#12 Face/Off

#12 Face/Off

Year: 1997

Director: John Woo

MPAA Rating:  R 

Epic Co-stars: John Travolta, Margaret Cho

Running Time: 138 mins.
Cage Time: 50%
Cage Kills: 13
Cage Flip-outs: 8

Martine's Review: I laughed.  I cried.  I dreamed of the slow sensual eating of a (my) peach for hours.  And that was just in the first 10 minutes.  Face/Off did more for me in 30 minutes than 10 Romantic-Comedies combined.  Nicolas Cage starts as Caster Troy, the most ruthless/sexiest super-villain to ever grace the planet earth.  Troy and his brother are terrorists for hire and are responsible for some of the most elaborate terrorist attacks in history.  Castor Troy constantly eludes his arch-nemesis Sean Archer (played by the totally love-handlishous John Travolta) who is a super secret government guy who basically can't even tell his wife what he has for lunch when he's at work.  A few really well thought out twists and turns later the two find themselves in each others bodies impersonating one another while also totally trying to execute their own agendas.  Wow, my juicy peach was on such a wild ride I didn't know up from down, left from right...


Two Nic Cages in one film?  This penetrated my psyche like nobody ever has before: double (psyche) penetration!  Cage as Archer softly tickled the freshly ripe side of my peach as I watched him perfectly portray a noble family man caught in the clutches of the seedy underworld of prison inmates and super-mega sex/drug lairs.  Initially I teared up when I saw Travolta crying out in pain after losing his child, but later when Cage had his turn at the same situation it was too much for me to handle.  I burst out into a full fit, whaling so loudly that my fellow viewers had to make frequent use of the pause button on the remote control.

Which one is Nicolas Cage?  Both of them.

Cage as Troy set ablaze my fully ripe and juicy side as he so confidently and joyously planned and executed mass destruction everywhere he went.  To see the way he cherished and charmed each and every lady he came into contact with made me feel just a drop of regret about the path my personal life has taken, the wife of an engineer who possesses less passion and sexual spontaneity in his entire body than Cage (as Troy, or anyone else for that matter) does in his little toe.

If this is what was waiting for me every Sunday I'd join the church choir in a second. 

With most films, looking beyond Nicolas Cage's performance is futile, but Face/Off still brings several strong and memorable points to mind.  John Woo dazzled me with sultry prison fights,  totally gross ears being shot off of guys heads, mystifying laser ear reconstruction and re-attachment to guys heads, hot guys getting faces lasered off, hot guys with other hotter guys faces, guys that used to be totally hot but now have no face and look totally sick, hot guys being shot by hotter guys with spear guns, totally rad sex/drug lairs with tons of people snorting coke and cussing up a storm, and high flying helicopter / jet / Hummer / boat chases that took my breath away.  I have to say the most heartwarming and simply beautiful moment of the film came during a quite innovative and imaginative music video of my all-time favorite song, "Somewhere over the Rainbow" performed by Olivia Newton-John.  The video exposes the sweet and almost beautiful innocence of a small child clutching a stuffed animal set to the even more beautiful back drop of tons of drugged-out maniacs murdering each other in the aforementioned totally rad drug/sex lair. 


All in all, I think Face/Off draws a close parallel to my own life.  The juxtaposition of my constant struggle between good and evil, my face's transformation from daughter to mother, or my slow but steady decent from a young and free barely-ripe peach into a slightly decayed and withered old piece of fruit trapped in a monotonous and thankless existence that reiterated daily by a loveless marriage and an empty relationship with a spoiled and unruly child.  Alas, at the end of the day none of this really matters because I know that at any point I can slip off my shoes, put in my VHS version of Face/Off, a get double penetrated by Nic Cage for two solid hours which is all a girl like me really wants or needs.

Movie quotability: 5/5

• "You know, I can uh... eat a peach for hours."
• "Goddammit! Don't play chicken with a goddamn jet!"
• "You're not having any fun, are you, Sean?"
• Troy: "Well, I have got to go. I've got a government job to abuse, and a lonely wife to fuck." [Archer sobs] Troy: "Oh, sorry... make love to."
• "I want to take his face... off."
• Dr Walsh: "What do you want?" Troy: "Take one god damn guess."
• "It's like looking in a mirror, only... not."
• Troy [reading Archer's wife's diary] "'Date night, fizzled again. We haven't had sex in two months.' ...what a loser."
• "This nose, this hair... this ridiculous chin."
• "Dress up like Halloween, and ghouls will try to get in your pants."
• "Oh well, Plan B. Let's just kill each other."

Plot Holes:
Basically the whole movie, including- 

• John Travola can drive as fast as a jet in a Humvee, and fly faster than a jet in a helicopter. 
• Your face can be pulled off like ham off a sandwich, not to mention stuck on someone else's skull and make them look exactly like you.
• Archer isn't allowed to tell ANYONE about switching faces with Troy (conveniently setting himself up to get screwed later). 
• Wife woken by husband coming home super late for work and wants to have sex with him. 
• After taking his face, the feds keep Castor Troy's body alive for no apparent reason.
• Nic Cage sent to prison as Troy to get info from Pollux, although it seems like they could have just set up a brief meeting to accomplish the same purpose.
• People heal superfast from facial surgery.
• Archer has been following Troy for years, but how does Troy know about Archer's family?
• Archer (as Troy) could still save everyone by telling the cops about the bomb at the Convention Center. 
• Prison has "System Overload" button.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Outstanding
Shauna
James	4.44	4.13
Martine	!Did Her Nails and Read Her Book in the Cage!

#11 Trapped in Paradise

#11 Trapped in Paradise

Year: 1994

Director: George Gallo

MPAA Rating:  PG-13 

Epic Co-stars: Jon Lovitz, Dana Carvey

Running Time: 111 mins.

Cage Time: ~95%

Cage Kills: 0

Cage Flip-outs: 8

Skyler's Review: You may think that a lighthearted Christmas comedy starring Nic Cage can only be great, a must see, even. This was my original thinking, too. However, now I am fully aware that there are really only three reasons to put this movie on your television:

1. You are trying to complete the A Year In the Cage challenge. 
2. You actually want to go to the park, but you can't quite get up the motivation.
3. You hate yourself.

For me, it was the first one. Although, by the end it may have been the third one. The feeling that I had during the movie was similar to how I felt toward the end of the Lord of the Rings: this movie is good, but why is it so, so long? Except this movie isn't good. 

This picture, right-to-left was like the movie. Off to an OK start, exudes excellence in the middle, and (like Dana Carvey's career) goes on far too long in the end.

This isn't to say that this movie didn't have some funny moments. Nicolas Cage delivers an impeccable performance that is funny and nuanced. Juxtapose this with Dana Carvey's performance which was on par with his usual caliber, i.e. awful. If you are deciding to watch this film, and you want to finish it (so, you are not watching for reason #2), don't make the dreadful mistake that we did. Hide all of your clocks, remove your watch, disable any alarms. Our mistake was that when the movie felt like it was about over, a member of our group needed to go to the toilet. In keeping with the rules of A Year in the Cage, we paused the movie...revealing the actual time remaining in the movie: 45 minutes! (gasp) Shear willpower kept us going. It was like living out the scene from A Clockwork Orange.

Please, Dana; look into my shades, and Never. (point fingers into air suddenly) Speak. (open hands violently) Again. (throw arms down quickly)

OK so now you know how I feel about the film, let's go over the premise of this movie. Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey are getting paroled from jail, and straight-shooting Nic Cage has to pick them up. Cage knows that his brothers are up to no good and will have some sort of plan to rob or steal something. They trick Nic into driving them over state lines (parole violation) to rob a bank in the small town of Paradise, PA. Jon says some funny stuff about yoga, Nic flips out in a funny way, and Dana acts like an idiot. The three rob the bank and fix to leave, when (would you believe it!!!) they get trapped there due to snow. Jon talks about leaving, Nic talks about his moral compass, and Dana talks like a moron. Things happen; none of it really believable. People in the movie seem to like Dana Carvey's character. To make the movie more fun to watch, try predicting what is about to happen. The fun part is that you are always right; except Dana Carvey's character lives.

Movie quotability 1/5:

• "Yeeeeessss, I wanted to talk to her."

• "Edna?  Are we sleeping together?  I don't think so, you call me Mrs. Firpo!"

• "Oh my god a GUUUNNN!"

• "Why don't you let me do the crackin' and you do the jackin'"

• "But I swear we ain't the same people we were this morning."

Plot Holes:

• Everything about Dana Carvey's character.

• Local police have a gymnasium full of maps and charts within a couple hours of the robbery.

• Three idiot brothers walk away unharmed from what would otherwise be a fatal car accident.

• Dumbest bank manager/manager's wife don't recognize three strangers with very distinct voices.

• A relatively still stream suddenly turns into a waterfall the second someone falls out of the boat.

• A horse pulling a sleigh can travel up the freeway at the same speed as a car.

• Morons think they need to put the money back in the vault rather than placing it right outside the door... or anywhere else in or near the fucking bank! 

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Dreadful
Shauna
James	3.62/5	1.7/5
Martine	!Trapped in the Cage!

#10 Knowing

#10 Knowing

Year: 2009

Director: Alex Proyas

MPAA Rating:  PG-13 

Epic Co-stars: None

Running Time: 121 mins.
Cage Time: ~95%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 5

James' Review:  As the movie opens Cage plays a genius professor and loving single father, but over the next two hours this character slowly transforms into the half cocked, moderately insane, and partially psychotic person that is in every great Cage character.  The fun begins when Cage receivers a page full of rambling numbers that has recently been unearthed from a time capsule at his sons school.  He applies his genius to this page and can suddenly predict every major natural disaster including the biggest/worst one ever that is coincidentally coming in rather short period of time.  

Nouveau Shamonic + Total Destruction = Classic cage goodness.

In addition to a decently solid Nouveau Shamanic performance, Knowing contains several pretty awesome action / destruction sequences.  One of which has an impressive series of helpless people suffering as they burn to death.  In the end, the plot-line goes a bit flat as it tires  (and fails) to tie up some loose ends, but this is all forgiven with the onset of one of the coolest end-of-days sequences I've seen in quite a long time.  

Even Nic Cage himself is shocked by the beauty of his own hair in this film.

In addition to the epic destruction, Nic Cage's hair borderlines on perfection during almost every second of the film.  Sporting one of the deepest, most puffy hairlines in all of show business,  his hair often resembles a beautiful and majestic bird with light weightless feathers.  This hair, coupled with some of the most intensely concerned facial expression around, allows Nicolas Cage to easily be mistaken for a god on the big screen.  But after several minutes of reflection one will come to the realization that this is not a case of mistaken identity, that your eyes haven't deceived you, that Nicolas Cage TRULY IS GOD.

Movie quotability: 2/5

• "I think that shit just happens.  But that's just me..."
• "You stay away from us you hear?  You want some of this?" (hits tree with bat)
• "How am I supposed to stop the end of the world" (Diana gasps...

Plot Holes:

• Kid decides his hearing aid sucks and can suddenly hear without having his hearing aid in.  (Nonsense disability)
• Supposedly "good mom" puts her daughter in the front seat of her car and races away like a maniac in her Mazda 3.  Leaves children in car multiple times.
• "micro-teslas" are not a unit of solar radiation.  And even if it was, it'd be totally insignificant to any other  magnetic field in our daily lives.
• A pay phone still exists in a gas station parking lot, and the 9 year old carries plenty of change.
• Black rocks?  WTF?

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Poor
Shauna
James	3.71/5	3.29/5
Martine	!Stayed in the Cage!