Courtesy of the Denver Film Festival
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Again this year, Denver Film Festival artistic director Matt Campbell is offering his must-see picks for each day of the event – including many flicks that movie lovers might otherwise miss amid the flood of silver-screen goodies. Today he spotlights a selection for November 9: Dream Scenario.
Dream Scenario
Directed by Kristoffer Borgli
7 p.m. Thursday, November 9, Denver Botanic Gardens
In recent years, Nicolas Cage has specialized in performances so big and broad that they practically beg for their own zip code. But Denver Film Festival artistic director Matt Campbell says Cage’s work in the horror-comedy Dream Scenario lies far afield from his efforts in the likes of, say, Renfield, in which he played Dracula with all the subtlety of a severed femoral artery.
“One of the things that struck me when I saw the film was what an excellent job he did portraying this character,” Campbell says. “It’s really fantastic acting.”
The film centers on Cage as “a professor who isn’t getting any respect these days,” Campbell continues. “But then his daughters start seeing him in their dreams – just sort of randomly. At first, it’s very benign, just kind of odd, and he doesn’t think much of it. After that, though, his students start seeing him in their dreams, too, and then more and more people, until he’s internationally known – because so many people are dreaming about him.”
The dark side of this attention quickly surfaces. In Campbell’s words, “the dreams become more and more extreme, where they’re turning into nightmares, and people start conflating this professor with the figure in their dreams. At first he’s famous, but he quickly becomes notorious.”
Dream Scenario producer Ari Aster also served up the compelling shockers Hereditary and Midsommar, and Campbell feels his latest effort, helmed by Sick of Myself director Kristoffer Borgli, “has that kind of vibe. But it’s also a fantastic tour de force for Nicolas Cage. He can sometimes get pigeonholed as this kind of B-movie actor, but he has amazing range, especially in this film. He looks completely different than he ever has before and completely transforms himself into this character. And he plays it really straight – not for laughs. It’s everything that’s surrounding him that provides the insanity and the craziness.”
