#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!

#43 8MM

#43 8MM

Year: 1999

Director: Joel Schumacher
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Carl Hungus, Catherine Keener

Running Time: 123 mins
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 2
Cage Flip-outs: 5

Group Review:  When sitting down to watch 8MM I thought, "Isn't Joel Schumacher a good director?"  I looked on IMDB and saw such gems as "St Elmo's Fire" and "Batman Forever" on his resume, which was encouraging... and then I saw "Trespass." So... that doesn't bode well. I guess 8MM could go either way...

This picture is quite possibly the best thing to come out of this film.

Tom Welles (Cage), a private investigator, is summoned to the home of a wealthy widow. The widow reveals to Cage that after the death of her husband, a prominent member of the community, she found among his things an 8mm film of the rape and murder of a young girl. She asks him to investigate the legitimacy of this film and the people involved in its creation. Posing as a federal agent, Cage discovers the identity of the girl, a runaway, and meets her mother, who says that no matter what, she needs to know the truth about what happened to her daughter. Dun-dun-DUNNNN.

Nic Cage almost vomits when initially viewing the film.  It serves as a nice reminder  of a time before the internet when people could still be shocked or offended by stuff.

Although I stated earlier that this movie could go either way, it really didn't.  While it was nowhere near the total swill that is Trespass, it was also nothing that will be getting unanimously positive reviews on this blog.  The ending does bring some decent suspense and there are some "scary" characters, but most of the time I just felt like it was taking a bit too long to get to where ever the hell this movie was going.  This feeling wasn't helped by the fact that a scene that would normally come at the end came in the middle, which made the remainder of the movie "drag ass".

The look of a truly passionate swordsman.  Little know Cage fact: This scene single handedly landed his role in Season of the Witch.

Cage's acting was on point with the general style of the movie.  Pretty middle of the road; nothing  worth the praise of an academy award or worth the self loathing he must have had after his initial viewing of Ghost Rider.  Some of his high points include delivering all of his lines like a man who's had the blood drained out of him and being the worlds worst deliverer of bad news over the phone.  Everyone he makes a phone call to ends up sobbing on the floor.  In the end I only came away with two things:  Never use the word "snuff" when talking to Latino porn lords and that there is a dark side of George Costanza that we never saw on Seinfeld.  Use that information however you see fit.

Movie quotability:

• "Wait, so we're watching a Nic Cage film??" -Martine
• "Why is every word that comes out of Nicolas Cage's mouse so... goddamn... amazing?" -James
• "His wife is bullshit." -James
• "Is that painting a picture of Jon Voight?" -Geoff
• Nic Cage: "Mrs. Christian." Nathan (sings): "Sister Christian..."
• Nathan: "There's no lights in this movie." Skyler: "That's why it's a dark comedy."
• "I'd hate to see you caught in one of those every day situations that calls for a battery-operated vagina, and you don't have one." -Joaquin Phoenix
• "Hey! It's like a gas station, you pay before you pump." -JP
• "There's things that you're gonna see that you can't un-see. They'll stick in your brain." -JP
• "That's great. Snuff 2: The Resurrection." -JP
• "What if it's not the right guy? He's like, 'Hey, you know how you got stabbed? Now I'm going to kick the shit out of you.'" -Shauna
• "You dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change. The devil changes you." -JP
• "George Costanza!" - Martine

Plot Holes:

• Why did he need to go out of town to investigate this? If he didn't know anything about the film, how would he know where to look for the girl?
• Man has two sons named Warren.
• What humans talk this way?
• It's dark all the time in Hollywood.
• Cage loiters aimlessly in back yards looking like a real creeper and nobody seems to care.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Poor	Acceptable
Shauna
James	3.19/5	3.26/5
Martine	!Christmas shopping in the CAGE!