|
Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Jul 17, 2021 0:44:30 GMT
This lived up to the stellar reviews. Really beautiful and soulful film. Cage gave a lovey restrained performance.
|
|
|
Pig
Jul 17, 2021 0:56:54 GMT
Post by stephen on Jul 17, 2021 0:56:54 GMT
When Birdman hype was high, we used to say "CAW!" With Pig, do we say "Oink?"
|
|
coop032
Full Member
Choose life.
Posts: 657
Likes: 222
|
Pig
Jul 17, 2021 20:21:57 GMT
via mobile
Post by coop032 on Jul 17, 2021 20:21:57 GMT
Great performance but no way he gets nominated for this
|
|
|
Post by TerryMontana on Jul 17, 2021 21:20:47 GMT
Very sweat little film that lives up to the hype. Ok, it's not a masterpiece in my opinion but it's soulful and touching.
I have to say I was sold by the concept only: Nic Cage wants his pig back!! But don't think it's another John Wick. By no means. No guns and killings, just a desperate man who's looking for his (very unusual) pet, which was stolen for a very unusual reason!
Cage's performance is very low-key and spot on! But I wouldn't rank it among his best ever.
Overall I liked it but wasn't wowed by it. I'd say it's a 7/10.
|
|
|
Pig
Jul 18, 2021 12:13:38 GMT
Post by pacinoyes on Jul 18, 2021 12:13:38 GMT
6.5+ / 10 - borderline thumbs up for Cage
This is a tricky movie because it is played absolutely beautifully, Cage is quite good - almost great...........and yet I didn't buy it at all. It just seemed like something that was contrived and conceptual and executed well, but I didn't believe his character was a real guy or that the plot would develop in that way. I didn't believe anyone - Arkin either in particular.......
A couple of notes:
The performance is not just quite good - it's quite good for a first time director - no one really does that besides Cage - and it again distinguishes him from his peers in his age group who wouldn't work in this at all (Hanks/Washington/Penn/Spacey.........though Dafoe would work).........he has a discipline here for someone of no weight in the industry and he works hard and smart for him ......... I couldn't picture Mickey Rourke in this either - Rourke is similar to Cage but Cage has an acting rigor entirely different from someone who gets written off as "hit or miss"......he's closer to Walken than he is Rourke.........this board underrates what he's capable of
He's particularly good at the restaurant scene where he tells the chef that "none of it is real" - that's an inspired piece of acting and how he chooses the exact right word - some of that could have preposterous when it goes into the English Pub stuff and instead it works specifically because of him.....
Interesting film........
|
|
|
Post by Mattsby on Jul 18, 2021 23:43:04 GMT
www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/pig-movie-review-nicolas-cage-1195691/Out of a hundred reviews, this one by K Austin Collins for Rolling Stone comes closest to my thinking on it. He rates it a mixed 3/5 but with Cage praise and that’s about where I am... I wanna give it more than 6/10 for him but I was sadly let down. Quick aside on Rotten Tomatoes - it’s been brought up a lot in the other thread bc it's worth mentioning: it’s the highest rated movie of his career on the site... the critics really really love it. Another interesting note: it’s his 15th fresh-scored movie since 2010, which is a lot… his career dip isn’t as bad as some argue it to be. To the movie — for a debut it’s solidly made but troubled by the script that doesn't unify or breathe or have even a mote of humor.... it's on the nose, lessoning, and overplates the grief-struck theme. It’s a depressing movie and then just leaves you there. Cage carries some of the slack with intense presence (“Your eyes will adjust” my fav line). Something so impressive about the perf, especially thinking back on it, is the physicality of him - the way he moves reminds me of how giants or godzillas move in movies: slow, heavy, to-target. Cage plays former cook, current kook Robin Feld - he sees chefs as Robin Hoods of victuals and he’s kinda like a folk hero or giant from a fable who’s already been felled. (Character name, unlocked.) There’s a haunting quality to him that Cage brings out, how searingly he looks at people, or the way he turns toward them, like someone with kicked ribs would, but also like someone who packs their pain on their back - it's easier to carry on the outside. We see this with the chef at the restaurant Eurydice (just incase we missed that nod, Robin would be Orpheus (food his music) looking for his love? pet). There are a few of these monologues that Cage conveys with a blade of sincerity. But he excludes himself from his own devastating advice - he seems to think of himself as beyond the living. My friend joked he’s basically playing the Glum Reaper - he doesn’t kill you, he leaves you sobbing. It's no wonder critics liked it — the movie is very serious, unoffending, easy to read, with a “return to form” Cage and reversal on a recently popular set up (the critics pretend Wick-like movies could use a change, but they loved the bracelet-avenging Nobody that just came out). Anyway, it doesn’t have the full body and true grit of Joe, or Wendy and Lucy’s plausibility and contradictions, or even Manglehorn’s lemon twist of reluctance and renewal. But you do feel a movie that is personal and wanting to be meaningful… As E.B White once wrote, “The loss we felt was not the loss of ham but the loss of pig.”
|
|
|
Post by notacrook on Jul 20, 2021 16:47:49 GMT
A lovely, meditative little drama with what's almost certainly my favourite Cage performance that I've seen. He conveys so much with so little (where before I've often found the reverse to be true), and some of his mini-monologues here really hit me hard. Film could have been pushed into real greatness if it had a little more meat on its bones (so to speak), but I also appreciated how quiet and simple it all was.
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Jul 20, 2021 16:54:42 GMT
The film itself feels like a fascinating first draft of what could've been a knockout film. The elements are there: the weird underground fight club, the backwoods truffle syndicate headed by a woman who deserves her own goddamn movie. But these elements feel too elliptical, too detached from one another, and I think with some proper tightening and more of a focus on them, we could get a sense of Rob's world and the way that he so deftly navigates it despite having been out of the game for so long.
But first draft as it may feel, the direction is beautifully meditative, showing that as a director, at least, Sarnoski knew exactly what and how to proceed his themes and his ideas. And Cage cannot be raved enough here. It is one of the few times where I noticed Cage's physical presence; yes, he can be whacked-out gonzo at times, but this movie had him shambling about like a misplaced giant. It actually got me even more stoked for Butcher's Crossing, as I think that general physicality is what the role of Miller requires. But beyond that, Cage hits plaintive and delicate notes here. The way his grief cuts him off at the knees like a marionette with its strings cut -- I mean, that was haunting.
|
|
|
Post by jakesully on Jul 20, 2021 20:50:56 GMT
Caught this in theaters today and thought it was really damn good (especially when you factor in that it's the director's 1st film).
Cage gives a really great subdued / more restrained performance here . He portrayed the character brilliantly imo. You could see the pain & sadness in his eyes and voice thru out the film. Just so well done. I'm not good at predicting what will get nominated for the Oscars (In fact I am down right shitty at it haha) but man, it'd be cool if Cage picked up a Best Acting nod. Probably won't happen but you never know (film critics are loving the hell out of his performance & this film on RT & Metacritic ) I guess we shall see.
Also , Alex Wolff was really good in this as well and continues to impress me.
The runtime could have been a bit longer to flesh some more stuff out but no biggie really (its the director's 1st film after all).
Overall, I really enjoyed this beautifully made little film from start to finish and if you dig Cage as an actor I highly recommend it.
8/10
|
|
Film Socialism
Based
99.9999% of rock is crap
Posts: 2,556
Likes: 1,388
|
Pig
Jul 20, 2021 22:38:56 GMT
via mobile
Post by Film Socialism on Jul 20, 2021 22:38:56 GMT
this was pretty nice
|
|
|
Pig
Aug 30, 2021 1:00:01 GMT
Post by JangoB on Aug 30, 2021 1:00:01 GMT
Skimming through RT and Letterboxd reviews, I'm a tad annoyed by the fact that John Wick keeps coming up everywhere. Why does it have to be mentioned at all? Literally the only thing the two have in common is the fact that an animal gets taken from someone. That's it. Lots of people keep talking about this movie subverting the revenge genre but there's only one problem with that - it's not a revenge story! It's a search story, dammit. I guess technically it does have some bits that could've been elements of a revenge action flick like the fight club or the confrontation with the 'boss' but that game can be played with any genre. The movie doesn't the revenge genre because it doesn't belong to it at all. Cage isn't out for retribution. He's on a search and that's it. I guess I'm so bewildered by these constant mentions because I never thought it was gonna be a revenge story. Not after seeing the trailer anyway. The trailer made it perfectly clear to me what kind of a movie this was gonna be like and the movie I saw was pretty much the one I expected. So I didn't see any subversion or anything like that.
Anyway, I thought the film was okay but pretty unremarkable. I agree with Stephen that it all felt a bit undercooked script-wise. And I was a bit stunned to find out that the director initially had a longer cut. What could be longer? More scenes of walking broodingly? This already felt pretty long at 90 minutes. The emotional core of Cage trying to resolve the loss of his beloved pig did work for me, in many ways due to Cage's solid and soulful turn, but the stuff around it left me cold.
So basically I felt that this Pig didn't have enough meat on its bones. But Cage does remind you that he still has the pork chops and doesn't have to go full ham to impress.
|
|
|
Post by DeepArcher on Aug 30, 2021 1:10:27 GMT
Skimming through RT and Letterboxd reviews, I'm a tad annoyed by the fact that John Wick keeps coming up everywhere. Why does it have to be mentioned at all? Literally the only thing the two have in common is the fact that an animal gets taken from someone. It's a bit more than that. In both films the accompaniment of the animal acts as a symbol of the main character's grief in the wake of his wife's death. There is also a great deal of similarity in how Robin Feld is treated as a legend of his profession who has suddenly returned from a long retirement, and that that profession has its own weird secret underworld that the movie explores without over-explaining. They are quite similar despite the fact that Pig is not at all a revenge movie. And I don't think those similarities in any way discredit Pig, which I quite liked.
|
|
|
Post by JangoB on Aug 30, 2021 1:26:39 GMT
Skimming through RT and Letterboxd reviews, I'm a tad annoyed by the fact that John Wick keeps coming up everywhere. Why does it have to be mentioned at all? Literally the only thing the two have in common is the fact that an animal gets taken from someone. It's a bit more than that. In both films the accompaniment of the animal acts as a symbol of the main character's grief in the wake of his wife's death. There is also a great deal of similarity in how Robin Feld is treated as a legend of his profession who has suddenly returned from a long retirement, and that that profession has its own weird secret underworld that the movie explores without over-explaining. They are quite similar despite the fact that Pig is not at all a revenge movie. And I don't think those similarities in any way discredit Pig, which I quite liked. OK, now that you point that stuff out I'll concede that there are more similarities than I thought of, but I guess the reason why nothing like John Wick ever came close to my mind while watching Pig is because its tone, visuals, storytelling and approach are so drastically different from any of those movies. And of course the absence of revenge at its core. I suppose many more folks expected it to be like John Wick than I thought. I can certainly imagine the surprise of someone who thought it was a 'Nic Cage avenges his pig' movie and then got the movie that it is
|
|
Pasquale
Full Member
Posts: 539
Likes: 227
|
Post by Pasquale on Oct 15, 2021 23:01:14 GMT
Masterpiece.
|
|
Pasquale
Full Member
Posts: 539
Likes: 227
|
Pig
Oct 16, 2021 13:28:32 GMT
via mobile
JangoB likes this
Post by Pasquale on Oct 16, 2021 13:28:32 GMT
But Cage does remind you that he still has the pork chops and doesn't have to go full ham to impress. lol
|
|
|
Pig
Nov 26, 2021 19:29:29 GMT
via mobile
Post by quetee on Nov 26, 2021 19:29:29 GMT
On Hulu.
|
|
|
Post by Viced on Nov 28, 2021 3:34:02 GMT
Bit of a boar... Cage, especially when he's on form, is an actor who is almost impossible for a film to "waste." Even if the movie around him sucks, you're likely to walk away from it with at least a few good memories of Cage trying his best to keep things interesting. But this one certainly tries its best to waste him. Here, he's brilliantly subdued in a film some would probably also call brilliantly subdued... but I'd say its submerged in its own sluggishness. Cage is great without even saying a word, but the movie is only anywhere near great when he's talking. Revealing any little thing about himself, even if its through his thoughts on others (the wine chugging chef scene is by far the best moment in the movie). Of course it's a movie about grief... and it's not supposed to be entertaining... but outside of a few poignant moments, the thin script gives it no chance of having any real overall impact as a downer. Also thought it was horribly shot and directed tbh. So much of it was either incomprehensibly dark, or the camera was way too far away from Cage's face... you know... the thing that does most of the film's heavy lifting.
|
|
|
Pig
May 16, 2022 23:12:47 GMT
Viced likes this
Post by Martin Stett on May 16, 2022 23:12:47 GMT
Once again, Viced nails it. Self-serious, mopey bullshit that tweaks the popular John Wick movies (super assassin cook whose pet/substitution for dead wife is taken from him and calls on all of his old buddies for help righting the wrong) in the most on-the-nose, most boring way possible. If Cage didn't walk in slow motion for the whole movie, it would be twenty minutes long. It's a decent short film smothered by its own pompousness.
|
|