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    Nicolas Cage’s Best Performances Onscreen

    We’ve reached the point in Nicolas Cage’s career when it’s easiest to refer to every new movie he’s in by just describing his antics in them. Dracula Cage, terrible boss — that’s “Renfield.” Moody chef Cage, retriever of beloved animal — that’s “Pig.” Serial killer Cage, servant of Satan — that’s “Longlegs.”The tactic works because it’s easy to imagine Cage donning any of those guises, and a thousand more besides. Many a commenter has noted Cage’s propensity for roles that can be described only as crazy, but the actor’s career is too expansive, and often more nuanced, to be reduced to his unhinged characters. Tell me he’s going to play, I don’t know, a ballet master or a mob boss or an enraged father (as in his latest movie, “The Surfer”) and I’ll believe you, because Cage has proved that he contains multitudes, over and over again. Sometimes he even plays more than one guy in the same movie — as in my favorite of his films, “Adaptation,” in which he appears as twins.That means the best way to get a grip on Cage as an artist is to consider him through his many faces. Even when he occasionally takes that face, um, off.‘Moonstruck’ (1987)The Sincere Love InterestEarly on, Cage worked to establish a career apart from his family name. (The “Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola is his uncle, and the directors Roman and Sofia Coppola and the actor Jason Schwartzman are his cousins.) He managed it swiftly in a string of movies that included many performances as a tousled, passionate, somewhat unpredictable young man. What shines through each is a full-bodied commitment to whatever the character’s emotional reality is — all the roiling desires, the suffering, the ecstasy.A great representative performance from this era is his turn as the lovelorn hothead Ronny, who’s smitten with his brother’s fiancée (Cher) in the 1987 romantic comedy “Moonstruck.” Ronny may be missing a hand thanks to a freak bread-slicer accident, but he’s not missing any gallantry, rough-hewn as it is. It’s a charming, uncouth, amorous role, and versions of that Cage show up in the Coen brothers’ “Raising Arizona” (1987) and David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” (1990).(Stream “Moonstruck” on the Roku Channel and the Criterion Channel, or rent it on most major platforms.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Doubling Up: How ‘Sinners’ and Other Movies Multiply One Actor

    This year at the movies, you’d be forgiven for thinking you are seeing double — because you are. Since March there have been three films featuring stars acting opposite themselves. “Mickey 17” has two versions (at least) of Robert Pattinson as an expendable working grunt on an alien planet in a futuristic world. Robert De Niro played two different mobsters in “The Alto Knights.” And Michael B. Jordan just made his doubles debut as swaggering twins in Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” a vampire movie set in 1930s Mississippi.Having the same actor appear two — or sometimes three or four or more — times onscreen is one of cinema’s most enduring tricks. And while the effect has long been a powerful bit of movie magic, the technology has evolved over the years. Here are some of the landmarks.‘The Playhouse’ (1921)An In-Camera Method to Buster Keaton’s MadnessThe use of doubling goes all the way back to the silent era in this Buster Keaton short in which the protagonist, played by the prodigious physical comedian, dreams himself as every single person in a show — from the band to the audience members. (He also appears in blackface as a minstrel, an upsetting byproduct of the era.) How did Keaton accomplish this? Through masking and double exposure. He and his cameraman Elgin Lessley would cover part of the lens, perform a beat, and then rewind, uncovering the previously masked portion to add another version of himself to the shot. The effect is a wondrous confluence of Keatons all acting at once.‘The Parent Trap’ (1961)Split-Screen High JinksWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Jason Moran Unpacks Duke Ellington’s Greatness in a Single Song

    <!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>Moran has a lengthy history of paying homage to his heroes in creative ways, whether staging what he and the bassist-vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello called their Fats Waller Dance Party or presenting imaginative staged programs themed around the lives and times of the pianist Thelonious Monk and the ragtime […] More

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    From ‘The Last of Us’ to ‘The Walking Dead,’ How Well Do You Know Your Zombies?

    <!–>“We were called contractors … We were cool. Everybody loved contractors.”—Joel Miller–> Victor, a former businessman in “Fear the Walking Dead” Sheila, a former realtor in “Santa Clarita Diet” Joel, a former contractor in “The Last of Us” Glenn, a former pizza delivery guy in “The Walking Dead” Source: Television – nytimes.com More

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    ‘White Lotus’ Takes On Touchy Subjects. The Southern Accent Is One of Them.

    <!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> Lorazepam, an anti-anxiety drug, seems to be having a moment, thanks to Ms. Ratliff’s frequent mentions, where her accent dances along the open vowels. [–> <!–>Lorazepam–> <!–> [!–> <!–>Lorazepam–> <!–> [!–> <!–>Lorazepam–> <!–> […] More

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    Inside Lorne Michaels’s Archive of ‘S.N.L’ History

    But nothing tested the show like Sinead O’Connor’s musical appearance on Oct. 3, 1992, when she stunned viewers — and the producers — by tearing up a photograph of Pope John Paul II, declaring, “Fight the real enemy.” Two years earlier, O’Connor had drawn wide criticism for joining the cast member Nora Dunn in pulling […] More