stuffed-Aria ends with a 65%.
Directed by Cage's brother Chris Coppola, Deadfall was a complete flop, subject to a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes. But is it that bad? I don't think so. It's the story of Joe, the son of a big time con man who gets tricked into shooting his own father. But the father has a twin brother, Uncle Lou, whom Joe is bequested to recover a "cake" from.
And Uncle Lou is also a big time con man, easily taking to and finding work for his dear nephew, which leads to several dark turns. The story is meant to set you up for a "mind blow", but it's all fairly predictable and generic for the noir crime thing. But the movie is fairly entertaining and fun to watch. It doesn't over reach, and generally succeeds at what it attempts. I think the directing of Chris Coppola was altogether decent, and it's a shame none of his movies have been hits. Deadfall was a movie of its time, rife with seedy violence, and followed closely by Pulp Fiction. If this is your thing, you should check it out. Otherwise, it's worth seeing just for Cage's insane performance, which might even give Jim Carey a run for his money.
After Walsh catches a legendary white jaguar, he takes a boat out of the jungle, which as a last minute surprise, is also transporting a criminally insane terrorist assassin named Richard Loffler. So we have Loffler plus jungle animals, plus the white jaguar who we don't need to worry about anymore, even though she's a legendary man eater. Still the US Marshals on board are easily outmatched. So the premise is pretty good, like Con Air but darker and more exciting.
And in this type of situation, you might expect a lot of people to die, like in most thrillers. But that doesn't happen. So the thriller part doesn't work. What about the action? The action is pretty bad all around, except for one scene with Cage, who severely out-performs everyone else in the cast, which by the way, includes only one woman.
With the bechdel test, I am especially forgiving of Nick Cage films, because if he's going to be in a movie, it might as well be mostly about him. But in Primal, any of the characters could have been female. None of them had to be male, except for the hottie who doesn't like Walsh, because he's not a good man. This hottie is Famke Janssen, playing Dr. Ellen Taylor. Some military doctor, it's her job to ensure the health and safety of their prisoner on board. And she doesn't look like a military doctor, always withe her hair in this sultry side braid.
So was there anything good about this movie? The thrill is there if you're really desperate for it. And if you really love 90s action movies, and wish they were still being made, this is the film for you. Otherwise, you should continue not caring about it.
And for overall quality, Pizza Pantry gets a 5 out of 5, not fancy but done just right. It was an objectively great pizza, with a total score of 85%. It was an objectively wonderful pizza, and I'm looking forward to visiting again. Maybe on date night, maybe even on my birthday. Thank you Pizza Pantry.
Nicolas Cage plays Pilot Jake Preston, doing everything he can to make it look cool and fun to kill people. The herosim in this interest is repeatedly affirmed by Preston's instructor, played by Tommy Lee Jones. I don't think he's a great actor or anything, but he's the only one in this film who gives more than the worst performance of his career. And I don't blame the actors, really. Most of the dialogue exists to demonstrate the greatness of Cage's character. The helicopter stunt scenes are a rare, fun treat, but the rest of this movie sucks. And it doesn't just suck. It sucks in bad taste.
And I don't even care that Fire Birds repeatedly tries to rip off Top Gun. What bothers me more is this is the only Nick Cage film to prominently feature a song by Phil Collins. How did that happen? Did Phil Collins really endorse the War on Drugs? Unbelievable.
If you look at a timeline of all the Star Wars Legends books, Into the Void is at the start. The Jedis are called Je'daii, and they use swords instead of light sabers. And it was a fun, entertaining read. As you know, they don't let just anyone write a Star Wars book. Tim Lebbon knows how to write a fun adventure.
More about the story. It follows the tale of a solitary ranger named Lanoree, whose sent on a quest to stop her brother Dalien, who hates the Force, from opening a Hypergate on their home planet. All kinds of things can go wrong with a Hypergate, and the Je'daii don't want someone so dark to mess with it. Even this long ago in the long ago of a galaxy far far away, technology isn't far off from what they have in any of the other Wars of Star. Droids are there, too. So if you love the cute, bleepy droids, you'll love this too.
But how does this story impact the rest of the Star Wars universe? I have no idea. It would be best to read on.
Cage played Bill Firpo, a miserable, but good guy who's a waits tables at a fancy joint in New York. His brothers are not such good guys. Dave, played by Jon Lovitz, is the schemer. Dana Carvey plays Alvin, the cleptomaniac. I'd consider these two guys more of comedians than actors. Dana Carvey does a good Garth, but paired with Cage's habitually over-the-top schtick, there's no hope for immersion in this charming little movie.
I'll try not to spoil too much here. Dave tricks Bill into assisting the two criminal brothers on a bank robbery in a little town called Paradise Pennsylvania. All their prison buds were saving this job for one of the big guys back in the clink, but Dave and Alvin planned on pinning it on their brother. But the kindness of the residence of Paradise makes a big difference to these bad apples. And as it turns out, even the good brother had room for improvement.
Trapped in Paradise is okay for a 90s comedy. For a Christmas movie, it's good. I'll be watching it every year, for sure. That being the case, I probably won't be putting it on except to honor the holiday season.
This man is Harry Bronson, an engineer who hangs out in literate circles that do drugs and write science fiction. There are a lot of good scenes in this book, written by the husband of Del Rey publishing's founder, Judy-Lynn Del Rey. I feel like this was a great time for scifi and fantasy, when great writers were getting out of the pulp magazines and into novels.
Novels about weird, adult things were written with an exciting pace and efficient language, rare in today's epically thick fantastical novels. And for me, this was the right book at the right time, because new fantasy is starting to grate on me. I've never been especially interested in uplifting fairy tales about 'weird' kids who are secretly mega special, and heroes for their idiosyncrasies. Only in fairy tales.
In Pstaleamte, newly telepathic Harry goes through all manner of psychologically perverse hell, trying to fix what others might imagine is a gift until it occurs to them.
Trespass tells the story of a seemingly rich family who gets burglarized. Cage plays the diamond-dealing dad, and none of his decisions make sense in the face of such violent trespassers. And as a viewer, the budding story is already too stupid for me to wonder what everyone's hiding. None of the characters had me rooting for them.
So what did the makers of Trespass think would gain interest from potential viewers? Would neglectful dads and husbands identify with Cage's character. Maybe there's a huge demographic of dudes who want to see Nicole Kidman as a smart, seemingly rich housewife, threatened with guns, knives, needles, and rape. What about the obsessive cult following for the hunter bad vampire from the first Twilight movie, who want to see him as a psychotic junky human?
Those are Trespass's only selling points, and the algorhythm was right about this deserving flop. Readers take heart. The masses aren't always asses.
