Ant Bully (Released in 2006) - Animation film - Voices by Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Paul Giamatti

Released in 2006, the Ant Bully is a computer animated movie produced by Tom Hanks. It is based on a children’s book of the same name. The movie has some big names who have lent their voice for the characters in the movie. These names include Julia Roberts, Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep and Paul Giamatti.
The movie is about a 10 year old kid named Lukas Nickle (voice of Zach Tyler), who gets beaten up by his neighborhood bullies all the time. To get his frustration out, he then goes about attacking an anthill in his backyard with a squirt gun. There then follows a close up of the colony of ants. Amongst them is the ant wizard, Zoc (voice given by Nicholas Cage), and his girlfriend Hova who is an ant nurse (voice given by Julia Roberts). The ants along with Zoc and Hova try to fight back, but Hova almost gets killed in the process. Finally, a very unhappy Zoc decides it’s time to teach the ant bully-Lucas a lesson.
He creates a potion which will reduce Lucas’s size to that of an ant’s. Meanwhile, Lukas’s parents head out of town, leaving him with his older sister and a crazy grandmother. Left on his own, Lukas gets convinced into doing a pest control job by Stan Beals (voice of Paul Giamatti), who makes Lukas sign a contract for the same.
Once the potion is made, Zoc and the other ants pour the potion into Lukas’s ear while he is asleep. Lukas wakes up to find that he has shrunk down to size and is inside the ant colony facing the Ant Queen (voice of Meryl Streep). Instead of killing him, she sentences him to hard labour. Much to Zoc’s surprise and mortification, Hova volunteers to help train Lukas. Lukas and Hova both learn a lot from each other.




Lukas grows to like the ants and their way of living. He then remembers that the Pest control guy would come to exterminate the ant hill soon. He tries to help the ants by calling the exterminator to cancel the contract. However, when his plan doesn’t work out and Zoc finds out that Lukas had taken Hova to help him, thereby placing her in danger, he accuses Lukas of treachery and tells him that he would never help him with a potion to get him back to human size.
A dejected Lukas goes away from the ant hill only to be eaten by a frog. Zoc realizes that Lukas wasn’t bad after all and that he misses the little kid. He sets out to help free Lukas and together with all the other ants, Lukas and Zoc manage to stop the attempts of Stan Beals, thus saving the Ant hill. Zoc returns Lukas to normal size, that too just in time, because Lukas’s parents have returned from their trip.
Lukas manages to defeat his neighborhood bully and get all the other guys to become his friends. The movie is an enjoyable watch and is clean family entertainment. An important aspect, in which this animation varies from the other animated movies about ants, is the fact that it places strong emphasis on helping one another in order for the entire society to grow. It focuses on doing things for the greater good rather than for one’s own personal motives.
The movie will seem derivative and lacking imagination to an adult audience. But as far as kids are concerned, it sends across an important message of working together towards collective progress and development.

Action thriller - Gone in 60 seconds (released in 2000) (starring Nicholas Cage, Angelina Jolie and Robert Duvall)

"I didn't do it for the money. I did it for the cars." (Memphis)

Gone in 60 Seconds is somewhat loosely based on the 1974 film by the same name; the current movie was directed by Dominic Sena (Swordfish), was released in 2000, and stars Nicholas Cage, Angelina Jolie and Robert Duvall, among an ensemble cast.
Randall “Memphis” Raines (Nicholas Cage, The Rock, Con Air) is an ex-car thief, who is forced to go back to his thieving ways when the Brit crime czar threatens to kill his brother Kip, when he failed to deliver a consignment of stolen vehicles on time.
How to save his brother ? The condition is to steal 50 cars in 72 hours, with his former partners-in-crime Otto (Robert Duvall, who played roles in Godfather, Speed) and Sway (Angelina Jolie, most famous in Lara Croft and Salt).
Suspicions are fanned when LAPD detectives come to learn of Raines’ return- Memphis must get the cars to the Long Beach Docks. These fifty beauties range from the Aston Martin, the Dodge Viper, Ferrari, to the Pontiac, Lamborghini and Volvo, each of them are code named after girls - Bernadine (Jaguar XJ220), Pamela (Chevy Corvette), Sharon (Pontiac GTO) etc.




All goes according to plan, until Detective Castlebeck (Delroy Lindo) throws a spanner in the works and takes out three cars - not one to be deterred, Memphis steals three cars from the police parking lot in retaliation. The Achilles’ Heel is Eleanor, the 1967 Mustang – which Raines has tried to steal on many occasions prior and failed. A Hollywood style chase takes place, which ends with Memphis jumping the car over a jam.
Unfortunately, Memphis reaches 12 minutes late - which almost cost him his life and the Eleanor is ordered to be crushed. When LAPD learns of the actual reasons for Raines return to crime, Castlebeck teams up with him to kill Calitri -who falls to his death. Kip presents Memphis with the keys to an old Mustang, which he bought in exchange for his chopper, finally happy, with his criminal past behind him, Raine and Sway drive into ‘happily-ever-after’.
Despite the impressive cast, the film received mostly poor reviews, the real star of the movie though, was Eleanor, the Mustang - with its replica named Roneale (Eleanor spelt backwards). The movie promises turbo-charged, adrenaline pumping thrills, but delivers only high decibel hype - do consider watching it just for Jolie’s pout, since Cage’s mumbling tone and the alternating screeching of brakes makes for little that could be termed entertaining.
The plot seems jaded, and the rush one awaits at the prospect of fifty machines displaying such brazen horsepower-never really happens. Great cast, fifty awesome cars, and 118 minutes later - the movie is still lame and boring. Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced Days of Thunder, The Rock, Con Air etc, really lost the plot this time. Love your cars, maybe make a really nice movie with cars that tell the story , but do refrain from glorifying car theft, no matter how pressing the reasons are!

Film - Moonstruck - A hit romantic comedy starring Nicolas Cage and Cher (released in 1987)

Moonstruck was a romantic comedy released in 1987, and was very well received by critics and by the audience, becoming a bit hit. This was in the 1980's, when movies really did not make above $100 million that they so easily make nowadays (heck, movies nowadays cost more than that to make, with production and marketing costs making them significantly more expensive), so at that time, for Moonstruck to make a total of around $80 million on a budget of $15 million was great. In addition, the movie wowed critics and earned a number of Oscar nominations:

Won:

Best Actress - Cher

Best Supporting Actress - Olympia Dukakis

Original Screenplay - John Patrick Shanley

Nominated but did not win:

Best Picture

Best Supporting Actor - Vincent Gardenia

Best Director - Norman Jewison

The movie also did pretty well in being recognized as being among the top 100 comedies and some of the top 10 romantic comedies.

The movies starred Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello, and Olympia Dukakis, with Cher and Nicolas Cage in the lead roles.

The movie is about this lady and her relationship with her would-be brother-in-law and how it turns into a romantic relationship between them, and the problems it causes emotionally for them. Loretta Castorini (played by Cher) is an Italian widow whose husband had died after being hit by a bus. She believes, somewhat strangely, that he died because they did not have a proper marriage, in church, with flowers and the whole arrangement. And why did they not have a proper marriage, well it was because her father Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia) did not approve of the marriage and hence they had to get married at City Hall rather than at church. This time, she is determined that she will get married properly, and insists that her fiancee, Johnny Cammareri (played by Danny Aiello) propose to her with a ring and on his knees. However, he has to leave soon for Sicily since his mother is dying and he has to be there for her. However, he wants Loretta to invite his estranged brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage), younger to Johnny, to come to the wedding.
The next morning, Loretta talks to Johnny but when she finds out that he has not told her about the wedding, urges Johnny to tell her about the wedding before she is dead. In turn, Johnny asks her whether she has spoken to Ronny, which was also not done. So, Loretta visits Ronny at his bakery and learns why they do not speak to each other. It turned out that some time earlier, Ronny was engaged and once when Johnny had visited him, Ronny hand got cut in the slicer and his fiancee left him as a result. Ronny blames Johnny for that accident. She tries to console him since he has got emotional, and they go to his apartment where she cooks for him and they drink, and you know it, they have sex. At night, there is a bright moon - hence Moonstruck. In the morning, Loretta feels the guilt and does not want to meet Ronny again, but he persuades her to come to the opera with him in the evening. Does she go ? What happens to their relationship and her engagement ? Watch this delightful movie and find out.