The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Hair) of Nicolas Cage

Recently, I saw two movies in theaters just weekends apart. What made the experiences so similar, aside from the overpriced tickets and outrageous concession prices? Terrible trailers for two new Nicolas Cage movies that elicited similar reactions from the audience. I realized that my immediate instinct upon seeing Mr. Cage on the screen was to roll my eyes. This made me think, why does he elicit these reactions from people? So I got to thinking about his career, and this is what I came up with.

The Good

On occasion, he is so over the top and seemingly earnest that one wonders if he's in on the joke of how bad his acting is in that film. Now, some would argue that he is just empirically a bad actor.  I say this isn't the case. Take The Weather Man. Not a good movie, but Cage is restrained and understated, and delivers what is in my mind one of his best roles. Given the right script, costars, and directors, he can actually pull off a decent performance. So here are my favorites. (Before we even start, no, I did not include Con-Air, because while the rest of the cast seems to understand they are in a mindless popcorn flick, he seems to be genuinely attempted to bring a level of pathos to his character.)

1. Moonstruck

The entire movie is intentionally over-dramatic, between Danny Aiello's weeping and Cher's screaming, but even in this film, in which the Italian-American stereotypes runneth over, no one holds a candle to Nic Cage. Depending on your perspective of whether he realizes he's being a ham or not, he gives what is either the greatest comedic performance or the worst dramatic performance of his career, especially in this scene. Do yourself a favor, watch it all the way to the end:



2. Kick-Ass

He shoots his twelve-year-old daughter in the chest. He is disappointed when she asks for a puppy as a birthday gift, and relieved when she reveals it's just a joke and that she really wants knives. He dresses like Batman and destroys countless henchmen in painful ways. He's completely ridiculous, and yet, totally believable as both a vigilante and a devoted father.



3. Adaptation

To be fair, involvement in Charlie Kaufman projects tends to elevate otherwise intolerable actors to some of the better performances of their careers. (See: Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich.) Still, playing dual roles as twin brothers, Cage pulls off not one but two solid performances. His portayal of each brother is nuanced and convincing, to the point that you can easily forget they are both Nic Cage, and actually feel for the characters.



Honorable mention:  Peggy Sue Got Married

If you have not seen this, I urge you to watch it if for nothing other than to hear Cage speak in...well, whatever that voice is supposed to be. And you also get to hear him sing...



The Bad

The examples above makes one ask, why is the rest of his filmography is essentially a string of one bad movie after another? For every Raising Arizona there are three Captain Corelli's Mandolins. His films have frequently bombed at the box office. Just look at the last 10 years on Rotten Tomatoes.  Look at some of those ratings! I've never even heard of some of these movies! Which explains the reactions to his trailers I witnessed recently.

A few weeks ago my fiance and I went with my cousin to see RED, in a pretty full theater. Before the movie started, a trailer began for a new movie with Nic Cage about a guy who escapes from hell. Immediately, grumbling began by my fellow movie-goers. "Is this a sequal to Ghost Rider?" and "WTF" were the most frequently asked questions. As the trailer progressed, after hearing that actress' awful accent and the devil showing up to taunt Nic Cage, many began to ask "Is this for real?" and "Is this a fake trailer?" Finally, once we were all good and confused, the title Drive Angry 3-D appeared on the screen. A hush fell over the crowd, and then I and the man in front of me simply said in unison "Wow," and everyone laughed. The movie looks terrible. It was a unifying experience for us as an audience, and later at dinner we all joked about how unforgettably terrible the trailer was. Observe:



So it was uncanny that the next weekend when the same group went to see Harry Potter, we were treated to another Cage trailer. This time, he's a Crusader, with gross hair (and for some reason Ron Perlman?). The plot wasn't really clear in the trailer, unless of course the movie is as much of a mess as the trailer makes it seem. So, Cage is a crusader, trying to transport this poor girl being accused of witchcraft, only...wait! She is a witch, and she summons demons of hell to fight crusaders? What? In any case, the audience was cracking up. Here, watch for yourself:



So basically that's two back-to-back non-sensical trailers for movies in which Nic Cage transports young girls and the devil is involved. Right.

The Ugly

I don't think I need to elaborate up this point too much, as it is fairly self-evident: in 99.68% of his films, Cage's hair is atrocious. Con-Air. National Treasure (Those sideburns!). Adaptation. The Sorcerer''s Apprentice. Both of his upcoming films.

So finally, we must ask this question:  Does Nicolas Cage make bad movies, or does Nicolas Cage make movies bad?

Vindication!

One of my darling cousins sent me this link earlier today as a follow-up to my Christmas list. Bob Geldof admits that "Do They Know it's Christmas Time at All" is one of the worst songs ever.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepresses/326331/whats-the-worst-song-in-history/

As an added bonus, he also apologizes for "We Are the World." Now if only we could get apologies for the other songs on the list. One down, nine to go!

These Are a Few of my Favorite Things

As anyone working while going to school can tell you, one of the hardest things to do is finding time to have fun. Which is pretty terrible, since the longer you are in grad school, the more you really need fun. So as not to go crazy. Thus, I consider this weekend a huge triumph, as I was able to fit so many of my favorite things into one weekend!

Let's go to Movies! My dear cousin joined my fiancé and I to see the latest Harry Potter movie. I have never read the books (well, actually, I tried to read the first, but felt it was hackneyed and poorly written, and gave up) so I didn’t totally understand everything that happened, but it was still enjoyable. It has every British person ever in it. Don't miss Oliver Cromwell's cameo! Plus, I got to see some ridiculous trailers. (More on that in an upcoming post)

Beer, Glorious Beer! It had been too long - I think 2 weeks, maybe - since our last visit to Dogfish, and to my delight they still had the Punkin Ale on draft. The Punkin has a special place in my heart as it was the first Dogfish beer I ever tried, years ago in the bottle. It (and of course  Scott’s invite) was what drew me to the Dogfish Alehouses in the first place. I also enjoyed some Old School Barley Wine, which is fantastic, and tried some of the Dogfish Ale which was new to me. We got to hang out with one of my brothers, sister-in-law, and my super-cool niece over tasty food. It was a pretty nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

It's the Sport of Kings, Better than Diamond Rings, Football! One of the reasons for going to Dogfish was to watch the Cowboys game, which was not being shown locally. To say this season has been rough for us Cowboys fans is an understatement, so it was pretty nice that we won. I was excited, until of course I remembered how sad it is to be worried about beating the Lions, and how indicative that is of the terrible mess this season has been. Now I know how Redskins fans feel. So that’s all I need to say about that. Moving on! Later that night...

If Music be the Food of Love...To celebrate my cousin’s birthday, I bought tickets to The Frames’ 20^th anniversary tour at the 9:30 Club. The show was pretty amazing. I love 9:30 because you get to see great bands in a really intimate setting. As always at that venue, there was a pretty eclectic crowd in attendance, which is great for people watching. Unfortunately, we found ourselves standing behind some local college kids who I nicknamed Little Rachel Maddow, Little Janeane Garofalo, and their boring friend. They stood in a little pack doing the same nerd bop (lock hips, bend knees) for every song, and then still doing it when there was no music at all. I’m basically a magnet for freaks.

                Of course, no concert would be complete without the requisite terrible opening act. We have all seen some terrible opening acts, but every now and then we endure one so awkwardly unenjoyable that they stick with us forever (I’m looking at you, Detholz!...who I also experienced at 9:30) Sunday night’s emotional scarring came courtesy of one Jake Clemons. When you walk out on stage and declare “We’re gonna play some ROCK to get you warmed up!” you had better at least pretend to rock. After his declaration of Impending Rockdom, he immediately broke  into a slow acoustic jam and started singing “I never was enough something something until something something about drinking from our wedding cup.” The three of us stared at each other with a complete look of WhatTheFuck? on our faces. His “music” could best be described as an unfortunate blend of David Gray and Counting Crows, with a sad sprinkling of Chris Martin.  His bass player just kind of stood slumped behind him, and at one point I was convinced he was catatonic. 

               The only thing worse than Jake's music was his attempted banter between EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. He would spend five minutes explaining how deep the next song was, which was never the case. At one point my cousin leaned over to ask “If you have to explain that much, doesn’t that mean your lyrics aren’t good?” Excellent point, cousin! My favorite song set-up had to be when he introduced one as being sad and sooooo emotional because it was about a time when a young guy had to deal with his girlfriend’s unexpected pregnancy. It took all my strength not to scream “Ben Folds already did that, you tool!” I wish they had just played Brick over the P.A. instead of letting Jake sing. [Speaking of Brick, why doesn’t WASH FM play that song in the Christmas rotation? It also occurs around Christmas, it has the word "Christmas" in it,  just like the damn Christmas Shoes song. Honestly, if you can justify playing that song just because it happens to take place around December 25, then why not play Brick: “I’ll see your Child Scraping Pennies  to buy his Momma Shoes and raise you one Boy Who has to Pawn his Christmas Gifts to Pay for his Girlfriend’s Secret Abortion That Neither of them Really Want her to Have Which Leads to Nothing but Depression for Everyone!”]Anyway, at long last, those magic words came from his lips: “We’ve got just one more song for you," and SweetFancyMoses, it was about time. I was shocked to look at my watch to see that he had only been on thirty minutes.

Still, I can't be too hard on Jake. He did manage to do one good thing- he made The Frames look even better by comparison. (Not that there was any chance they wouldn't) This was exciting for me, as it was my first time seeing them in concert. For those of you not familiar and  incapable/too lazy to use Google or Wikipedia, The Frames are an Irish rock band whose lead singer, Glen Hansard has appeared in a few films. A few years ago he won an Oscar for the song Falling Slowly from Once. Like Jeff Buckley, he has one of those voices that can make a song sound both uplifting and tragic at once, defiant yet defeated. I am always scared that when I see someone live for the first time they will disappoint me, and all the love I built up for them over the years will dissipate. The moment Glen walked out on stage I knew I would not be let down. When they finally came out on stage the crowd went absolutely insane.The show was unbelievable. And LOUD. In a good way. I think it was the perfect venue for really being able to hear Glen's voice and to really experience their music. They played a really long set, and were really interactive with the crowd. I am a sucker for accents, which made everything they had to say even more funny. 

During the second half of the set they played about five songs in a row with no break at all, just letting the songs bleed into each other, which was really cool. Among the five was Star Star, which was probably my favorite song of the night. In addition to their own songs, they played around a little with covers and random tunes. I am still trying to decide if the best part was when they started singing Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or when they slipped into Billie Jean. A ginger Irishman singing Billie Jean in a crazy falsetto. Marvelous. He even did a little MJ twirl at the mic after one of the "Oooh-hooos!". The nicest surprise was the violin solos, which you don’t usually anticipate at a rock concert, but were really impressive. Being an Irish band, the violin is part of all of their songs, but in concert the violinist, Colm, really stood out.  If you get the opportunity to see The Frames, I recommend it as they put on a great show. If nothing else, you can listen to them for free on Pandora. It was the perfect end to an awesome weekend and a great way to start a short week at work.

Songs That Almost Make Me Hate Christmas

As of this morning, WASH FM is now playing non-stop Christmas through the end of the year. In honor of this occasion, I would like to share what I consider to be the worst Christmas songs. Proceed with caution, for just reading about some of these could cause your ears to bleed.

Feel free to list all the Christmas songs that drive you nuts in the comments section.

NOTE: Several people mentioned that they hadn't heard some of these songs, so I have added the songs here.

Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time - Sir Paul McCartney once again proving himself to be the weakest Beatle.



Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (Bruce Spingsteen) - Ok, Bruce, you will never make a Christmas song rock and roll, and your attempt to do so in this song is just embarrassing for you, for me, for everyone listening... even more embarrassing than your desire to make New Jersey seem like anything other than the terrible state it is. Seriously, we could all get to New York much more quickly if it wasn't in the way.



Santa Baby (Madonna) – The original by Eartha Kitt (hey, she was Catwoman!) is a campy classic. This update by Madonna? Not so much.



Do They Know it's Christmas Time at All - My favorite lyric has to be "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas, the greatest gift they'll have this year is life." Yeah, we evil snow-hogging Americans don't even know how good we have it. Listen, Misters Geldof and Bono, I don't think the lack of snow is really an indication Western indifference toward third-world suffering so much as it is a result of geography and climate. And by the way, there probably also won't be snow in Arizona, New Mexico or Texas this year, either. Where's your song for them?!



Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer - For some reason this song conjures images of potbellied slobs rocking nasty old wifebeaters while chugging Natty Lite and stuffing their mouths with Cheesey Poofs in their trailers.


Where Are You Christmas (Faith Hill) - Have you listened to the lyrics? Who wrote this? A crap song from a crap movie, made worse by how earnest Faith sounds trying to make it a powerful song. Faith, you deserve better.



O Holy Night (Celine Dion) – Thanks for taking one of the most beautiful Christmas songs ever and destroying it with your bleating, you Canadian, goat-sounding,  jerk.



Auld Lang Syne - I don't even have words. Shame on you, Dan Fogelberg. Shame on you. Nothing says the holidays like drinking a six pack in a car with  your old girlfriend before driving. Happy holidays.


Christmas Eve in Washington - I vomited 4 times just trying to type the name of this song.  Daddy says every time this song plays, an angel loses its wings.



Christmas Shoes - Nothing says "Christmas" like a choir of kids singing back up for some d-bag with an awful voice and even worse song-writing abilities who thinks the true meaning of Christmas is spending your allowance to make sure your mom has some sweet new kicks to wear in her coffin.



Honorable Mention: Anything by Gloria Estefan. She’s the worst.

Happy Friday!