#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!

#54 Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted

#54 Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted

Year: 1990

Director: David Lynch
MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Laura Dern

Running Time: 50 mins
Cage Time: 4%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 0

Skyler's Review: 

For this one, we didn't know what to expect. I mean, its a David Lynch musical with Nicolas Cage in it. No one could possibly know what to expect. Unfortunately, Nicolas Cage is only on screen for 2 minutes and is not present for any of the trippy "dream sequence." Essentially this 50 minute film starts with a phone conversation where Nicolas Cage breaks up with some chick. This takes 2 minutes. The rest of the movie is   supposed to be what is going on inside the subconscious of the girl. It is very dark in there, which makes sense, breaking up with Cage would be very dark.

This beautiful face graces the screen for only 2 minutes.

Once the musical starts, you realize that the bass line starts is identical to the music in Twin Peaks. This makes sense since it has the same composer and singer, Andre Badalamenti and Julee Cruise. The musical continues with ten songs.

Here is a succinct summary of action during the ten songs:

1. Naked chick, twisted. Some actor playing Nicolas cage floating through her mind.
2. Flying around chick gets eaten by a car.
3. Midget from Twin Peaks saws a log.
4. Chick is flying around in a spotlight.
5. Sounds of cats mating and a large dancing 10 foot tall demon.
6. A guy narrates and searchlights look for the naked chick.
7. Midget recites the conversation from the beginning while a guy plays clarinet.
8. Chick sings a song from Twin Peaks from the trunk of a car.
9. Naked dead babies float about.
10. Chick floats around in spotlights singing another Twin Peaks song.

Some weird "skinned deer" dances on the stage. It's weird.

You can find this on Youtube. It's weird, so I would suggest watching it when you can't fall asleep.

Movie quotability:

• "I just said juxtaposition, write that down." -James

Plot Holes:

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Poor	Troll
Shauna
James	1.44/5.00	1.71/5.00
Martine	!Dozed off in the Cage!

#52 Fire Birds

#52 Fire Birds

Year: 1990

Director: David Green
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Epic Co-stars: Tommy Lee Jones, 

Running Time: 85 mins
Cage Time: 100%
Cage Kills/Deaths: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 3

James' Review:  Let's just clear up a few things before we get started here.  Nic Cage is a much better actor than Tom Cruise, Tommy Lee Jones is a much better actor than James Tolkan, and tricked out helicopters (if presented properly) can be just as cool as fighter jets.  Despite all these facts, Fire Birds is a much worse movie than Top Gun.  Maybe  it's the fact that all my memories of Top Gun were formed before I was ten years of age, or that Nic Cage could only really be taken seriously in about 1/3 of the scenes in which he appeared in this movie, or possibly that Nic Cage (the anit-Tom Cruise) didn't ride a totally tricked out crotch rocket.  We may never know.  All we do know is that Fire Birds was released four years after Top Gun (giving every person on earth a chance to see it and love it) and that it desperately wanted to be Top Gun (made clear by an almost exact copy of the story line) and that it did not have any scenes with Val Kilmer (probably the only thing I would still like about Top Gun if I were to see it now).

The best of the best.  Helicopter Pilot.  Actor.  Human.  Whatever.

Jake Preston (Cage) is a hot young stud and rising star in the US Apache Combat training program.  He is the best of the best and he knows it.  The school has recently been chartered by the US Government to train their pilots for combat against South American drug cartels who will be flying a smaller, more nimble, Scorpion attack helicopter.  That's right, drug cartels in a different hemisphere have a single helicopter and a crack pilot that will single-handedly wage war on the US military.   Preston has finally met his match.  But before he can solve America's drug problems, he's got some authority to challenge and some ass to chase at home...

Siskel and Ebert have already said everything there is to say (and in a vastly superior fashion) about the film itself so I'll try to say a few things they haven't.  First off, all of the acting in this movie is terrible.  Cage actually pulls this "terrible acting" off due to his irreverence and on-screen charm, while everyone else just ends up looking like a typical asshole failing at a never ending game of Charades.  Both his irreverence and charm are perfectly summed up in an excellent scene where he takes to the flight simulator for some realistic (ie. mid level PlayStation 1 graphics) action against the best AI 1990 has to offer.  But Seriously.  Fire Birds deserves some respect for drawing attention to a problem so often overlooked by the US public today:  Eye Dominance.  People suffering from this condition often have to spend several minutes behind the wheel of a jeep equipped with a home made para scope to be cured forever.

Eye dominance:  An ailment that effects one out of  every one person in this country today.  

I've presented here only a few of the reasons why every person on earth should eventually see this movie.  While each individual part may be either laughable, stupid, embarrassing  or really stupid, they all sum together to provide an experience that is but a fond memory in 2013.  Fire Birds shows us a time when multiple A-list actors could be in a totally stupid movie and it didn't even matter or effect their careers.  A time when someone would actually put up millions of dollars because "theoretically Top Gun with helicopters and Nic Cage should be amazing."  A time when  a quote from anyone with the name George Bush at the beginning of a movie would be somewhat respectable.  And most importantly, a time that the whole world was stupid and nothing didn't not not matter at all.  Nothing mattered at all because bad guys were exploding and Nic Cage was securing a nice piece of ass in the end.  And I think we all know deep down, that is all that really matters.

A time.  The time.  The only time.  Transcending Time.

Movie quotability:

• "Sir, that was totally cool!"
• "Good, because I have a pocket full of quarters."
• "I AM THE GREATEST"
• "Shoot 'em, blast 'em, nab 'em, grab 'em, shake 'em, bake 'em, cook 'em, clean 'em, hold 'em, broil 'em, kick 'em, nab 'em, twist 'em, ALL GONE BYE BYE!!!!"
• "I'd say that I'm doing piss-perfect"
• "Why'd you change?"  "Less to take off."  "Lets skip dinner."
• "You're not touching her you filthy piece of shit."
• "Snort that sucker."  (Kills cocaine jet with shoulder fired rocket.)

Plot Holes:

• Drug cartels like fighting the US military via a single helicopter.
• The drug cartel seems to have one helicopter and one helicopter pilot.
• Their helicopter pilot was trained in North Korea.
• People in 1990 thought that "Billie" looked good in that loose sports bra.
• Tommy Lee Jones it taller than the top shelf in the supermarket.
• Old couple has 3 toddler aged kids and no toys in their house.
• Arizona and "South America" look exactly the same.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Outstanding	Poor
Shauna
James	3.19/5	1.80/5
Martine	!Read, wrote, and watched in the Cage!