#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!

#46 Zandalee

#46 Zandalee

Year: 1991

Director: Sam Pillsbury
MPAA Rating: NC-17

Epic Co-stars: Judge Reinhold, Steve Buschemi, Aaron Neville

Running Time: 100 mins
Cage Time: 80%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 3

Shauna's Review:  Hold on to your butts, boys and girls; this movie is NC-17. Yes, I realize that if you had known Nic Cage was in an NC-17 movie, that would have been on the top of your list from the beginning.  About thirty seconds in, we're looking at a very nice-looking naked chick and Judge Reinhold with a mustache. Already Skyler and James are considering this movie for the Best Nic Cage Movie of All Time.

In a way, this is Cage playing himself.  An introspective artist who is such a genius  that not even he can  understand  his infinite wisdom.

Zandalee is a young woman married to Thierry (Reinhold), a poet and professor who quits to run his father's business after his father's death. Consumed with new stresses and responsibilities, Thierry pulls away from Zandalee, emotionally and physically (that means sex). Thierry's childhood friend Johnny (Dr Cage), a painter, enters the picture. Although he has long, greasy hair and weird glasses, he is Nicolas Cage and thus pulsing with raw magnetism, so we can guess what happens next. That's right, sweaty paint sex.

Cage embraces the NC-17 rating of this film and even provokes it with an open display  his perfectly chiseled manhood.

Turns out they're not very good at being subtle. Everybody knows about their little "liason," including Thierry's mom, who actually approves because she's been having an affair of her own for some-odd decades. They get a little carried away--doing it on the washing machine while Thierry is in the next room--and Thierry figures it out. Meanwhile things get to start weird with Johnny, like rape-in-a-confessional weird. Things pretty much unravel from there.

Best. Freakout. Ever.

Gotta say, this movie is more melodrama than erotic thriller. Feels like a little bit of a cop-out when you just kill people instead of coming up with a better way of resolving their problems. BUT: this movie is ripe for Cage quotes and has a few great Cage moments, including Nic Cage smoking a cigarette in church, and THE. Most amazing Nic Cage freak out. Period. Just fantastic. One other thing: I highly recommend watching this via Netflix-- our disc was a ripped Chinese copy, no joke, and our subtitles were hilariously bad. Really added a new layer to this movie.

Movie quotability:

• "Well, this is first-class accommodations."
• "But if I can't paint, everything just turns to shit."
• "I want to shake you naked and eat you alive, Zandalee."
• "Why is it that the Baptists have all the women and no booze and the Catholics have all the booze and no women?"
• "Without art, without life, you can't climb up the devil's ass and look him in the eye and smile without blinking."
• "You wanna share my peach?"
• "Take me. Take my dumb coon-ass prick inside of you with your husband in the next room."
• "Uh-oh. I don't like Nicolas Cage the rapist. Everything was going just fine until then." -James
• "You speak it once and it's there. A religious heart-ifact." -Steve Buschemi
• "When I go into the kitchen and make toast, I smell your skin. I can't get you out of me."
• "I like how, even when she's dead, she's still trying to pull her skirt up." -James

Plot Holes:

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Poor
Shauna
James	3.21	2.37
Martine	!Christmas cards in the Cage!