I can kind of get why people would laugh at that Cage scene, but it makes me glad I saw this at home--I found that sequence really affecting, and the rawness of it felt really honest to me. The whole movie kind of belongs to Riseborough, and one of the things I love about Cage's performance is that he clearly understands this; so that when Mandy dies and the focus shifts to him, he still never feels like the main character. God, I need to watch this again.
The first time I saw this was with an audience, and while the bathroom scene inspired some laughter from the crowd, it struck me as more cathartic than mocking.
Riseborough is really phenomenal in this. The whole thing falls apart without her leaving such a mark on it and her deflation of the cult leader is an amazing scene.
I’m a little taken aback by the controversy around her Oscar nomination, if only because I thought it was broadly agreed-upon that she was one of the best acts in town and that she had lots of awards in her future and probably already deserved a handful. Somebody could probably write something about how she went from beloved “if you know you know” underdog to potentially ambitious side-eye target overnight, and what that says about how committed contemporary film culture is to championing talent and quality.
I have to disagree that MANDY suffers after her departure. If she wasn’t so charismatic in the role, and if her murder wasn’t so horrific, it might make all the big swings in the second half seem mechanical. Instead, they seem like a proportional reaction to how extraordinary she was. I’d argue the movie, rather than deflating in response to her absence, inflates with rage and then exhales a commensurate amount of fire.
I also thought she elevated her episode of Black Mirror to must-see status, and I never say that about anybody.
She's outstanding. And I think she's blameless in the whole To Leslie kerfuffle. All that engineering was done on her behalf-- she was the most nominate-able star of a movie that few saw-- but she's perfectly deserving. There's a larger argument that awards-watchers are having about campaigning that can get awfully sticky, and it's a bummer that she's catching strays from that battle.
Agreed that she's terrific in this. Her mocking laugh in the face of Jeremiah's advances is, for lack of a better word, badass.
That’s the moment, right? I think of it as often as I think of Cage’s vodka binge; she’s really something there. Without that beat, her death might have seemed merely cruel, or maybe even tastelessly so, instead of cosmically indigestible.
Linus Roche’s contribution to that scene is very significant, too, and not something every actor would sign on for. I wish we heard more about his performance, because I think he is just as essential as the other two leads.
Agree on Roche too. The whole thing falls apart without a great villain, even with demonic bikers in the mix. With the gonzo flair of the whole movie, you might expect a hyped-up Manson type or other scenery chewer. He gives you enough to find him ridiculous but still not take him lightly. A movie where actors are walking very fine lines where there usually aren't those kinds of lines.
Agree on the whole Oscar thing. There are bigger thing affecting it, but seeing the coverage go from "hey, isn't this grassroots push for this small movie interesting" to "that wasn't supposed to work, how dare you" was off-putting, especially as it centered around her. Right before the nominations were announced I listened to an interview with her and found the irony of the whole thing was that this was all swirling around someone who seems very happy with not being in the spotlight and at podiums. She deserves to be, but she's not one of those people who would sell a kidney to win an award. So it all felt especially outsized. I hope for a world with better representation AND room for fantastic performances in small movies AND less hyperventilating press coverage. Dare to dream. My highest compliment would be if she'd been in the mix in the early 70s, she'd be a lock on the award. I think we'll have years to come of her work, so we all win in the end.
I've been a member of the Panos Cosmatos cult ever since I caught a midnight screening of Beyond the Black Rainbow. Mandy confirmed he wasn't a one-cult wonder, and his episode of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities was by far my favorite of the lot. He's a writer/director who isn't shy about his influences, but he's synthesized them in such a way that the end results could only come from him and him alone.
Of all the Cabinet of Curiosities episodes I’ve seen, The Viewing may be the only one that could only have been made by its director. The Autopsy comes close, though.
I just want to say here that The New Cult Canon was literally my favorite thing on the internet back in the AV Club days. Like Scott, I was a huge fan of Danny Peary’s “Cult Movies” books and was eager for more with that sensibility. I actually have every one of those NCC pieces saved on Word files. (Some I read while others I wanted to wait until after I’d seen the film spoiler-free.) When I discovered during Thanksgiving vacation that Scott was continuing the series on Substack, I wasted no time in subscribing to The Reveal. I had told Scott years ago that I hoped he’d cover at least 200 films like Peary did. Now there’s the possibility that could happen!
Gotta keep chipping away, right? Those Peary books were so essential for me in the pre-internet days. I even helped set up a midnight screening of Cafe Flesh at the University of Georgia. Hardcore pornography at a public university!
One thing I liked about Peary is that the range of films he covered was pretty broad, from “The Wizard of Oz” to “Behind the Green Door” and “Citizen Kane” to “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” He clearly loved westerns but didn’t delve into Asian films much. (Asian cult films could certainly fill up a sizable book of their own.) But he was obviously obsessed with movies in general until his obsession with baseball took over his career as a writer. Siskel & Ebert and William Bayer’s “The Great Movies” also had an impact on my early cinematic education, but I’d say Peary has been the most enduring.
Finding Cult Movies Vol 1 in my cousin's bookcase in high school was a massive gateway, then reading Kael's collected reviews. (I don't necessarily agree with her opinions, but her championing of genre films really helped a pretty repressed, unadventurous teenager radically expand their movie palate.) You make me wish there had been a further volume that brought in more Hong Kong and Asian cinema. I've been watching some early Yeoh lately and am reminded how finding those films (largely thanks to Jonathan Ross' Incredibly Strange Film Show) was another seismic event in my movie-watching life. Thanks for the reminder of that time when you start to discover this whole other world that's been there the whole time.
This is as good a place as any to underline he “would look at the covers and read the back of the box to imagine my own version of the movie.” I don't think it can be overstated how having to create your own version of a movie in your head or piece it together from the not-always-accurate retellings of others is to developing storytelling chops. MANDY very much feels like a movie dreamed up by a kid who's not allowed to see it and we're lucky for it. I don't want to be a crotchety old guy, but finding things by accident and not having immediate access to so much is a small gift that technology is taking away, at least in part.
Man, I'm glad I got to see this one in the theater with a late night audience that was really in sync with it. It's definitely one that's stuck with me.
I'm not sure you can finish Keith's great Age of Cage without walking away thinking "Well I'll be damned if Nicolas Cage isn't in more great movies than just about anyone." It made me immediately go searching for this article I'd read years ago in Newsweek that asked "Who is making movies we'll still be watching in 50 years?" Critic David Ansen was mostly looking at the big stars born post-1960 and went through Cruise, Roberts, Pitt, etc before finally landing on Cage as the guy who is possibly going to have the longest-lasting legacy. And that was years before Mandy and Pig!
I can kind of get why people would laugh at that Cage scene, but it makes me glad I saw this at home--I found that sequence really affecting, and the rawness of it felt really honest to me. The whole movie kind of belongs to Riseborough, and one of the things I love about Cage's performance is that he clearly understands this; so that when Mandy dies and the focus shifts to him, he still never feels like the main character. God, I need to watch this again.
The first time I saw this was with an audience, and while the bathroom scene inspired some laughter from the crowd, it struck me as more cathartic than mocking.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's just so far from my experience with the scene that I had to take a moment to understand it.
Riseborough is really phenomenal in this. The whole thing falls apart without her leaving such a mark on it and her deflation of the cult leader is an amazing scene.
I’m a little taken aback by the controversy around her Oscar nomination, if only because I thought it was broadly agreed-upon that she was one of the best acts in town and that she had lots of awards in her future and probably already deserved a handful. Somebody could probably write something about how she went from beloved “if you know you know” underdog to potentially ambitious side-eye target overnight, and what that says about how committed contemporary film culture is to championing talent and quality.
I have to disagree that MANDY suffers after her departure. If she wasn’t so charismatic in the role, and if her murder wasn’t so horrific, it might make all the big swings in the second half seem mechanical. Instead, they seem like a proportional reaction to how extraordinary she was. I’d argue the movie, rather than deflating in response to her absence, inflates with rage and then exhales a commensurate amount of fire.
I also thought she elevated her episode of Black Mirror to must-see status, and I never say that about anybody.
She's outstanding. And I think she's blameless in the whole To Leslie kerfuffle. All that engineering was done on her behalf-- she was the most nominate-able star of a movie that few saw-- but she's perfectly deserving. There's a larger argument that awards-watchers are having about campaigning that can get awfully sticky, and it's a bummer that she's catching strays from that battle.
Agreed that she's terrific in this. Her mocking laugh in the face of Jeremiah's advances is, for lack of a better word, badass.
That’s the moment, right? I think of it as often as I think of Cage’s vodka binge; she’s really something there. Without that beat, her death might have seemed merely cruel, or maybe even tastelessly so, instead of cosmically indigestible.
Linus Roche’s contribution to that scene is very significant, too, and not something every actor would sign on for. I wish we heard more about his performance, because I think he is just as essential as the other two leads.
Agree on Roche too. The whole thing falls apart without a great villain, even with demonic bikers in the mix. With the gonzo flair of the whole movie, you might expect a hyped-up Manson type or other scenery chewer. He gives you enough to find him ridiculous but still not take him lightly. A movie where actors are walking very fine lines where there usually aren't those kinds of lines.
Agree on the whole Oscar thing. There are bigger thing affecting it, but seeing the coverage go from "hey, isn't this grassroots push for this small movie interesting" to "that wasn't supposed to work, how dare you" was off-putting, especially as it centered around her. Right before the nominations were announced I listened to an interview with her and found the irony of the whole thing was that this was all swirling around someone who seems very happy with not being in the spotlight and at podiums. She deserves to be, but she's not one of those people who would sell a kidney to win an award. So it all felt especially outsized. I hope for a world with better representation AND room for fantastic performances in small movies AND less hyperventilating press coverage. Dare to dream. My highest compliment would be if she'd been in the mix in the early 70s, she'd be a lock on the award. I think we'll have years to come of her work, so we all win in the end.
Seeing this at the Music Box here in Chicago with a crowd that seemed to love and be baffled by it is pretty much the origin story of AGE OF CAGE. (Also, obligatory promotion: the book is still available. The paperback comes out 3/21 but the hardcover is currently even cheaper on Amazon and I think there's a coupon on the book's page there, too). (https://www.amazon.com/Age-Cage-Decades-Hollywood-Singular/dp/1250848822/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678291692&sr=8-1)
Age of Cage is a really, really good book. Reads like a contemporary history of film from someone ten years ahead of their time.
I've been a member of the Panos Cosmatos cult ever since I caught a midnight screening of Beyond the Black Rainbow. Mandy confirmed he wasn't a one-cult wonder, and his episode of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities was by far my favorite of the lot. He's a writer/director who isn't shy about his influences, but he's synthesized them in such a way that the end results could only come from him and him alone.
Of all the Cabinet of Curiosities episodes I’ve seen, The Viewing may be the only one that could only have been made by its director. The Autopsy comes close, though.
Kent’s is good. That and the Cosmatos episode are the two standouts though “The Autopsy” is pretty memorable.
One of the best theatrical experiences I’ve had this century. Everyone was up for it, even though no one was entirely sure what “it” was. Movie magic.
Yeah, it was so fantastic projected. The audience response and just the cinematics popped big time.
damn Scott/ long-time NCC reader, and Mandy sure seems like a lay-up for the article BUT YA TURNED IT INTO A SLAM DUNK. great read.
Very excited for Support the Girls, might get a Steph Curry tattoo to tide me over
I really expected the "BUT" here to be "but you really screwed it up this time." I appreciate that.
I just want to say here that The New Cult Canon was literally my favorite thing on the internet back in the AV Club days. Like Scott, I was a huge fan of Danny Peary’s “Cult Movies” books and was eager for more with that sensibility. I actually have every one of those NCC pieces saved on Word files. (Some I read while others I wanted to wait until after I’d seen the film spoiler-free.) When I discovered during Thanksgiving vacation that Scott was continuing the series on Substack, I wasted no time in subscribing to The Reveal. I had told Scott years ago that I hoped he’d cover at least 200 films like Peary did. Now there’s the possibility that could happen!
Gotta keep chipping away, right? Those Peary books were so essential for me in the pre-internet days. I even helped set up a midnight screening of Cafe Flesh at the University of Georgia. Hardcore pornography at a public university!
One thing I liked about Peary is that the range of films he covered was pretty broad, from “The Wizard of Oz” to “Behind the Green Door” and “Citizen Kane” to “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” He clearly loved westerns but didn’t delve into Asian films much. (Asian cult films could certainly fill up a sizable book of their own.) But he was obviously obsessed with movies in general until his obsession with baseball took over his career as a writer. Siskel & Ebert and William Bayer’s “The Great Movies” also had an impact on my early cinematic education, but I’d say Peary has been the most enduring.
Finding Cult Movies Vol 1 in my cousin's bookcase in high school was a massive gateway, then reading Kael's collected reviews. (I don't necessarily agree with her opinions, but her championing of genre films really helped a pretty repressed, unadventurous teenager radically expand their movie palate.) You make me wish there had been a further volume that brought in more Hong Kong and Asian cinema. I've been watching some early Yeoh lately and am reminded how finding those films (largely thanks to Jonathan Ross' Incredibly Strange Film Show) was another seismic event in my movie-watching life. Thanks for the reminder of that time when you start to discover this whole other world that's been there the whole time.
This is as good a place as any to underline he “would look at the covers and read the back of the box to imagine my own version of the movie.” I don't think it can be overstated how having to create your own version of a movie in your head or piece it together from the not-always-accurate retellings of others is to developing storytelling chops. MANDY very much feels like a movie dreamed up by a kid who's not allowed to see it and we're lucky for it. I don't want to be a crotchety old guy, but finding things by accident and not having immediate access to so much is a small gift that technology is taking away, at least in part.
Nervous audience laughter during Bad Lieutenant Port of Call: New Orleans? Check.
The criminally underrated Support the Girls is on HBO Max. Regina Hall is a treasure.
Also, there's a Cheddar Goblin.
The brief period of time when Cheddar Goblin was active on Twitter was highly enjoyable.
My roommate still has a box of the stuff around
My main impression of Mandy was that the hype around its psychedelic, trippy visuals was real and accurate.
Yeah, the film looks (and sounds) really great. A seriously fun experience seeing it on the big screen.
Man, I'm glad I got to see this one in the theater with a late night audience that was really in sync with it. It's definitely one that's stuck with me.
I'm not sure you can finish Keith's great Age of Cage without walking away thinking "Well I'll be damned if Nicolas Cage isn't in more great movies than just about anyone." It made me immediately go searching for this article I'd read years ago in Newsweek that asked "Who is making movies we'll still be watching in 50 years?" Critic David Ansen was mostly looking at the big stars born post-1960 and went through Cruise, Roberts, Pitt, etc before finally landing on Cage as the guy who is possibly going to have the longest-lasting legacy. And that was years before Mandy and Pig!
(Here's that article: https://www.newsweek.com/anybody-making-movies-well-actually-watch-50-years-121793)