The Cage Rage

Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Saturday, 10 March 2012

Interesting Nic Cage news emerged this week - Lionsgate have apparently bought the rights to film the real life story of how Cage's highly valuable copy of Action Comics #1 was stolen from him, only to be rediscovered over a decade later in a storage locker. It supposedly takes the form of a heist comedy. See here for further details.

It has yet to be confirmed whether or not Cage will play himself in the film. I'm not sure which I'd like to see more, Cage playing Cage or another actor's take on the man. Ryan Gosling? Jeff Goldblum? Will Ferrell? Who would you like to see? I'm keeping my beady eye on this one!

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Vampire’s Kiss

(Robert Bierman, 1988)

What a film with which to kick start The Cage Rage! Vampire’s Kiss sees Cage take on the role of a womanising publishing executive, who during the throes of passion with a mysterious woman is bitten on neck. Cage believes he’s becoming a vampire. Is that the case or is he just going batty?

age gives an outrageous performance and I recognised several moments from the Nicolas Cage Losing his Shit video on YouTube. An excellent sign.

I liked the intro montage, which managed to make New York look suitably gothic. The film reminded me in a lot of ways of American Psycho (rich New Yorker sleeps around, goes a bit mad, questions his reality). I also liked the awkward black humour in the film and Cage’s scenes with his psychiatrist are consistently amusing.

I was somewhat troubled by the film’s slightly offhand attitude to women. Cage’s tormenting of his assistant Alva (Maria Conchita Alonso) pushes the boundaries of taste a little too closely. Alonso gives Cage as good as she gets though, more or less, which is good to see.

It would have been interesting to see this film in ’88 (the year of my birth, incidentally), before the recent Twilight-inspired re-proliferation of the vampire genre. Watching it now, Vampire’s Kiss felt like an original and refreshing take on the mythological monster. One can only imagine how exciting watching this vampire movie must have been before we were seeing the current oversaturation of bloodsuckers.

Cage Rage News

First things first: check out the excellent new banner my friend and colleague Mat Barnett has made for the site. Isn't great? I might get a t-shirt made.

You can follow Mat on Twitter here and read his considerably more erudite blog here.

Additionally, I've set up some Google Alerts to let me know whenever Mr Cage troubles the world media so I can pass it onto you, the multitudinous readers of The Cage Rage.

So far, the best thing about Nic Cage on the internet recently seems to be this:

Via http://celebs.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/03/03/funny-celebrity-pictures-illustrated-guide-nicolas-cage/

Also, my good friend Naved recently informed me that Nic's son also rocks. Quite literally.

Via: http://www.celebs.com/archives/nic-cages-son-flips-out.html

He's in a heavy metal band! How 'bout that!

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Welcome to The Cage Rage: A Mission Statement

My favourite actor is Nicolas Cage. Nicolas Cage is brilliant. That is to say he's not necessarily always brilliant as as an actor, but as a cultural phenomenon, he takes some beating. He's worked in a huge variety of genres, in high-brow art films to trashy B movies and with some of the greatest living directors of our time, from Scorsese to De Palma, Herzog to Stone and of course, Francis Ford Coppola.

I've been a fan of his for a long time. It's hard to say which of his films first grabbed my attention. Was it a disturbing and far too early first viewing of Face/Off? Was it a subdued family viewing of Matchstick Men? I'm not sure, but somewhere along the line I fell in love with the living wonder that is Nicolas Cage.

It occurred to me earlier this year that I had not seen a great deal of Cage's considerable oeuvre. I saw the need to change that. I have compiled an Amazon Wish List of Cage's films. It's fairly comprehensive, though not entirely. I plan to purchase around three Cage films a month (fortunately most of them are pretty cheap), watch them and write about them. That's about it. I might throw in other Cage-titbits from time to time too. Perhaps I can try and engineer a Julie and Julia situation and meet my hero, though hopefully if I do there'll be considerably less tedium.

The first three films I've bought are Vampire's Kiss (Robert Bierman, 1989), Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma, 1998) and Too Tough to Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone (Mandy Stein, 2006) to which Cage contributes. I hope to be writing about these films very soon. I have no intention to watch the Cage Canon in any particular order, though I'm hoping my trio of choices will roughly fit into 'Good Cage', 'Bad Cage' and 'A Bit Left-Field Cage' categories. I hope you enjoy reading this blog.

Jack

Here's Cage's filmography as stated by Wikipedia. If there are any films you'd like to request I watch sooner rather than later or if there's anything that should be on this list but isn't, please let me know.

1980 Brubaker

1981 Best of Times

1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High

1983 The Outsiders

1983 Valley Girl

1983 Rumble Fish

1984 Racing with the Moon

1984 The Cotton Club

1984 Birdy

1986 The Boy in Blue

1986 Peggy Sue Got Married

1987 Raising Arizona