Two upcoming films by Werner Herzog, who turned sixty-seven today: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? Looks like Herzog -- the coolest German-born director of the past fifty years so far as I know -- is finally breaking into a wider American market.
Herzog's Bad Lieutenant looks to be loosely inspired by Abel Ferrara's creepy Bad Lieutenant (1992), but this one stars Nicolas Cage rather than Harvey Keitel, and is set in New Orleans rather than New York City. From what I've seen, it looks considerably different. Incidentally, during a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Herzog says that Cage gives his best performance to date in it, which is certainly plausible.
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (produced by David Lynch) looks to be a spooky exploration of an unhinged man who kills his mother with a sword. The main character is played by Michael Shannon, who is superb as a supporting actor in Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) and Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road (2008) and as co-star with Ashley Judd in William Friedkin's movie version of Bug (2006). Shannon is intense and edgy like Willem Dafoe, who also happens to be in My Son, My Son, along with weird and intense Brad Dourif -- who is also in Herzog's Bad Lieutenant. There are HBO connections, too: Dourif plays Doc in Deadwood; and from Big Love, check out the wonderful Grace Zabriskie (Bill's mother) and Chloë Sevigny (Bill's wife). In this one, they play the Shannon character's mother and fiancée, respectively.
Today's Rune: Partnership. Happy Birthday, Herzog. And happy fifty-sixth anniversary to my parents, Don and Barb (Shaffer) France!
6 comments:
interesting!
Aloha, Friend
Comfort Spiral
Cage is one of those actors that needs a good story to be a part of. If the story sucks he is not great enough to save it. We'll wait on this because I do like his style of acting and will be interested to see if this is his "best performance to date."
I enjoyed Bad Lieutenent with Keitel quite a lot.
I just reconnected with an old friend who I watched The Bad Lieutenant with back around the time it came out. We were talking about what a disturbing movie is was-- particularly the part where Keitel's character stops the two girls in the car.
To me, Nicholas Cage's perfect performance was in "Raising Arizona."
Long time since we chatted Erik. By the way I have a list of some interesting Palestinian movies that like such as:
Amreeka
Salt of this Sea
My son, my son sounds freaking awesome!
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