WE DID IT!

WE DID IT!!!

It was quite the journey. We had a fun time watching the master perform his work. All 66 of them. As promised, we recieved our autographed Nicolas Cage headshots and we even had a cake made with Dr. Cage likeness upon it.

Almost all of us are thrilled to be here.

Not many have what it takes to complete this incredible challenge. We're not necessarily saying that it was easy; it's just that we were raised that if you say you are going to do something, you had better do it.

That is a beautiful looking cake. 

Now that we are at the end and the magic is over, we feel a little sad. Sad that there isn't another obscure avant garde Nicolas Cage work floating around on the internet. We've seen David Lynch, we've seen a TV pilot (with Crispin Glover), we've even seen three movies (not on the list) that Nicolas Cage allegedly appeared in: unaccredited and unseen (We'll post more about these soon).

Watching every Nicolas Cage film really works up an appetite for cake. CAGE CAKE.

Over the course of this year we have reviewed 66 excellent films and are now official Nicolas Cage experts. We have compiled a lot of data regarding the Cinematic and Cageamatic qualities of these films, and we will also post, on this blog, our findings (such as top 10, bottom 10, etc.) If we had to go back in time, we would totally do this again. Now I shudder at the prospect of watching a movie where Nicolas Cage will not appear, not even in spirit. Well done Nicolas Cage; well done us. Not so well done, this guy.

#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!

#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!