7th of January!

Today,Friday the 7th of January 2011, is my birthday. I have reached the "venerable" age of 17!

I won't bore you all with a list of presents I received (but if you really want to know then check this out!) and what food I ate and what I did in general.

Instead I would like to point out that today is also the birthday of actor Nicolas Cage (47 years old).



Nic Cage is one of my favourite living actors, I think he gets a lot of hate from many people mainly over the amount of terrible films he has been appearing in recently. I do think he is a far better actor than most people seem to think though, of course every actor has their fair share of terrible films and in Nic Cage's case maybe a bit more than his fair share... But I think that the many excellent performances he has given shouldn't be dismissed because of the present low point in his career.

People who claim that he is one of the worst working actors should consider that he has worked with such directors as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, The Coen Brothers, Spike Jonze, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, John Woo and Brian De Palma. Now that is what I call an impressive career and it's still far from over!
He received an Academy Award for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas, which I have yet to watch, and a nomination for his performance in Adaptation which he should have won, he was amazing and played two different characters.
Well, I just think that despite the large amount of terrible films Cage has been involved with, his excellent performances really shouldn't be overlooked but rather singled out and praised, the rest can just be forgotten...

But whether you like him or not, you have to admit he is a unique actor.

Check this out!


P.S.
Actor Jeremy Renner and film composer Clint Mansell were both born on this day.
As was English naturalist Gerald Durell of whom I am a great admirer.

Also, interestingly, in 1894 which is 100 years before I was born, the Lumiere brothers invented the Cinematographe, a device which really triggered film making as made it into what it is today. I won't say it invented Cinematography, because I'm still not sure whether that claim rightly goes to the Lumiere Brothers, or to Edison and Dickson, Louis Le Prince or William Friesne-Greene...
Interesting on the 7th of January 1894, Dickson patented motion picture film this was quite an important step in the birth of Cinema, now that is exactly 100 years before my birth.

It's very interesting to find out such trivia about the day of ones birth, if you can think of any trivia from your birthday preferably film related then I would be interested to hear of it!