a chronicling of my sisyphean quest to watch every Nic Cage movie
HOW DID I MISS THIS
Amos & Andrew, the reverend looked a little bit familiar:
It’s amazing/depressing how many fantastic actors work shitty jobs and small roles for years before they finally get a good script.
Amos & Andrew
I consider myself a pretty big movie nerd, especially disposable forgettable movies you’d find at garage sales or bargain bins. This is one of the few Nic Cage flicks that I had never heard of. Never have I seen it on TV, never have I seen the box back when stores existed you could rent things from.. I say this with a strong degree of confidence: Myself and the burly, bored East Indian gentleman sitting next to me on the flight from Denver to Vancouver (when he wasn’t too busy reading Maxim) are quite possibly the only people on Earth who have watched Amos & Andrew in 2012. Here’s the trailer . There’s a reason it’s sort of dropped off the face of the earth, there are hundreds of movies like this. It’s entirely average, with a few notably offensive/weird moments that likely wouldn’t make it past focus groups today.
We begin with a face in the shadows, all familiar trope.. oh ho! It’s Samuel L Jackson looking sharp in specs! Alright, maybe a normal way to introduce Cage awaits.. long montage of a fancy neighbourhood, white picket fences & white faces. Cut to a jail cell and, in a stunning bit of career foreshadowing (and keeping up with the mysterious face —-> BIG REVEAL
Someone is doing upside down push-ups! Did Nic spend some time in a drunk tank? Your noble writer confesses, once upon a time, he had a police enforced rest for the evening. In an attempt to tire himself out, he attempted some rigorous calisthenics so he could get some exhaustion based shut-eye despite the glaring light and snoring obese Pole he found himself interned with. What I thought then, being unaware of this thoughtful examination of race, was a Con Air push-up resulted in a minor head injury and a more realistic evaluation of upper body strength. Our hero here dismounts and the Cage clause is fulfilled as the face is dramatically revealed:
We get a bit of a better look at what type of Cage we’re dealing with when he uses his one phone call to attempt to get a woman to visit him in jail, to provide him with beer. I don’t know what type of operation they’re running on Niagara Island, but they let him have a toothpick in jail. Maybe they’re Razor Ramon fans? Also his hair has a bit of a Trey Parker circa BASEketball vibe.
So back to Samuel L Jackson (SLJ) and he’s in his new fancy house setting up stereo equipment. The score is a lot of flutes and slide whistles, so you just know some hijinks are about to commence. 
It’s Mayor Ebert from Godzilla and Jeff Goldblum’s ex-wife from ID4, finally, a coupling giving some hope to overweight old white men that they can land a younger woman! They see SLJ and comment that “when you see a black man with an armful of stereo equipment, you know what’s going on”. They call the police, while SLJ nods off while doing some alarmingly masturbatory reading
The cops arrive in full force, and the kooky dummy on the squad gets ready for “night ops”. I guess they thought this would be a clever reference to Amos N Andy? Ugh.
Anyway the cops call him out of the house, set off his car alarm, then when he points his key to turn it off they all start shooting at SLJ. Officer dummy gets taken to task for his itchy trigger finger and responds hilariously in a manner usually reserved for First Nations people upset at highway litter:
I should also comment the Chief of Police is one of the few mustache horticulturalists that can give Tom Selleck a run for his money, if only in dedication to the art form and not Sam Elliott/Selleckian hirsuiteness. Dabney Coleman, who still clings to his facial hair in Boardwalk Empire:
They realize they’re shooting at the homeowner, so they come up with a scam with petty criminal Nic Cage. The idea being that they will release Cage into the house, claim he’s the one who shot at SLJ, then release him after the fact on a bus, and he can be on his way. I guess they’d claim jailbreak? Cage goes into the house with a police supplied shotgun and takes SLJ hostage. The stupid, stupid idea being that he’ll surrender and then escape. All the gunshots have drawn the press though, so the police decide they’ll just forget the plan and arrest Cage.
Nic asks for a million dolllars and a helicopter in a standoff. CLEARLY Oliver Stone loved this movie, as he stole the shotgun strapped to the neck move pioneered by Cage here. (Natural Born Killers came out the year after) It must be said duct tape is probably more secure than a wire coathanger.
Chief mustache comes in and tries to call his bluff exclaiming “Shoot that **gg**, we don’t want him on this island anyway. (in this blog I’ll be using the N-word censorship developed by 7th Heaven in the episode Got MLK) SLJ bangs him in the face with a frying pan, they tie him up and leave, breaking in to that racist couple’s house. They have a dog named Rommel, a bit odd for a Jewish man to name his dog after a famous Nazi but there you have it. There’s a weird nod to an infamous other movie about racism White Dog which you should check out. SLJ must have seen it because he’s convinced this white dog hates black people. Earlier the couple was blaring Eric Clapton, drinking white wine and smoking joints. Aka having a pretty good time in my estimation:
So Nic partakes, as any reasonable man would presented with such a situation.
He then talks about dogs and racism and how his mom bought him Sea Monkeys.. it’s pretty stupid, but despite being stoned SLJ is into the story. At this point he’s not even really a hostage anymore, it is very unclear why he’s hanging out with this guy. However he reacts thusly to Nic’s stoned ramblings:
That’s the kind of engaged audience a stoner is looking for. Now that he’s high, he decides to go looking for the car keys and just generally creeping around the house. He puts on a suit and tie, then makes a pretty cool face:
He steals the couple’s car. The cops still think both people are in SLJ’s house, and busloads of black activists have made their way across the island to protest.. a black guy getting taken hostage I guess? 
This guy made sure to bring two protest essentials. A fucking cool vest and a big torch. He’s not the only one with a torch, the activists begin to suspect the police are lying about the hostage situation, attack the cops and burn SLJ’s house down. I knew those torches would come in handy! There’s a guy with bloodhounds who is searching for SLJ, for reasons that are unclear, the dogs find him, but then he lets them smell Chief Mustache’s police badge so they go bite him. I don’t think that’s how bloodhounds work, they’re not a goddamn chain letter. Oh you wanted to catch me, but look, I have something that smells like someone else wouldn’t you rather go bite that dude? Anyway some other dumb shit happens, SLJ and Cage drive away. Cage is trying to escape to Canada, but then he is shown to be driving on I 95 South and the credits roll!
This is fucking stupid for several reasons. They’re on Niagara Island, and they make fun of Cage because he thought it was Canada. Well, I checked, that Island IS in Canada, and unless we bought it since 1993, his mission would have been accomplished. HOWEVER, CRIMINALS CANNOT FLEE TO FUCKING CANADA. WE HAVE A POLICE FORCE AND AN EXTRADITION TREATY. No one mentions this, and they take great pains to prevent him to getting to Canada. Ugh.
On to the rankings!
Nic Cage Sexuality: 2/10. This is a pretty light hearted comedy with zero sex scenes. He does manage to get himself into somewhat sexual situations though. It’s revealed one of the charges he’s wanted for is contributing to the delinquency of a minor. His defence: “She looked 18” ho ho ho what a loveable scamp! Based on his tattoo I’m sure he’s generous in the bedroom.
Also when he’s in the racist couple’s house and high he creeps through their bedroom, finds some bondage gear, some nightgowns which he deals with thusly
In chemistry class we were taught to waft the smell towards you, it’s dangerous to just bury your nose in there and huff. He has no such qualms, and does this casually in front of SLJ. Then he opens their bedside table:
That says SEX GREASE. Very discreet. I understand the assortment of vibrators, but what the fuck are they getting up to with those multicoloured koosh balls? I don’t understand the sexual function there… Also when he’s hanging out in this house he calls for a pizza, because he noticed a sexy girl delivering one earlier en route to SLJ’s house.
A sexy underage girl, and again this is played as a cute quirk of his, being attracted to jail bait. She comments he’s cuter than his mugshot and gives him her digits. 
She has a boyfriend but who can resist a deranged criminal with a shotgun?
Nic Cage Race Relations: 5/10 (at the start of this caper 1/10, but improves to an 5 after some soul searching)
The actual NAME of this movie is based on an old super offensive show about two African American gentlemen named Amos N Andy. It was originally a radio show, then a cartoon, then a live action show. Why offensive? The stars were these dudes
And here’s a little sample of the cartoon. They even reference it at one point when SLJ gets upset when Cage says the title of the movie. SLJ goes “I don’t have time for a history lesson, but don’t say our names together”. If they’re not even going to explain it, why bother? This movie has pretty serious situations, the police shooting at a black guy in his house for no reason.. but it doesn’t really say anything other than Nic Cage is friendly and SLJ comes around to him.
At the beginning Cage is surprised and dubious that SLJ owns the house, and asks if he’s a cook who works there.. yikes. He calls him Bro throughout the movie and is constantly scolded “I am not your brother”. When he politely offers him some weed, he’s told “not all black people use drugs”, but he protests “my black friends all smoke pot”.. bridging the gap with the classic absolute defence against racism! I have black friends! Conversation over!
Cage also comments “I see it all the time, black guys who get rich move on to a skinny blonde with a tit job and forget who they are”. I can’t imagine this child fucker meeting too many rich black gentlemen with white wives. They oddly play it like he does have a white wife, then at the end there’s a big reveal and oh shit he has a black wife! Confusing why they bothered to do that. After Nic helps SLJ escape from the bloodhounds, he drives him to a ferry lineup where he meets his wife. SLJ says he can keep the watch he stole from him (depicted in the poster) and when Cage drops “thanks bro” SLJ says “You’re WELCOME BROTHER” racism is dead.
Nic Cage Freakouts: 2/10. He keeps his composure pretty much the whole movie, except when he’s trying to tie his tie:
He smashes it up over his face and has a minor fit, but by Cage levels its a non-event.
Overall 4/10: It’s really not great, pretty by the numbers stupid movie about racial issues. Doesn’t have much to say, isn’t particularly funny. Cage is somewhat charming, rocks a pretty cool gold tooth. SLJ doesn’t have much to do but be indignant and disappointed in white people.It’s mercifully not longer than 90 minutes not including credits. Apparently there’s a scene at the end with bloodhound hilarity, believe it or not I didn’t stick around to find out.
Ebert says: “Either the humour should have been angrier and hard edged or the filmmakers should have backed away from the situation altogether” and I’m inclined to agree.
A Swedish guy on IMDB gives it a 7 out of 10 and says “it surely works as a great entertainment when you’re tired” and I’m inclined to think that Swedish movies must be fucking terrible.
Fire Birds
CLICK ONE TO MAKE PICTURES BIG
“If you enjoyed Top Gun, you’ll have a great time!” Why are you lying to people Michael Medved, of PBS Sneak Previews? Liars go to hell. These fine people, judging by this newspaper advertisment, could have spent their entertainment dollars on Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn - Bird On A Wire. The movie opened 5th at the box office, so most of them probably ignored Mr. Medved’s web of deceit. This movie was… not great. However, it was, mercifully: eighty minutes long.
I couldn’t find a trailer, but some philanthropist with a heart of gold edited all the parts of this movie that don’t have Nic Cage in them, out. In this clip: (but I’ll warn you, this movie sucks and you probably shouldn’t bother). Its my inclination to look down my nose at whoever took the time to edit that, but like a famous Kraut once said, when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you. I spent about 3 minutes trying to pause the screen and properly capture pictures of Cage wiggling his eyebrows tonight. So that would make me the pot throwing hurtful allegations at the kettle. (BTW, do black pots actually exist? I’ve maybe seen a black roasting pan.. isn’t everything shiny?)
It starts off with a quote from noted luminary and proud father, George Herbert Walker Bush. Full disclosure, I thought it was George Hiram Walker Bush, then I remembered the only person on God’s green earth with the name Hiram is Mr. Lodge. I experienced mixed emotions when searching for that image, I was relieved that I wasn’t confronted with a barrage of incestuous illustrations, then strangely offended for Hiram, why have the perverts given him the short end of the stick? Egads!
Bush is talking about how America is going to take the gloves off and go in and fight drug cartels. Cocaine, you’re in trouble! Helicopters! So it opens with a shady and mysterious pilot…
Hmm… looks pretty ordinary… reasonably striking profile… gazing in the distance.. if only there was some light….
EVERY GODDAMN MOVIE HE DOES THIS. hides in the shadows, gazing pensively, then boom, looks into camera and the hero is revealed. Ok so they’re dicking around in Latin America, as the USA is wont to do, with consistently excellent results, when…. SCORPION! and I don’t mean this guy! Although he is equally swarthy and latin. It’s this bro!
He blows up some choppers and Nic is upset, gives some briefing about revenge to some stuffed suits who like his moxie. For some reason the drug cartels have decided they need a mercenary chopper attack pilot to protect them, given how expensive those choppers are it seems like an awful lot of fucking eggs in one basket. You know how normal people deal with choppers they don’t like? They shoot them with rocket launchers. Relatively cheap, you can just hide in a mountain or whatever. Afghanistan v Russia, didn’t they see Rambo III? Or drive a car into them, that works too if you’re Bruce Willis. Rise of Planet Of The Apes, a goddamn gorilla took one down. But hey, sure, go ahead and buy some stupid chopper and hire this dude to fly it.
Tommy Lee Jones is in this and he’s so boring I didn’t even take any pictures of him. Tom Skerrit spits on this performance. He’s the grizzled old great chopper pilot imparting wisdom such as “you’ll be busier than a three peckered goat”. Logistically, I don’t think that goat could handle more than one female goat at a time, so that metaphor is flawed. TLJ also insists on calling it a heeeelocopter. Ugh.
Wouldn’t be a Top Gun ripoff without a poormans Kelly McGillis and Fire Birds does not disappoint.
Laces out! Ebert tells me that her and Nic Cage were an item. Predating Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck a la Gigli it goes to show that real life couples often have zero chemistry on screen. The Nic Cage sexuality ranking later is not going to be pretty. She’s fallen on pretty hard times recently, celebrity rehab shows, making a goddamn fool of herself at awards shows, finally forgiving horses as a species for the time she fell off of one, broke her arm, and lost the part of Vicki Vale in Batman.
Time for a training montage!
THAT IS JUST A LOOP OF WIRE! IT IS NOT TRANSMITTING DATA TO YOUR EYE! lots of stupid video game puns… Nic gets to stretch out and be entertaining in this scene a bit, throwing pearls before swine with this dialogue: Shoot em, Blast em, Nab em, Grab em, Shake em, Bake em, Cook em, Clean em, Hose em[ed: ????], Broil em, Kick em, Nab em, Twist em, ALL GONE BYE BYE!!! He’s more excitable during the training than any other part of the movie.
Time for the trainees to cut loose and let their hair down. Except you, Sean Young.
This guy knows what I’m talking about. Nic claims this bar is likely to be full of scandalous women, and strippers. Showing some much needed respect with that conjunction to the strippers, they’re not all scandalous. Cage knocks out some dude who won’t let him cut in with his babe, she’s not impressed, but he thought “it was pretty cavalier actually”. I’m inclined to agree, despite her protests that she isn’t:
A) a piece of steak to be fought over
B) Jane of the jungle
Not to disparage Nic’s taste in women but I’d rather have a piece of steak or hang out with Jane than Sean Young.
Nic drops some very suggestive eyebrows here, tempted to file it under the sexuality portion of the review but they don’t work out for him so they belong here:
Then there’s some more tragically boring shit with Tommy Lee Jones being old and wishing he was young, he boxes Cage, Cage houses him (he really was pretty jacked back then). Cut to TLJ moaning in bed, his wife teasing him, then TLJ drops this bomb.. “IT’S NOT LIKE MY DICK GOT SHOT OFF… although maybe you should check”. While she’s looking down his pants he drops his OWN EYEBROW WIGGLE! they’re the same! She gets, what I can only assume after the quick cut, a professional seeing-to.
Cage is drinking in a bar, and a news report comes on to remind everyone that cocaine is bad and we should go kill south americans. This is described as a suspected crack house… Eagle-eyed viewers will note the clue:
OK fuck that’s too small but someone spraypainted crack house on the door. Also on the side of the house it says “I can’t live without crack”, kind of a cool way to let people know about your hobbies!
There’s some really lame shit about Nic having the wrong eye dominance for the stupid loop of wire that doesn’t do anything, so he almost fails training because he can’t focus with his right eye. Time for hijinx to train that eye!
What you see here, is the stupidest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen. To train himself to use his other eye, he is driving a car with a periscope attached to his head. At various points of the scene the viewing part of the periscope finds itself nestled next to his nose, on his cheek, and on his forehead. Even when it is where his eye would be, THE PANTIES (their commanding officer’s wife’s panties, it is hilariously revealed when she drives up next to them… how… why…. is the only purpose so that Cage’s buddy can crack “I always told you, you looked great in red panties”. It’s not that funny) ARE OVER BOTH HIS FUCKING EYES!! you know what you’d do to train your eye? WEAR A NORMAL EYEPATCH ALL DAY. you don’t need to drive you certainly don’t need a periscope, and at no point should the undergarments of your employer’s wife enter into the equation.
He takes Sean Young out into a weird abandoned mansion where they drink wine and have some of the worst sex committed to screen. To be discussed later. Then they find out oh man it’s finally time to kill some evil drug dealers! In Argentina! Wait… what? So to Nic’s chauvanistic chagrin, the girl is on the mission as a scout! How to respond… how to respond…. yell? good… but need to bring some physicality into things.. throw off your not even mirrored cheap ass shades?
No, not in the budget… some sort of physical demonstration….
ANGRY HIGH KICK!!! Then there’s some really stupid shit, TLJ and Cage talk about how they joined the army to be heroes and kick ass (really) and while they’re verbally fellating (definition: to perform fellatio (on a man), what no love for transgendered? check yourself dictionary, it’s 2012!) each other, SNEAK ATTACK! But Japan is so far away??? NO it’s the mercanary! they go up in the air, long story short, TLJ crashes, girl goes to check him out, he sighs “both my legs are broke” with all the emotion of someone who got a “SORRY TRY AGAIN” on a $2 scratch ticket. She pulls the missle off the helicopter and shoots it like an RPG and blows up a jet. She says “snort that sucker”. Ah yes, cocaine. I totally forgot, although the people they’re killing are mercenaries, the drug dealers all surrender once their helicopter and jet are shot down. MAYBE JUST BUY SOME GUNS AND ROCKET LAUNCHERS NEXT TIME BOYS. Is shooting a missile from a grounded chopper off your shoulder possible? i don’t know and I don’t care. Cage shoots his nemesis. This movie sucks. The end.
Nic Cage Sexuality: 3/10.
He does have sex, but it’s with this woman
And when they do she keeps that facial expression the whole time but closes her eyes and does that thing where she’s sitting in his lap and puts her chin on the top of his head a bunch while grinning. Yeah, that old scorcher, keep that one in the arsenal ladies! How does he get her there? Ohhhh he interrupts her doing her laundry by sliding along the floor like a 10 year old boy
tells her she looks sexy in that skirt, she’s not impressed… what does a guy have to do to get a woman’s affection on this army base?
Oh yeah, wait til she’s leaving then notify her that you stole her underwear. She tells him “you can keep those” and he is super happy about it. Gross.
Clearly the studio felt there was no chemistry between them so there are lots of lines of ‘witty banter’ that were recorded in post production and added in over shots of them getting into helicopters (NO HELICOPTER NOISE, they would have to be screaming in each other’s faces, and driving around). Lines crackling with erotic passion during their training flight such as: “i’ve got a spectacular view of your tail” “Oh, you’re my scout? perfect.. you only have eyes for me” “You look like you’d like me on top” “your brains are in your cockpit” “get a hold of myself? Don’t worry darling, I’ve got a really good hold of myself”. After the lesson on eye dominance he says “i learned something else about dominance” and steals a smooch! this immediately leads to sex. In the post coital bliss he says “i know a great creek around here where we can swim sans clothes” YOU ALREADY HAVE HER NAKED why do you want to risk wildlife??? This movie sucks
Nic Cage Race Relations: 3/10. The start of the movie is him training some South Americans, teaching them how to fly helicopters to look around for drug dealers. They are all played by white dudes… but hey look out..
He could be latino! Regardless he gives a really impassioned speech about the bravery of these nondescript latin country army guys fighting evil cartels and how much he is their friend and how badly he wants to kill people. No condescending racial stuff so I can’t really drop him below a 3, but this is one of the only non white people in the movie. There is a black general but he’s only seen on tv.
Nic Cage Freakouts: 4/10. Pretty disappointing. There’s a pretty good one when he’s training but it’s more celebratory than a freakout.
He does make this face when his latin friends are shot down
And he gets all sweaty when his eye dominance doesn’t work out
But mostly he’s calm and confident. Boo. This movie sucks.
Overall: 2/10. Boring and shitty. Siskel & Ebert (mostly Ebert) look awesome and agree
Really came out of the gate hot with Vampire’s Kiss. This one was not fun. And I have Guarding Tess coming up. It looks like a light-hearted romp….?
Vampire’s Kiss
I’m back. And Cage sure as shit didn’t go anywhere, he was right there waiting. I know I said the next movie would be Rumble Fish.. I reviewed it but it’s sitting at home somewhere, that’ll come later. To summarize that movie, Mickey Rourke is really cool and really sweaty, Diane Lane is a stone cold fox, fish are colourful, and heavy handed West Side Story allusions are lame. I’ll expand on that later. Let’s focus on this cinematic delight. Here is the trailer, but don’t fret. There are far better clips available on the internet, which really let this performance breathe.
CLICK ONE PICTURE AND THEY ALL GET BIG
They don’t make them like they used to. Nic made this right after his star-making turn in Moonstruck. I guess he was hell bent on destroying any good will he built up with female audiences in that performance. He mentioned not wanting to be a pin-up after his experience working on The Boy In Blue (still sitting at home.. I’ll get to it) So he apparently embarked on a quest to make a rape trilogy, first this, then the safari/rape tour of Africa that was Time To Kill. I haven’t seen Fire Birds yet, it looks like Top Gun, but shitty and with helicopters. I’m guessing no rape there, but Zandalee might be the Return of the Jedi of the forced sex triumverate.
It’s going to be tough to get through the summary before the sexuality, race relations and freak-outs. The entire film is pretty much all three rolled into a delicious sexy inter-racial freak-out.
We begin with shots of the NYC skyline (no twin towers, did the director have some information in 1989 that we don’t?) There are some rad synths appropriating spooky moans, and you know you’re in for a treat. A clunky name comes on screen, Maria Conchita Alonso aka the luckiest female Edward James Olmos alive, as she got to share the silver screen with Arnie in The Running Man and Cage in this! Making Venezuela proud!
The movie opens with some barely intelligible mumbling, something about getting a woman coffee. Cut to Nic lying on a therapist’s couch pouring his heart out
What a natural normal way to sit, holding your face by the nose like a waiter about to lift a lid off of a fancy dish! He eventually rolls toward the camera and gives the full face
Does he do this in every movie? Is it in the contract that his face has to be somewhat obscured then dramatically revealed in the first 30 seconds? Anyway another important thing to notice is this performance falls smack dab in the middle of what I like to call his silly voice years. Clearly the director was afraid of him, he’s pretty much doing whatever the fuck he wants in this movie, and that includes deciding to pronounce words so that you becomes yeeeeewwww. Someone described it as a shitty Zoolander impersonation and I’d say that’s about right. It’s not on the level of his voice in Peggy Sue Got Married but it’s in the neighbourhood. He goes to a very diverse bar, great care is given to displaying jolly inter-racial couples (including black men with white women, which never happens in movies, even today, Hitch was supposed to be Will Smith and Cameron Diaz but they had to recast because America wasn’t ready) Nic picks up a woman from the bar, takes her home, sexy times, but who should interrupt?
Yup. A floating obese hairy piglet. There is ZERO chance that creature gets off the ground. He shoos it away, excuse me, sheeeeeeeeews it away. The girl flees, he looks over his shoulder and gives a really coy, demure, come-hither look and brushes his hair out of his face.
This is a compilation of, contrary to the title of the youtube clip, SOME of the best scenes. The sheewing and the sexy bat look are included. He goes to work, is a weird jerk to his secretary. Then goes to therapy and talks about how that weird moment with the bat was arousing. He makes sure to mention that while he was previously in the throes of passion with a woman, he lost his erection “in mortal combat [ed: even though it’s right, that just looks wrong] mortal kombat with a bat” but then wow, it totally came back. The therapist and I both make this face when he tries to change the subject. MORE BAT AROUSAL!
He meets Jennifer Beals in a bar, right up there with Phoebe Cates as far as babes of the 80s are concerned. How to win her heart? Oh, I’d probably go with a completely naturalistic introduction, maybe ask her to explain a joke someone else made, compliment her earrings, introduce yourself and shake her hand in a completely normal way. Or, you know, hold your hand out like you’re the pope and you need your ring kissed. Either option.
She is charmed, but oh shit, Vampire! She bites him, but… totally worth it.
He now goes back to the therapist and doesn’t want to talk about the bat boner. Explains it away with one of the finer lines of the movie “I guess I was pretty horny, keyed up. Drunk. Plus I was horny” From the woman, not from the flying hairy muppet worm. Mind your BIZ therapist! She makes the same rad face. He’s going along with his new life, there is a mime couple outside miming dancing, followed by domestic abuse. Foreshadowing?
My that female mime has the shoulders of a swimmer. Or perhaps more accurately, the shoulders of Nic Cage after doing those upside down prison pushups in Con Air.
They replay the EXACT same scene of Beals sucking his blood, maybe Beals did something inappropriate during the love scene and Nic didn’t want to submit himself to more ball-brushes or inappropriate tugging.
We descend into some insane freaking out at work that I’ll get to later, Nic smokes what looks to me like a louisville slugger disguised as a cigarette. Maybe it’s just the way that 0% of it is actually in his mouth. Again the lesson from Nic Cage movies: Smoking. Looks cool. Is cool.
He freaks out some more (that famous nic cage losing his shit video, goes to the Vampire’s Kiss well early and often) He nonchalantly picks up a woman’s desk toy stuffed animal thing and throws it in the garbage, she comments “what an eccentric”. You can just say asshole, he’s not in the room anymore. Lots more freaking out, screams at his latina secretary Alva, chases her into the womens bathroom screaming at her (she’s supposed to find some file) and later he and his bosses laugh about his enthusiasm for filing. She calls in sick, he goes to her house, lures her in with chicken soup and a truce, then breaks out the cunt-bomb on the cab ride back. The ol chicken-soup/cunt switcheroo, got to keep your secretary on her toes!
I’m going to stop saying freaking out, because that’s the whole rest of the movie. He’s in the bathroom (mens this time) and there is some amazing extra work being done by a man ostensibly shitting. Except this man is basically tap dancing, bouncing his shoes around. Very weird. He hears Cage carrying on, and drops another great line “I’m trying to take a dump, so take your acting lessons back home, or go back into the ladies room” Sensible advice dancing pooper, sensible advice.
After a sexual assault on Alva, he tries to shoot himself, but oops just blanks. Maybe I’ll do something with my hair?
I think Javier Bardem saw this haircut before No Country For Old Men. He buys some plastic vampire teeth that look great, hits a night club (apparently in NYC all you have to do to get in is punch the one ponytailed bouncer in the stomach once and just run in. He definitely won’t follow you in and beat the shit out of the idiot with vampire teeth.) There is a ridiculous montage of women dancing, I guess it’s supposed to be their necks looking tempting but it’s really just 45 seconds of big 80s boobs with their necks sort of in frame up at the top somewhere. Got to pay the piper, give something for the fellas what with all the pre-R Pattinson sexy vampire action for the ladies.
He murders a woman through some very persistent throat biting (Patrick Swayze from Roadhouse would have been in and out of there in 2 seconds [relevant throat action at 3:12]) How does he select his prey? Well, apparently in 1989 if you wanted to do some cocaine you just chilled by yourself with a little vial in plain sight. Doing blow off the toilet seat is so 21st century, in the 80s they had a little thing called class.
He runs into Beals post murder, and Beals bails, says she’s not a vampire. Hurtful! He runs around a bunch, meanwhile Alva’s bro finds out about the… rape? Brother and sister have a rad stakeout outside his place waiting for the rapist to come home! It looks like exactly as much fun as this. (is there anything better than 90s Rosie?) He comes home, walks into a wall (he actually really sells it, I think he probably hurt himself) talks to his therapist but nope it’s just a wall. He confesses to the rape and murder, she says it’s just a little id release, nothing to worry about. She hooks him up with another patient named Sharon, a very sexy name, yet she’s in a turtleneck. 
This is his relieved face after he finds out his rape has been excused. So he walks to his apartment dragging his big wooden stake (earlier he was asking randoms to kill him, NBD) then he starts grabbing his cock, calling Sharon a C you next Tuesday and goes into his coffin (his black sofa upside-down). Alva’s bro comes in, tells him to get up, Nic holds the stake over his stomach, Alva’s bro obliges and pushes down, killing him. Happy ending though, he gets to picture this as he dies.
On to the rankings:
Nic Cage Sexuality: 6/10. There is this, from his pre-vampire times:
Mmmm… sexy armpit. There is some weird contortion he does where he manages to get his foot into this shot too. Flexibility, the mark of a creepy lover. Not to mention the bat arousal. He also creeps on Alva while she’s ironing in high waisted jeans (love those) and a weird bra, and then there is the rape scene. She says “please don’t rape me” and while it didn’t seem like it was his intention while chasing her around, he just wanted his filing done, he decides it sounds like a good idea. Although he just slaps her and then kisses her once while she’s out cold, and all her clothes are still on. But it’s referred to as a rape by her, and him, so hey, rape. Frankly I’m happy to be spared the gnarly legs forced apart debacle of the last movie. As far as rapists that kiss you once and leave your clothes on go, you could do worse than this:
Hey he feels bad! So she waits a couple days before telling her bro. There’s also the scene with Beals (or, what seems more likely, a body double with fake boobs, go back and look at what’s going on with that weird squished breast). Mostly the sexuality marks come from that fuck me eyes look he deploys at the bat.
Nic Cage Race Relations: 8/10. He’s hanging out at the bar with his two bros
But then he’s not interested in their finance chat or jokes. Racist? NO! he goes on to the NAACP award winning Jennifer Beals! Also his first love interest is African American:
AND SHE HAS THE BEST FUCKING TASTE IN HATS OF ALLLLL TIME
Even though he dogs her and ditches her in the museum after dropping “I gotta take a piss”. Then when she calls him and puts him on blast he replies (to his empty apartment) with “fuck you sister”. Not cool bro. Later on when he’s freaking out about a crucifix, he gives his groceries to a black guy.
Can’t really give him full marks for that though, had to dock one actually, that gentleman is well to do, he’s clearly an athlete with leather sleeves and it’s offensive to assume he needs your groceries, jerk. Although maybe he plays in the NCAA aka is a slave and can’t get paid, so maybe it’s not so bad? Anyway , lots of diversity in this movie. His treatment of his latina secretary is absolutely shocking however, when he’s trying to be nice and relatable he tells her he’s been weird because he was on mescalin. Rude to assume latinas are familiar with hallucinogens, except she says “oh I did that once in high school” Oh, casual high school use of one of the most powerful hallucinogens in the world. NBD. It’s also not really that common! Maybe down Venezuela way. but at least she got hired! He also buys his fake teeth from an 80s classic, the inscrutable asian occult store! I think this is where Hoyt Axton bought the Gremlins! So lots of diversity, not too nice to some of them… but he’s not really nice to anyone. Equality!
Nic Cage Freakouts: 10/10. Tempting to give it something stupid like 17/10 but I don’t believe in marks higher than 100%. This movie… I’ll just let these pictures speak for me:
OH AND HE EATS A FUCKING ROACH. FOR REAL. A REAL ROACH. HE ATE IT. FOR THIS STUPID FUCKING MOVIE.
That is his “maybe this method acting shit is kind of stupid” face.
Just watch that clip of the best scenes from the movie again, they’re all the freakout scenes. I can’t even… I can’t even begin to describe them. His performance… again the director must have been terrified of him, or Cage refused to do more than one take. That picture of him with the teeth is him prowling for a victim in the club. The eyes.. is from this scene. I can’t even…. I can’t…
Just watch it.
Overall 7/10. The movie would be fucking terrible with anyone else. It’s really weird and wouldn’t be terribly thrilling, it’s just about a crazy person. But Cage elevates it into something beautiful. It’s too long (hour and 43 minutes) but the experience is like soccer… lots of slow buildup with glorious highs. Recommend!
This just arrived in the mail…. reviews will be starting up again soon, I did some on site research for The Rock in San Fran. Get excited.
TIME TO KILL
I needed to put some distance between me and this VHS ‘classic’. Watching it felt like going on a long hike away from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Never before has the feature that displays the remaining time on the VCR been so frequently used and questioned out loud in disbelief. I am a man who watched The Proposal, My Sister’s Keeper, Imagine That, and Hannah Montana: The Movie back to back without complaint, and timed bathroom breaks to coincide with credits. And this movie tested my patience. (OK maybe I complained a little bit during Imagine That, I lost my sound in the headphones. The in-flight help was very professional). I knew this would be bad going in, based on the subject matter, and what few reviews existed of this direct to video gem.
Normally I would link to the trailer here. But one does not exist, at least not on the internet. I bet I could have cobbled together 30 seconds of intriguing footage. My trailer would be mercifully rape-free… the same could not be said for the full length feature (that’s what they call a hook ladies and gentlemen)
From the opening credits… I was pretty bummed. I made this face. (C/FP was Cineplex/Famous Players which became Lions Gate.. which now releases the Saw movies. how far we’ve come!) Why was the guy who made this music working on this awful mess? He didn’t really bring his A game.
The movie opens, like so many of Nic’s do (contractual obligation?) with a slow reveal of Cage… he’s seen in the shadows and heard in a half whisper.. then more… is it… could it be? So this movie is set in Somalia, just pre WWII, and is there a riper period or time for Italian hijinks? What will this movie be about?
Nic Cage has a fucking toothache and is NOT waiting for the dentist. Colour me compelled! He heeds no warning about rebels, his tooth distress must be tended to at once! Hitches a ride with a suspected paedophile [ed note: suspected by me]. There is a very distracting naked white baby mixed in with Africans.. (Even if my porcelain ass was running around Somalia nude for a morning it would not look like that by noon) The driver crashes, blames Nic. Nic is flustered and his hair does magical things.
His hair is an example of the old adage, is it better to burn out or fade away? Nic’s hair clearly went the Kurt Cobain route. So alive and crackling with raw power while it was here, mocking everyone with its pure talent and doing things no one else could dream of. Spawned a legion of imitators as well.
This movie features a lot of long lingering shots of Nic looking moodily out on the Somalian landscape. Sometimes with voiceover. He’s wandering around the desert on painkillers and makes his way down a shortcut.
How did he agree to do this movie? Felt a debt to his native country? I don’t know if this was filmed on location, but it was filmed somewhere that looks fucking hot and shitty. Every other actor is either black or a SUPER Italian dude. Hey, do you want to fly across the world, sweat for 4 months, hang out with Africans (while you make a movie about raping and mistreating them) and Italians? The man was just sharing a set with Cher! Maybe he committed some horrible crime and he felt he needed to atone…
He is wandering around, at least managing to look cool smoking and waving a gun around. He finds an iguana and gives it a cigarette. (that is a video clip. the only video from this movie on the internet). Bored with giving the local wildlife lung cancer, he happens upon a watering hole.
This whole encounter will be filed with a grimace under sexuality… although it might be a double entry with race relations… to be determined.
After their… encounter… the happy couple is settling in for the night. The narration informs us that when he gave her a pair of army shorts “i had the queasy feeling she was putting on a wedding ring”.
Settles in for the night… damnit no have to skip that part too, that’ll be in freakouts.
His bride is dead. He goes back to camp, gets his tooth pulled, cooks up a story.. then he gets drunk with his boss and a friend. The boss sets up one of the best pranks you can pull on a friend… send him over to hit on a girl… oh but wait… the girl has leprosy! Belly laughs all around! Nic starts thinking maybe his girl had leprosy, it was all so passionate and quick… who could be sure?
He goes crazy (i’m skipping so much but this was horrible) and talks to a military doctor about a guy in a novel he’s writing, tells his exact story. The doctor asks him if he thinks anyone will publish this book… he says no probably not no one would be interested. THAT IS THE PLOT OF THIS MOVIE! and it’s not even fit for a book? The person responsible for the screenplay has some self esteem issues. I wish I was watching A Time To Kill. He then decides he has leprosy, and thinks the doctor is on to him. He is not. The doctor goes into his tent and nic decides to fire a couple of rounds from his luger into his medicine cabinet, then run away.
He wanders around some more. Some really boring shit happens. He tries to sneak home to Italy to his wife. He thinks he has leprosy, but wants to go to Italy anyway. He wanders around the desert, goes to the hut of his bride’s dad, apologizes and looks sad, then finds out she never had leprosy, shows the dad her body, and goes back to Italy to his wife! Then when he’s talking with his buddy on the boat, it shifts to his BUDDY doing narration, and it’s basically some whining about how they never got to go home and relax from their hard schedule of raping Africans and getting toothaches, they had to go to war. Boo Hoo.
On to the rankings:
Nic Cage Sexuality: 9/10. But it’s not the good kind of sexuality. No sir, no it’s not. Not unless you consider Jodie Foster on a pinball machine to be ‘good’. Fucking hell I was going to put a link to that awful scene from The Accused, which would have been in terrible taste anyway, but the first thing that came up when i googled it was “Jodie Foster Hot Rape Scene”. God. Serves me right I suppose. No link!
Anyway rape is awful to watch in movies and this is no different.
Add in the fact that it’s a foreign army raping a local citizen and it’s a bit worse, not to trivialize poor Jodie. Also the fact that I don’t think the director or screenwriter are really sure it’s a rape.
Nic finds a swimming hole. First order of business, slick back that fucking hair. This is a bit of a tradition for Nic in his wild-haired days. With his hair out of his eyes he is able to spot a nice local woman. Never swim without a buddy. Ask the woman for directions. When she doesn’t understand you, make your move. Lack of communication is very arousing to Africans. Unsure his romantic intentions are clear, the camera zooms in on him making this face for a few seconds. Then it stopped being funny and I stopped taking pictures.
It was like the scene in A Time To Kill actually. girl’s legs being forced apart etc. Pretty deplorable. Then after the fact, she’s merrily accepting shorts. He follows up this war crime by doing something worse than any rape. Jamming a pen into an egg and loudly sucking out the contents.
Nic Cage Race Relations: 1/10. Not so good here.. not exactly extending the olive branch. The above rape, lots of comments about not knowing if Africans are religious or just having some sort of crazy picnic. Guilt totally melted away when he finds out she wasn’t a leper, a bit of irritation with the old man who looks like Sameul L from A Time To Kill. YES THEY DESEREVED TO DIE AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELLLLLL. (one of the best lines from a trailer ever). The local prozzies are quite friendly with him, but they’re probably just nice girls to everyone.
Nic Cage Freakouts: 8/10. This is a movie about struggles with guilt and madness, so he really gets to shine here. Lots of wild-eyed Cage, who I really enjoy.
So to get back to what he does after he settles in with his new maybe bride. He’s relaxing and smoking and being cool, hanging out in a cave, wondering how long he has to hang out with this annoying broad he raped, when he sees the most fearsome animal in all of Africa. Maybe he just hates Whoopi Goldberg in the Lion King. He fires about 4 shots from his gun…. in a cave…. oh no! Deflected bullet in the guts of his bride. What to do what to do….
Blanket over the face and bullets in the brain?
Blanket over the face… and bullets in the brain.
Rape victims are so much less fun to hang out with when they have a gutshot wound.
This movie is terrible.
Overall 2/10. It is at least about a sort of weird part of history I’d never thought about, but it’s also full of Italians. There is more hand acting in this movie than in anyhing I have ever seen. I think if you made Italian actors wear straightjackets they would go insane and headbutt each other to death. They flail their arms around like the Hindu Goddess Kali. Next movie is Rumble Fish…. It was better.
MOONSTRUCK
To trot out a tired trope.. Tom Hanks I’ma let you finish but MOONSTRUCK IS THE BEST ROMANTIC COMEDY OF ALL TIME. (Not going to lie, pretty proud of that alliteration). I had seen this as a young man and remember not hating it, remarkable for a lighthearted romantic comedy, when I surely would rather have been watching Resevoir Dogs, Commando, or this. Reviews for movies I liked are a bit harder to write.. kind of dreading trying to review Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans or Adaptation… tempting to just write 10/10 see it and leave it at that. But I guess I should try to be convincing.
Here’s the trailer.. Tough to argue with youtube commenter cellulitelove who contribues: “Purrrrr young hottie nicholas cage”. There’s no h in Nicolas. Philistine. I wonder, does cellulitelove have cellulite, or just love it in others? Mystery for the ages.
I keep going back to the Ebert well, but he gave it 4 stars and said Cage should have won an Oscar. Not sure if he’d be supporting or lead… Michael Douglas in Wall Street was great.. but holy shit Sean Connery actually won for The Untouchables? Good lord.. For anyone who says the Oscars are irrelevant now, they’ve always been out of touch, giving actors awards for shitty movies because they should have won earlier when they were doing good movies, but back then they were too busy giving awards to other washed up chumps who were in good movies ten years before that.
BTW Nic Cage in Adaptation losing to Adrian Brody for Pianist… ugh. How hard is it for that guy to look sad and hungry? I think it was Bill Simmons that said we should wait 5 years and then give the awards out. I think it’s a great idea, maybe that way good movies would be spread out more as opposed to all logjammed at the end of the year to be fresh in the voters minds… Anyway this isn’t really a review…
To the movie. Cher is going the Charlize in Monster, Cameron in Being John Malkovich route. This is the result. Grey hair and a bun? What an unlovable monster! She deserves to marry Bruce Willis’ singing sidekick from Hudson Hawk! (that scene will blow your mind if you haven’t seen it… the context is, they’re both robbers, and to keep time, instead of watches, they SING. Because why would you want to be quiet when you’re robbing someone). Here he is looking handsome.
She catches Danny snickering at Frasier’s Dad, who is a creepy prof, and his young girlfriend throws a drink in his face. “A man who cannot control his woman is funny to me”. That would make an awesome Valentines Day card.
She hangs out with her family, receives homespun wisdom from her mom, boils down to “don’t marry someone you love, they’ll just hold it over you and make you miserable. marry someone you can stand”. Bleak advice.
Sidebar: Nia Vardalos must have watched this movie a billion times. It’s painfully obvious that this deplorable shitfest wanted desperately to be Moonstruck. Ethnic family comedy! I won’t delve in to the likability of Italians vs Greeks, both have their strong suits and failings. The group of young Italians I encountered in Munich at Oktoberfest damaged their country’s international reputation irreversibly.. but no one from Italy has made a movie as offensively horrible as this one. Which I watched all of on a plane. It makes My Big Fat Greek Wedding look like Citizen Kane.
Her husband to be leaves the country to be with his dying mother, and assigns Cher the task of inviting his estranged brother… a surly baker. Enter Cage. He hates his brother because he caused him to lose his hand. I don’t know why he’s mad, his replacement looks sweet. (apparently this is an homage to the movie Metropolis that Cage insisted be put in… probably not too many romantic comedy fans that watch silent German movies from 1927, but that’s Nic).
The reasoning for this brother hatred is a little weird, but he gives a great speech and gets emotional, which causes a cool ass single tear scene from the bakery girl. Cher isn’t so impressed and wants to talk despite being told to kick rocks.
Sexuality ensues, will tend to that garden later…
Her grandfather lives upstairs with a bunch of old dogs. One of the very endearing things about this movie is the way extreme violence is threatened at a constant rate, in unusually specific ways. Examples include “Old man, you feed one more bite of my food to those dogs, and I will kick you to death”, and later Cher asks for a rock so she can beat herself to death. (Nic does the same thing in Valley Girl).
I was devastated to learn this old man is not this old man.
Cher agrees to go to the opera with Nic, and not since THIS became THAT have I been so floored… BAM. Cage cleans up a bit too. I’m skipping over it because it’s good, whatever I’m not describing the plot anymore just see it.
Also, the twin towers really pop in this scene… almost highlighted. But the memorial tower is going to be better than the towers, just like Rollerball 2002 is better than Rollerball 1975.
Nic Cage Race Relations: 0/10. No other races in the movie, unless you count Cher’s confusing ‘italian’ accent which really just sounds Jewish. But I can’t.
I would give points for the interracial couple at the Opera, but Cage isn’t even on screen here.
Nic Cage Sexuality: 7/10. Only one real sex scene to speak of, but he nails it. Passionate table flipping, followed by a firm slick back of the hair, then picks her up and announces “to the bed”. She’s won over. Then later you get a rare look at his back tattoo.
Did some research on this back tattoo. After making Boy In Blue he didn’t want to be “just a beefcake” so he got a lizard on his back. (lizards pop up in Bad Lieutenant and Time To Kill very memorably). He was leaving the tattoo shop and thought it was pretentious and stupid, so he put a top hat and a cane on the lizard, and gave him a wax flute to eat. All traces of stupidity vanished.
Also of note. After he throws Cher on the bed, both wearing clothes, both their hands are in the shot, yet he begins thrusting. Either he has a prehensile penis like a monkey’s tail, or it’s razor sharp. Either way, wow. (No way it’s just passionate dry humping). Cher is described as having the eyes of a gypsy. I agree.
This is going to be a pretty contentious point of view but Cher is really hot. I know she’s had tons of surgery etc, but she’s legit very attractive… Shoutout to Christine Tam, photoshop wizard, who arranged this thought provoking picture for me. Both women unfairly and incorrectly criticized for being ugly.. Gaga moreso… I carry a torch for each. Also I think they look pretty similar. Cher should complain more than Madonna! Her face is getting swagger jacked!
Nic Cage Freakouts: 3/10. He’s a passionate man in this movie, but never really freaks out, just yells “get in my bed”. Seems to work for him…
Overall… 10/10. Keep in mind it’s a rating based on the context of what the movie is. For a romantic comedy, I can’t think of a better one. So it gets a ten. I made this face when it was over. (not actually).
The next movie coming up is so confusing and terrible and rapey… full of digital phots of paused VHS screens. Time To Kill… look forward to it.
BEST OF TIMES
This appears in Nic Cage’s IMDb profile. I’m really not sure why. I coudln’t find it on ebay, and it was never actually a movie but a TV pilot that failed and was never picked up. I’m not going to do a full review because
1) It’s not a movie
2) I haven’t seen it
But I thought I’d put it up here anyway. Here’s a longer clip (skip to about 2:30 for the nic cage stuff… it is hilarious). What is not hilarious is the commentary added by the uploader. Farbeit for me to cast stones at a fellow Cageologist, without whom I woudln’t be able to enjoy this footage.. but making jokes at the expense of shut-ins? An awkward comment about needing to wipe your ass after watching this? (so you made it, but it’s feces, and now you need charmin? Or watching it makes you feel like you recently defecated? Upon any examination that joke falls apart. Also it’s CLEARLY for paper towels, and not toilet paper, but so eager was he to bring up ass wiping he forced the joke anyway.)
Still worth watching for the jean shorts and the frantic weird performance. Also he gets the only serious moments in the entire show. I didn’t realize how close Americans came to whipping down to El Salvador!
RACING WITH THE MOON
Alarm bells are ringing. This is where it starts to get a little bit tough. This was basically a lifetime movie of the week, but with a strong (male) cast. Sorry Elizabeth McGovern. She even gets needlessly naked and still didn’t win me over. The star is a young Sean Penn. An actor I go back and forth on (he can be incredible and nuanced… but he was in I Am Sam). He does bring a lot of necessary attention towards Haiti, but manages to be pretty annoying while he does it. (Riding around after Hurricane Katrina in a canoe, he was the only one in a bulletproof vest and had a personal photographer). But one thing’s for sure, good god damn does he make smoking look cool.
Here is the trailer
Him and Nicolas Cage were drinking buddies apparently. Also Johnny Depp lived on Nic’s couch in his apartment, which he had painted black and neon green. That probably would have made for some pretty weird after-parties. I’m stalling because this movie was pretty boring.. I guess I’ll get to it.
Stalling slightly.. when I go to the trouble of getting my VCR off the shelf and renting a VHS I at LEAST want some god damn 80s trailers for completely forgotten movies to watch! Something like this maybe (not 80s I know but it’s the first trailer that popped into my head. also, I like the youtube comment “Denzel is 10 times a better actor than russell crowe or any white actor for that matter”.) So it just got right to the movie.
It opens with Sean Penn playing classical piano to an approving instructor and a sad looking dog. Then he starts playing rock n’ roll and the instructor is scandalized and the fucking dog contributes a reaction shot. Ugh. Then Sean starts walking down the street, starts pretending to play football with himself (foreshadowing I Am Sam) and BAM. Another fucking dog reaction shot. Complete in both cases with an ArooOOOO questioning dog sound effect. Obviously the director of a certain long running family drama studied this technique closely.
Right about now I’m wishing I would allow myself to fastforward these things, but I’m a completionist. When is Cage going to appear? Will he be a lanky lean panther or good lord are those papier mache arms? They work in a bowling alley, a noble pursuit, back before pins could set themselves up automatically. Nic is immediately trying to set up a double date, so he’s basically setting the stage for his role from Birdy. But this movie is worse. Him and Sean are chatting it up, but some asshole is determined to fuck up their day. A bully keeps throwing the ball at them when they’re standing back there, trying to break their ankle.
Obviously he’s picking on Sean and not Jake The Snake Roberts, but what kind of asshole would assault a lowly service worker? George McFly from Back To The Future!!! Unbelievable! He was in a tv pilot with Nic Cage before his movie career that never got picked up… Hollywood is so incestuous. I could actually do a blog on Crispin Glover.. appeared in the best Friday the 13th by FAR.. and he has a fucking insane album (if you only ever click one link in my article make it that one) He also famously got banned for Letterman for trying to kick him in the face in one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever seen in my life. Find it yourself if you care. Back to the movie.
Sean and Nic are going to go off to enjoy World War II, and this is the story of what they do while they’re still boys, not yet men. (I’d rather be watching Crossroads).
Sean meets McGovern at a movie, is a massive creep and rides on the back of the bus she gets on til she gets off, and follows her home to a fancy house. She must be rich. And Sean must be mentally planning out a quiet spot in the forest to murder her, judging by the look on his face while peers in from the back of the bus. He keeps calling her a Gatsby girl. I should probably read that instead of watching mediocre 80s movies.
There’s a stupid scene where Penn asks McGovy out, she sets him up with her friend instead. He embarrasses himself at the roller skating rink (T.I would have banged her in the bathroom after 10 minutes, if his skating in the film ATL is anything to go on). She likes him anyways, and then the girl she set him up with and her date go off together arm in arm. They are cousins.
Sean later, in a ‘tender moment’ reveals he’s a great piano player and seduces her by playing this. What’s sexy about Tom Hanks having the brain of a child? Gross.
Focusing on Nic, skipping stupid romance.. The, as Ebert put it, “chubby girl” he’s taken up with (those in glass houses Rog) gets pregnant. The movie takes sort of a pro-life stance, although it’s understandable as abortions in the 40s, even the “clean ones in Cleveland” were probably not a lot of fun. Sample dialog “Why are you riding me, I’m paying for it. NO! SHE’S THE ONE PAYING FOR IT”. Ugh. For interests sake, the price of an a-bomb in this movie is $150, EXACTLY the same cost as an abortion in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Guess being legal brought the costs down.
They embark on an ill-advised attempt to raise money, hustling pool. Who do they decide to hustle? 4 Navy Men. (Nic is actually awesome here, he’s the one doing the talking and luring them in.. it’s a scene done many times, but he has his own spin and it’s pretty funny). I had no idea Navy men were so sensitive to jibes about their time on ships affecting their balance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pool hustling scene go well, except for Eric Camden.
Sean’s girlfriend doesn’t appreciate him making jokes about dying, so she makes him come to a hospital where a man with great taste asks him if he has any Dashiell Hammett. It’s none other than Resevoir Dogs’ Mr. Blonde!!!
For some reason the four of them all go to get this girl an abortion (what a fun road trip). Sean and McGovy don’t even know her, maybe Sean brings her because she’s been naughty. So while she’s getting it done, Nic is boozing behind the wheel and marvels “$150 bucks a pop, probably another girl coming in at eleven, this is quite a little business”. Never too early to start thinking about what to do with that soldier’s salary when you come home! He’s scolded for not even getting the door, and being drunk the whole time. Later he atones for this by showing up at her house. This isn’t shown on camera but “she’s doing good”. All is forgiven!
Sean finds out she’s not rich, loves her anyway, blah blah blah, they decide to miss their train, to alarm their families, then run and catch it and jump on the back! Without luggage? Who cares, it’s over, off to die!
On to the rankings:
Nic Cage Race Relations: 6/10. There is only one black character in the movie. On a drinking bender with Sean, they stumble in to a tattoo parlour. Nic is intent on getting a large bald eagle across his formidable chest. The tattooist won’t do it, at first because he’s drunk. He decides he will do it anyway because he likes this goofy drunk. Then he finds out he has only $1.38. Offers to give him “A sparrow on your elbow, or a snake coming out of your navel”. Good offers both. Nic declines, and later speculates he was a black nazi. So he’s well liked, but the spiteful comment drops him to a 6.
Also the standard relentless comments about being super excited to kill “Japs” but that’s historically accurate I assume and neither here nor there. Getting a little misty when he’s talking about surveying sharks eating japs in the wreckage of a destroyed submarine also prevented me from giving him anything higher than a 6.
Nic Cage Sexuality: 5/10. His character is set up as a ladies man, he gets a girl pregnant, but the only sex scene we get is Sean. (some bare ass if you’re interested, another bygone feature of movies of the past.. Swayze, Van Damme.. not mourning the loss of that, but you get the tat with the tit). It would be a 2/10, but there is an amazing scene after Penn knocks out Crispin Glover. The girl behind Crispin has blood on her dress and Nic, gentleman that he is, offers to clean her up. After some half hearted wiping, he looks away and honks her breast like an old fashioned bike horn. Incredible.
Also the girls lust after Robert Walker. This is Robert Walker. Good time for weird looking dudes to get laid.
He also does a dance… fuck I wish I had the ability to make animated gifs.. it’s unbelievable. I wouldn’t be able to do it off of VHS anyway.. but it involves AGGRESSIVE pelvis thrusting. He claims he invented it and “I like to do it because it gives me great pleasure”
Nic Cage Freakouts: 4/10. I almost have to make a sub-genre or qualifier for this… Drunk freakouts are kind of a cop-out.. but I guess they still count and do actually happen. He gets really concerned about a “nazi dick bomb… one second you’re John Wayne, next minute you’re Minnie Mouse”. Other than that episode…. nothing.
Sidebar on acting: As someone who used to tread the boards, acting drunk is the hardest thing in the world to do well. It’s right up there with fake laughing (which I can’t do AT ALL, which meant shitty tips as a waiter. Forced pained grimaces don’t loosen the purse strings). Being a convincing drunk is challenging. Nowhere is this clearer than in this movie. Since they were drinking buddies I assume they’ve both done it before, but Sean Penn is HORRIBLE in this scene, and Nic is actually pretty convincing.
Overall 4/10. Not terrible, just mediocre. Kind of boring and too long, and the girl was a pain in the ass to watch. There’s a whole thing where she figures out he thinks she’s rich because she lives in a big house, but really her mom is a maid, and she calls him “an idiot” for thinking she’s rich, when she played along with it the whole movie. If you play along with a reasonable assumption, you don’t get to call the person an idiot for taking you at face value, you lame bitch. Nic and Sean, my jibes about drunk acting aside, are noticeably good actors, the material just isn’t that great.
Nic does get to work in his first bit of singing in a movie. Next movie is Moonstruck. Which I fucking loved. It’s in Ebert’s list of all time Great Movies, and I agree wholeheartedly. Between Cher and constantly marvelling over Cage’s arms I know I’m not creating a strong case for myself as a heterosexual male but I don’t care she’s awesome in Moonstruck (and this) and he’s jacked!
BIRDY
Another pleasant surprise. Cage was off to a good run at the start of his career. Sitting at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.. It’s directed by the guy who did Midnight Express and The Commitments (also this). It’s a serious character study Ebert called “a beautiful and strange movie”. It’s well made and very well acted. The two main roles are actually quite difficult to pull off and easily could have been melodramatic and cheesy, but Cage and Modine do great work. Modine would go on to do Full Metal Jacket and Cutthroat Island. Equally good movies. This is actually worth tracking down, although I coudln’t find it on DVD, so I doubt anyone actually will.
I decided I’m just going to go ahead and spoil these movies because no one uses VHS anymore. Anyhow here is the trailer … OK that makes it look WAY more trippy and intense than it is.. .it’s a pretty quiet thoughtful movie.
The movie opens with crazy Modine with his head shaved being a werid bird creature in a hospital room/cell. Cage is on a train, bandagey and sad (still rocking fucked up teeth… I like it). Cuts back to a flashback where the first thing I notice is holy shit look at his goddamn pipes while he swings a bat around. Is Hulk Hogan hiding behind him putting his arms through his vest? Where is the lithe lean panther like Nic Cage I’m used to? Jesus. While I’m still reeling from that, his hair makes an appearance (yes that is the top of my TV at the top of that picture. Yes I took digital photos of my paused VCR for screengrabs. Yes you can nominate me for technological awards) God must exist and he must be spiteful, to bless someone with such great hair only to steal it away at such a young age.
Immediate cut to a very sexual scene of Nic I’ll get to later.
His brother accuses the local weird kid who doesn’t talk of stealing his knife. Nic (wrestling champ) tries to steal it back, is impressed by the kids wiry evasiveness. The kid (Modine) reveals he’s trying to train pigeons to be carrier pigeons. Nic’s brother says he’d buy one if they worked. Despite the fact Nic has all the boobs a man can grab, and a successful high school wrestling career, he immediately becomes fast friends with the weirdo and starts trying to collect pigeons.
Modine makes pigeon suits for both of them to help on their pigeon gathering quest. I guess time is supposed to have passed but this is like 2 minutes after they meet. What was going on in Nic’s life before that he’s so quick to prance around in a bird costume with this weirdo? Birdy (Modine) half falls half jumps on purpose about 3 stories into a pile of sand off a factory roof, trying to fly. Heartfelt reunion.
The movie does a lot of cutting back and forth between present day and flashbacks. So the military doc is trying to figure out why Birdy won’t talk. “we weren’t queer for each other or nothin, just buddies is all. we weren’t jacking each other off or nothing like that”. Me thinks the lady doth protest too much? In all seriousness the doctor is pretty creepy.
Back to flashbacks… here are some people practising to join the Philadelphia Bulldogs, but they’re about 30 years early… beater shorts belt and roller skates is a hot look. More Cage sexuality I’ll get to later. Birdy is not interested and strikes out with his girl. Terrible wingman, his girl runs over to Cage and his girl humping away and tells them to stop. Nic is understandably frustrated and it leads to this INCREDIBLE exchange about breasts:
N: “Don’t you know your chick had huge jugs”
B: “Big deal, they’re just over developed mammary glands”
N: “NO I’m talking about BIG tits. FLESHY tits. FULL tits”
B: “They just get in the way”
N: “They do NOT get in the way, they are needed and necessary”
B: “Who cares? It’s the same as on a cow, but they’re in a stupider place”
Hard to argue with either character, but Nic’s use of fleshy and full as descriptors may push me onto Birdy’s side.
Celeb spotting: Jerry’s dad’s friend from seinfeld plays Nic’s asshole garbageman dad. Billy Crystal’s buddy from When Harry Met Sally (aka mustache hero) plays an orderly. He does not have a mustache in this movie. That’s why he wasn’t getting big parts yet.
There’s a really good scene with Birdy’s dad, who is a high school janitor, his wife left him. He is “the best wicker man in Philly” and still could be, if anyone wanted a wicker chair. Warns his son about the perils of being gifted in something that no one cares about. Very sad and poignant.. Makes me feel for the puppeteers and travel agents of the world.
Then it cuts to a scene featuring a Dom Deluise lookalike trying to catch dogs in a giant net. Turns out the guy isn’t so nice, and they’re going to this weird awful warehouse where they electrocute and butcher all types of animals, horse carcasses and skinned dogs everywhere. Didn’t feel like doing a screengrab. I would say that’s ridiculous but it IS Philadelphia.
Cage has lots of tough monologues to deliver, he’s trying to get his wounded bird friend to act like a person so he doesn’t get locked away in a permanent mental institution. He actually does a phenomenal job. Also there are shots of him working out. I’m to understand the secret to that body is low weights high reps? My photobucket is at the risk of looking like softcore gay porn. (that does not lead to gay porn.) SIDEBAR: does softcore gay porn even exist? I don’t think men are they type to pussyfoot around with that nonsense. I doubt it but I’m not willing to do the research.
There’s a weird subplot where Birdy falls in love??? with a canary. He builds a cage for it and puts a bunk bed on top of it for him to sleep in. He has a dream where he hovers over the bird, then floats into it, becomes one with the bird and flies. He wakes up embarassed.. having had a night ejaculation. Luckily he keeps a rag handy on the headboard, as apparently the total lack of other sexual releases in his life means lots of wet dreams about flying.
I was going to save this for sexuality but it’s not Nic Cage so I’ll burn it now. This girl asks him to go to prom, and she is very attractive. She drives, and drives him out to a makeout spot afterwards. She takes her top off and says “you can take what you want now”. He proceeds to engage in the funniest boob touching I’ve ever seen… poking the bottom of one and lifting it up a bit, like it’s a bag of bulk marzipan he doesn’t particularily like. Link NSFW, but only barely because it’s so blurry.
Also when Nic is trying to bring him back he talks about a statue that looks like it has a boner. This is hilarious. Also I am ten.
So Nic comes in and finds Birdy naked in the bird cage with the canary. He assumes he’s stumbled in drunk after getting laid, pulls up a chair in front of his nude friend and demands “details, lots and lots of details”. Not too excited when he hears about the vaguely sexual flying dream. He leaves annoyed. The bird flies after him, then tries to come back in, but Birdy can’t get the window open… dead bird. It sounds stupid but it was actually really sad.
SPOILER ALERT
OK so at the end Nic is being forced to leave and then when the doctor isn’t in the room Birdy starts to talk. Comes back in and he stops. Leaves and he starts. Is it like Calvin & Hobbes? Birdy breaks out and heads to the roof to escape (like 6 stories) (sidebar I forgot to fill in: there are other scenes where Birdy is desperate to fly and builds a weird hang glider thing..) so going up to the roof seems dangerous with a crazy person. Nic is busy bariccading the roof door and sees the inevitable. Birdy is standing on the edge of the roof and jumps off majestically.
Nic runs over… NOOOOOOOOO. Fuck this I think, what a stupid and predictable ending. Cut to Birdy on a slightly lower roof, maybe 5 feet “what?”
The end. A hilarious but weird way to end the movie. They’re still very high up, in a military hospital, with lots of angry orderlies and police coming for them. Far from escaped and probably in a lot of trouble. But I liked it.
Rankings:
Nic Cage Sexuality: 8/10. He’s the carefree ladies man in this one… one of his first scenes is making out with some girl under the bleachers. She vaguely looks like the female Ferris Bueller who spits cola on the principal. Aka a total fox. Nic grabs her boob. she pushes his hand away “I don’t feel like it”. “SURE YOU FEEL LIKE IT”. grab grab grab. Little boy interrupts what was a sure thing with a line like that…
Later on when they go on a double date to the amusment park, he treats his date to the finest experience a woman could ever hope for in those days. Looking up at the bottom of a boardwalk with her legs spread, while her friend is getting creeped out by a bird-obsessed weirdo 10 feet away.
Then later when he’s all bandaged up the nurse at the hospital obviously falls for him and wants him. He’s wounded and not sexual anymore, but he still musters up a boob grab and a “sorry”. She’s down for more but his heart’s not in it.
Nic Cage Freakouts: 6/10. The war flashback is mercifully brief, but he gets a shell blown up in his face and gets to scream his head off with blood all over the place. Also he gets grouchy with the doc a few times. Loses some points when his dad slaps him and he cries in front of his friend. Garbagemen are scary.
Nic Cage Race Relations: 2/10. Ouch. I didn’t screengrab this because I was too into the movie at the time to notice. The only black characters in the whole movie, INCLUDING vietnam footage, are two orderlies who come in to beat up Nic when he refuses to leave. (Shades of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest… being an orderly for insane people seems to be a predominantly black occupation in movies) Nic uses his high school wrestling moves, then kicks one of them in the balls SO aggressively and they run off together.
Overall, a very pleasant surprise. Way better than the next VHS Cage movie I’m reviewing. It’s a bit of a slow movie but it’s very thoughtful, well written and well acted. I would reccomend it if you could find it on DVD. Modine really was a good actor.. just not much luck with the scripts I guess.
8/10
