Nicolas Cage Challenge

[blocho]

39. Outcast (2014)

The Movie: Overly drenched in blood and regret after some unsavory crusading in the Middle East, two men (Cage and Hayden Christensen) drift to the Far East in the years afterwards in a haze of regret and substance abuse. There they become involved in a dynastic struggle, and more killing ensues. The story is formulaic, the characters are shallow, and the action lacks pacing and coherence. The camerawork and editing are consistently overactive. For all that, it's not such a bad movie. The story is engaging enough, and there's plenty of beautiful landscapes and ornate sets for the action sequences.

Cage: Cage is long-haired and one-eyed as the older crusader. He also has an accent that is ... English, maybe? Cage has done accents before with no problem (Con Air). Whatever this accent is meant to be, it's terrible. Even worse, it so dominates his performance that the accent becomes his character. Bad accent, bad performance. The result is Cage offering a serious of ludicrous lines in some sort of Brythonic growl.

Standout Cage Moment: We see Cage in the first scene, and then he disappears for an hour. When we see him again, for reasons that are entirely unexplained, he's holding a snake in each hand. So that's something, especially because we know how Cage feels about snakes.

Cage's Take:

A lot of actors these days want to ground their performances within their own formative experiences, but good acting takes more than that. Some historical and cultural perspective, for example. Does that mean I spent four days in a Yunnan opium den with Hayden? Of course not. I was too busy hanging out with Timothy Spall at his ice cream parlor in the Dordogne. I was copying his accent, which is exactly how I think a Crusader in the 13th century would talk, but with a little Armenian patois mixed in. I wanted to sound like Tom Hardy after some poorly considered Bolivian oral surgery. He doesn't own bad accents, you know. You leave a Nic Cage movie aroused or confused. That's not my mantra. It's Laurence Olivier's. If I need to talk in a way that no one understands, then so be it. Everything is just part of the shamanic convergence.

[blocho]

40. Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

The Movie: The plot is simple and familiar: An imprisoned criminal can earn clemency by rescuing an innocent from peril. We've seen this story many times before. The execution is -- well, it's a bit more off-kilter. For one thing, the criminal starts the story in a phantasmagorical place called Samurai Town before pursuing the rescue operation in an even more phantasmagorical place called Ghostland. For another thing, the criminal is played by Nicolas Cage. That's enough to know already that we're on an insane journey. Add in plenty of wild costume and set design, plus enough nonsensical randomness, plus a wide-ranging pastiche of cultural influences that are dominantly drawn from American westerns and Japanese chambara but also include references to Shakespeare and Harold Lloyd and the Hiroshima bombing and probably a dozen other things I didn't recognize ... well, it's quite a show. No lack of outre spectacle here. Is it any good? Wrong question. It's fun. It has some problems like too much handheld camerawork and a "more is more" approach to sound design and some of that randomness. It's puzzling and exasperating at times, but it's also fun. I know director Sion Sono is fairly divisive on this forum. This is the first Sono movie I've seen, and I'm willing to see another.

Cage: Having a hell of a good time by the looks of it. He's only held back by a character that has no depth, but that hasn't stymied Cage before and it doesn't here. The best way to evaluate Cage most of the time is to think about value added. What does he add to this role that another actor couldn't or wouldn't? In that regard, it's a classic Cage performance: eccentric, charming, wild, sly, and bizarre.

Standout Cage Moment: Well, there are several shots of Cage wearing nothing but a thong. But my favorite was the point (seen below) when he gives a pump-up speech that includes the following declaration: "I'm standing before you with one arm and one testicle, bitches."


Cage's Take:

Back in 1987, I was taking the subway downtown in New York with Martin Balsam and my gym buddy Guillermo, and there's a blond surfer dude with sunglasses sitting across from me. And some Japanese guy gets on the train, and surfer bro says, "Hey man, where are you from?" And the Japanese guy says he's from Japan, and surfer man says, "Do you know my buddy Kiyoshi? Kiyoshi Ichikawa. He lives in Tokyo. Have you been to Tokyo? Yeah, Kiyoshi is a cool dude. He sees the world different. Life is just different in Japan." And that's the moment I knew I needed to travel to Shikoku to study Ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arrangement. I did that for three months in between shooting Moonstruck and Vampire's Kiss. I only left after an unfortunate incident at a ramen-ya involving three liters of sake and a folding bicycle. And then I didn't go back to Japan until I shot the Ghostland movie. But here's the crazy part. The guy who cleaned my trailer during the shoot -- his name is Kiyoshi. Probably the same guy. What are the odds, right?

[blocho]

I think we all knew we'd see this headline some day:

[Torgo]

F

[blocho]

41. Dying of the Light (2014)

The Movie: Cage plays a CIA agent who is captured, tortured, and disfigured by a terrorist. He is rescued, and the terrorist is presumed dead. But 22 years later, some evidence emerges that he survived, and Cage sets out for revenge. The twist is that his CIA character has just been diagnosed with dementia. We've seen this type of narrative arc before -- the agent of justice losing grasp on reality -- with positive results in movies like The Pledge and in the third season of True Detective. It's effective because it lends those simple stories of revenge a strong flavor of ambiguity as the audience increasingly doubts the protagonist's actions. Unfortunately, that angle is never developed here fully, and the ludicrously action-packed and gory conclusion doesn't help matters. Also, the politics of the movie are completely incoherent. Despite all that, it's a decent movie for the first half.

Cage: The dementia of Cage's CIA agent manifests through mood swings. You know who's spent the last 35 years doing some of the best mood swings in cinema? Nicolas Cage.

Standout Cage Moment: Cage has an epic rant at the CIA director early in the movie, but my favorite moment was when he says to the terrorist, "Salaam alaikum, asshole." Something about his line reading was just hilarious.

Cage's Take:

I did this movie because Duduka said I would play a disfigured character. Duduka is what I call Paulie Schrader because it was the name of my pet marmot in middle school, and the two look alike. Anyway, Duduka said I would be disfigured, and I said, "Awesome, let's do some Phantom of the Opera stuff." Then I go to make-up on the first day of the shoot, and they just put some silicone on my ear. What the hell is that about? I wanted the full Lon Chaney look. Duduka made a big stink during the release because the studio took the movie from him and messed with his vision, and I said I was pissed too because I wanted to be supportive. Also because he promised to connect me with some Manchurian guys who could sell me some really sweet dinosaur skulls. But the truth is that a movie that's really good should be able to survive a studio cut. Don't believe me? Just look at Guarding Tess. The studio ran roughshod over the director on that one, but the result was still the third best Secret Service movie of the early 1990s. That's because it had quality, and quality endures. Hmm ... that's a familiar line. I think Hong, my Manchu dinosaur guy, said it once.

[OldAle1]

Oooh, forgot to add my latest, from October...

7. The Wicker Man (Neil LaBute, 2006)



Updating Robin Hardy's masterpiece to the era of cell phones, the internet, and even more omnipresent satellite coverage of the planet - as well as placing it in the USA - has exactly the problems you'd guess it'd have, and while even in 1973 the concept of an island so remote from civilization that a pagan culture with human sacrifice can re-emerge is pretty hard to take, by 2006 it's quite laughable. But I can throw reason out to some extent while watching a horror film - if the film recognizes it's own fantastic qualities. The Hardy film certainly does, and belongs to the folk/hippie/psychedelic era, and it all seems to work to make the silly believable; the LaBute film on the other hand seems to grounded in everyday reality much of the time, and the island society just feels too artificial and "made for TV" I guess. But I didn't find it as terrible a film as many do, thanks in large part to Nic Cage; I mean, if you're going to do this rather far-fetched story today, and you need an actor who can absolutely command the screen and seem a step ahead in his madness of the actual plot, who else you gonna get? LaBute wisely changes the reasons the islanders choose Cage's character Edward for their sacrifice - having him a virgin is just too far a stretch in 2006 America I guess - but on the whole the plotting and the society of Summerisle are fairly muddled and inconsistent. I can't really call this a good film, but it's not as terrible by any means as I'd been led to believe it would be, and of course with Cage's madness it's at the least a good bad movie.

Side note: for some reason the mental (sound) of Sean Connery just intoning the words "THE WICKER MAN" has been invading my brain for the last few minutes. Did he ever speak these words somewhere, and was it recorded? Or is it just my own madness at work?

[blocho]

I couldn't be more excited for this. I guess it will be a lot like JCVD, only with Cage instead of JCVD.

[OldAle1]

Decent-length new interview, mostly about Unbearable Weight -

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235104433/

[blocho]

Nic seems a bit grumpy here.



It's interesting that his output has dipped. He has 17 feature credits from 2017-2019 on imdb but only 8 for 2020-2022. I'm guessing some of that's covid-related, but maybe he's also stepping back.

[sebby]

Nic seems a bit grumpy here.



It's interesting that his output has dipped. He has 17 feature credits from 2017-2019 on imdb but only 8 for 2020-2022. I'm guessing some of that's covid-related, but maybe he's also stepping back.

Can we talk about how great his hair looks in that video? After so many over-eager dye jobs and surgeries (?) and hairpieces he's landed on something that's just 10/10. My man looking like a Hollywood Idol again.

[Torgo]

To add on that, I urge every Cage maniac to go through his AMA on Reddit. Actually, everyone should see it, some of that is just objectively too hilarious and you can't but read it in Nic's voice!

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comment ... to_ask_me/

FFO: Ghibli, Pig, cabbage, bees

[blocho]

To add on that, I urge every Cage maniac to go through his AMA on Reddit. Actually, everyone should see it, some of that is just objectively too hilarious and you can't but read it in Nic's voice!

Wow, you're not kidding. This is great. Who else would write a line like, "I was very Dmitri Karamazov in high school."

Also, this is very interesting.



Pig and Leaving Las Vegas aren't surprising, but Bringing out the Dead is.

[Torgo]

Right? I think you could switch out Pig with Mandy for "recent Cageism", then LLV of course is already a must, so he could have gone with Adaptation, Raising Arizona or one of his super successful action hit of the 90s as the 3rd. An interesting pick and one which I support.

[blocho]

Highly enjoyable. You can't beat lines like "I started practicing Wing Chun with Sifu Jim Lau when I was 12 years old" or "I had been having strange dreams about two-headed eagles"



"I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning" is definitely something I would say to Nic Cage if I ever met him. Or maybe not, now that I know he doesn't like it.

[Torgo]

Thanks for sharing!

"I'm doing great!. "

[blocho]

Wow. This is one of my favorite talk show interviews ever. Stay until the end for the cave story. Also, we now know that Cage spent around $80,000 for that two-headed snake. This man should be on TV every day.

[flavo5000]

I couldn't be more excited for this. I guess it will be a lot like JCVD, only with Cage instead of JCVD.

I saw this in the theater a couple days ago. It is very much like a buddy comedy version of JCVD. Still a lot of fun though.

[gunnar]

I was at one of my libraries yesterday to pick up a few dvds to watch and saw that they had a bunch of binge boxes available, including this collection of films:



I've seen all six of these films, but it was still tempting.

[Lammetje]

I couldn't be more excited for this. I guess it will be a lot like JCVD, only with Cage instead of JCVD.

1. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican, 2022)

I saw this in the theater a couple days ago. It is very much like a buddy comedy version of JCVD. Still a lot of fun though.

Spoiler

1. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican, 2022)

Fixed that for you. Welcome to the challenge!

[flavo5000]

I couldn't be more excited for this. I guess it will be a lot like JCVD, only with Cage instead of JCVD.

1. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican, 2022)

I saw this in the theater a couple days ago. It is very much like a buddy comedy version of JCVD. Still a lot of fun though.

Spoiler

1. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican, 2022)

Fixed that for you. Welcome to the challenge!

Well, there was also this from last year's Run the Actor challenge: viewtopic.php?t=5515&start=120#p720727

[Lammetje]

1. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican, 2022)

I saw this in the theater a couple days ago. It is very much like a buddy comedy version of JCVD. Still a lot of fun though.

Spoiler

1. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican, 2022)

Fixed that for you. Welcome to the challenge!

Well, there was also this from last year's Run the Actor challenge: viewtopic.php?t=5515&start=120#p720727

I remember that!

[blocho]

42. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

The Movie: Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage, a washed-up former movie star who does a birthday appearance for a rich Spaniard in return for a million dollars. But then it turns out the rich Spaniard is a drug lord. Action and intrigue ensue. It is the funniest movie I’ve seen in years as well as the funniest Nic Cage movie ever made. To a certain extent, the volume of that humor is dependent on being as immersed in Cagiana as I am, but I believe it would still be quite funny even for a Cage novice. At heart, this is a buddy comedy movie, with only one distinguishing characteristic. And, well …

Cage: Nobody has ever done something quite like this. At least not that I know of. At least not to this extent. I can think of other movie stars that have played themselves in movies, thereby indulging some measure of self-deprecation. Malkovich in Being John Malkovich and Damon/Affleck in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. But that’s all tiddlywinks compared to what Cage does here, which is to lean into every joke people have been making about him for decades. This is Cage publicly coming to terms with the memeification of Cage, a topic on which he’s previously expressed some sensitivity. And he goes even further. For while Cage has a playful side, he’s often achingly sincere on certain topics: his devotion to acting as an art form, his family, his determination to solve his financial problems through hard work. All this too becomes fodder for self-mockery here. And given his considerable comedic gifts, Cage ably skewers himself over and over. Or is he rather skewering the public figure of Nicolas Cage, previously his own product but now adrift across internet rabbit holes (including this forum)? Is there a difference between the Cages? Who can even tell? Perhaps that's his serious purpose behind the comedy, to put himself forward as a figure (akin to Warhol or Herzog) whose art is coterminous with his public life and then to suggest that art and artist will forever be slightly removed from our grasp.

Standout Cage Moment: There’s a point where Nicolas Cage locks lips with Nicolas Cage, and it feels in some way like the logical culmination of acting as an art form. Every idea of dramatic representation collapsing in on itself, like a layer cake that has lost its core stability. Tragedy and beauty, creation and destruction, love and loathing. All in one moment.

Cage’s Take:

There’s this moment in the seventh Matrix movie when Huggy Weaving is replicating himself over and over again, turning everyone else into copies of Agent Smith. And he says, “Me, me me.” And I remember seeing that 20 years ago, and saying to myself, “Heck yeah. This guy gets it.” Well, the Wachooskis eventually stopped taking my calls, even after I told them I would work for rate if they let me play Smith in Matrix 9 last year. Then I get this call from some director I’ve never heard of before, and he wants me to play Nicolas Cage, and I said, “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past 58 years?” And he said, “Exactly. Life is art.” And I said, “My art begins with self-exploration. Who is Cage? Who is Coppola? What happens when you put a Coppola in a cage? My first question as an actor is about me.” And he said, “Me, me me.” And then we gazed into each other’s eyes and simultaneously began singing Blue Swede’s Hooked on a Feeling: “Ooga chaka, ooga chaka, ooga ooga, ooga chaka. I can’t stop this feeling …”

[flavo5000]

Cage: Nobody has ever done something quite like this. At least not that I know of. At least not to this extent.

Actually I'd say there are two major touchpoints here. One this definitely reminded me of a lot (although Cage's is MUCH more of an actual comedy) is JCVD, where Van Damme plays himself, a past-his-prime actor who somehow gets himself mixed up in a bank robbery much like Cage getting embroiled in this kidnapping plot. The other major reference point is Cage's previous Adaptation where we have Cage playing a real person (or a version of a real person) who occasionally has a twin show up to play off of, showing the duality of his personality. Now of course, Cage is playing Charlie Kaufman in that one but I think the themes are still very similar. The idea of this being a buddy comedy though I think is a little more fresh, and I do think Cage really brings his A-game to this one.

[blocho]

Cage: Nobody has ever done something quite like this. At least not that I know of. At least not to this extent.

Actually I'd say there are two major touchpoints here.

You're quite right. I should have thought of that, especially because I made a JCVD reference in this thread a few months ago. An apt comparison.

[Perception de Ambiguity]

Then I get this call from some director I’ve never heard of before,... [...] And then we gazed into each other’s eyes...

One of those electrifyingly magic things that only are possible with the Cagester. I love your write-ups in this thread and especially the "Cage’s Take" sections. Keep it up, blocho.

[blocho]

One of those electrifyingly magic things that only are possible with the Cagester. I love your write-ups in this thread and especially the "Cage’s Take" sections. Keep it up, blocho.

Thanks, PdA. Maybe this will be my most enduring contribution to world literature.

[blocho]

An interesting story about Nic in this podcast episode from Seth Rogen. It's not flattering. The story starts at about 16:30.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3yZJ2Hsj1CxOYUzoyd89Kn

[blocho]

43. Jiu Jitsu (2020)

The Movie: Jiu Jitsu begins at an American army base in Burma. I was immediately curious which shifts in geopolitics led to such a development. But that’s not what this movie is about. This movie is about some soldiers and martial artists battling a space alien who visits Earth to hunt humans for sport. It’s a Predator knock-off in other words, and a pretty bad one. Boring characters, poor acting, terrible editing, and some cut-rate visual effects (to take just one example, all of the gunfire was added in post-production). But there’s one way this movie really stands out. It currently has an IMDb rating of 2.9, the lowest of any Nic Cage movie. Yes, it’s lower even than Left Behind.

Cage: He’s only in about 15-20 minutes of the movie, which is a shame because he’s the only actor with any talent here. Cage makes the most of the subpar script, adding his sly charisma. If he had been the lead, maybe it would have made more of a difference. But he can’t do much to rescue this movie. Also, it doesn’t help that he has an obvious stand-in for the action scenes.

Standout Cage Moment: The protagonist is walking in a jungle. He falls through a hole in the ground, into a cave where Nicolas Cage is sitting on a chair. Cage immediately throws a knife at him. That’s kind of fun. Not a real standout moment, but it’s the best Cage moment this movie has to offer.

Cage’s Take:

So I’m at the Baja 1000 a few years ago in order to see my buddy Geppetto ride his Honda NC750 to glory. And at a cantina in Ensenada, this dude walks up to me and says, "Jiu Jitsu." And I say, "Absolutely." From 1982 to 1984, I trained with Kru Ram Muay in his dojo in Sherman Oaks, so I’m always ready to fight. But then this guy explains that Jiu Jitsu is a movie he’s making and he doesn’t actually want to fight me. I’m so disappointed that I walk out, but later I hear the guy is claiming that I agreed to an oral contract to be in the movie. Well, I figure that I don’t know much about Mexican law, and I’ve already spent so much on tax attorneys over the past decade, so it’s best not to battle it out in court. That’s how I ended up being in Jiu Jitsu, which turned out pretty cool. And Geppetto ended up crashing his hog, so to make him feel better I got him a cameo in the movie.

[blocho]

44. Pay the Ghost (2015)

The Movie: Someone’s kidnapping the children of New York, three each Halloween. One year, college professor Nic Cage’s son goes missing. This is a ghost story, full of things that go bump in the night. There are no surprises here. Every narrative and cinematic element is familiar from countless other movies. But it’s still a decent enough horror movie.

Cage: Horror movies often feature anonymous actors. It’s not that the acting doesn’t matter. It’s just that it’s rarely the main attraction. Audiences aren’t coming for the actors. They’re coming for the horror. There are exceptions, but this isn’t one of them. Cage does well enough in the role, but he doesn’t bring anything extra. Any Hollywood actor of the same age would have done just as well.

Standout Cage Moment: None, sadly.

Cage’s Take:

Ghosts? Oh sure, I know all about ghosts. I saw a ghost once when I was 5. Now, my dad claimed it was just my Great-Uncle Anton in a ghost costume on Halloween, but I know what I saw. I didn’t spend most of my teen years studying psychopomps and supernatural bestiaries just on a whim. And here’s the good news, I found them! I found plenty of ghosts. All you need to do is get naked on a night with a full moon, grease yourself up in Crisco, do a few poppers, and take a jog through any reasonably deserted casino or college dormitory. I did that for the first time when I was 9, and it worked like a charm.

[Torgo]

43. Jiu Jitsu (2020)

Standout Cage Moment:

Excuse me, Sir?

Spoiler

Maybe the scene is too obvious ..

[blocho]

43. Jiu Jitsu (2020)

Standout Cage Moment:

Excuse me, Sir?

Spoiler

Maybe the scene is too obvious ..

You make a good point.

[Torgo]

Terrible film of course
The things we sit through for our OneTrueGod ..

[blocho]

45. Mom and Dad (2017)

The Movie: Child abuse. There are few things more horrific. Spielberg has used endangered children as a shortcut to emotion in about 90% of his movies, so using child abuse to summon a feeling of horror sounds easy. But here’s the odd thing — in this movie it’s used for horror comedy. The narrative is simple: parents all over the country suddenly start murdering their children, driven by compulsion. How does Mom and Dad pull that off as comedy? By overlaying the most violent scenes with muzak, with the randomness of the violence, and by having Nicolas Cage on hand to provide the right tenor of nuttiness. So, yes, it’s quite funny. And there are some themes of intergenerational tension. The parents feel obsolete and desperate to be young again. Kids, as everyone knows, can be real shits sometimes. Unfortunately, the filmmaking is poorly done, especially the editing and framing.

Cage: Do you want to see Nic Cage go on a rant about teenage hormones that includes him screaming “Mouth to dildo, dildo to ass”? This is the sort of gonzo primal savagery that fits Cage like a glove. By the way, I just learned that Cage’s third child was born last month, a daughter. Mazel tov, Nic!

Standout Cage Moment: An easy choice. Cage destroys a pool table with a sledgehammer while singing the Hokey Pokey.

Cage’s Take:

I have three kids, and in many ways, all of my movies are also my children. That means I have more than 100 children, which is too many children according to my brother, my therapist, and my mailman Federico. So I know all about the frustrations of parenthood. But that’s not what I was drawing on for this performance. Instead, I just focused on the fact that I gave my son a kick-ass name like Kal-El, and my parents gave me a boring name like Nicolas, and suddenly I felt all the rage I needed for a movie about family tensions. Teach your children well, folks.

[blocho]

I hope there's more Cage in the movie than there is in the trailer.

[Torgo]

Oh sweet Jesus
(Haven't watched the trailer though )

[blocho]

Our man turns 59 today, which puts him at his peak, exactly where he's been for the past 40 years.