"Am I getting THROUGH to you, Alva?!"

October 10th, 2012
Vampire's Kiss, (1988)
Nicolas Cage is Peter Loew

"In my own mind I was convinced that there could be a new expression in acting. I was weaned, oddly enough, on German expressionistic films like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and I wanted to use that kind of acting. Which, shockingly enough, you allowed me to do; you allowed me to go there. I don't think any other director would have let his actor go there. I don't even know if I could do it now or again."

That's Nicolas Cage speaking to director Robert Bierman on the commentary track of Vampire's Kiss. I wrote in my Raising Arizona post about how frustrated Cage was that he wasn't allowed the kind of freedom he wanted by the Coen brothers. Vampire's Kiss is an example of what happened when a young Nic Cage was given that kind of freedom.

Coming off his breakout turn in Moonstruck - a film Cage says he didn't actually like until years later when he was, in his words, "mature enough to understand it" - our man was feeling the pressure of success. After initially agreeing to star in Vampire's Kiss Cage was convinced by his agent to drop out, that a manic turn in a no-budget black comedy about a deulsional man who thinks he's turning into a vampire would be career suicide. Bierman then signed Judd Nelson only to have him pull out as well. Despite having been greenlit and budgeted it looked like Vampire's Kiss wasn't meant to be until Cage called again and asked to be taken back. He needed to "blow it out" after Moonstruck and make a "punk rock movie" and commit to a sort of Brechtian primal scream of a performance. Which is really just an elevated way of saying that Nicolas Cage needed a role in which he could go absolutely apeshit bonkers. If Cage was trying to change acting and challenge his critics no performance in his career has been more challenging than his turn as Peter Loew in this film. It is truly one of a kind.

"Love don't make things nice; it ruins everything!"

October, 4th
Moonstruck, (1987)
Nicolas Cage is Ronny Cammareri

"I lost my hand! I lost my bride!"

Italians can make me uncomfortable. Big Jewish and Irish families, too. All those raw emotions just out in the open being shared; all those expressions of familial love. Deep in my blood flow the puritanical genes of my ancestors that reject any big display of emotion if it could potentially make anyone else uncomfortable. My people bottle that shit up for everyone's safety.

Watching the family in Moonstruck was like watching a nature doc on TV. I recognized it as being real to some people's experience but the characters I identified most with were couple whose bathtub Vincent Gardenia fixes. My people!

 

"Well, it ain't Ozzie & Harriet"

October 4th, 2012
Raising Arizona, (1987)
Nicolas Cage is Herbert "H.I." McDonnough

It's embarrassing to say but the Coen brothers' dramatic movies leave me cold. They're master craftsmen with an eye for great set pieces, an ear for dialogue and an ability to work within any genre, paying homage and subverting it in equal measure. But the key word there is craftsmen. In a 1987 piece for American Film David Edelstein quotes the Coens' acclaimed cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld saying:

"It's not an emotional thing at all. Given any topic, [the Coens] could write an excellent script. Topics are incredibly unimportant to them - it's structure and style and words. If you ask them for their priorities, they'll tell you script, editing, coverage and lighting."

The Coens made an unexpected splash with their independently funded 1985 noir Blood Simple. With their follow-up, Raising Arizona, the two brothers made a point to make a movie that existed on the opposite side of the spectrum from their debut. Where Blood Simple was ponderous and cynical, Raising Arizona was a speedy, big-hearted romp. Edelstein presses Joel Coen on the difference between creating a movie around a murder and creating one around a baby. Joel responds:

"You have a scene in a movie when someone gets shot, right? Bang! And the squib goes off and the blood runs down and you get a reaction, right? It's movie fodder, you know what I mean? And in a really different way, a baby's face is movie fodder. You just wanna take elements that are good fodder and do something different with them."

Both Sonnenfeld and Coen himself are spelling out the reasons that I respect the hell out of movies like Fargo, Miller's Crossing and No Country for Old Men but can't make myself love them. The Coens seem to view humanity from an ironic distance. Reality is messy and emotional and, to my eyes, the Coens' sensibility erases that messiness with an overabundance of control.

"Who needs physics when we have chemistry?"

September 28th, 2012
Peggy Sue Got Married, (1986)
Nicolas Cage is Charlie Bodell

We have entered Nicolas Cage Golden Age. For the next few entries it's going to get pretty gushy on my end. I don't claim any journalistic objectivity in this electronic Nicolas Cage diary but all the evidence says that Peggy Sue Got Married is the kind of film that separates John Q. Moviegoer from a blindered Cage apologetic like me. The general consensus from audiences and critics is that Cage's performance in Peggy Sue is annoying and the whole film is a pleasant but flawed brief return to form before Francis Ford Coppola lost the plot. I totally disagree; I love the shit out of this movie.



Let's start with the beauty of this film's premise. When Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) attends her 25-year reunion she is surrounded by ghosts from her past: the friends she lost touch with though they had planned to stay close, the athletic beatnik kid she had a crush on but never acted on (Kevin J. O'Connor), her laughingstock ex-husband, appliance salesman "Crazy" Charlie Bodell (Cage), the weasely nerd no one liked who has since become a billionaire inventor (Barry Miller). Overwhelmed, Peggy Sue faints, only to wake up 25 years earlier, a teenager again. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, Peggy Sue can choose to change her past or accept the decisions she made as the right ones.

"They say I look bigger with my clothes off."

September 25th, 2012
The Boy in Blue, (1986)
Nicolas Cage is Ned Hanlan

I'm not sure what the buzz around The Boy in Blue was on its release but I have to imagine that audiences were a little surprised when they discovered that, despite the movie's promotional poster and dramatic trailer, The Boy in Blue is not some sort of antiquated, Canadian Rocky.


It does have some of the Rocky hallmarks - at least a fourth of the movie is Nicolas Cage, shirtless, training for the "next big race" and there's a driving synth score pushing the whole thing forward, despite its 1880's setting - but The Boy in Blue doesn't just want to thrill and inspire you. In fact, thrilling is probably third on its list of prerogatives. The first and second are to educate and instill a sense of pride in Canadian heritage. Funded by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Telefilm Canada, BIB shows its hand from the first frame as text appears, reading:

"Before baseball, football, or soccer, one sport alone captured the imagination of both rich and poor - - sculling."

Sure, you kids have heard about all the baseball and football and soccer greats a thousand times but let me hip you to the original cool: sculling: the sport of kings. And who do you think was the greatest sculler of all time? Why, Ned Hanlan, Canada's favorite son and, in 1880, the first world sporting champion in an individual or singles event! Can-a-DA! Can-a-DA! Can-a-DA!

"I saw a guy, Dix, who they also said would be fine and he had a face like a medium-rare cheesburger."

September 22nd, 2012
Birdy, (1984)

Nicolas Cage is Al Columbato

I'm about a month into my Nicolas Cage diary and this is my first sticking point: how do I approach a movie like Birdy?

I have to organize my thoughts. First, this is the first appearance of Nicolas Cage as we know him. Cage's performance here is not good by any standard definition but it's not really bad either. Interesting would I guess be a kind word for it. And isn't that kind of the story of his career?

Cage is supposed to a blue collar, puffed-out everydude who's best friends forever with an introverted spacecase played by Matthew Modine. Not only do Cage and Modine have no real chemistry as friends, Cage out-crazies Modine in scene after scene with his manic charisma. By the end of the film when Cage is on the floor of a hospital with his face bandaged and his legs splayed as he cradles Modine and shouts to the heavens Nicolas Cage the Dramatic Actor has been born and our lives would never be the same.

"Bugle Boy, meet Jesse James!"

September 19th, 2012
The Cotton Club, (1984)
Nicolas Cage is Vincent "Mad Dog" Dwyer

Critics often cite Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate as the deathknell  for the '70's Golden Era of auteur filmmaking. Before Cimino's film single-handedly brought United Artists to near-bankruptcy money was no object in service of a director's artistic spectacle. Afterwards former golden boys like Robert Altman, Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola had to soft shoe a little more if they wanted anything near the budgets they were once allotted. If Heaven's Gate was a deathknell then 1984's The Cotton Club was the nails in the coffin. Throwing money at a troubled production wasn't a solution anymore.

The same year Heaven's Gate came out Francis Ford Coppola pulled up on the tiller and managed to cut his own near-debacle - the notoriously costly Apocalypse Now - into arguable the greatest war film of all time. Years later Coppola was in deep debt following his self-funded, little-loved film One From the Heart and Robert Evans' Zoetrope Pictures was looking for a hit. Evans, the financial force behind the Godfather movies and Coppola's biggest frenemy had optioned James Haskins' pictoral history of New York's famous Cotton Club with the intent on directing it himself. With distributor Orion Pictures' money already spent Evans hired Coppola to write a draft of Godfather-scribe Mario Puzo's script in the hope of attracting some private investors  With tensions mounting between the two men directing duties fell to Coppola and once more he found himself trying to land a cinematic Spruce Goose.

“Just wait'll those Japs see me and my eagle come chargin' over the hill!”

September 10^th, 2012

Racing with the Moon, (1984)

Nicolas Cage is Nicky

All this talk of nostalgia is a perfect segway into Racing with the Moon, another film that looks to the past to explore how youth slips away. It's the story of two young men killing time during the Christmas of 1943 awaiting induction into the US marines. The debut film of writer Steve Kloves - who would go on to write Wonder Boys and all but one of the Harry Potter movies – Moon has such a lived-in specificity of place and time that I was surprised to learn that Kloves was born in 1960. Maybe some of that credit goes to director Richard Benjamin who was born in 1938 and would go on to direct The Money Pit and, um, My Stepmother is an Alien.

Anyway, Racing with the Moon kicked up my own memories of times gone by - namely, Fast Times and The Best of Times. Which is an irritating way of saying that it stars Sean Penn and features Crispin Glover as an asshole rich kid that Nic Cage clocks in a bowling alley before wiping the blood of Glover's girlfriend's blouse. It's kinda pretty awesome. 

“That was me at my five-year-old birthday party. I was good-looking even back then.”

September 9^th, 2012

Rumble Fish (1983)

Nicolas Cage is Smokey

Ostensibly this project is about Nic Cage but, since I'm going in chronological order, by default I'm starting with his bit parts. It's funny, with the benefit of hindsight I think it's clear that Cage's most natural fit is as a character actor, but he's made a career as an unlikely leading man. I guess that's what happens to talented weirdos who also happen to be extremely handsome (see also: Depp, Johnny; Ledger, Heath). But Rumble Fish isn't Nic Cage's film. He's here because when your brilliant, film director uncle sends out a casting call you put aside all that stuff about distancing yourself from him and jump on the wagon (three times).  

I knew nothing going into Rumble Fish so the whole thing was a surprise to me. My familiarity with Coppola's work between Apocalypse Now and Jack is pretty limited. I've never read an S.E. Hinton novel nor have I seen The Outsiders. I didn't know it was starring Matt Dillon as a teenager that everyone, including his family, calls Rusty James. I didn't know that Rusty James lives in the shadow of his spacey older brother, an ex-gang leader named The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke) whom he idolizes. I didn't know it was scored by Stewart Copeland, drummer for that band so dear to my heart, the Police. Hey, is that Tom Waits as a soda jerk? Hey, is that Dennis Hopper? Is this all a beautiful dream?

“That techno-rock you guys listen to is gutless.”

August 29^th, 2012

Valley Girl, (1983)

Nicolas Cage is Randy

I see now why my girlfriend in college was adamant I watch Valley Girl. When girls say they're looking for a “bad boy” they mean Randy. He's that potent mix of brooding intensity and puppy-dog vulnerability that makes panties drop. He's punk-y enough to be interesting but non-threatening; quick to stand up to a bully like Tommy but is never less than a gentleman with Julie. How many guys can hide in a bathroom until the girl they like comes in - at which point they pop out and say “Don't be frightened” - and make it seem more suave than creepy? I did eventually watch Valley Girl back in college but all I really remember from it are the awesome performances by Josie Cotton and The Plimsouls.

"..."

August 26^th, 2012

Fast Times at Ridgemont High, (1982)

Nicolas Cage is Brad's Bud

What can I say about Fast Times at Ridgemont High that hasn't been said before? Unlike The Best of Times, Fast Times is a well-known and -regarded classic. It's the movie that effectively kick-started the careers of Amy Heckerling, Cameron Crowe, Sean Penn and Forest Whitaker not to mention Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates. 

I'm realizing now that I had a crush on Cates as a prepubescent boy but not because of her famous stripping scene here but from her girl-next-door charmz in Gremlins and Drop Dead Fred. Along with Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands and Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values Cates seemed like a girl I could actually approach and have things in common with. That may sound ridiculous given the sex-bomb mantle she was given thanks to Brad's masturbation fantasy in this movie but such is the world when you grow up watching TV. Famous, imaginary people are your friends. Re-watching the film now I'm amazed at how real and lived-in the characters all seem. Cates isn't a goddess (outside of Brad's mind); she's just a girl. Even Jeff Spicoli, who lives in our collective cultural memory as a sort of stoner version of a Tex Avery character, living to make mischief and torture Mr. Hand, is given a surprising amount of sympathy and dimension.

"Hit! Smash! Hit! Make it all bloody! He sure did a good job with that beef!"

August 23^rd, 2012

The Best of Times, (1981)

Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Coppola

I've known about The Best of Times for years and years but have never been able to find any information on it besides the basics: in 1981 teenage Nicolas Cage and Crispin Glover co-starred in an ABC pilot for a Laugh-In-style variety show. For a collector of weird pop culture ephemera could there be a more tantalizing sentence? It's just too weird to be true. I'd searched all the legal and illegal places on the internet I knew and inquired with people and places that collect such things but no luck! How could I start a zine about Nicolas Cage without seeing this? Surely it would be the crown jewel! 

Is it a sign from Heaven? Today, the day I finally decide to do this zine and skip right to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, I run into the Best of Times pilot just sitting on YouTube waiting to be watched. God has given his blessing to this Nicolas Cage blog.

Introduction

My idea to make a diary on the films of Nicolas Cage has had a long life; so long that it now seems a lot childish. I like to think of myself as a grown man (I'm twenty-five) and different in many fundamental ways from the thirteen-year-old who once declared that 1995's Con Air not only a great movie but my favorite movie and Cage my favorite actor. 

It's easy to forget after we leave all the bullshit of middle- and high-school behind us but to a thirteen-year-old stating an opinion that flies in the face of accepted social norms can take a small measure of bravery. Youthful codes of conduct are shifting tides to the shy and socially awkward; it's much safer to put up one's sails and drift quietly along the current of popular opinion than to row against the wind. Any strong opinion that has not been approved by the council of one's peers could potentially tar you as the strange outsider you fear yourself (and secretly know yourself) to be.

This meditation on what seemed like courage as a youth speaks both to how good Con Air actually is and to Nicolas Cage's appeal to the teenager I was. In the early 2000's he was incomparable to anyone else in Hollywood, in part by his unabashed weirdness. David Lynch reportedly once referred to him as "the jazz musician of acting" and indeed, Nic Cage's performances have the loose-limbed excitement of jazz.. I had a pet theory I put forward to my friends at the time that Cage's films weren't just good or bad. Some transcended our notions of what good and bad films are to a separate artistic plane that could only be called "awesome". Part of this has to do with the projects he picks and part of it has to do with his performances. Even at his most phoned-in, Cage seems to effortlessly imbue his characters with emotional depths, alluding to thoughts and emotional undercurrents in the way H.P. Lovecraft hinted at stranger realities just beyond our comprehension. There's something rippling under the surface of Nicolas Cage that gives simultaneous impressions that he is an actor of ineffable talent and also potentially unwell.