Prisoners of the Nic Cage-Land [Episode #4]

Created

Oct 11, 2021

Tags

Nicolas Cage

Movie Review

Japan

Deep Dive

Image

whLvsYeGrX9RoyfkbdVknXp4QCt-1200-1200-675-675-crop-000000.jpg

Episode

4

Note

Property

This episode Ben and Rabia review Prisoners of the Ghostland and, as always, have many references.

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

In the treacherous frontier city of Samurai Town, a ruthless bank robber is sprung from jail by wealthy warlord The Governor, whose adopted granddaughter Bernice has gone missing. The Governor offers the prisoner his freedom in exchange for retrieving the runaway.

https://letterboxd.com/film/prisoners-of-the-ghostland/

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

Ben's Letterboxd

Benjamin Frankenberg's profile

Benjamin uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 415 films watched. Favorites: Possession (1981), Immoral Tales (1973), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Crash (1996). Bio: Somnambulant-Stellarvore-Decadent Favorites change based on current recommendations. Writing as experimentation/ sometimes incoherent. Actor Connoisseur the Curious over at "The Cultured Curators" pod.

https://letterboxd.com/benhorrible/

Rabia's Letterboxd

Rabia's profile

Rabia uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 5,000 films watched. Favorites: Survive Style 5+ (2004), A Werewolf Boy (2012), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Alien (1979). Bio: Pop culture expert. Specializes in Asian, Horror, and Fantastic Cinéma. Loves talking about and finding obscure titles in every genre

https://letterboxd.com/rpish/

In this episode we handled several topics and talked about a lot of links, so here they are;

[They're somewhat in order so you can scroll along while listening to the episode]

Sion Sono [Director]

Sion Sono - IMDb

Sion Sono, Director: Ai no mukidashi. Shion Sono is a Japanese director, writer and poet. Born in Aichi Perfecture in 1961 he started his career working as a poet before taking his first steps in film directing.

Sion Sono - IMDb

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0814469/

Sion Sono - IMDb

Suicide Club

Suicide Club (2001)

When 54 high school girls throw themselves in front of a subway train it appears to be only the beginning of a string of suicides around the country. Does the new all-girl group Desert have anything to do with it? Detective Kuroda tries to find the answer, which isn't as simple as he had hoped.

https://letterboxd.com/film/suicide-club/

Suicide Club (2001)

Production of Prisoners

Nicolas Cage

Films starring Nicolas Cage

Films starring Nicolas Cage

https://letterboxd.com/actor/nicolas-cage/

Films starring Nicolas Cage

Sofia Boutellia

Films starring Sofia Boutella

Films starring Sofia Boutella

https://letterboxd.com/actor/sofia-boutella/

Films starring Sofia Boutella

Mandy

Saw it last night at a sold-out show at the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre. Had a blast. Wholly original, hypnotic, brutal, beautiful, trippy, etc, etc, etc... everything you now expect from Panos Cosmatos. Performances are fantastic. Andrea Riseborough is quickly becoming one of my faves. See this on the big screen.

https://letterboxd.com/film/mandy-2018/

PIG

An existentialist deconstruction of John Wick, an anti-revenge movie that plays into our expectations of the genre to subvert them, a deeply unsatisfying movie in conventional terms that is rewarding in its profoundly authentic humanism.

https://letterboxd.com/film/pig-2021/

Colour out of Space

Color Out of Space (2019)

The Gardner family moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard, melts into the earth, and infects both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly colour.

https://letterboxd.com/film/color-out-of-space/

Color Out of Space (2019)

Willy's Wonderland

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

What do you get when you mix Five Nights at Freddy's, some generic annoying teenagers, and a raging Nicolas Cage? Well, Willy's Wonderland of course! "You are officially on staff." Let's get straight to the point shall we?

https://letterboxd.com/film/willys-wonderland/

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

Vincent Price

Vincent Price - Wikipedia

Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911 - October 25, 1993) was an American actor best known for his performances in horror films, although his career spanned other genres. He appeared on stage, television, and radio, and in more than 100 films. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Price

Vincent Price - Wikipedia

Ethan Hawke quote about Nic Cage

Ethan Hawke: I'm 'Obsessed' With Nicolas Cage

Despite having a long and successful career and an Oscar on his mantel, Nicolas Cage has a reputation as - well, let's say he's known as a less than subtle actor. Cage is one performer who is never afraid to ... Continue reading →

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/blogs/movie-talk/ethan-hawke-m-obsessed-nicolas-cage-170525946.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABaeLL5Dvm7sJuDbwy6jze5oSmd5vVWiZ3UzmbNhaSHUf9-0iNeN8fCfX2aG70yIH1VKs0xNT3-ET_N0bv2041bZXCs1pSlNij1ymbpcIB7JPUTwU6cO9Tx5G8gCDhLWR8EfQC9VVRMIQo772UZdVXQ35ZZpkcEVo_82duWWsXLH

Ethan Hawke: I'm 'Obsessed' With Nicolas Cage

Wicker Man - Not the Bees

Not the Bees - Nic Cage in The Wicker Man

Another classic Nicolas Cage moment, this time in the Wicker Man.Not the bees!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVCrmXW6-Pk

Not the Bees - Nic Cage in The Wicker Man

Wicker Man 2006

The Wicker Man (2006)

I want you to imagine a world where another one of the classic psychological thrillers of the 20th century, The Silence of the Lambs, was remade in a similarly terrible fashion to this. This is how the classic 'Lambs' scene between Clarice and Lecter would pan out...

https://letterboxd.com/film/the-wicker-man-2006/

The Wicker Man (2006)

Cosmic Horror

Lovecraftian horror - Wikipedia

Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with " cosmic horror" is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror

Lovecraftian horror - Wikipedia

German Expressionism

What is German Expressionism? A beginner's guide - Movements In Film

Unlike most other cinematic movements, Expressionism doesn't solely belong to filmmaking, and existed prior to the invention of cinema. Fortunately, this helps us understand Expressionist principles and how they were utilized by filmmakers. Consider Edvard Munch's The Scream, arguably the most famous Expressionist painting of all time; you can clearly see how the concept allows moods to be expressed by creative distortion.

https://www.movementsinfilm.com/german-expressionism

What is German Expressionism? A beginner's guide - Movements In Film

Metropolis

Metropolis (1927)

More Reportedly one of Adolf Hitler's favourite films. A part of me thinks he didn't quite get it... me: yeah i'm definitely smart enough to understand the plot of this movie even if it's silent my inability to tell white men apart: 👁👄👁 Decades Project: 1/2 of the 20's "But the hands that built the Tower of Babel knew nothing of the dream of the head that conceived it.

https://letterboxd.com/film/metropolis/

Metropolis (1927)

Butoh

How Butoh, the Japanese Dance of Darkness, Helps Us Experience Compassion in a Suffering World

Butoh [bu-tō], often translated as "Dance of Darkness," rose out of the ashes of post-World War II Japan as an extreme avant-garde dance form that shocked audiences with its grotesque movements and graphic sexual allusions when it was introduced in the 1950s. Indeed, many people are still disturbed by the intensity and rawness of Butoh.

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/butoh-japanese-dance-darkness/

How Butoh, the Japanese Dance of Darkness, Helps Us Experience Compassion in a Suffering World

Conceptual Art

Conceptual art - Wikipedia

Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called installations, may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art

Conceptual art - Wikipedia

Low-brow Art

Lowbrow (art movement) - Wikipedia

Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, is an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California area in the late 1960s. It is a populist art movement with its cultural roots in underground comix, punk music, tiki culture, graffiti, and hot-rod cultures of the street.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowbrow_(art_movement)

Lowbrow (art movement) - Wikipedia

Lupin the III

Lupin the Third - Wikipedia

Lupin III , also written as Lupin the Third , Lupin the 3rd or Lupin the IIIrd , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Monkey Punch. It follows the escapades of master thief Arsène Lupin III, the grandson of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc's series of novels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupin_the_Third

Lupin the Third - Wikipedia

Existentialism

A phenomenology of consciousness, then, explores neither the metaphysical composition nor the causal genesis of things, but the "constitution" of their meaning. Husserl employed this method to clarify our experience of nature, the socio-cultural world, logic, and mathematics, but Heidegger argued that he had failed to raise the most fundamental question, that of the "meaning of being" as such.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/

Brechtian

The Meaning of 'Brechtian' - Brecht In Practice - Free Online Resource Access

The adjective 'Brechtian' can be found in all sorts of contexts and applied to all manner of theatre and performance. It is often used to describe certain devices used in performance, such as direct address to an audience, the use of placards or signs, or showing the mechanics of a production instead of hiding them [...]

https://brechtinpractice.org/theory/the-meaning-of-brechtian/

Male Gaze

Male gaze - Wikipedia

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and in literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_gaze

Male gaze - Wikipedia

Tak Sakaguchi

Films starring Tak Sakaguchi

Films starring Tak Sakaguchi

https://letterboxd.com/actor/tak-sakaguchi/

Films starring Tak Sakaguchi

Versus

Set in the present where a group of ruthless gangsters, an unknown woman and an escaped convict have met, unwittingly, in The Forest of Resurrection, the 444th portal to the other side.

https://letterboxd.com/film/versus/

Shinobu

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (2005)

Even though Gennosuke and Oboro are from rival ninja villages, they are secretly in love. At an annual conference with the Lord, it is dictated that a competition--a fight to the death--will take place between the five best shinobi from each village.

https://letterboxd.com/film/shinobi-heart-under-blade/

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (2005)

Bill Moseley

Films starring Bill Moseley

Films starring Bill Moseley

https://letterboxd.com/actor/bill-moseley/

Films starring Bill Moseley

Meatball Machine

Meatball Machine (2005)

Capable of making bio-mechanical weapons out of human flesh, alien parasites grotesquely invade the Earth, turning their hosts into maniacal killers who seek and destroy each other to the bloody death! And yes, it s also a human love story, even though the budding romantics are infested with slimy, tumor-like globules.

https://letterboxd.com/film/meatball-machine/

Meatball Machine (2005)

Horrors of Malformed Men

Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

Hirosuke, a medical student with almost no recollection of his past, is trapped in an asylum, despite being perfectly sane. After escaping from the loony bin, and being framed for the murder of a circus girl, he spots the photo of a recently deceased man, Genzaburo Komoda, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance.

https://letterboxd.com/film/horrors-of-malformed-men/

Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

Tatsumi Hijikata

Films starring Tatsumi Hijikata

Films starring Tatsumi Hijikata

https://letterboxd.com/actor/tatsumi-hijikata/

Films starring Tatsumi Hijikata

Dumpster Fire

Dumpster Fire 🔥

Dumpster Fire - This is Fine Vinyl Figure

Dumpster Fire 🔥

https://100soft.shop/collections/dumpster-fire

Dumpster Fire 🔥

Global Horror: India

Global Horror: India

A list of 143 films compiled on Letterboxd, including Bulbbul (2020), Papi Gudia (1996), Kaal (2005), Kriya (2020) and Tumbbad (2018). About this list: The 10th edition of the Global Horror series! We are focusing on India and its Horror history

https://letterboxd.com/rpish/list/global-horror-india/

Global Horror: India

Global Horror: Indonesia

Global Horror: Indonesia

A list of 65 films compiled on Letterboxd, including Dead Time (2007), Sacred (2009), Because of Second Wife's Witchcraft (1988), Chased by Sins (1974) and The Queen of Black Magic (1981). About this list: A weekly trip around the world in Horror on Clubhouse.

https://letterboxd.com/rpish/list/global-horror-indonesia/

Global Horror: Indonesia

Joko Anwar

Films directed by Joko Anwar

Films directed by Joko Anwar

https://letterboxd.com/director/joko-anwar-1/

Films directed by Joko Anwar

Global Horror: Brazil

Global Horror: Brazil

A list of 41 films compiled on Letterboxd, including Embodiment of Evil (2008), This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967), At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964), The House at the End of Time (2013) and Skull: The Mask (2020). About this list: Week 3 of our Global Horror series.

https://letterboxd.com/rpish/list/global-horror-brazil/

Global Horror: Brazil

Rodrigo Aragao

Films directed by Rodrigo Aragão

Films directed by Rodrigo Aragão

https://letterboxd.com/director/rodrigo-aragao/

Films directed by Rodrigo Aragão

Global Horror: Thailand

Global Horror: Thailand

A list of 124 films compiled on Letterboxd, including Pee Mak Phrakanong (2013), Shutter (2004), Dorm (2006), The Unseeable (2006) and Nang Nak (1999). About this list: Week 7 of the series!

https://letterboxd.com/rpish/list/global-horror-thailand-1/

Global Horror: Thailand

Andrew Pope - Whitlock & Pope

Stories in the dark, since 2013

https://whitlockandpope.com