Showing posts with label R. Show all posts
Showing posts with label R. Show all posts

#64 Vampire's Kiss


#64 Vampire's Kiss
Year: 1988
Director: Robert Bierman
MPAA Rating: R
Epic Co-stars: Jennifer Beals
Running Time: 103 mins
Cage Time: 99.5%
Cage Kills: 1
Cage Flip-outs: 8/infinity
Shauna's Review: 
Skyler and James have been creaming their pants to watch this movie for about 11 months (ever since they saw this video, which you may have already seen in the sidebar, to your right). Vampire's Kiss fills the first 49 seconds with some prime Cage-outs. Suffice it to say, you should obviously watch that video immediately, if you haven't, and get equally juiced up about watching this cinematic masterpiece.

Really sink your teeth into it. 
We open to an annoyingly long and misleadingly dull opening credits scene. Fortunately, the first voice you hear is Cage's dulcet timbre, complete with a wildly fake accent, 50% New England prep-schooler, 200% insane. He is lying on a leather couch, discussing his fear of commitment with his therapist in a stylish New York office. Cage describes how he brings home an endless string of women, immediately tiring of them in the morning, which means... he holds interest for about 8 hours longer than most men. He seems to think this means he needs therapy.

Cage goes to a jazz club and picks up a drunken floozy, bringing her back to his place for some fun, unfortunately interrupted by a bat loose in his apartment. Upon later returning to his apartment (sans floozy), Cage can't find the bat anywhere. The next night, Cage picks up a different woman (Jennifer Beals, aka that girl from Flashdance) who turns out to be a VAMPIRE! TERRIFYING! Cage goes to bring her coffee in bed in the morning, and she has suddenly DISAPPEARED!

Being a public figure tends to make one tense in a crowd. 
From the bite marks on his neck, Cage begins to suspect that he has become a vampire, and his behavior becomes increasingly erratic. He becomes obsessed with a document at work and harasses the shit out of some poor secretary because she is not able to find it. It becomes the focus of his therapy sessions and consumes, bizarrely, a great deal of his time and energy. It's pretty fucking hysterical.

There are just SO MANY SCENES I want to share with you from this movie, but I won't, because you really have to see them to appreciate it. I wouldn't want to steal any WTF moments from you. Let's just say... they could have put about 50% of this movie into that YouTube video without any problems. Some of my more favorite moments: Alva's mom, getting the cheap teeth, Cage in Tunnel, the sofa coffin (see below), Alva's "pep talk," and of course the pigeon. Don't miss the commentary-- highly recommend getting this on DVD so you can hear Cage and the director muse (maybe 20 years later) about what may or may not have happened on the set of this film.


In sum, a darkly hilarious Cage gem, reminiscent of American Psycho and Dracula, Dead and Loving It (although it pre-dated both of them). Absolutely not appropriate for the whole family, but you should definitely watch it with them anyway, because everyone should see this movie.


Movie quotability:

  • "I was in mortal combat with a fucking bat, give me a break!"
  • "Oh yes, ok I know. Uh, I guess I was pretty horny... pretty keyed up from being with a girl right before. I was drunk, too, that was it. I'd had a little to drink. I was drunk. Plus I was horny."
  • "Fucking greasehole!"
  • "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME??"
  • "How could somebody misfile something? It couldn't be easier, it's all alphabetical! (screams alphabet) I've never misfiled anything! Not once, not one time! I want to know, really, who did?!"
  • "That mescaline, wow. Does strange stuff. I'll never do that again. Jeez."
  • "There is no one else here who I could possibly ask to share such a terrible job."
  • "Are you all right, Mr Loew?" "Shut up, bitch."
  • "I'm a vampire!" (etc)
  • "My girlfriend broke up with me! I'm a vampire! Kill me! Kill me!"
  • "Christ! The tortures of the damned!"


Plot Holes:


  • Self-professed commitment phobe ends up in two romantic relationships (floozy, Beals). 


CAGEamatic
Cinematic
Skyler
Outstanding
Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James
4.99/5
4.21/5
Martine
!Incredibly, fell asleep in the Cage!

#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!