#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!

#45 Adaptation.

#45 Adaptation

Year: 2002

Director: Spike Jonze
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, that guy from Office Space

Running Time: 114 min
Cage Time: 
Cage Kills: 
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: 

Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is writing a screenplay about the Orchid Thief and wants to stay true to the book and not snesationalize it with sex, action, love, just for the sake of Hollywood.

I'm already ruining this review. I can't spell. Without those red squiggles, I can't spell a thing. I'm so pathetic. No one will want to read this review. But maybe that is OK, since I am keeping with the movie. Who cares about the audience. If the audience doesn't like it they can read some other blog. It's not my responsibility to write garbage just because the average internet user has the equivalent of a 2nd grade education. I do want them to like me, though.

This movie is worth watching if just for seeing TWO Nicolas Cages on screen.

Dr. Cage also plays Charlie Kaufman's fictional twin brother, Donald. Donald lays around all the time on the ground, and wants to also become a screenwriter, but wants to go to a costly seminar about screenwriting that almost sounds like a scam. Charlie says this is stupid, because a seminar will never help you write something new, which should be the goal for all writers.

 This isn't going well. This isn't interesting at all. I wanted to write something interesting and original, and I'm just sitting here and can't even think about how to recap this movie. I can't find an anmiated gif for this review. I'm terrible.

The story Charlie is writing is about a man (named Laroche) who goes into the swamps in Florida and poaches orchids. He takes Seminole tribe members with him to try and avoid the law, saying that the natives are allowed to poach plants. The goal for Laroche is to poach the 'ghost orchid', which is very rare. Then he plans to cultivate them and sell them for a bunch of money. Then if people can buy the ghost orchid in stores, the flower would be better protected from poachers by decreasing its rarity. Also, you can make drugs.

Why don't girls look at me the way they look at Nicolas Cage. Is it because I'm bald? Women just like confidence; how can I have confidence if I am bald? Maybe I can grow a mustache. I think women like mustaches, or at least a certain kind of woman. I wonder if I would know what to do with the kind of woman that likes mustaches. What if I can't grow a mustache?

The meta-Cage of this movie is amazing. Not only is there Nicolas Cage playing two people (Charlie and Donald), but at one point you get to see Nicolas Cage play Donald acting as Charlie. Good stuff.

Laroche is all about passion and collecting. All he wants is orchids. Before that, he was obsessed with other things. At 10 years old he collected turtles  until he gave up on them and trashed his collection. Then at 17 he collected fish, then one morning woke up and said "fuck fish" and now won't step foot in the ocean. Then he moved on to collecting something else.

If I can just end this review with an exciting animated gif, people will still like it. It doesn't even need to fit with the rest of the review. The audience won't care. I'll find a gif. That's what this needs.

As some point in the movie, we realize that the movie is a meta-movie, because the movie that is playing out is the screenplay that Charlie is currently writing. This becomes clear when Charlie has a breakthrough about how to start the movie. He repeats an echo of what we actually see as at the start of the movie. Toward the end, Charlie writes something and then we see it happen on screen.

This is obviously not from the movie, but is pretty awesome.

Movie quotability:

• Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out?
• You are what you love, not what loves you.
• I can't believe I got shot.  Isn't that fucked up?

Plot Holes:

• None.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James	4.80/5	4.50/5
Martine	!Stayed in the CAGE!

#32 Bringing Out the Dead

#32 Bringing Out the Dead

Year: 1999

Director: Martin Scorsese
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: John Goodman, Patricia Arquette, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore

Running Time: 121 mins
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 2
Cage Flip-outs: 4 
Skyler's Review: 

This movie was bringing out the dead in me! First, let me state for the record that Nicolas Cage did an amazing job portraying his character with the style and grace that makes doves cry. Now for the movie...

Nic Cage keeps seeing this 'Rose' as a ghost everywhere.

At the start we see John Goodman who is awesome. John is saying some funny stuff and Nic Cage is being pretty cool. Cage is playing an ambulance driver that is dead inside. He's really pulling it off, too. It's cool at first but then it starts to be a drag.

Nic Cage starts seeing Rose's face everywhere. In reflections and stuff, every time he drives, and  when looking at other people.

Dr. Cage's hair is flat long hair; he kinda looks like a zombie. John Goodman is the only actor who comes even near Nic Cage in the flip-out department. Ving Rhames is pretty awesome too. Really funny. Cage just keeps acting dead inside.

As the movie moves along you get the feeling like they are trying to make a significant point by seeing Rose's face on other people, but after a few times it seems forced.

If you liked Insomnia or Edward Norton in Fight Club then you will totally like Bringing out the Dead. My favorite part was when they started talking about "applesauce cake" since that sounds really yummy.

You might be trying to really get "into" this review but then this girl's face keeps on popping up non sequitur.  

The overall plot is something about a new drug called "Red Death" that is causing young people to OD. All of the people that Nic and his co-drivers of the ambulance try to save are either old people that are too old to be saved, or drug addicts that can't be saved from themselves. After half of the movie is over, you feel that the writers have made their point; but they keep hitting you over the head with the same visuals and situations.

Seriously, they keep showing this girl's face so much that toward the end she served as a reminder to check your watch to see how much time was left.

Really the best part of the movie happens half way through when an ambulance does a flip. The credits really should have started to roll there. But, alas, there is still a whole lot of movie left. I would recommend this movie to someone that is so happy that they want to be brought down a little bit. Otherwise, leave this movie to folks spending a Year in the Cage.

If you are tired of seeing the same non-Cage image over and over, join the club.

Here, have a Cage... you'll feel better.

Movie quotability:

• "Hold this.  If you let go I SWEAR, I don't kill you."
• "I'm goin', it's easier than waitin'"
• "It's 6 am the cocktail hour.  Pass me the bottle."
• "You're in the stomach!"
• "Where the hell are the bandaids?  This is an ambulance isn't it?"

Plot Holes:

• Ambulance driving is a ridiculous fraternity of ridiculous doing ridiculous things. 
• Twins don't come out at the same time.
• Nobody holds the railing...

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Poor	Poor
Shauna
James	2.18/5	1.84/5
Martine	!Stayed in the Cage!