The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is the kind of movie that I’ve dreamt of for most of my life. It brings us the idea of a superfan hanging out with their favorite actor and becoming best friends with them—so, you know, my life goal. Starring Pedro Pascal as Javi, a Nick Cage (with a “k”) superfan, the movie brings us Nic Cage as … Nick Cage. He’s playing a fictionalized version of himself (who was once married to the brilliant Sharon Horgan), who is in need of money, so he takes a payment of $1 million to go to this fan’s birthday party.
The movie is a balance between showing off what makes Cage, as an actor, incredible and also turning the plot into the kind of Cage movie that we’ve come to love throughout his career. But there are call-outs to his past work, and having even a passing knowledge of Cage’s work would make the movie even more enjoyable!
Cinemablend spoke with the team behind The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and got their answers, but I’m going to give you my picks to dive into the world that is Nic Cage’s filmography. If you have the time, just go ahead and watch whichever movies you feel moved by, because even the “bad” Nic Cage movies are still good movies because of his performance.
These five movies are just films that have stuck with me and are examples of just how deeply Nic Cage understands acting.
Face/Off
Face/Off has the ability to stay in your mind for years after you’ve seen it. I’m a great example of Cage’s power because I watched this movie as a kid and reference it enough in my life that you’d think I watch it non-stop. It is just one of those movies that is so outlandishly fun that you can’t stop thinking about it.
Cage plays Castor Troy, who is a terrorist who killed the son of Sean Archer (John Travolta) years prior. In an act of revenge and an attempt to stop Troy and his mission, Archer undergoes a procedure that lets him switch faces with Troy to get answers. So yes, Nic Cage and John Travolta’s characters quite literally swap faces. It’s a masterclass in Cageisms and showing just how good Cage is as an actor. He understands acting on a level like no other, and watching him switch between Castor Troy and Sean Archer highlights that.
Moonstruck
Jokingly, I like to say that Nic Cage is our greatest Italian-American. (He is, though.) He is a Coppola, after all, but Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison, brought a new light to Cage with his comedic timing in the romantic lead role as Ronny Cammareri. Ronny is the estranged brother of Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), and so when Loretta (Cher) goes to meet with Ronny to try to get him to come to her wedding with Johnny, she, instead, falls in love with Ronny.
It’s just a great movie overall, and it won Cher an Oscar for her work as Loretta Castorini, so why not have a fun time and watch Nic Cage and Cher fall in love?
Raising Arizona
One of my personal all-time favorites is the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona. The 1987 movie gives us Cage as H.I. “Hi” McDunnough, an ex-convict who convinces a police officer named Edwina (Holly Hunter) to marry him. The two then embark on a journey to have kids, only for Edwina to struggle, so Hi steals a baby from a set of quintuplets, and chaos then ensues as the two try to navigate getting the baby back home and accepting their struggle as a couple.
It is, easily, the hottest Nic Cage. I’ll say it, but it is also just a good Coen Brothers movie and one that highlights Cage’s ability to play a range of characters that are all wildly different form each other, and yet, you still care about them.
Con Air
You might be like me while watching Con Air and get angry that Cameron Poe was even in prison in the first place, but the movie takes us through Poe and his journey to meet his daughter for the first time. He gets into a fight with a group of men outside a bar who are trying to hurt him, and when one of his attackers accidentally ends up dead, he is sent to jail because Poe was a ranger and is classified as a weapon.
After 8 years, Cameron is set to be released from jail, but on his transport home, the plane is taken over by Cyrus (John Malkovich). It’s a classic in Cage’s filmography and it’s the kind of action movie that he nails.
The Family Man
I am not ashamed of this pick. This was one of the first Nic Cage movies that I remember seeing and knowing it was a Nicolas Cage movie. I’d seen his action movies of the ’90s, but I was too young to know what his energy was. With this, though, I found a Cage I wanted to explore more of.
Gone were the outrageous mannerisms that had become associated with him, and instead, there was an honest performance of a man thrust into the world of fatherhood and a life he could have had if he hadn’t picked success over his relationship with his college sweetheart.
Pig
I had put off watching Pig for a while because I wasn’t really sure what I was going to get from it. A movie about a man ready to search far and wide for his pig? An interesting premise, but how was it going to play out? To my delight, the movie was a tragic look at loss and grief and a man’s struggle to come to terms with it.
It was also definitely a movie about a man searching for his pig. And yet, every single time that Cage says “Where’s my pig?” or “Who has my pig?” when someone asks him another question? Iconic. No one understands his dedication to the truffle pig that was stolen, but he’s just a man who wants to live on his own away from everyone in his own grief with his pig, and he deserves to be left alone.
It’s a soft Cage performance and did start to change how people view him as an actor more recently, because Pig is just that good.
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The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent hits theaters on April 22nd and is a movie you don’t want to miss! And if you want to enjoy some of Cage’s work beforehand, check out these titles or maybe just ask me and I’ll give you a whole list of what to watch.
(image: Lionsgate)
