30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 26- Mandy (2018)

Everyone knows that Nicolas Cage's (Gone In 60 Seconds) career has taken an interesting turn over the years with the kinds of choices he has made over the years as far as what films, but there was a huge buzz about one of them. Today's challenge for the 30 day movie challenge was to watch either the film that won the Saturn Award for best Independent film or to check out one of the nominees in case you had seen the winner. Unfortunately, the awards show for 2020 was canceled and I had to go with the winner from 2019 and that is 2018's Mandy which was written and directed by Panos Cosmatos (Tombstone) with Casper Kelly (Too Many Cooks) as well. Nicolas Cage plays Red Miller, a regular guy who enjoys his house in the woods with his girlfriend Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough). One day there life is rocked upside down when they meet a mysterious hippy cult with very bad intentions that will send Red on a hunt for revenge. The film also stars Linus Roache (Batman Begins) as Jeremiah Sand, Ned Dennehy (Peaky Blinders) as Brother Swan, Olwen Fouéré (This Must Be The Place) as Mother Marlene, Richard Brake (The Sisters Brothers) as The Chemist, Bill Duke (Deep Cover) as Caruthers, Line Pillet (Little Black Spiders) as Sister Lucy, Clément Baronnet (La colle) as Brother Klopeck, and Alexis Julemont (Raw) as Brother Hanker.

By the time I was done watching this film, all I could think to myself was what in the hell did I just watch? Why was it so awesome? Why is this the first time I watched this film? Take the film for what it is and analyze the story all you want or just say that it's your typical revenge story with a family that reminds you of Manson or better yet the Firefly clan from The Devil's Rejects. The fact of the matter is that the film was beautifully shot and I know it's weird because of the type of film, but once you start watching it's like one giant trip of LSD from beginning to end with all of the vibrant colors whether they are warm colors or dark colors. The film is so full of color and it's absolutely beautiful to the point that it kept me hooked and the cinematography itself was well done. The cinematography department and the editing team deserve an A+ for the work they put into this film and I love the mixture of animation which I believe are either hallucinations or dreams that Cage's character has in the film that connects him to Mandy. I absolutely loved the biker gang which definitely was a nod to Hellraiser and the Cenobites and while there are theories behind who they really are, you just have to click on this one if you are on the Shudder app and sit back and relax. They are going to take you on one hell of a ride especially when Nic Cage gets started. I am honestly going to give this film an A- for a final grade because I absolutely loved it.

Deep Cover (1992)

It's funny to me that 28 years ago, the only reason that I knew that a film called Deep Cover existed was because of a Gangsta Rap track of the same name by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. The other funny thing is that I waited till now to check the film out, but better late than never is what I always say. The film stars Laurence Fishburne (Boyz n the Hood) as Russell Stevens Jr., a cop with a bit of a past. You see when he was a kid, he saw his father rob a liquor store only to be shot in the back and killed before he could get away. Russell swore that he would never lead the same life that his father did and he became a cop. Well one day, he is tasked with going deep undercover as a drug dealer to try and take down a drug dealing ring that is looking to expand it's horizons. The film also stars Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park) as David, Gregory Sierra (The Towering Inferno) as Barbosa, Roger Guenveur Smith (Dope) as Eddie, Clarence Williams III (Tales From The Hood) as Taft, René Assa (Baywatch) as Guzman, Victoria Dillard (Coming To America) as Betty, Charles Martin Smith (The Untouchables) as Carver, Julio Oscar Mechoso (Planet Terror) as Hernandez, and the film was directed by Bill Duke (Commando).

For the most part, it was a decent film in the fact that it kept my attention for the whole film and why not it has Jeff Goldblum as a gangster wannabe drug dealer in it. For the most part, I was just not impressed with the writing in this film because some of it felt rushed and to be honest I could have done without the child angle. We already know that Fishburne's character is a good guy, but I suppose that the kid represents the innocence that he once had before he went deep undercover. I thought Clarence Williams III was his usual brilliant self playing some sort of intense, whacked out character, but the question is did he know that Fishburne was a cop? He would always preach the religion stuff and tell them that they were the same, but in the end I think that Fishburne sort of looked at him like he represented a father figure in some weird way. Other than the writing, I thought that everyone did a fantastic job as far as the acting was concerned, but Fishburne had this moment where it was supposed to be a loss of his moral code. It's that moment when a character in a film has lived to a certain code for a while, but then something happens that he goes against it and that happened to Fishburne's character, but I wish they had expanded on it better. If you love old 90's gangster/undercover cop films then this is one to give a shot to for at least Goldblum's performance which was fantastic. I am going to give the film an C+/B- (somewhere in there) for a final grade.