“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?