WE DID IT!

WE DID IT!!!

It was quite the journey. We had a fun time watching the master perform his work. All 66 of them. As promised, we recieved our autographed Nicolas Cage headshots and we even had a cake made with Dr. Cage likeness upon it.

Almost all of us are thrilled to be here.

Not many have what it takes to complete this incredible challenge. We're not necessarily saying that it was easy; it's just that we were raised that if you say you are going to do something, you had better do it.

That is a beautiful looking cake. 

Now that we are at the end and the magic is over, we feel a little sad. Sad that there isn't another obscure avant garde Nicolas Cage work floating around on the internet. We've seen David Lynch, we've seen a TV pilot (with Crispin Glover), we've even seen three movies (not on the list) that Nicolas Cage allegedly appeared in: unaccredited and unseen (We'll post more about these soon).

Watching every Nicolas Cage film really works up an appetite for cake. CAGE CAKE.

Over the course of this year we have reviewed 66 excellent films and are now official Nicolas Cage experts. We have compiled a lot of data regarding the Cinematic and Cageamatic qualities of these films, and we will also post, on this blog, our findings (such as top 10, bottom 10, etc.) If we had to go back in time, we would totally do this again. Now I shudder at the prospect of watching a movie where Nicolas Cage will not appear, not even in spirit. Well done Nicolas Cage; well done us. Not so well done, this guy.

#66 The Croods

#66 The Croods

Year: 2013

Director: Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco

MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener

Running Time: 97 mins.
Cage Time: 95%
Cage Kills: 0 
Cage Flip-outs: 2 

James' Review: As the final movie during our year in the Cage I was worried that we would go out with a sappy and toned down Cage, just the opposite of what originally sucked us in.  What I got was a well thought out, visually pleasing adventure starring a quite animated (both visually and auditor-ily (yes I just made that word up)) Dr. Cage.  

Cage worked out a lot for this film.  You can really see it in his chin.

Cage plays Crug Crood, the fearless dad of the last caveman family on earth.  All the other caveman families have been wiped away by the many horrors that lurk in daily neanderthal life.  Cage keeps his family safe with his mantra that rules the Crood family over anything else - Fear Everything and NEVER LEAVE THE CAVE!  His daughter Eep (Emma Stone), being a typical teenage girl, goes against her fathers wishes and sneaks out of the cave to make trouble and meet boys.  This leads to the start of their adventure that eventually forces them away from the safety of their cave and out into the wide world with a hot young cave-boy Guy (Ryan Reynolds).   Guy does something completely novel to the Croods to get by in life: he has ideas.

A group of lovable morons.

Guy and Crug battle for authority while on their adventure, one using his brains looks and  charm and the other using his brute strength and his inability to see a world that he doesn't want to see.  This "stupid cave-man" role leaves plenty of opportunities for Cage to dazzle us with his comedic timing and rapist wit.  The expression in his voice comes through to build Crug Crood from just a crappy drawing of a cave-man to what seems like a living breathing moron that you wish you could have a beer with.  

This is a picture of some cartoon characters gazing into the beautiful eye of Nicolas Cage.

As he has on so many of his previous 65 films, Dr. Cage carries this performance and ultimately all of the other "actors" that surround him.  In the Croods he'll make you laugh and cry.  The tears won't just be due to the top gun acting, but to the fact that after spending an entire year with him week in and week out, there is no more of him left.  Upon starting this expedition, it seemed like an impossible and seemingly endless task to watch every bit of film that Cage has ever been immortalized in. Now that the end is here all I can think is I can't believe it's already over.  This has been the  most important task I've ever accomplished, the best year of my life, and the most spiritually fulfilling thing I've ever done.  Nobody else will ever come close to giving me what Dr. Cage has.  Thought the year may be over, for the rest of my life I'll always be looking forward to the next Nicolas Cage movie.

...But until then who's next?  Lou Diamond Phillips?  Jean Claude Van Damme?

Movie quotability:

• "That's the screen that means we're gonna be watching this." - Henry (upon seeing the 20th century fox logo)
• "Release the Baby"
• "C'mon, c'mon, darkness brings death.  We know this."
• "Wait!  ...okay" x 100
• "Kill Circle!"
• "And I also thought it would kill your mother.  Win Win."
• "Hand me those acting sticks!"
• "I have an I-DE-A."

Plot Holes:

• No plot holes! This probably actually happened.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Outstanding
Shauna
James	4.49/5	4.12/5
Martine	!Made great memories in the CAGE!

#65 The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

#65 Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans

Year: 2009

Director: Werner Herzog

MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes

Running Time: 122 mins
Cage Time: 
Cage Kills: 
Cage Flip-outs: 4

Shauna's Review: 

This movie is set in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (text says). Cage and Kilmer are cops. Early in the film (I'm guessing this is immediately post-Katrina) Cage jumps into a submerged prison to save a trapped convict and injures his back-- mild to moderate pain for the rest of his life, the doctor says, and prescribes him Vicodin. Flash forward to six months later, Cage is snorting something in his police car before walking into a crime scene. He's a grumpy-ass, high strung lieutenant with a crazy-ass swagger and a gun perpetually stuck in the front of his pants. His girlfriend, Eva Mendes, appears to be a hooker. Oh, yep. She's a hooker.

Look, honey, there's a surprisingly bright future ahead of us! 

Cage's boss assigns him lead for the investigation into the murder of a Senegalese family. Turns out Cage has been stealing drugs from the property room with some help from a beat walker, Michael Shannon (aka Dave from Cage classic World Trade Center, if you're attentive). He also pulls over a couple of teenagers, ostensibly on suspicion of "passing drugs," and takes some drugs from the guy, takes some secondhand hits from a crack pipe via the mouth of the hot teenage girl, followed by a handjob.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Also cocaine makes you crazy in the brain. 

We're alternately impressed with the intensity of his drug use, the depth of his depravity, and his skill in conducting the murder investigation. Cage single-handedly finds and delivers most of the important people and clues, despite the fact that he is pretty much up to his eyeballs in drugs and gambling debt.  This movie might be more accurately titled "Irresponsible Lieutenant"-- given charge of his father's dog, he does everything in his power to pass that responsibility off onto his girlfriend; given charge of the young witness to the homicide, he quickly a) snorts coke in front of him, b) gives drugs to his hooker girlfriend, and c) loses the kid in a casino. Things start to unravel pretty quickly after that.

"What are those fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?"

Cage is a fine actor here. He truly embodies this desperate, strung-out character with a touch of Cage-esque humor, a shuffling, hunched back posture and a nasally, mumbling version of his familiar drawl. Somehow you manage to feel bad for this poor son of a bitch, despite his fucking miserable life choices. The direction of the film is a bit rambly and has less momentum than I would like for this type of story. The director wastes a few minutes here and there with random artsy film bits (close-ups of a lizard or a crocodile dying on the street). But overall I would say this is a decent movie, and undoubtedly one of Cage's better recent acting gigs.

Movie quotability:

• "Please what, shitbird?"
• 'Hey, man, i got on Swiss cotton underpants. yeah, that's right. cost me $55 a pair. You think I want to get all this brown water and shit all over them?"
• "Don't move, you stay and watch! You watch her! You watch your fucking girlfriend!"
• "I need that coke back... I snorted what I thought was coke, turned out to be heroin. I need to be at work in an hour."
• "What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?"
• "It's amazing how much you can get done when you have a simple purpose in life."
• "Shoot him again!" "What for?" "His soul's still dancing!"
• "You don't have a lucky crack pipe?"
• "I'll kill all of you. To the break of dawn. To the break of dawn, baby."
• "Hey, did I ever tell you about the ni**er elk?"
• (to two elderly ladies) "Maybe you should die, you selfish cunt.... You fucks, I hate you, I hate you both.... You're the fucking reason this country's going down the drain."
• "Well, let her get cleaned up, put on something hot. She looks like shit right now."
• "A man without a gun isn't a man."

Plot Holes:

• All the other cops conveniently leave Cage in the room alone with bad guys often enough that he can smoke crack and make deals with them on a regular basis.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Outstanding
Shauna
James	4.38/5.00	4.04/5.00
Martine	!Enjoyed the Cage!

#64 Vampire's Kiss

#64 Vampire's Kiss

Year: 1988

Director: Robert Bierman

MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Jennifer Beals

Running Time: 103 mins
Cage Time: 99.5%
Cage Kills: 1
Cage Flip-outs: 8/infinity

Shauna's Review: 

Skyler and James have been creaming their pants to watch this movie for about 11 months (ever since they saw this video, which you may have already seen in the sidebar, to your right). Vampire's Kiss fills the first 49 seconds with some prime Cage-outs. Suffice it to say, you should obviously watch that video immediately, if you haven't, and get equally juiced up about watching this cinematic masterpiece.

Really sink your teeth into it. 

We open to an annoyingly long and misleadingly dull opening credits scene. Fortunately, the first voice you hear is Cage's dulcet timbre, complete with a wildly fake accent, 50% New England prep-schooler, 200% insane. He is lying on a leather couch, discussing his fear of commitment with his therapist in a stylish New York office. Cage describes how he brings home an endless string of women, immediately tiring of them in the morning, which means... he holds interest for about 8 hours longer than most men. He seems to think this means he needs therapy.

Cage goes to a jazz club and picks up a drunken floozy, bringing her back to his place for some fun, unfortunately interrupted by a bat loose in his apartment. Upon later returning to his apartment (sans floozy), Cage can't find the bat anywhere. The next night, Cage picks up a different woman (Jennifer Beals, aka that girl from Flashdance) who turns out to be a VAMPIRE! TERRIFYING! Cage goes to bring her coffee in bed in the morning, and she has suddenly DISAPPEARED!

Being a public figure tends to make one tense in a crowd. 

From the bite marks on his neck, Cage begins to suspect that he has become a vampire, and his behavior becomes increasingly erratic. He becomes obsessed with a document at work and harasses the shit out of some poor secretary because she is not able to find it. It becomes the focus of his therapy sessions and consumes, bizarrely, a great deal of his time and energy. It's pretty fucking hysterical.

There are just SO MANY SCENES I want to share with you from this movie, but I won't, because you really have to see them to appreciate it. I wouldn't want to steal any WTF moments from you. Let's just say... they could have put about 50% of this movie into that YouTube video without any problems. Some of my more favorite moments: Alva's mom, getting the cheap teeth, Cage in Tunnel, the sofa coffin (see below), Alva's "pep talk," and of course the pigeon. Don't miss the commentary-- highly recommend getting this on DVD so you can hear Cage and the director muse (maybe 20 years later) about what may or may not have happened on the set of this film.

In sum, a darkly hilarious Cage gem, reminiscent of American Psycho and Dracula, Dead and Loving It (although it pre-dated both of them). Absolutely not appropriate for the whole family, but you should definitely watch it with them anyway, because everyone should see this movie.

Movie quotability:

• "I was in mortal combat with a fucking bat, give me a break!"
• "Oh yes, ok I know. Uh, I guess I was pretty horny... pretty keyed up from being with a girl right before. I was drunk, too, that was it. I'd had a little to drink. I was drunk. Plus I was horny."
• "Fucking greasehole!"
• "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME??"
• "How could somebody misfile something? It couldn't be easier, it's all alphabetical! (screams alphabet) I've never misfiled anything! Not once, not one time! I want to know, really, who did?!"
• "That mescaline, wow. Does strange stuff. I'll never do that again. Jeez."
• "There is no one else here who I could possibly ask to share such a terrible job."
• "Are you all right, Mr Loew?" "Shut up, bitch."
• "I'm a vampire!" (etc)
• "My girlfriend broke up with me! I'm a vampire! Kill me! Kill me!"
• "Christ! The tortures of the damned!"

Plot Holes:

• Self-professed commitment phobe ends up in two romantic relationships (floozy, Beals). 

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James	4.99/5	4.21/5
Martine	!Incredibly, fell asleep in the Cage!

#63 Time To Kill

#63 Time To Kill (Tempo di uccidere)

Year: 1989

Director: Giuliano Montaldo
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Giancarlo Giannini (James Bond's friend Rene)

Running Time: 110 mins
Cage Time: 
Cage Kills: 1
Cage Flip-outs: 3

Shauna's Review: 
OK so to understand the hilarity of this movie, I have to explain the experience of watching the copy we found on thepiratebay. This is a film about Italian soldiers invading Ethiopia in 1936. The cast are all Italian actors; the director is Italian; Nic Cage (Coppola) is an Italian-American, but the rest of them actually are Italian-Italians. However, this movie was filmed in English. But the version we found was DUBBED back into Italian. They then translated that dialogue into English, so the subtitles are a terrible translation of  a translation. Italian actors, speaking English, dubbed in Italian, subtitled in English. The upshot of all this is that A) it's hard to follow what the fuck is happening (something about a toothache?), and B) we are forced to hear some lame voice coming out of Nic Cage's beautiful face. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that a Nic Cage movie without that signature Cage-style delivery is no Cage movie at all.

Don't make me watch this movie again, goddammit! 

Lieutenant Silvestri suffers a toothache and decides to reach the nearest camp hospital. En route to the dentist his vehicle has an accident, and stops near a rock. Silvestri continues by walking. On his way, he meets and rapes a young Ethiopian woman. Despite this, he and the Ethiopian fall for each other. While taking refuge in a cave Silvestri shoots at a wild animal, but the bullet ricochets and hits the woman. Silvestri continues to the dentist. Upon reaching the hospital, he reads a medical book, leading him to believe he has leprosy. As he tries to escape from Ethiopia, Silvestri must evade his former comrades and reach his wife in Italy. 

But I am very handsome. 

The guys decided you should just watch this instead: 

Movie quotability:

• Huge space to fill with our silly greatness.
• How can lives one person... with a bullet in the abdomen.
• What did "go"?
• When I was putting the clock wrist, she looked at me.
• Why is your sister has a white turban? Because he is sick?
• I and I is not got.
• She was sick. [Actual translation: She was not sick]. This would seem more relevant if you had watched the movie, which let's face it... you didn't. 

Plot Holes:

• Subtitles executed too poorly to know.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Poor	Dreadful
Shauna
James	3.07/5.00	1.31/5.00
Martine	!Dozed off in the CAGE!

#62 The Cotton Club

#62 The Cotton Club

Year: 1984

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Morpheus

Running Time: 127 mins 
Cage Time: 5%
Cage Kills: bunches
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: 

Nic Cage plays Richard Gere's brother- you can tell they're brothers, because they have identical pencil-thin mustaches (much admired by James and Skyler). Cage is married to Baby from Dirty Dancing---three years before Dirty Dancing, certainly before the nose job that probably cost her career.

Richard Gere plays a jazz musician, Dixie Dwyer, who happens to save a gangster's life during a police raid on a bootleg jazz bar. Or something. The gangster, "Dutch," takes a liking to Dwyer and hires him as a musician/personal assistant, and Dwyer's kid brother, Vincent (Nic Cage) as hired muscle. Dutch is a real creeper--played by James Remar--who does things like cheerfully stab gangsters in the throat over Jewish slurs.

Nicolas Cage with a sweet mustache. I just wish he got more screen time in this movie.

Young Diane Lane looks exactly like Julia Stiles and is the love interest for Gere. White people are gangsters, bootleggers, etc. Black people are very musical.

Most of Nic Cage's quotes are heavy on the "N-word" so you won't see many below. Turns out his character isn't crazy about Black people, and his job primarily seems to consist of shooting or punching them and stealing their money.

Movie quotability:

• "This is the handsomest I've ever seen Richard Gere." -James
• "You white folks are so smart." -Sandman
• "Bugle Boy, me Jesse James!" -Nic Cage
• "You know how I got that big? I ate a pigeon every day." -Dutch
• "You do move me... in unusual places." -Dixie

Plot Holes:

• Richard Gere and Diane Lane slap each other in the face and start fight-dancing, and people at the club applaud. 

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Acceptable	Poor
Shauna
James	2.17/5.00	2.81/5.00
Martine	!Read in the CAGE!

#61 Valley Girl

#61 Valley Girl

Year: 1983

Director:  Martha Coolidge

MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Elizabeth Daily, aka Dotty from Pee Wee's Big Adventure

Running Time: 99 mins
Cage Time: 50%
Cage Kills: 
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: Valley Girl is a modern spin on the Romeo and Juliet story. Elizabeth Daily plays Julia, and our hero Nicolas Cage is Randy. Randy and Julia.

Julia is a popular girl from The Valley has an on-again-off-again boyfriend whom is the the most popular dude in this school. He is terrible, and treats her terribly, but he is the coolest so she chooses to stay with him for the status of it. One day, Julia and her friends are chilling at the beach Julia catches a glimpse of the rockin' bod of Randy. He doesn't seem to notice/care that she is there, while clandestinely observing her and strategizing with his buddy Fred (who represents Mercutio). Randy puts on a show by flexing and looking awesome but making it look like he thinks no one is watching (like this is normal behavior). Fred finds out about a party in The Valley, and Fred and Randy decide to go to meet some chicks. It just so happens that Julia is at this very party.

Randy (Romeo) with his friend (Mercutio) at a party trying to get chicks from The Valley.

Randy falls in love with Julia immediately, but is thrown out of the party by Julia's boyfriend whom feels threatened. Randy sneaks back into the party by hiding in the bathroom until Julia needs to use the facility. Randy then jumps out of the shower and asks her to ditch the party and go with him to have some "real fun." Randy takes her to a music bar and shows his true punk side. Julia falls in love with Randy and has to decide whether to do the socially prudent thing (date the cool guy she hates) or follow her heart (date Randy). I won't spoil the end for you, but I can bet you can guess the end.

Nicolas Cage as Randy looks as dashing as always. Elizabeth Daly looks OK. Maybe the style of beauty has changed. Look at that hair! (Cage, not Daly)

When the movie begins, the Romeo & Juliet thing is pretty subtle, so we felt pretty clever once we figured it out. But as the movie goes on, they start to beat you over the head about it, including a large ROMEO & JULIET on a playbill for a show in town.

The highlight of this movie is that Nic Cage shaved his chest hair into the shape of a bird, no joke. When he has his shirt off at the beach you can see that he shaved his chest hair down from his neck, but what is left looks like a majestic phoenix. Good stuff.

Oh, and by the way, Dotty from PeeWee Herman's Great Adventure is in this film.

Toward the end, during the obligatory prom scene, Josie Cotton and her band are on stage and sing the entire "Johnny are you Queer?" song. That was a nice touch.

Movie quotability:

• "What is this movie rated? What are the chances of me seeing these teenage girls naked?" -James
• "Why don't you just punish me like Stacy's parents do?" "Bad karma."
• I just came over here to say I love you. (She breaks up w/him). I know what this is! Your fucking friends! Fuck you! Fuck off. For sure. Like totally.

Plot Holes:

• No rearview mirror in the student driver car.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Acceptable
Shauna
James	4.08/5.00	3.46/5.00
Martine	!On the computer in the CAGE!

#60 Wild at Heart

#60 Wild at Heart

Year: 1990

Director: David Lynch
MPAA Rating: NC-17

Epic Co-stars: Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Crispin Glover

Running Time: 125 mins
Cage Time: 95%
Cage Kills: 2
Cage Flip-outs: 2

James' Review: Have you ever thought to yourself 'I love Natural Born Killers, but I wish it had a bit less social commentary on the US media, slightly more ridiculous characters, a hell of a lot more Cage, and was just a bit more weird'?  If you have, consider yourself in luck.  And if you haven't then you probably haven't seen Natural Born Killers (you should see it, it's great).  Overall, Wild at Heart is pretty tame by Lynch's standards; the story is generally coherent, the characters are recognizable throughout the film, and at no point do we see a giant skinless deer.  Despite it's relative tame demeanor, it still provides plenty of excellent (non-tame) Cage along with Lynch style subject matter that many "Cage Fans" (I'm not sure if you should be offended by this or not, so go ahead and get offended but if you're the type who gets offended a lot  then you probably shouldn't be reading this in the first place) will be able to get behind.

It's a good thing Nic Cage wasn't around in the 50's because James Dean wouldn't have stood a chance. 

Sailor Ripley (Cage) and Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) are star-crossed lovers with the entire wide world ahead of them.  Unfortunately, part of this wide world turns out to be a total creeper with a knife who needs to be set straight (beaten to death) by Cage which ends up landing him 2 years in the slammer.  Upon his exit, his always faithful sweetheart is right there to pick him up and give him a snakeskin jacket along with two years of pleasure all at once.  Unfortunately (again, they tend to wind up on the unfortunate side of things quite often) Lula's mother,  Marietta Fortune, also wants a piece of the Cage and decides that if she can't have him nobody can.   Before we know it Cage (who has just kicked the shit out of yet another guy) and Fortune hit the road to get out of town while being tracked by a PI and the mob, both of who have been hired by the wonderfully vindictive Marietta Fortune to eliminate Sailor Ripley.

"Big Tuna" or bust.

As young lovers often do, they soon find themselves short on cash. They head to the town of Big Tuna, Texas where Cage can reunite with some of his rather un-savory 'ol buddies to try and scrape up a little extra cash.  Enter one of the best supporting actor roles we've seen in a Cage movie thus far:  Willem Dafoe (playing Bobby Peru, one of the creepiest mob bosses you've ever seen).  But wait, is the wonderful and charming (as Lula finds out in a rather spectacular way) Bobby Peru really on their side?  Or does he have his own motives in mind?...

Cage makes love in public with his clothes on...

Throughout the film we are constantly presented with a rather (intentionally) blatant juxtaposition of Sailor Ripley as a classic gentlemanly heartthrob, and a savage animal who can't be controlled by himself or anyone else.  In addition, many of the characters are  eccentric to the point of being charming, even when they are anything but (i.e.  Bobby Peru (Warning this scene is a wonderfully creepy and violent HUGE spoiler so only watch if you won't ever watch this movie, or you don't care about spoilers, but just want to some excellent Cage on Dafoe action)).  Even the locations seem to have an eccentric quality that helps Lynch create a world that is fun to watch even if it is beyond the realm of anything believable.  

... and in private with his clothes off.

The previously mentioned eccentric juxtapositions may have been devised by Lynch, but it was fully executed (flawlessly) by Cage.  In Wild at Heart, Cage not only shows his range as an actor, but shows his ability to put this range into a single cohesive character.  He wears a snakeskin jacket, has perfect hair, tons of sex, drives a convertible, kicks ass, takes names, kicks more ass, protects his woman, kicks the shit out of people, and sings songs by Elvis.  What more could anyone ever really ask for?

I think this is from the film but I can't be sure.  Regardless, this picture is too good not to post. 

Movie quotability:

• "Rockin' good news" (slaps ass)
• "This is a snakeskin jacket! And for me it's a symbol of my individuality, and my belief... in personal freedom."
• "I guess I started smoking when I was about....  4.  My mom had already died from lung cancer."
• "I swear baby, you've got the sweetest cock."
• "Man I had a boner with a capital O."

Plot Holes:

• This is a David Lynch movie, so the whole thing is a plot hole.
• They never stop for gas.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Acceptable	Dreadful
Shauna
James	3.61/5	3.85/5
Martine	!Half watched the CAGE!