Inspired by the modern classic, Wings of Desire, City involves an angel (Cage) who is spotted by a doctor in an operating room. Franz plays Cage's buddy who somehow knows a lot about angels.
In order to foil a terrorist plot, an FBI agent undergoes a facial transplant surgery and assumes the identity and physical appearance of a terrorist, but the plan turns from bad to worse when the same terrorist impersonates the FBI agent.
Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his alcoholism, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
A fast-lane investment broker, offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives, wakes up to find that his sports car and girlfriend have become a mini-van and wife.
A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, Welles relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town private eye.Written by
Columbia Pictures
Oscar Winner Nicolas Cage and Director Joel Schumacher would reunite for the thriller, Trespass co-starring Oscar Winner Nicole Kidman in 2011, 12 years after this film was released. See more »
Goofs
In the movie, the character's name Janet Mathews is clearly pronounced as "Janet", but in the handwritten thank-you card, her name is written as "Janent". See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Airport Announcer:
Welcome to Miami. While in the airport, please observe Florida and local laws which prohibit any smoking in the terminal. Thank you for not smoking.
See more »
Alternate Versions
The film was heavily cut before release to gain an 'R' rating. Joel Schumacher's audio commentary on the DVD points out the multitude of MPAA cuts throughout the film. The cuts include:
Sex throughout the movie. For example, background sexual activity was trimmed under the "no more than two buttock-thrusts rule"
A lot of a conversation between Phoenix and Cage was removed because a bank of TV monitors in the background were showing hardcore pornography footage
Sequences in the underground sex club were trimmed to remove shots of enema porn (which were in fact real)
Come To Daddy
Written by Richard James
Performed by Aphex Twin
Courtesy of Sire Records Group/Warp Records Ltd.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products See more »
Some sensitive-minded people may surely be disturbed by the dark revenge and self-justice in this film, but "Se7en"-author Andrew Kevin Walker has done another fine work with his script! Although the storyline is obviously taken from Paul Schrader´s "Hardcore" (1974,?) the film is suspense-packed, violent and endowed with good performances of its actors, especially Peter Stormare did a brilliant job with playing the weird bondage-porn director Dino Velvet! I also was truly surprised how good director Joel Schumacher had created a morbid atmosphere, just in unhappy memory of his disastrous "Batman & Robin"-flick..! Another pleasant fact is, that "8MM" doesn´t deal with the Hollywood-typical stereotypes and clichés, so finally we´ve got something we could really call a dirty mainstream production - or at least a nice try of it!
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Some sensitive-minded people may surely be disturbed by the dark revenge and self-justice in this film, but "Se7en"-author Andrew Kevin Walker has done another fine work with his script! Although the storyline is obviously taken from Paul Schrader´s "Hardcore" (1974,?) the film is suspense-packed, violent and endowed with good performances of its actors, especially Peter Stormare did a brilliant job with playing the weird bondage-porn director Dino Velvet! I also was truly surprised how good director Joel Schumacher had created a morbid atmosphere, just in unhappy memory of his disastrous "Batman & Robin"-flick..! Another pleasant fact is, that "8MM" doesn´t deal with the Hollywood-typical stereotypes and clichés, so finally we´ve got something we could really call a dirty mainstream production - or at least a nice try of it!