I'm getting enCaged! (UPDATE - Movie #9: Fire Birds)

EnCagement Movie #8: Outcast


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Okay, I have a few things to say about this one.

First, there should probably be a disclaimer at the beginning that says Nic Cage is only in about half an hour of this movie. It is not Nic's movie. It's Hayden Christensen's movie.

Second, in the 30 minutes that Nic IS in this movie, he's gives one of the most Nic Cagey performances I have EVER seen. Period. Including one moment where he screams, "Do you want my blood?!" and it's awesome. He also has an accent in this movie where, as soon as I heard it, I was like, "OKAY! I don't what the fuck you're doing but I love it!" It is truly amazing shit.

But like I said, it's really Hayden Christensen's movie and he actually does a damn fine job here. It's a genuinely good performance and his character is almost like an older, wiser, more grounded version of Anakin, just in Crusades-era China instead of in the Star Wars universe.

Speaking of which, I guess I should cover the plot:

A fugitive Chinese prince and his sister enlist the aid of two war-weary Crusaders to help them defeat their older brother, who murdered their father and seized the throne.

It's pretty wacky. Not only that but the Chinese speak in accents across the spectrum: Chinese, American, British. There is no uniformity.

So is it actually a fun movie? I thought it was okay. It's fun to watch for the performances and the action isn't bad either. Not only that, but it has some nice cinematography and I give it credit for being a rare modern action film that has almost no noticeable CGI. Where it falls a bit short is in having a relatively dull and predictable "warrior has to protect the weak" plot.

I guess I'd give it about a 6/10. It's a decent watch if you're a Nic Cage enthusiast or are curious about what Hayden Christensen has been up to recently.




Attn: @coopdro
 
You really need to watch Deadfall.
 
You really need to watch Deadfall.

It's on the list.

What's crazy is this motherfucker released seven (?!) movies between when I watched Snowden and when I reviewed The Runner the other day.

I was like, WTF?! I just had to add a whole shitload of movies to the list. That's when I realized that I really needed to get moving on this thing.
 
EnCagement Movie #8: Outcast


outcast-canadian-movie-poster-md.jpg


Okay, I have a few things to say about this one.

First, there should probably be a disclaimer at the beginning that says Nic Cage is only in about half an hour of this movie. It is not Nic's movie. It's Hayden Christensen's movie.

Second, in the 30 minutes that Nic IS in this movie, he's gives one of the most Nic Cagey performances I have EVER seen. Period. Including one moment where he screams, "Do you want my blood?!" and it's awesome. He also has an accent in this movie where, as soon as I heard it, I was like, "OKAY! I don't what the fuck you're doing but I love it!" It is truly amazing shit.

But like I said, it's really Hayden Christensen's movie and he actually does a damn fine job here. It's a genuinely good performance and his character is almost like an older, wiser, more grounded version of Anakin, just in Crusades-era China instead of in the Star Wars universe.

Speaking of which, I guess I should cover the plot:



It's pretty wacky. Not only that but the Chinese speak in accents across the spectrum: Chinese, American, British. There is no uniformity.

So is it actually a fun movie? I thought it was okay. It's fun to watch for the performances and the action isn't bad either. Not only that, but it has some nice cinematography and I give it credit for being a rare modern action film that has almost no noticeable CGI. Where it falls a bit short is in having a relatively dull and predictable "warrior has to protect the weak" plot.

I guess I'd give it about a 6/10. It's a decent watch if you're a Nic Cage enthusiast or are curious about what Hayden Christensen has been up to recently.

Alright sir, I'll queue this up in the next week and report back. I feel like I may have already watched it, but I have no real recollection of it, so it will get a go on the home theater. Viva la Nic Cage!!
 
All you need to hear about Outcast

It's no Season of the Witch.
 
I never liked leaving las vegas seemed very unrealistic to me from the portrayal of the city of vegas to the alcoholism to the hooker.
 
I'm only at the outline stage for my screenplay. A scene-by-scene description of everything that happens from beginning to end. I started writing out the dialogue and action for each scene, but to be perfectly frank, I suck at dialogue. It sounds too direct, not clever at all because I'm trying to keep my page count as low as possible. The standard length for a spec script is 110 pages (roughly one minute of film time per page).

If I wrote out all the dialogue and action, my screenplay would probably run 150-170 pages long, which means almost a three hour movie. No studio is going to pay for that. So I've got a lot of trimming and editing to do. Which is hard because there's only so much I can cut out before the story starts to suffer.

That's why I made the other thread asking for film recommendations. See if I get a burst of inspiration, come up with a new sequence of scenes that will flow tighter, and tell the same story in less time.

I went to film school for a couple years with a major in screenwriting. I dropped out to become a Bjj instructor but won some screenplay contests. My advice is on the first draft just pour out everything onto the page. The real art of writing is the rewrite. Don't try to make it perfect on the first go around. Once it's all on the page I always found it easier to whittle away what was extraneous. It's easy to become paralyzed trying to write the perfect page every page
 
EnCagement Movie #9: Fire Birds


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Many years ago--I guess it was about 28 of them now--my mom took me to see this movie. I actually think it was the first Nicolas Cage movie I ever saw in the theater. I was eight years old and even at that young age I loved war movies and when I saw the trailer for Fire Birds I knew I just HAD to fucking see that shit. And so my mom took me. I think I even remember playing the Shinobi arcade game in the theater lobby after the movie was over.

The thing is, even at eight years old I remember thinking this movie was kind of shitty. And because of that, I never revisited it . . . until last night.

I'm curious about how exactly the script for this movie came about because the vision I have in my head is of some Army general somewhere going, "Goddamn it, now I want my Top Gun! The Navy has Top Gun . . . the Air Force has Iron Eagle . . . so where's our shit?!"

This is Top Gun for the Army even down to specific characters and plot beats. Cage is Maverick. Tommy Lee Jones is a combination of Jester and Viper. And Sean Young is Charlie. You have a hotshot pilot who has an obstacle he needs to move past before he can get his flight wings; a war games scenario where said hotshot pilot has to defeat the instructor; and a situation at the end where all the newly-minted pilots have to go kick some ass. The only thing missing is a Goose equivalent.

Unfortunately, however, this film is not even close to as good as Top Gun. It feels amateurish in comparison, complete with hilarious dialogue, questionable production design, a love story that gets too much focus and a woefully underwritten villain.

This isn't to say the movie isn't fun, though. Last night I sat down with the intention of only watching the first few minutes and then coming back to it later but I ended up watching the whole movie. It casts a kind of spell over you with its above-average acting, handful of cool action scenes, likable (if derivative) characters and the aforementioned hilariously awesome dialogue.

This was Nic Cage right after he finished transitioning from a boy to a man and it's an interesting role for him. Nic Cage the Apache helicopter pilot. He does a fine job as always, playing the role straight for the most part and only occasionally getting up to some wacky shenanigans.


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The film also stars Sean Young before she went off the deep end and became a goddamn train wreck. She also turns in a good performance and she looks good also (though there's this one scene that makes it pretty obvious that she needs to eat a few sandwiches because she's too damn skinny).


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If there's a real star here, however, it just might be the Apache helicopters. I never realized how bad ass those things are but they are indeed pretty fucking bad ass. Their maneuverability in particular really impressed me.

This is one of those movies that has a lot of objective problems in terms of quality and craftsmanship, but precisely because of those problems, as well as some things that are also done well, I had fun with it. This thing has "cult classic" written all over it and I would not at all be surprised to learn that it has developed something of a cult following.

If you typically get into movies of that fit that label, then it is recommended.

How do you rate such a film? I have no idea. So no rating.


 
So, Firebirds vs Iron Eagle?
 
So seriously, you've seen Fire Birds I take it?

Care to offer any thoughts?

Saw it a very long time ago. Watchable but pretty forgettable. As far as the "Top Gun ripoff" genre goes, I preferred The Guardian with Kevin Costner.
 
As far as the "Top Gun ripoff" genre goes, I preferred The Guardian with Kevin Costner.

I haven't seen it. Is it really a Top Gun rip-off? I remember seeing the trailer but don't remember getting that vibe.
 
I haven't seen it. Is it really a Top Gun rip-off? I remember seeing the trailer but don't remember getting that vibe.

Follows the template pretty closely. More emphasis on the Viper character, obviously.
 
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