I know, I know. For followers of my blog – you might be thinking… an Oscar Watch post on the Nicolas Cage pig movie?!?! Well, before you completely turn up your snout on the notion, I will just point out that the actor’s latest effort (opening tomorrow) is garnering some serious acclaim.
Pig marks the directorial debut of Michael Sarnoski and it casts Cage as a truffle hunter whose beloved swine is swiped. So how are the critics responding? How about a 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating and reviewers calling it some of the finest work of the actor’s career.
The last several years of the Oscar winner’s career has been something to behold. Cage is appearing in about four to five pictures a year on average. Most of them are direct to streaming and many are nondescript action thrillers with poor Tomato meters. Yet for every three or four of those, there’s another that gets some props. This includes Mom and Dad, Mandy, and Color Out of Space.
It’s been over 25 years since Cage took home Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas and nearly 20 years since his last nod for Adaptation. Now let’s get real. It’s highly unlikely that the Academy will nominate him here (though they have shown their love for the title animal before with Babe). Pig is a long shot for any attention at all.
That said, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see a groundswell of Internet support with a campaign to get Cage back into contention. Don’t expect it to come to fruition, but stranger things have happened. That includes the very idea of this post existing before the critics weighed in. My Oscar Watch posts will continue…
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