#44 City of Angels

#44 City of Angels

Year: 1998

Director: Brad Silberling
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Epic Co-stars: Meg Ryan, Andre Braugher, Dennis Franz (RON SWANSON CAMEO!)

Running Time: 114 min
Cage Time: 90%
Cage Kills: 2
Cage Flip-outs: 1 (meh)

Shauna's Review: 

Just to give you a little background here, I am a female person. Therefore, I like Meg Ryan movies. (I am watching Sleepless in Seattle at this very moment, no joke.) I kind of couldn't believe that I had never seen this movie before, given that it stars both Lord Cage and the aforementioned Ms. Ryan. I even considered "pre-watching" this one prior to movie night, so that I could actually hear the dialogue (it's like watching movies with Statler and Waldorf). Boy, would that have been a waste of 114 minutes. 

This wallpaper is an accurate representation of the quality of this film. 

Within two minutes, it became apparent that this movie is stupid. What tipped me off were the hundreds of poorly photoshopped men in black trench coats, sitting on billboards all over Los Angeles. Nothing could be lamer than a movie that desperately announces, "This is esoteric and interesting! This is deep and cool!" No, it's not. Just because you talk about death doesn't make you deep, and unfortunately, just because you managed to snag Dr Cage doesn't mean that you have made a good movie (boy, have we learned that lesson). Granted, I only heard about 30% of the dialogue, but that was plenty. 


The basic premise of the movie is as follows: Seth (Cage) is one of hundreds of angels who, dressed like Neo, stalk invisibly around Los Angeles, both saving people and leading them down (literal) hallways after they die. He meets surgeon Maggie (Meg Ryan) at a hospital and is impressed with her determination to save her patient, as well as her anguish when the patient dies. Seth becomes convinced that Maggie saw him in the operating room, and stalks her. He allows himself to become visible to her, and she becomes equally (inexplicably) infatuated with him . Seth, being an angel, is unable to truly sense anything-- touch, smell, taste, etc-- but he learns that he has the choice to fall to Earth (literally) and become mortal. Will he choose such a fate? WHO CAN SAY?? 

Watching. Always watching. 

Fortunately, Cage made this movie in what I consider his "peak hotness" years (the Rock-Con Air-Face/Off era). Unfortunately, he is a creepy Watson. (James considers this Cage's creepiest role, even surpassing Eddie). The scenes in this movie are wildly repetitive, in that they are usually something like this: open on someone (usually Meg Ryan) in the kitchen/ bathtub/ operating room, talking to someone/ taking a bath/ performing surgery, pan out and see Nic Cage standing behind the refrigerator door/ sitting in a chair next to the tub/ watching from the corner. Basically, you may not see Cage at first, but you know he's there, lurking in the corner and watching, creepily.

Nicolas Cage gets me all hot and bothered.

Even if you buy all this lame hokum about angels and death, blah blah blah, the fundamental premise of this movie as a chick flick is deeply flawed. Meg Ryan plays a successful cardiothoracic surgeon. Her boyfriend is kind of lame, but she could definitely find another one because she is rich, young, and attractive. She meets this weird guy who says he works as a messenger; he lives in a library, he doesn't blink, he never changes his clothes, and he talks in a quiet voice about death all the time. Then Meg Ryan takes a bath and drinks Rolling Rock while fantasizing about this guy, who must be the creepiest guy she ever met. What? Now you're in love? What? Also, WATCH OUT, HE'S BEHIND THE FRIDGE! 

Movie quotability:

• James: "Is he an angel in this movie, or Batman?"
• "You've definitely been beeped."
• "What are you, like a bike messenger?" "I am a messenger for God."
• Skyler: "He's going on some kind of man date with this... fatty."
• James: "That's a sweet-looking dog. Never mind, that's just a fucking yellow lab."
• "Why do you wear the same clothes all the time? Why won't you give me your phone number? ...are you married?"
• "Where are you from?" "Up."

Plot Holes:

• Nic Cage says, "What do you like best?" And the girl says, "Pajamas."
• Room full of babies (I guess that's called a "nursery") is completely quiet. 
• Angels steal library books. 
• Nic Cage and Meg Ryan go to a farmer's market. Can people see him now? He's carrying a basket. Do they just see a basket bobbing around in mid-air?
• I wasn't watching this movie very closely, but it seems weird that Meg Ryan would go to Dennis Franz and say, "I don't understand a God who would let us meet if there's no way we can be together," if she didn't know that Dennis was also a fallen angel, ie. someone who had an understanding of what the fuck she was talking about. 
• Wait, Nic Cage gets to keep her house? Did they get a quickie marriage that we missed out on? Sometime between the tender lovemaking at the steamy shower scene?

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Poor	Troll
Shauna
James	1.41	0.98
Martine	Stayed in the Cage.

#43 8MM

#43 8MM

Year: 1999

Director: Joel Schumacher
MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Carl Hungus, Catherine Keener

Running Time: 123 mins
Cage Time: 99%
Cage Kills: 2
Cage Flip-outs: 5

Group Review:  When sitting down to watch 8MM I thought, "Isn't Joel Schumacher a good director?"  I looked on IMDB and saw such gems as "St Elmo's Fire" and "Batman Forever" on his resume, which was encouraging... and then I saw "Trespass." So... that doesn't bode well. I guess 8MM could go either way...

This picture is quite possibly the best thing to come out of this film.

Tom Welles (Cage), a private investigator, is summoned to the home of a wealthy widow. The widow reveals to Cage that after the death of her husband, a prominent member of the community, she found among his things an 8mm film of the rape and murder of a young girl. She asks him to investigate the legitimacy of this film and the people involved in its creation. Posing as a federal agent, Cage discovers the identity of the girl, a runaway, and meets her mother, who says that no matter what, she needs to know the truth about what happened to her daughter. Dun-dun-DUNNNN.

Nic Cage almost vomits when initially viewing the film.  It serves as a nice reminder  of a time before the internet when people could still be shocked or offended by stuff.

Although I stated earlier that this movie could go either way, it really didn't.  While it was nowhere near the total swill that is Trespass, it was also nothing that will be getting unanimously positive reviews on this blog.  The ending does bring some decent suspense and there are some "scary" characters, but most of the time I just felt like it was taking a bit too long to get to where ever the hell this movie was going.  This feeling wasn't helped by the fact that a scene that would normally come at the end came in the middle, which made the remainder of the movie "drag ass".

The look of a truly passionate swordsman.  Little know Cage fact: This scene single handedly landed his role in Season of the Witch.

Cage's acting was on point with the general style of the movie.  Pretty middle of the road; nothing  worth the praise of an academy award or worth the self loathing he must have had after his initial viewing of Ghost Rider.  Some of his high points include delivering all of his lines like a man who's had the blood drained out of him and being the worlds worst deliverer of bad news over the phone.  Everyone he makes a phone call to ends up sobbing on the floor.  In the end I only came away with two things:  Never use the word "snuff" when talking to Latino porn lords and that there is a dark side of George Costanza that we never saw on Seinfeld.  Use that information however you see fit.

Movie quotability:

• "Wait, so we're watching a Nic Cage film??" -Martine
• "Why is every word that comes out of Nicolas Cage's mouse so... goddamn... amazing?" -James
• "His wife is bullshit." -James
• "Is that painting a picture of Jon Voight?" -Geoff
• Nic Cage: "Mrs. Christian." Nathan (sings): "Sister Christian..."
• Nathan: "There's no lights in this movie." Skyler: "That's why it's a dark comedy."
• "I'd hate to see you caught in one of those every day situations that calls for a battery-operated vagina, and you don't have one." -Joaquin Phoenix
• "Hey! It's like a gas station, you pay before you pump." -JP
• "There's things that you're gonna see that you can't un-see. They'll stick in your brain." -JP
• "That's great. Snuff 2: The Resurrection." -JP
• "What if it's not the right guy? He's like, 'Hey, you know how you got stabbed? Now I'm going to kick the shit out of you.'" -Shauna
• "You dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change. The devil changes you." -JP
• "George Costanza!" - Martine

Plot Holes:

• Why did he need to go out of town to investigate this? If he didn't know anything about the film, how would he know where to look for the girl?
• Man has two sons named Warren.
• What humans talk this way?
• It's dark all the time in Hollywood.
• Cage loiters aimlessly in back yards looking like a real creeper and nobody seems to care.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Poor	Acceptable
Shauna
James	3.19/5	3.26/5
Martine	!Christmas shopping 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 !