#52 Fire Birds

#52 Fire Birds

Year: 1990

Director: David Green
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Epic Co-stars: Tommy Lee Jones, 

Running Time: 85 mins
Cage Time: 100%
Cage Kills/Deaths: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 3

James' Review:  Let's just clear up a few things before we get started here.  Nic Cage is a much better actor than Tom Cruise, Tommy Lee Jones is a much better actor than James Tolkan, and tricked out helicopters (if presented properly) can be just as cool as fighter jets.  Despite all these facts, Fire Birds is a much worse movie than Top Gun.  Maybe  it's the fact that all my memories of Top Gun were formed before I was ten years of age, or that Nic Cage could only really be taken seriously in about 1/3 of the scenes in which he appeared in this movie, or possibly that Nic Cage (the anit-Tom Cruise) didn't ride a totally tricked out crotch rocket.  We may never know.  All we do know is that Fire Birds was released four years after Top Gun (giving every person on earth a chance to see it and love it) and that it desperately wanted to be Top Gun (made clear by an almost exact copy of the story line) and that it did not have any scenes with Val Kilmer (probably the only thing I would still like about Top Gun if I were to see it now).

The best of the best.  Helicopter Pilot.  Actor.  Human.  Whatever.

Jake Preston (Cage) is a hot young stud and rising star in the US Apache Combat training program.  He is the best of the best and he knows it.  The school has recently been chartered by the US Government to train their pilots for combat against South American drug cartels who will be flying a smaller, more nimble, Scorpion attack helicopter.  That's right, drug cartels in a different hemisphere have a single helicopter and a crack pilot that will single-handedly wage war on the US military.   Preston has finally met his match.  But before he can solve America's drug problems, he's got some authority to challenge and some ass to chase at home...

Siskel and Ebert have already said everything there is to say (and in a vastly superior fashion) about the film itself so I'll try to say a few things they haven't.  First off, all of the acting in this movie is terrible.  Cage actually pulls this "terrible acting" off due to his irreverence and on-screen charm, while everyone else just ends up looking like a typical asshole failing at a never ending game of Charades.  Both his irreverence and charm are perfectly summed up in an excellent scene where he takes to the flight simulator for some realistic (ie. mid level PlayStation 1 graphics) action against the best AI 1990 has to offer.  But Seriously.  Fire Birds deserves some respect for drawing attention to a problem so often overlooked by the US public today:  Eye Dominance.  People suffering from this condition often have to spend several minutes behind the wheel of a jeep equipped with a home made para scope to be cured forever.

Eye dominance:  An ailment that effects one out of  every one person in this country today.  

I've presented here only a few of the reasons why every person on earth should eventually see this movie.  While each individual part may be either laughable, stupid, embarrassing  or really stupid, they all sum together to provide an experience that is but a fond memory in 2013.  Fire Birds shows us a time when multiple A-list actors could be in a totally stupid movie and it didn't even matter or effect their careers.  A time when someone would actually put up millions of dollars because "theoretically Top Gun with helicopters and Nic Cage should be amazing."  A time when  a quote from anyone with the name George Bush at the beginning of a movie would be somewhat respectable.  And most importantly, a time that the whole world was stupid and nothing didn't not not matter at all.  Nothing mattered at all because bad guys were exploding and Nic Cage was securing a nice piece of ass in the end.  And I think we all know deep down, that is all that really matters.

A time.  The time.  The only time.  Transcending Time.

Movie quotability:

• "Sir, that was totally cool!"
• "Good, because I have a pocket full of quarters."
• "I AM THE GREATEST"
• "Shoot 'em, blast 'em, nab 'em, grab 'em, shake 'em, bake 'em, cook 'em, clean 'em, hold 'em, broil 'em, kick 'em, nab 'em, twist 'em, ALL GONE BYE BYE!!!!"
• "I'd say that I'm doing piss-perfect"
• "Why'd you change?"  "Less to take off."  "Lets skip dinner."
• "You're not touching her you filthy piece of shit."
• "Snort that sucker."  (Kills cocaine jet with shoulder fired rocket.)

Plot Holes:

• Drug cartels like fighting the US military via a single helicopter.
• The drug cartel seems to have one helicopter and one helicopter pilot.
• Their helicopter pilot was trained in North Korea.
• People in 1990 thought that "Billie" looked good in that loose sports bra.
• Tommy Lee Jones it taller than the top shelf in the supermarket.
• Old couple has 3 toddler aged kids and no toys in their house.
• Arizona and "South America" look exactly the same.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Outstanding	Poor
Shauna
James	3.19/5	1.80/5
Martine	!Read, wrote, and watched in the Cage!

#42 Captain Corelli's Mandolin

#42 Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Year: 2001

Director: John Madden
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Penelope Cruz, Christian Bale, Olivander

Running Time: 131 mins
Cage Time: 90%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 1

James' Review:  I must admit that my expectations were pretty low going into this one which is the prefect place to be just before being MILDLY ENTERTAINED!  Reviews from friends told me this was going to be a slow going chick flick with plenty of overacted emotional trash, but what I actually got was a medium moving chick flick with a shamanic Cage totally nailing his role as an eccentric Italian falling in love with a pretty hot chick.

Dr. Cage plays Captain Antonio Corelli; a WWII era Italian Captain stationed on a small Greek island.  Luckily for Captain C and his buddies, the Italian forces in Greece aren't playing too big of a roll in Hitler's master plan.  This leaves plenty of time for them to drink, sing, almost blow themselves up, and most important of all: try to bang the locals.  All this is very easy to do with only a single German soldier on the island who is too overwhelmed with lazy Italians to have any authority.  It isn't until the German army comes back to town and messes with the Captain's hot new love toy that he finally straightens up and grows a pair to defend the ones he loves.

As with Next, I'm pretty sure the whole purpose of this movie was to allow Cage to make out the a beautiful woman who is not his wife.  Success!

Although the flip-out count is painfully low in Captain Corelli's Mandolin there are a few bright moments that can keep even an action loving Cage fan mildly interested.  First off, even though Cage isn't explosive, he still entertains with a mediocre italian accent and some ridiculous eccentricities like counting off forty-five bars of silence before playing a solo on his mandolin.  His character oozes with such confidence that almost everything he does is entertaining because it's delivered in a slightly restrained yet classic Nouveau Shamanic style.  Second, Christian Bale fans will enjoying seeing him in a slightly different role than usual.  The best way to describe him would be "douche bag", yet I think most of the ladies will agree that he still looks pretty hot.  And finally, there are at least a half a dozen sets of boobs.  Most of these are from random Greek women which are great, but the attentive viewer will be rewarded with full dual nippage from the beautiful Penelope Cruz.  

The unfortunate reality of this film.

Although Captain Corelli's Mandolin doesn't pack the usual Cage punch with crazy flip-outs,  high flying explosions, and memorable lines, it does provide a unique role for Dr. Cage to impress us with once again.  A short hair cut allows him to portray a mildly attractive man while his er of confidence allows him to charm the audience almost as much as he does Ms. Cruz.  The main problem here was the length of the film.  Had it been cut about 30 minutes shorter and not such a test on my attention span, my tits would have been out there for Cage right next to Penelope's.

Movie quotability: total crap

• "This is terrible. I was so happy five minutes ago, looking at his butt... and now he's crying." -Shauna (of Christian Bale)
• "That is a purely psychological effect." -Penelope's dad, of a 'miracle' healing
• "I long to feel something... even if it is only pain." -Penelope; "Oh, you're going to be feeling something." -James; "A shot of Vitamin C, heh heh." -Skyler
• "Bella bambina at two o'clock!"
• "Fuck off. If you don't know what 'fuck off' means, you're welcome to come in and we'll show you. We refuse to surrender to a nation that we have defeated in Albania, and we reserve the right to surrender to a German officer of significant rank. So fuck off."
• "He even sings Shamanic." -Skyler
• "Loves enters by the eyes and also lives by the eyes, take it from me."
• "When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is! "
• "This makes me realize I should write a note to Nic Cage before something like this happens to ME. That's the whole point of this movie." -James

Plot Holes:

• None, a flawless script.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Acceptable	Acceptable
Shauna
James	2.19/5.00	2.74/5.00
Martine	! Stayed in the Cage !

#41 National Treasure: Book of Secrets

#41 National Treasure:  Book of Secrets

Year: 2007

Director: Jon Turteltaub
MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Jon Voight, Ed Harris, Ty Burrell, Harvey Keitel, Diane Kruger

Running Time: 124 mins
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 2

Skyler's Review: 
Alright, here we go. A second National Treasure. This time Ben Gates (Cage) is super famous  for finding all that gold in the last movie. So Gates is telling the story of his ancestors  and some guy (Ed Harris) stands up and reveals that he has a page from of a diary that indicates that the Gates family might be traitors to Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War. This, of course, upsets Nic Cage, so he goes into full-on high-powered investigation mode: he has to prove that there is another amazing gold treasure room to somehow prove his family's standing.

Ed Harris blackmails Cage into jumping into clue finding mode.

To set up the movie at the beginning, Riley makes some kind of  joke about the IRS taking his car due to "taxes." That actually sounds a lot like Nic Cage, and how the IRS took his stuff due to "taxes." Did he write this movie? Later they show the inside of a giant house that is supposed to be Ben's. Was that actually Nic Cage's house? This all made the movie extra special, making us feel closer to Dr. Cage's personal life. 

We may have stole this out of a desk in Buckingham Palace and security/bad guys are moments behind us, but let's take a moment to look at it in plain sight.

The rest of the movie unfolds in what you would expect from a quest-based farce. Nic Cage and his crew break into high-security venues to steal historical artifacts and run away from bad guys with guns. No target is too high profile, no location is too high of security. I mean, he's Nic Cage, for goodness sake. His charisma is off the charts, so he can bluff his way out of any situation. There is no catching this guy.

They always end up in some cave with some kind of ancient yet unrealistically sophisticated technology.

All in all, this is a great film. Nicolas Cage is totally in his element: freak outs, ridiculous lines delivered with conviction, and every emotion that they make. I can't wait to see what they try to steal and break into in the next one! Bravo, Cage!

Movie quotability:

• "Do you know what the taxes are on five million dollars? Six million dollars." -Riley
• "Of course someone else is after the treasure. That's the axiom of treasure hunting."-Riley
• "That's ABSURD." -Dr Cage

• "So let's recap: We've broken into Buckingham Palace, and the Oval Office, stolen a page from the President's super-secret book, and actually kidnapped the President of the United States. What are we gonna do next, short-sheet the Pope's bed?" -Riley

• "I'm gonna kidnap him. I'm gonna kidnap the President of the United States." -Cage

• "Bangers and mash. Bubbles and squeak. Smoked eel pie. Haggis!" -Cage

• Riley: "So, what's new with you?" Ben: "Well, my girlfriend kicked me out, I'm living with my dad, and my family killed President Lincoln." Riley: "All right."

• "That was not love. It was excitement, adrenaline, and tequila. I was trying to get course credit." -Helen Mirren

• "This movie even insults the intelligence of Nicolas Cage fans." -James

Plot Holes:

• Ben Gates doesn't speak French? I thought he spoke like every language ever. 
• Ben Gates can smell perfume around a giant bouquet of flowers. She must really reek.
• Everything about the hack into the London Police Database
• There is no Section 25 of Article 1 of the Maryland Constitution. Lawyered.
• If the Presidents' Book is a book known only to the presidents, then how does Ben Gates (non-president) know about it?
• Giant stone teeter-totter. What the fuck.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James	4.13/5	3.11/5
Martine	!Stayed in the CAGE!

#40 Next

#40 Next

Year: 2007

Director: Lee Tamahori
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Epic Co-stars: Jessica Biel, Julianne Moore

Running Time: 96 minutes
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 0

Skyler's Review: 

Whenever I see a movie by Saturn Films (Dr. Cage's label), I like to imagine how the Master of Film picks out a screenplay. For "Next" I imagine Nic sitting in a hot tub with a buddy of his and Cage says, "I really want to make out with Jessical Biel. I wonder how I could do that." His friend says, "I always thought it would be cool to have a movie where the main character can see the future; but, like, only the next two minutes, or something. That'd be pretty cool." And hence, film history was made.

Nic Cage's character has the magic power to scry into the future. The fire-flower thing is just CGI.

Basically the plot works like this: Frank Caddilac (Cage) has some sort of mutant power that lets him see 2 minutes into the future. This allows him to dominate in fist fights and elude the cops pretty well. He also makes a decent living at the blackjack table. Other than that, he tries to keep his abilities secret, fearing that the government will want to take him for their own ends. Frank then sees a girl, the same way he sees the future, but this is much more than 2 minutes into the future. He makes it his mission to find this girl (Biel) so he can have sex with her. There is a scene in which he gets to try out about 20 pickup lines before finding one that works, thanks to his abilities. 


Then comes the bad guys. There is a group of terrorists that want to blow up LA. The counter-terrorism guys are completely inept and are essentially useless. They know there is a bomb in the city, somehow they are good enough to know that, but that is all. Then that chick from The Big Lebowski has an idea when she sees surveillance video of Nic Cage totally evading the casino police. She decides that he must be able to see the future and that he is their only hope of finding the nuclear bomb. The CTs then spend 100% of their resources trying to apprehend Frank Caddilac for his "see the future" ability, NOT look for the bomb. You can figure out the the rest on your own.

At this point, Cage's character is fully cooperating with the authorities. Why then do they need to hold his eyes open?

There are some real problems with trying to make a movie with a plot like this work. For starters, the guy can see the future and so he reacts to it. That means that what the audience sees is Cage fail at something, try again; fail, try again; fail, try again; such that a 10 second action can be dragged out into minutes. This is cute at first, but then you start to think, "alright, I get it, he is virtually trying out many options, cut to the chase..." That is the 10 second stuff. Then there are also full 2 minute conversations that happen, but are then erased because Frank decides to change his mind at the last moment.

The film Next is most widely known for the Nicolas Cage "my hair is a bird" internet meme.

It is a cool idea, however, so you get a pass for that. As far as the counter-terrorism guys though, it is ridiculous. First of all, ZERO "experts" have any problem with trying to hunt down a guy because Julianne Moore says that "she thinks he has clairvoyance." Nope, they go in full lock stock and barrel to get this innocent civilian so that he can tell them where the bomb is. Remember he can only see 2 minutes into the future. This means they are going to all this trouble tracking down "some guy" (which takes multiple days) so they can get a 2 minute head start on a nuke in LA. What is their magic plan for this? How will he know where the bomb went off? They stick him in front of a TV saying that "as soon as that bomb goes off, the news will report the location." As soon as it goes off? Yeah, right. Even breaking news takes a minute to get on the air. What if they are at commercial? So this eats into the 2 minute window, we're talking 1 minute, tops.

On the plus side, we do get to see some epic slow-motion bird hair, and a moment when there are 20+ Nicolas Cages on screen. It was worth it for that alone. If Nicolas Cage could really make copies of himself, there is no end to how many National Treasures he could find/steal!

Movie quotability:

• "Did you know that Nicolas Cage looks great without a shirt on, even though he's a forty-year old man?" -James
• "We need to use all of our resources to find the guy who can see two minutes into the future!!" -Skyler
• "Oh my god, a dead hooker! That's awesome." -James
• "I've seen every possible ending. None of them are good for you."
• "It happened. It just hasn't happened yet."
• "Here is the thing about the future. Every time you look at, it changes, because you looked at it, and that changes everything else."
• "You have one way out of this... that wasn't it."
• "Every once in a while what we think is magic is the real deal hiding behind a $50.00 trick, because the alternative is impossible for others to live with."
• "Did you hear about the zen monk who ordered a hot dog? He said he'd have one with everything."

Plot Holes:

• Nothing in this movie makes sense. Let's just leave it at that.
• Sheets stick to Jessica Beal's boobs even when she's sitting up in bed.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Dreadful
Shauna
James	3.95/5	1.79/5
Martine	!Baked in the Cage!

#38 Lord of War

#38 Lord of War

Year: 2005

Director: Andrew Niccol

MPAA Rating:

Epic Co-stars: Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan

Running Time: 122 minutes
Cage Time: 100%
Cage Kills/Deaths: 6 billion
Cage Flip-outs: 0

Special Guest Review By the Die Hard Cage fan simply known as "Steve": 

"Normally I don't bother to count the Cage flip-outs because I quickly run out of fingers to count on. This time I was easily able to keep track of them, there weren't any! He even manages to keep his cool after getting shot and even after his brother gets killed.

Just another day at the office for a typical business man.

There were plenty of plot holes to go around, such as stripping the plane down to its skeleton in one night, including removal of 4 massive engines and numerous gallons of jet fuel.  This movie was mildly entertaining and was supposed to have a message regarding governments supplying arms to various conflicts around the globe, but in the end is a fairly forgettable movie. I know, because it wasn't till there were about 30 minutes left in the movie that I realized I had seen it a couple years ago."

Unfortunately for us, Cage plays the most calm Ukrainian in the history of loud angry Ukrainians.

A few things you in for in the two hours after you push play are...

• Great opening sequence, life of a bullet including the ending when it hits a kid in the face. 

• Hot chick walking on jets at German defense show.  

• Nicolas Cage (Yuri Olav) scrapes cash up while children are being shot next to him with his guns.  

• A Badass office located in a shipping container.  

• Nic Cage lets his brother snort a kg of Coke.  

Cage figures out why you should never let your brother snort a kg of Coke.

• AK-47 is the best gun ever.  

• Ethan Hawke looks like Christian Bale in the Machinist.  But unlike Christian Bale, Ethan Hawke unfortunately looks like this all the time.

• A Free gun give-away from the back of a plane.  

• Cool shot with a plan being disassembled overnight.

• Snorts Coke mixed with gun powder.  Falls in to a drug induced haze and ends up hanging out with Hyenas in the desert.

• If you only have one phone call, call your lawyer not your wife.

• Cage is just a cog in a much larger arms dealing machine controlled by the US government.

• Nic Cage looks at the camera and talks.

Movie quotability:

• "The first time you sell a gun is like the first time having sex.  It's really exciting and somehow it's over way too fast."
• "This is shit.  This is shit."
• "Faster or I'll send your ASS! IN!"
• "I don't believe in fate..."
• "It's not 'lord of war,' it's 'warlord.'"
• "Any friend of my brother's is a... friend of my brother's."
• "The only problem with an honest buck is they're so hard to make - the margins are too low, too many people are doin' it."
• "At four and a half months old, a human fetus has a reptile's tail, a remnant of our evolution. And maybe that's what I can't escape. You can fight a lot of enemies and survive, but if you fight your own biology, you will always lose."

Plot Holes:

• Nicolas Cage talks on the phone to speed talkers.  Based on his replies nobody on earth could talk that fast.
• 30 minutes after being shot in the abdomen Nic Cage is seemingly unfazed for no other reason than that he is NIC CAGE!
• Simultaneously night time in both Ukraine and New York.
• Africans holding baskets can't hear airplanes 100 yards away.
• Ethan Hawke chases Nic Cage all over the world and continually lets him go on technicalities.
• [SPOILER] Nic Cage's wife thinks her husband is selling arms, so she brings her 4 year old son with her to trail him and discover his awesome shipping container lair.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Acceptable	Exceeds Expectations
Shauna
James	3.57/5	3.98/5
Martine	!Put down her book for the last 30 minutes of the CAGE!

#37 Racing with the Moon

#37 Racing with the Moon

Year: 1984

Director: Richard Benjamin
MPAA Rating: PG

Epic Co-stars: Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern

Running Time: 108 min
Cage Time: 20%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 1

Skyler's Review: 

In short, this film is about some kids (Cage and Penn) whose numbers have come up for the draft of WW2 (for those of you that don't remember a time before Twitter, that is World War Two, the one against the Nazis). Since they know they are off to war after the summer, they spend their time in a sort of limbo. They make impulsive decisions and dangerous ones.

If you cut out all of the scenes with Sean Penn, the movie would have been much shorter; almost watchable.

Cage's character keeps on telling Penn's character to find some girls to just have some fun with since they are about to bug out. Penn's character then falls in love; oops. Generally, Nic Cage is awesome, as always; Sean Penn is the worst since as I was watching all I could think about is all the terrible things Penn said about the Master of the Screen. (If you don't know what I am referring to, see our previous review for #36 Fast Times).

These two are racing a train. They never race the moon. Awful.

This is now two films in a row that have more Sean Penn than Nic Cage on the screen. Two films in a row that has characters getting abortions. Two films in a row that made me wish I was watching something else. Except for when Dr. Cage was delivering his part, of course.

Movie quotability:

• "This movie makes no goddamn sense."-James
• "Is this a slasher?"-Skyler
• "I like how all graveyards have smoke blowing through them, regardless of the time of day."-James
• "I bet she looks like a rose and smells as sweet." -Sean Penn's dad, creepily
• "Oh, Mrs. Spangler- religion's a little shaky."-Caddie
• "I ain't gonna be no sap to some skirt."- NC
• "Come back nurse. I wanna show you my "wound"" -Cage

Plot Holes:

• Sean Penn is terrible.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Acceptable	Dreadful
Shauna
James	2.25/5	2.25/5
Martine	!Wasted two hours in the CAGE!

#36 Fast Times at Ridgemont High

#36 Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Year: 1982

Director: Amy Heckerling

MPAA Rating:

Epic Co-stars: Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold

Running Time: 90 mins
Cage Time: 60 seconds
Cage Kills: 0 
Cage Flip-outs: 0

James' Review:
Ah, nostalgia for the days when smoking in movie theaters was permitted, "upstairs to the left." The IMDB summary of Fast Times pretty much says it all: "A story of a group of California teenagers who enjoy the mall, sex and rock n' roll."  Really it's just a perfect storm for lots of boobs, 80's butts and teenagers in precarious situations.  The only thing missing was a lot more action from a hot young Nicolas Cage.  

I could go into the specific plot happenings of this movie, but since none of it involves Nicolas Cage it would be worthless for me to waste my precious time typing it, and for you to read it.  The critical error for this film was actually committed before shooting ever even started.  Nicolas Cage was originally considered for the role of Brad Hamilton (one of the "lead roles" in the film), but after his audition the studio thought his performance was too dark, and the role went instead to Judge Reinhold.  In addition, Cage was 17 at the time and could not work as many hours as the actors over 18.  It seems as though in 1982 the world (or at least Amy Heckerling) wasn't ready for the art of Nouveau Shamanic acting.  This is unfortunate because the part of Brad Hamilton turned out to be the most dull character in the film (and I would have loved to see Nic Cage get caught masturbating by a hot girl in a bikini.)  

Even without words Cage can convey the angst and misery of a typical high school guy working a crappy fast food job.  Congratulations, you've now see about 50% of the Cage footage in this film.

Alas, it seems that this film was Cage's proverbial burger flipping job in the acting world (and literally on the screen).  It was needed for him to put in his time as little more than a glorified extra while watching assholes like Sean Penn rake in tons of money and fame for little more than doing a mediocre Keanu Reeves impression (yes, I know this was before Keanu had reached his full terrible potential.)  "Wait, leave Sean Penn out of this!" you might say.  "What did Sean Penn do to Nicolas Cage or anybody else?"  I'll tell you what he did...  He had a couple of mildly entertaining movies in the first two decades of his career and then finally went "full retard" in 2001's I am Sam.  This lead him to believe that his shit don't stink and he could go around saying things like "Nic Cage is no longer an actor" and "He could be again, but now he's more like a... performer."  Fuck you Sean Penn.  And while we're at it, Nic Nolte and Stephen Baldwin can piss off too (see the link above for why).  

The three least classy actors of all time.

As actors these people should understand that art can't be defined by rules given to you in a class somewhere.  You need to put every bit of your heart and soul into every character you play while choosing a wide variety of roles to constantly test and expand your acting range.  These are things that Nic Cage does every day while other "actors" phone it in and collect a paycheck.

Movie quotability:

• "No shirt, no shoes, no dice. Learn it, love it, live it."
• "Everybody's listening to Tom Petty; that's fucking cool."-James
• "Nice. Butts." -James
• "This is US History, I see the globe right there."
• "Look at you- Honor Roll, Assistant to the Assistant Manager of the movie theater..."
• "You are a wuss. Part wimp, and part pussy."
• "When a guy has an orgasm, how much comes out?" "A quart or so."
• "Mister, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna kick 100% of your ass!"
• "I'm sorry someone broke in and stole your tape deck." 
• "Make up your mind, dude. Is he going to shit, or is he going to kill us?"

Plot Holes:

• There is a live MONKEY in their biology class. What kind of public school is this?
• Bunch of 12-year-olds dropping (what I assume is) lots of money (for the 80s) on rock concert tickets.
• Fieldtrip to the morgue to look at a corpse's insides.
• Burgers caught on fire (Skyler says this is a plot hole).  Meat on a griddle doesn't suddenly catch file.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Troll	Poor
Shauna
James	0.11/5	3.44/5
Martine	!Stayed in the CAGE!