Interesting double bill today. Started with Werner Herzog's unwanted remake of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant and followed with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
Bad Lieutenant's tone reflected its tongue in cheek subtitle (Port Of Call: New Orleans). The film features Nicolas Cage completely let loose after a collection of weak projects and his performance is a welcome return to form. Replacing the crazy intensity of Harvey Keitel with a cartoonish lunacy, Cage mugs his way through a muddled narrative featuring dirty cops, generic criminals and heart 'o gold hookers. Its hackneyed as hell and lacks any of the directors trademark passion but its offbeat style and dark sense of humour just about redeems it, that and Cage's batshit performance.
Cloudy... was a suprisingly solid offering from a non-Pixar company. An energetic animation style coupled with a great story (mad scientist comes up with an invention that changes water into food, said device gets launched into atmosphere, cue gastonomic precipitation) recall the animated shorts of old and the random slapstick brings to mind Seth Mcfarlane's output. Best of all though are the many cameo appearances including James Caan, Bruce Campbell and the legendary Mr. T as a cop whose chest hair tingles when theres trouble. Genius.
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