Looking Glass

When I was in my mid 20s, my sister and I made a cross country trip for college and ended up in a Colorado motel where the beds were placed at odd angles in the room. We were tired from driving all day, and took the room anyway. A decade later we read the Gay Talese article about a motel where the owner had watched people have sex in their rooms, but it wasn't until the Netflix series that we realized we had probably been victims of the peeping Tom, Gerald Foos. Then we realized the beds were placed so he could see us.

Whether he actually watched us or not, I will never know, but knowing that something like that could happen added to the creep factor of watching this movie for me.

In the movie, the characters played by Cage and Tunney buy a motel in the desert after a family tragedy. The isolation doesn't do anything to heal their marriage and they sink further into an unhealthy and depressing relationship. As his wife sleeps, the Cage character seeks solace in watching the guests in the rooms.

At this point in the film, it isn't quite clear that the motel is a metaphor for hell, but it will do until one comes along. Everyone in the town seems to be engaged in S&M sex or sex with hookers. The sheriff seems to either be the devil or someone who does a good job acting like him. And, of course, the desert is hot as hell.

In many ways, the images in the movie reminded me of "The Sentinel," a 70s film about a woman who must guard the gates of hell. They made me uneasy, which is what a movie like this is supposed to do.

And the minie helped Nic Cage work off a little more tax debt, and that is a good thing. He's a fine actor, and this movie is one more step to try to get back to acting in real films,

I will always remember the film 'Vacancy' because I went into it with zero expectations and ended up having one of the best film experiences I can remember. Really the only similarity that 'Looking Glass' has to that film is that it was set in a motel in the middle of nowhere. Still though, a part of me had hopes of another hidden gem. It wasn't to be though. The film starts off with some potentially exciting plot points and mysterious goings on, but can never live up to them and provide any pay off.

There's also a serious lack of suspense in the film. At no point are you ever on the edge of your set needing to know what is going to happen next. The film just kind of drifts along and even when something that's supposed to be exciting is happening, it really isn't that captivating. The one bright point for me was Nicolas Cage. Even though his career has been in serious decline for over a decade now, he can still act the pants off most people in the industry when he tries. Sadly though, he's far from enough to save this forgettable film that I wouldn't recommend spending your hard-earned on.

Nothing anywhere near perfect, or even super logical, but I still enjoyed watching 'Looking Glass'.

It builds up the tension and darkness well, with the ghost town feel to everything. The cinematography, particularly the lighting, is rather nice. The premise and its execution, while intriguing, does have problems, but the two leads are fun to watch.

Nicolas Cage (Ray) and Robin Tunney (Maggie) make for a good pairing, both give satisfactory performances. Marc Blucas is, I thought anyway, pretty decent in his role as Howard; though the writing does let his character down. Other negatives for the film include the average music and crappy opening credits.

Overall though, I felt suitably entertained by this.

It's one of those movies that, when you are clicking through 572 channels of useless brain numbing odd cooking, weird sporting, reality programming, infomercials, you suddenly land on a movie ... you watch for a few seconds and realize it's one you've seen 6 times already so you keep clicking, then land on THIS movie and you watch for a few seconds, and settle in and enjoy the whole darn thing because, even though it's a bit odd and melodramatic, i't's GOOD! And then you go on imdb and talk about how everyone dissing it is wrong because you just really enjoyed it.

The next day you realize it was 2am and you always enjoy whatever you finally find to watch after clicking through 572 channels.

But it isn't too bad. Nic is always entertaining if nothing else, and usually he adds something else.. oh ya, great acting because no matter how bad the movie is he always shines.

I give it a 5 because when combing through bad movies to get through a few hours, this is a good bad movie to watch.

Don't believe the "worst movie ever" reviewers (hey.... there can't be many worst movies ever anyway right)

This is a pretty entertaining thriller like they made lots in the 90s.

Yes, a bit pulpy, but there's nothing wrong with that.

And indeed (as some worst movie ever reviewers note) it doesn't have a typical storyline or cliché finale and closure.

But why should every movie follow that boring pattern?

So if you're up for something a bit different yet still in a pulpy thriller entertainment mode you can't go wrong with Looking Glass.