| Overall Grade: |
A+ |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
A+ |
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| Direction: |
A |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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Could it get any better, or worse?
by smoochin is delicious (movies profile)
Feb 17, 2007
1
of
1 people found this review helpful
Most of the time, when life hands ya a ***** sammich, ya end up eating it. You know it ain't yummy, but what the hell, that's what ya got. Nick Cage eats and spews and drinks and drinks, and it's sad, revolting in a way, yet it smacks of all the real things that we like to hide in family closets and pretend aren't happening. Liz Shue should've gotten the oscar, probably would have if she hadn't played a whore. She's had some genuinely awful roles in her career, typical for an actress who's a sometimes-star depending on the salary of her publicist. Truly, tho, Liz hammers that role like few others I've ever seen, and I've seen plenty. Analogies and metaphors aside, cuz there's no reason to dwell on symbolism be it Freudian or otherwise, Liz is the real reason to watch the film. We watch people like Nick disintegrate all the time; booze and dope and women and money, what's the difference? When a man ends, he knows it, and few rebuild what others might see from a distance as normality. Nick's character Ben saw the void and sought it out, but the surprise of the evening is Liz, who played the role of her life and hardly anyone remembers or gives her credit for living the life that Nick's Ben can't handle, a simple and ordinary existence, one of wanting more and dealing with less. I can't watch the film any more, and haven't seen it in at least five years, but it was her performance that burned in me an abiding respect for something burning inside Liz.
There is no real lesson inside the film, just an observation, a Vegas vacation-funeral. The look is typical Vegas, glitz and *****, because you can't have one without the other. The direction is spot-on when hitting the characters, although I've forgotten most of the locations and dialogue. It was a film I hesitated seeing to begin with, and it wasn't much of a date-flick, but I actually paid to see it and I was floored by Liz, her depth and not her tits. I do remember wondering what her character would do next, and supposed on my next Vegas trip that I might see her wrangling a pole on the strip. Life really is that nasty. Hollywood is that nasty, but I'll never forget Liz's left hook that knocked Sarandon out of the fookin ring (alas, the nun always trumps the whore, or whores the Trump!) I made a funny, weeeeeeeeee. |
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