Tom Gormican
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Guarding Tess (1994)
Directed by Hugh Wilson
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
They also pepper in hilarious nods to lesser-known films like Guarding Tess with Shirley MacLaine.
It opens with a clip from Con Air , contains tongue-in-cheek nods to The Croods 2 , Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Guarding Tess , and features a scene packed with Cage-flavoured props, from Mandy ’s chainsaw to the twin gold guns from Face/Off .
They're here for its true focus: Piling in as many self-reflexive Cage nods as possible, including having the man repeat some of his most famous dialogue and startle himself while watching himself in "Guarding Tess."
You don’t have to be a Cage enthusiast on the scale of Javi to appreciate the film, with most of the wink-wink references relegated to name-drops of popular titles, or Cage resolutely affirming the underrated status of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or Guarding Tess .
It's even more accessible than Entourage, because Unbearable Weight references mainstream movies that people have seen, such as Con Air, The Rock, National Treasure and to a lesser extent, Guarding Tess.
Moonstruck (1987)
Directed by Norman Jewison
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
"Massive Talent" is a house of mirrors where he's able to poke fun at himself, his persona and his career, and there are references to his gonzo work in "Moonstruck," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Face/Off," "National Treasure," "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" ("underrated for sure," Cage quips), "Croods 2" and more.
Where Nic sulks over a meeting that ended in a whimper, Nicky is fired up, flipping his floppy hair and wiggling in his leather jacket and yelling the reminder that they are " Nic fuckiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing Cage! " With some CGI smoothing, Cage is made to look younger, perhaps harkening to the '80s, when he was firing audiences up as the hot-tempered stud of Moonstruck or the voracious creep of Vampire's Kiss.
He has a lot of fun with this one, stuffing the screenplay with Cageian references from Moonstruck to The Croods 2 .
There is a smattering of soft-centred references to a few Cage films ( The Rock ; Moonstruck ), Cage is visited by a younger version of himself and Javi has a museum dedicated to him.
But with all the hysterical nods to the actor’s previous works, as well as through embracing his perceived quirkiness (and desire for scenes in which he can freak out unreservedly), it’s difficult not to recommend this flick to anyone who has followed the star’s career – from such acclaimed comedies and romances like “Raising Arizona” and “Moonstruck” to his Oscar-winning turn in “Leaving Las Vegas” to his action hero transformation in “The Rock” and “Con Air” to the riveting weirdness of “Mom and Dad” and “Mandy.”
His unlikely action star status is also continually referenced, especially the holy trilogy of The Rock , Con Air and Face/Off .
It opens with a clip from Con Air , contains tongue-in-cheek nods to The Croods 2 , Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Guarding Tess , and features a scene packed with Cage-flavoured props, from Mandy ’s chainsaw to the twin gold guns from Face/Off .
It’s a fitting tribute to the over-the-top action flicks that its star was known for in the 1990s; it’s no “Con Air,” but it absolutely took notes from “Con Air.”
From opening with a scene from “Con Air” to countless references to the majority of his oeuvre, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is an undeniable love letter to Cage, warts and all.
Face/Off (1997)
Directed by John Woo
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Themes
"Massive Talent" is a house of mirrors where he's able to poke fun at himself, his persona and his career, and there are references to his gonzo work in "Moonstruck," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Face/Off," "National Treasure," "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" ("underrated for sure," Cage quips), "Croods 2" and more.
At the very least, it’s an inspiration for one helluva triple feature idea in Face/Off (1997), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and Paddington 2 (2017).
The movie is equal parts comedy and action thriller, drawing inspiration from a vast catalogue of Nicolas Cage films, from Con Air to Gone in 60 Seconds to Face/Off to Raising Arizona to National Treasure.
Nic's latest, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent , is a reminder to keep remembering that.Written by two Nic nerds, Kevin Etten and Tom Gormican (who also directed), Unbearable Weight uses the highs and otherwise of Cage's 40-year film career and the gaudy financial tribulations of his personal life to concoct a shoot-and-shout action movie of the sort in which the actor himself once loomed large at the world box office (think Con Air , Face/Off , The Rock , etc.).
It opens with a clip from Con Air , contains tongue-in-cheek nods to The Croods 2 , Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Guarding Tess , and features a scene packed with Cage-flavoured props, from Mandy ’s chainsaw to the twin gold guns from Face/Off .
His unlikely action star status is also continually referenced, especially the holy trilogy of The Rock , Con Air and Face/Off .
The pair cry while watching Paddington 2 , trip on LSD, and yet still become suspicious, even dangerous, to one another, until their misaligned conceptions right themselves.
For a while, Unbearable coasts along on this life-imitating-art-chopping-up-life-for-laughs vibe, giving Cage and Pascal the chance to make a warped, goofy buddy comedy involving dropping acid, tooling around Spain’s coast in a sports car, working on possible screenplay ideas, and bonding over the healing power of Paddington 2. There’s a meaty take on the rabbit holes of fame and the wormholes of fandom slithering just beneath the surface, as well as some brain-tickling ideas about the way that a movie star’s legacy and persona(e) can become a prison.
The two form a genuine connection over movies, from Dr. Caligari to the beauty of Paddington 2.
Everything seems peachy and the two eventually bond over their love of, all things, “Paddington 2” and a hankering to collaborate on a character-driven adult drama, but that’s interrupted by Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) and Martin (Ike Barinholtz), two CIA agents trying to infiltrate Javi and his inner circle.
Get Shorty (1995)
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
As The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent sprinkles in winking references to its own structure and twists, I couldn’t help but internally compare it to the excellence of Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty and Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths and come away underwhelmed.
It’s all basically a setup for a movie within a movie (such as in “Last Action Hero” or “Get Shorty,” with the flavor of accidental impersonations like in “North by Northwest”), boasting a delightfully self-aware styling (the script tends to evolve as the characters mull over how their actions might be more engaging in a movie setting) that features countless references to Cage’s past performances.
My Favorite Year (1982)
Directed by Richard Benjamin
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Characters
As for other cinematic touchstones, Cage states or is told more than once that he's a movie star, not an actor, echoing Peter O'Toole's swashbuckling star in "My Favorite Year," which certainly qualifies as good company even if the film doesn't scale those heights.
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Directed by Spike Jonze
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Themes
Not since Spike Jonze’s send-up of John Malkovich’s pomposity in Being John Malkovich (1999) has such a strangely tender homage sought to self-reflexively commend celebrity as in Tom Gormican’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent curious reputation, unspooling reality tinged meta analysis on the film industry enrobed in what amounts to a zany spy spoof.
There’s a reason we get used to it so quickly: Movies with a meta dimension have been with us for years — movies like “The Player,” where Robert Altman cast a galaxy of Hollywood stars as their real-life selves, or “Being John Malkovich,” where John Malkovich played John Malkovich, or “Adaptation,” where Cage played Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter of the film we happened to be watching.
The result is a perfect little capsule of a movie, like Charlie Kaufman films "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation" without the darkness.
He has no interest in breaking his no-laziness streak, especially in his own little “Being John Malkovich.”
Early on, there’s hope this film will achieve something along the lines of Spike Jonez’s mind-bending “Being John Malkovich,” but it plays things relatively safe most of the time.
The conceit – to wed a Being John Malkovich-style experiment to a plot that eventually must also function as a watchable Nicolas Cage action movie – is bold.
JCVD (2008)
Directed by Mabrouk El Mechri
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Plot
The film is structured around a concept very similar to a film I love deeply called JCVD , in which a weary and down on his luck Jean-Claude Van Damme is caught up in a bank heist and must grapple with everyone’s perception of him as his onscreen persona when he’s not really a bank heist-foiling superhero in real life.
This isn't JCVD, where past-his-prime action-hero Jean-Claude Van Damme looks back on his life with the regrets of a Shakespearean tragic hero.
Jean-Claude Van Damme did it in 2008, playing himself in the quite good French-language JCVD , as a washed-up action star who finds himself in a real-life we-need-a-hero situation, with unexpected results.
Just as the makers of Being John Malkovich understood it and Mabrouk El Mechri and his team understood Jean Claude Van Damme when they wrote JCVD – another film to which Unbearable owes a debt.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Directed by Robert Wiene
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
At the very least, it’s an inspiration for one helluva triple feature idea in Face/Off (1997), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and Paddington 2 (2017).
He keeps trying to force his interests, namely 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, on her, with little regard for who his daughter might actually be.
That persona causes problems for Cage’s family, who are sick and tired of him prioritizing his job over them, and imposing his love of movies like Fritz Lang’s classic 1920 German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on them.
So we have a film with a serious look and a serious premise, which keeps interrupting itself for atonal, not-that-funny sex jokes that seem lifted from the “American Pie” series.
The raunchy romantic comedy, once Canada’s chief export, had a brief renaissance in the early 2000s with the American Pie series.
The title conjures teens and text-speak (Dat Awky Momo, anyone?), but writer-director Tom Gormican’s debut feature owes as much to Woody Allen as it does the American Pie movies.
The boys then make a pact to stay single for their bro, a lá American Pie (rom-com callback #2?).
The fatal flaw of this movie is that, rather than sticking to a plan and being a true film about the perils of dating and relationships, it wants to be the new American Pie.
“That Awkward Moment” wants to be part “American Pie” and part “Swingers.”
When Daniel tells Jason to win Ellie’s heart and to “Do it like the movies… like Jerry Maguire,” one wishes Gormican would have restrained himself from inserting corny proclamations of love at the end that do recall the eye-rolling “You had me at hello” moment from Cameron Crowe’s comedy classic.
In its last 20 minutes, "That Awkward Moment" falls off a bit by doing two things romantic comedies often do, no matter how much we might wish they wouldn't: (1) There are unnecessary complications, with people misbehaving in unexpected ways, just to stretch out the action; and (2) We get one of those public confessions of love, of a kind that no one has done well since " Jerry Maguire ."
So, although writer/director Tom Gormican wants his movie to hearken back to a series of films he has an affinity for (he calls out Jerry Maguire by name), he's aware that the genre has evolved to where copious amounts of profanity and frank sexual talk are expected.
Three male friends make a pact to stay single and play the field in That Awkward Moment, a first-time feature from Tom Gormican that tries to mix Hangover raunch with a heartfelt Jerry Maguire-style romance, in what might be more aptly titled Those Awkward 94 Minutes.
I'm not referring to cutesy fourth-wall breaches, since those have been around since Annie Hall, at least.
However, while That Awkward Moment falls considerably short of the heights achieved by the likes of Annie Hall and Manhattan , it also avoids the potholes of some of Allen's less successful New York-based productions.
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Directed by David R. Ellis
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
In pandering “fanboy inspired movie” terms, it’s closer to “Fanboys” than “Snakes on a Plane.”
The mere thought that Cage, who revels in delivering the unexpected, would be playing a somewhat stylized version of himself for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent felt like the type of project only Cage could pull off, though ran the risk of being as effective as something along the lines of Snakes on a Plane , where the concept alone is more compelling to the Internet than the execution.
The film’s pre-release hype hit “Snakes on a Plane”-level heights.
Last Action Hero (1993)
Directed by John McTiernan
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Themes
The meta nature of the film is reminiscent of comedies such as Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping , Top Secret , Last Action Hero , and The Nice Guys .
It’s all basically a setup for a movie within a movie (such as in “Last Action Hero” or “Get Shorty,” with the flavor of accidental impersonations like in “North by Northwest”), boasting a delightfully self-aware styling (the script tends to evolve as the characters mull over how their actions might be more engaging in a movie setting) that features countless references to Cage’s past performances.
Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Directed by Martin McDonagh
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Plot
As The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent sprinkles in winking references to its own structure and twists, I couldn’t help but internally compare it to the excellence of Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty and Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths and come away underwhelmed.
Efron’s performance is trying and tiresome as he attempts to pull off the smooth and charismatic fast-talking generally employed by Vince Vaughn (think Swingers and Wedding Crashers).
In such a scenario, Efron’s Jason could have made for interesting supporting comic relief, and the actor might have been allowed a certain amount of devilish charisma; think back, for example, to Vince Vaughn’s motor-mouth lady-killer Trent in Swingers.
Writer/director Tim Gormican seems to have fished his screenplay out of a bin marked “1997,” when tremendously artificial sitcom set-ups and post-Swingers macho philosophizing were celebrated, along with the immature and often disgusting behavior of these types of lothario protagonists.
“That Awkward Moment” wants to be part “American Pie” and part “Swingers.”
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
Directed by John Madden
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
"Massive Talent" is a house of mirrors where he's able to poke fun at himself, his persona and his career, and there are references to his gonzo work in "Moonstruck," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Face/Off," "National Treasure," "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" ("underrated for sure," Cage quips), "Croods 2" and more.
Just because Nicolas Cage is playing himself and we get a myriad of references to his greatest roles as well as a few we might have forgotten about (hello, “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”), and just because the characters comment about how certain plot developments are driven by marketing concerns and have been done to death, that doesn’t obfuscate the fact we’re still seeing those very plot developments play out.
As much fun as it may be to hear references to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin , The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent works better because it makes the central relationship work.
It opens with a clip from Con Air , contains tongue-in-cheek nods to The Croods 2 , Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Guarding Tess , and features a scene packed with Cage-flavoured props, from Mandy ’s chainsaw to the twin gold guns from Face/Off .
Nick has a tension-filled relationship with his ex-wife Olivia (played by Sharon Horgan), a former makeup artist whom he met on the set of his 2001 movie “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.”
The Player (1992)
Directed by Robert Altman
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Themes
There’s a reason we get used to it so quickly: Movies with a meta dimension have been with us for years — movies like “The Player,” where Robert Altman cast a galaxy of Hollywood stars as their real-life selves, or “Being John Malkovich,” where John Malkovich played John Malkovich, or “Adaptation,” where Cage played Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter of the film we happened to be watching.
This is Robert Altman’s The Player for dummies.
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Directed by Mike Figgis
influenced The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
"Massive Talent" is a house of mirrors where he's able to poke fun at himself, his persona and his career, and there are references to his gonzo work in "Moonstruck," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Face/Off," "National Treasure," "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" ("underrated for sure," Cage quips), "Croods 2" and more.
The film, directed by Tom Gormican, is certainly indulgent in its references: there’s a swimming pool shot directly cribbed from Leaving Las Vegas , an appearance by Castor Troy’s gold pistols from Face/Off , as well as the chainsaw from Mandy .
It jokingly references his best-known movies throughout, from Leaving Las Vegas to Gone in 60 Seconds , and Cage obligingly parodies himself too.
The Leaving Las Vegas Academy Award-winner is portraying a character named “Nick Cage,” a talented actor with a sizeable ego and a fading career who is starting to wonder if it’s time for him to retire, and it’s a character who has a filmography that’s the mirror image of Cage’s real one.
But with all the hysterical nods to the actor’s previous works, as well as through embracing his perceived quirkiness (and desire for scenes in which he can freak out unreservedly), it’s difficult not to recommend this flick to anyone who has followed the star’s career – from such acclaimed comedies and romances like “Raising Arizona” and “Moonstruck” to his Oscar-winning turn in “Leaving Las Vegas” to his action hero transformation in “The Rock” and “Con Air” to the riveting weirdness of “Mom and Dad” and “Mandy.”