Every time someone antagonizes Nicolas Cage's character in the film, you expect his signature outbreak, engulfing everything in its path in irredeemable fury. Instead, what you get, is a sombre, broken, yet strong reply. A reply in kind. Every time.
I feel this is where the film - and inarguably Nicolas Cage's performance - shines through. The man is not out for revenge - as many would expect. He is just out looking for his pig. A pig by his…
When madness takes hold of men, their bloodthirst knows no bounds. That thirst creates chaos, the chaos instills fear, and the fear begets violence, and violence leads to death. We have millions of men like that whose life follows this precarious, deadly trajectory, often ending up in prisons. But, even after all the violence, death, and punishment, beneath the harrowing shells, they are, after all, just men. Men who would like to see the light of the day again. Men…
It is often said that to become a writer, you would have to live the life of a writer. I would respectfully disagree. As Paterson goes on to show, to become a writer, the most imperative thing is to,just, LIVE. Not for a goal. Not for vanity. Not for fame. Not for the perfection of an artform. But, to just live. Because it is in living that life deals its perfection back to us. It is in living that the…
Being a Genius isn't the problem. The toll of trying to be one, while persistently being swamped in relative mediocrity, is. That is what defines Amadeus. The film might be named after Mozart, but the story is truly about Salieri, his rampant pursuit of greatness, and his constant failure to achieve it. For every Mozart in the world, we have hundred of Salieris who are great in their skill but don't have that one thing that might turn them into…
