#62 The Cotton Club

#62 The Cotton Club

Year: 1984

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Morpheus

Running Time: 127 mins 
Cage Time: 5%
Cage Kills: bunches
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: 

Nic Cage plays Richard Gere's brother- you can tell they're brothers, because they have identical pencil-thin mustaches (much admired by James and Skyler). Cage is married to Baby from Dirty Dancing---three years before Dirty Dancing, certainly before the nose job that probably cost her career.

Richard Gere plays a jazz musician, Dixie Dwyer, who happens to save a gangster's life during a police raid on a bootleg jazz bar. Or something. The gangster, "Dutch," takes a liking to Dwyer and hires him as a musician/personal assistant, and Dwyer's kid brother, Vincent (Nic Cage) as hired muscle. Dutch is a real creeper--played by James Remar--who does things like cheerfully stab gangsters in the throat over Jewish slurs.

Nicolas Cage with a sweet mustache. I just wish he got more screen time in this movie.

Young Diane Lane looks exactly like Julia Stiles and is the love interest for Gere. White people are gangsters, bootleggers, etc. Black people are very musical.

Most of Nic Cage's quotes are heavy on the "N-word" so you won't see many below. Turns out his character isn't crazy about Black people, and his job primarily seems to consist of shooting or punching them and stealing their money.

Movie quotability:

• "This is the handsomest I've ever seen Richard Gere." -James
• "You white folks are so smart." -Sandman
• "Bugle Boy, me Jesse James!" -Nic Cage
• "You know how I got that big? I ate a pigeon every day." -Dutch
• "You do move me... in unusual places." -Dixie

Plot Holes:

• Richard Gere and Diane Lane slap each other in the face and start fight-dancing, and people at the club applaud. 

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Acceptable	Poor
Shauna
James	2.17/5.00	2.81/5.00
Martine	!Read in the CAGE!

#61 Valley Girl

#61 Valley Girl

Year: 1983

Director:  Martha Coolidge

MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Elizabeth Daily, aka Dotty from Pee Wee's Big Adventure

Running Time: 99 mins
Cage Time: 50%
Cage Kills: 
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: Valley Girl is a modern spin on the Romeo and Juliet story. Elizabeth Daily plays Julia, and our hero Nicolas Cage is Randy. Randy and Julia.

Julia is a popular girl from The Valley has an on-again-off-again boyfriend whom is the the most popular dude in this school. He is terrible, and treats her terribly, but he is the coolest so she chooses to stay with him for the status of it. One day, Julia and her friends are chilling at the beach Julia catches a glimpse of the rockin' bod of Randy. He doesn't seem to notice/care that she is there, while clandestinely observing her and strategizing with his buddy Fred (who represents Mercutio). Randy puts on a show by flexing and looking awesome but making it look like he thinks no one is watching (like this is normal behavior). Fred finds out about a party in The Valley, and Fred and Randy decide to go to meet some chicks. It just so happens that Julia is at this very party.

Randy (Romeo) with his friend (Mercutio) at a party trying to get chicks from The Valley.

Randy falls in love with Julia immediately, but is thrown out of the party by Julia's boyfriend whom feels threatened. Randy sneaks back into the party by hiding in the bathroom until Julia needs to use the facility. Randy then jumps out of the shower and asks her to ditch the party and go with him to have some "real fun." Randy takes her to a music bar and shows his true punk side. Julia falls in love with Randy and has to decide whether to do the socially prudent thing (date the cool guy she hates) or follow her heart (date Randy). I won't spoil the end for you, but I can bet you can guess the end.

Nicolas Cage as Randy looks as dashing as always. Elizabeth Daly looks OK. Maybe the style of beauty has changed. Look at that hair! (Cage, not Daly)

When the movie begins, the Romeo & Juliet thing is pretty subtle, so we felt pretty clever once we figured it out. But as the movie goes on, they start to beat you over the head about it, including a large ROMEO & JULIET on a playbill for a show in town.

The highlight of this movie is that Nic Cage shaved his chest hair into the shape of a bird, no joke. When he has his shirt off at the beach you can see that he shaved his chest hair down from his neck, but what is left looks like a majestic phoenix. Good stuff.

Oh, and by the way, Dotty from PeeWee Herman's Great Adventure is in this film.

Toward the end, during the obligatory prom scene, Josie Cotton and her band are on stage and sing the entire "Johnny are you Queer?" song. That was a nice touch.

Movie quotability:

• "What is this movie rated? What are the chances of me seeing these teenage girls naked?" -James
• "Why don't you just punish me like Stacy's parents do?" "Bad karma."
• I just came over here to say I love you. (She breaks up w/him). I know what this is! Your fucking friends! Fuck you! Fuck off. For sure. Like totally.

Plot Holes:

• No rearview mirror in the student driver car.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Acceptable
Shauna
James	4.08/5.00	3.46/5.00
Martine	!On the computer in the CAGE!

#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!