#110. Nic Cage Movie Draft
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This bonus episode is a pure format-break: no single movie review, just Vic, JVL, and Sonny running a snake draft of the best Nicolas Cage performances/movies, a follow-up to the previous week's The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent discussion. It opens with Cage trivia rather than the usual how-is-everyone-doing banter — the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial testimony that Cage connected Depp to his agent, and the story (via Keith Phipps's book Age of Cage) of Cage ditching the Coppola surname after being mocked on the set of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. After some bickering over draft order, JVL leads with Face/Off ("my favorite Nick Cage performance ever"), Sonny counters that The Rock is actually the best Cage action movie and arguably Michael Bay's best film, and JVL grabs Con Air, sparking a tangent on whether Cage's over-the-top Southern accent makes him the weakest link next to John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi. Vic takes Leaving Las Vegas (Cage's Oscar-winning turn) and later Pig, Sonny picks up Raising Arizona and Mandy (which he rates an A-plus on the violence quadrant), and JVL rounds out with the family-friendly National Treasure and the deep-cut documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?. The episode closes with a rapid-fire round of also-rans that didn't make the draft — Honeymoon in Vegas, Gone in 60 Seconds, Moonstruck, 8mm, Snake Eyes, Bringing Out the Dead, Adaptation, and Cage's Spider-Man Noir voice work in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — including a long-running gripe from Sonny about the unexplained end-credits ring reveal in Snake Eyes.
From the show notes
Everyone loves Nic Cage!
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com you'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. This week we are still discussing Nick Cage. Can't get enough of him. We talked about him last week. His, by the way, his name also recently came up in the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial. Did you, it happened to me. What? Yes, well he was talking, it was origin story time. It was when Depp was on the stand and they just mentioned about how, you know, obviously he was poor, grew up in Kentucky and struggling actor and he mentioned it was his friend Nick Cage who told, who connected him to, because he wanted to be a band, a musician, right? That was his real dream was to be a rock star and he said Nick Cage was the one who connected Johnny Depp to Nick's agent and that got him the role in Nightmare on Elm Street. No kidding. So, Nick Cage. It's very interesting and and it's of course Nick Cage himself always, I guess maybe, so I'm sure he would hate to say this. Coppola? Yes, some of his start to, you know, being the nephew of Francis Ford. Yeah. Although, I mean, I... Well, it's a
Sonny00:01:29whole thing. I mean, like, he, so he, in his, in his first role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, his first credited role, I think. Yeah, he was. He was, he's credited as Nicholas Coppola and apparently on the set, all the other actors, you know, everybody, especially Eric Stoltz, apparently, apparently Eric Stoltz was a special pain in the ass, but would say, would say things like, how do you like the smell of Coppola in the morning? Oh, really? Apocalypse Now lines at him, you know, Eric Stoltz, of course, has had an amazing career since then, and Nicholas Coppola would change his name to Nicholas Cage for his, his next few, ironically, his next movie at his next big movie after that, I think, was, was Rumble Fish. Yes. Which, which was directed by, which was directed by Francis Ford. So, but at this point, he had then changed his name to Nicholas Cage. There's a whole funny story. So, I, I interviewed, I interviewed Keith Phipps, who wrote the book Age of Cage, about, about, about this, and there's, there's an interesting kind of couple stories in there about the, the, the name change, and like, the casting agent who was trying to find Nicholas Coppola, like, couldn't find him, and it's because they were looking for the wrong person. I was gonna ask,
Vic00:02:44and I'm sure you asked, did it really work? I'm sure nobody knew. No, right? Am I so like, oh, who's Nick Cage? Nobody? That, that word didn't channel, like, you know who that is, don't you? I mean, it's...
Sonny00:02:55Well, I think, I mean, I do think it, I mean, obviously, look, he's Francis Ford Coppola's nephew. They're, they're family connections that are, that are going to work, but at this point, I think nobody really, a few people know that he is related to Francis Ford. That's interesting. Now. Oh, oh. Now. Really? I mean, I, I think if you ask the average, if you ask the average moviegoer, like, hey... Sure, the average moviegoer, but in the
JVL00:03:19business. Oh, yeah, sure, in the business. In the industry, everybody
Vic00:03:22understands. Okay, so. So, you know what we're doing, this is for our listeners, we are, we mentioned this last week, that we were gonna do a Nick Cage draft, a short one, a short one, but a couple rounds, maybe three rounds. Sonny, explain, how is
JVL00:03:38this gonna work? What are we doing? Or JVL? Snake draft, so, you know, one, two, three, then the person who's picked third picks fourth, the person who's picked second picks fifth, the person who's picked first picks sixth,
Sonny00:03:51uh, this is, uh, Vic, you always seem as though you get the crap into the stick
JVL00:04:02and you're always unhappy, so you choose which position you would like to draft
Sonny00:04:07from. We're putting you on the spot, which, where do you want to, we're not
Vic00:04:10doing, like, a randomizer. If I go, if I go first, I, this happened with Val Kilmer, and I thought I picked a really good one for him, and then, and then, like, got the lead, and then, by the time I come back, it was, like, thirty minutes later, and I think the only thing left was, like, a movie that he had just, was, like, The Island of Dr. Moreau. I think that was it.
Sonny00:04:28If you pick, if you pick, if you pick first.
Vic00:04:31Yeah, I don't go for a while.
Sonny00:04:32You pick first, then you get, then you get the fifth, uh, you, I'm sorry, you get the sixth and seventh picks on the way back around. So, if you pick first, then there's the second round pick, the third round pick, third round pick gets the fourth round pick, second round pick gets the fifth round pick. Okay, question. First round pick gets the sixth round pick.
Vic00:04:48Question, uh, the, okay, if I go second, how many picks do I get?
Sonny00:04:51If you go second, you get three picks total. You get three picks.
Vic00:04:53Yeah, yeah, I know, but I mean, no, but you guys, I feel like, I feel like the last time I did, I was like, okay, I'll pick this, and then you're like, okay, I'll take this one and this one, and then Jonathan, I'll take this one and this one, and then you're like, I'll take this one and this one. I'm like, wait a minute. By the time I get it, you never get back to back.
JVL00:05:08If you're, wait a minute, you never get to draft back to back. That's right, but if you're in the third position, third position. You should get one back to back.
Vic00:05:15Yes. Okay, I'll take third. I have not been in the third place. Let's do it.
Sonny00:05:18You want third. Because I get back to back first. You want to go third and fourth.
Vic00:05:21Okay.
JVL00:05:21I want to go one.
Sonny00:05:23All right, so I'm going to, all right, let me write down, all right, so it's JVL, then Vic, then Sonny.
Vic00:05:29That has always been.
Sonny00:05:31Then Sonny again. I like that. I like getting the turn there. I tricked you guys into giving me the third and fourth picks. Man, I knew it. Then Vic fifth, JVL sixth, JVL again seventh, Vic eighth. And then Sonny ninth. Yes, as we said, you never get to pick back to back, Vic. You get every third pick.
Vic00:05:55I feel like somebody's picking back to back, man. I feel like that happened. JVL.
Sonny00:05:59Yes, JVL and I both get one back to back pick. You get zero back to back picks.
Vic00:06:04As third place?
Sonny00:06:06As second place. You're second. You're going second. You want to go second.
Vic00:06:10No, no, no, no, no, no. I was second the first time we did Candy Jeff. I asked for third just now. Rewind the tape. I said third.
Sonny00:06:16Oh, you did. Oh, okay. All right. Sorry.
Vic00:06:19This is what's happening.
Sonny00:06:21All right. Hold on. Let me write this down.
Vic00:06:23Totally. Now I understand what gaslighting is.
Sonny00:06:26So JVL, then Sonny, then Vic. Is that it? Thank you. I'm going nuts over here. Okay. Okay. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
Vic00:06:32You sounded like Regis. I was trying to do Nick Cage. Okay.
Sonny00:06:37All right. JVL, you go first.
JVL00:06:39Face Off. Absolutely. Absolutely. My favorite John Woo movie. My favorite. My favorite late 90s action movie. My favorite Nick Cage performance ever. I love everything about this insane batshit movie.
Vic00:07:02It's a crazy. Has a movie ever been done like that before? I don't know. I don't know enough old movies.
JVL00:07:06The premise of which is like 70s paranoid thriller. Yes. So A, it's a great action movie. B, it's plotted. It's plotted so well that it might as well be a John McTiernan joint. It's just like, you know, everything moves from beat to beat. Yes. There's nothing really fatty in it. It's got great supporting work from Alessandro Nivella. It's got Nick Cassavetes as an actor. It's got Dominic Sweene and Joan Allen when she was really like in Hello Mommy stage. And the joy of the action. Acting with Cage and Travolta who both have, they walk that line between having fun and being camp. Right. They never step over the line into camp. And it's just great. Everything about it is great. I probably saw that movie in theaters four times.
Vic00:08:08Besides Dominic Sweene, which is the highlight, there's a great line that John Travolta says. It's pretending that it's Nick. I mean, again, this is a great levels of levels of acting. It's, it's gotta be, he's gotta be the cage acting in the body of John Travolta, but it's John Travolta. I mean, which is really, it's like mind blowing. Okay. So, uh, he makes a joke about his own chin because they're not gonna wear this face of the stupid chin. And that's, that's Travolta's like trademark. Is that, is that chin? So it's just very funny.
JVL00:08:38And cage is great. I could eat a peach for hours.
Vic00:08:41Oh, wait, hold on. Is this the movie with Castor and Pollux? The twins. Okay. Yeah. And there's birds and there's, and there's. The doves, there's doves flying. It's a John movie. It's a John movie. And he's got the, they can't see me right now, but the, the guns, the jumping in slow motion guns on the side.
JVL00:08:58And cage has the twin gold with the dragon, uh, nine millimeter pistol. Oh yes. Yeah. The one that he keeps like in a butterfly position and the, and the back holes are everything about this.
Vic00:09:11That's just fantastic. That's right. And, uh, there was something else I was going to ask you about. Uh, oh yeah. The only thing that you have to, uh, be willing to suspend your, well, there's a lot of things, but the big thing is how quickly you recover from that kind of plastic surgery.
JVL00:09:26Right now, every, again, everything about it is ridiculous.
Vic00:09:30The idea that their faces match that perfectly. You would not get it. The heads, the heads are the wrong size.
JVL00:09:35I like John Travolta's head is enormous, but you just gotta, once you're, once you've bought in, I'm sorry, once you buy, I can't believe you guys did not love the, in, in the unbearable weight of massive talent, the head size joke with Pedro Pascal. Yes.
Vic00:09:50I can't, I laughed at that.
JVL00:09:52He is Nick cage is like pulling him up over the wall, which is only like six feet tall. He says, your head is massive at risk.
Sonny00:10:00I'll goes, I know, but the problem is I saw that in, I saw that like 10 times in the trailers. It's in the trailer, the head, the head size joke is in the trailer. I'm sorry.
JVL00:10:09I didn't see that in the trailer. So I thought it was funny. I guess if it was in the trailer, then the joke doesn't work anymore.
Sonny00:10:14Well, if you see it 10 times before you see the movie. I know they're going to walk around the wall. Oh, I've seen that 10 times in the trailer. You know what?
Vic00:10:22I can't wait for dark Phoenix. Okay. Sonny, go ahead. That's a, that's a running joke by the way.
Sonny00:10:28You know, face offs, fine. Face off is a good movie, but the best Nicholas cage action movie, uh, and maybe the best also Michael bay movie is the rock. The rock is a perfect action movie. It is, uh, a, the perfect mixture of star power with Sean Connery and Nick cage playing back and forth off. Yeah. Um, it is, uh, it is just fun to watch. It is quippy. It is big bombastic actiony. It has like, it has a resonant theme at the heart of it with Ed Harris and his, you know, uh, he's one of, it's one of the few times where a villain has like reasonable motivations and like you're, uh, you know, you, you kind of get where they're coming from. It's not just a, we want to end the world sort of thing. Um, all of the stuff with Michael Bay. Bean and his seal team is great, but Nicolas Cage is, is just one. It's, it's this, it's this, it's the, it's the, it's weirdly both his most like normal guy action movie role. Um, and also this like over the top, you know, overcoming his, his limitations to become a like bad-ass action star, uh, type movie. I love it. It is not, it is not an over the top Nick Cage performance as, uh, as you get in face off or some of the other things we're, we're going to talk about here. Um, but it is a, it is a perfect movie. And I know there are folks who like, I know there are folks who don't like Michael Bay and folks who like sniff at the rock and Armageddon being included in the criterion collection. And I understand, I like, I sympathize with a lot of the criticisms of Armageddon, which I think is like, which I like a lot, but I, I, I will, I'm happy to admit is like frantic and overcut.
Vic00:12:14It's seizure inducing.
Sonny00:12:16It's, it's, it's epileptic. And it's in its own way, but the rock, the right, if you don't like the rock, you just don't like movies. Like you just don't like big action movies.
JVL00:12:25Uh, is it fair to say the rock is the best Michael Bay movie?
Sonny00:12:28I, you could, I think you could make that case.
Vic00:12:30I mean, I, I, and I would say that in the second half of Pearl Harbor,
Sonny00:12:35the rock was awful. I think the, the rock, the rock is arguably his best movie. You could also make the case for bad boys or pain and gain. I think pain and gain is really, really good. Um, Uh, and like his, I think it's like his smartest and, and, and most clever, uh, movie, but, uh, but I think the rock is probably his best movie. And I think it is, I like, I, again, I just think it's a perfect action film, just an absolute perfect.
JVL00:13:03Uh, I gotta say, I assume that the first three picks are going to be face off rock and con air. You guessed it. And of those three, I gotta say for me, it's not even close. Rock is a. First and third, I think you, it was a reach with number two and Vic, if you do what I'm thinking with number three, I really like it. Okay.
Vic00:13:25I don't know if you're going to, I don't know if I'm, uh, I don't know. Okay. No, no, no. Okay. So what he means is my second choice. So, um, con air.
JVL00:13:34Yes, I'm taking con air, which by it's, it's kind of really, it's quite the cast.
Vic00:13:39It kind of, but it's, you know what it, you know, it has this mistaken notion, the way people think ready for this. I was just saying this earlier. The way people think that the movie charade is a Halford Hitchcock movie. People think con air is Michael Bay, but it's not. And I could not, I can, I know Stanley donor did charade, but I cannot tell you the name of the director of con air.
JVL00:14:00Were these three movies one after another were like summer. Cause I feel like we had three summers in a row where there was a Nick kid. There was the summer of nickel, the three summers of Nicholas cage is an action star. And these were the three and con air was just great. Yeah, it's leavened by just all the, you know, like Steve Buscemi is perfect in it. John Malkovich is perfect in it. And the thing with the rock is Sean Connery.
Vic00:14:25And he's still, when he was still able to, yeah, yeah. People can't see me doing this. And the last believable thing that Sean Connery did like that, I think was probably the one with Catherine Zeta-Jones, right? Yeah. I was just going to say that. Yeah.
Sonny00:14:37Well, the problem, the problem with con air, which is a movie I like a lot. I like con air a lot. John Malkovich, John Malkovich is the problem with that movie is that Nick cage. Is the weakest link in it. He's doing that terrible Southern accents. Oh, I love it because it's so over the top.
Vic00:14:53It's so Monica Potter, which you get to see as a treat, because it's at the beginning of the unbearable way. She is what she was. I, she was very cute. She was very cute. Okay. So you're wondering what my, uh, what's your fourth, technically the fourth. Uh, I was going to say, I keep going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and I'm going to end up with leaving Las Vegas. Is that what you're going to say? Really? Yeah. I knew it for the Academy award quadrants and the quadrants. It's say Elizabeth, she, the girl from karate kid and the burger King commercial. Really?
JVL00:15:27From adventures in babysitting.
Vic00:15:29Oh, and you know, there's that terrible line about the unexpected backdoor delivery. It's just awful. Sonny's looking at me.
Sonny00:15:39Oh, if you only had the video, like you think it's, I don't think it's, it doesn't sound like you think it's that awful.
Vic00:15:45Uh, it was, uh, he. Shopping for booze, man. That was just that scene in itself where he's there pushing the cart and doing his thing is like, that guy's a legend. And how much of that, you know, I mean, then you start to think that it's really Nicholas cage and the whole thing, but anyway, that's what I chose. Okay. That's a good thing.
Sonny00:16:06I mean, that is, that is maybe his, I mean that that's maybe his best performance. I do think he won, right? That's the perfect time. That's what he, that's what he won for, for best actor. It's it's the movie that definitely. Best melds manic Nick cage with normal Nick cage. Like it, it balances that perfectly. I think, um, and, and he is, he's, he's very, very good at it. My only problem. I don't, the reason I wouldn't have picked that movie with any of my picks. Even, even my number eight pick is, uh, is it it's I find it. It is basically unrewatchable. I have no interest.
Vic00:16:40It is no interest in the thing is if you watch that, it reminded me very much of when Sonny and I were. It's like a real daily lotion watch in Vegas, Sonny and I were in Vegas. It was just like that. He was like Nick cage. I was Elizabeth shoe, by the way. It's a good daily lotion. Watch daily lotion. Watch. Thank you. Little hat tip there to Josh Christiansen, uh, back to you. Yes. JVL no, it's me. It's a snake. Oh, okay. No, it's me.
Sonny00:17:04Uh, my, I'm going to go, I'm going to go back in time. Some, I'm going to go back a few years back about a decade here, uh,
Vic00:17:11and pick raising Arizona back decade to 2012, by the way, raising Arizona.
Sonny00:17:16Arizona is one of my favorite Cohen brothers movies. It is laugh a minute. It is perfectly stylized. It is very, very funny. Lots of great jokes.
JVL00:17:30Uh, I cage is part of the greatest fist fight in the history of cinema. Absolutely. Yes.
Sonny00:17:35The, the fight between him and John Goodman in the trailer. Um, uh, the, the stealing the diapers, you know, son, you got a panty on your head. I, I, there, there's, there, and, and all the stuff with the baby, like leaving the baby on the, on the tarmac, Holly Hunter and Holly Hunter. So great. Uh, and, uh, and the, the warthog, the evil warthog, you know, the guy on the motorcycle, uh, Nathan, Arizona. I like every character, every character in this at Francis McDormand. Got to get, got to get the dip tat, dip tat, get your dip tat. I love, I love this movie. Uh, I could watch it. I get to watch it once a week.
Vic00:18:15One of the weirdest things I saw that movie, I don't know, was I in eighth grade or in early high school and it was funny, but you know how certain movies, uh, a lot of Chris Guest movies like this, the, the first time it's okay. Oh, that's funny. Every time you see it, it actually gets better because it's all these little tiny details that, you know, that will just like, oh, you know, very funny. Like, and you'll catch it on the fourth, fifth, 10th viewing or something. Oh, John, the other William. John Forsythe, the other great and underrated actor in that, who was the other escapee with John Goodman.
Sonny00:18:51Yes. Very funny. All right. Uh, JBL, you have back to back picks here.
JVL00:18:55So this is, this is a weird pick, but you got to work with me. National treasure, uh, national treasure. I pick because it is in a very strange way. I think the most perfect family action movie ever made. This is a movie where w so it's an action movie. It's filled with like interesting trivia slash history about Americana. And it is, it is never over the line of being too scary for kids. Even if your kids are very small, like, you know, you, a four-year-old can watch this, but it's also actually enough and thoroughly enough that even teenagers can watch it and be totally invested and enjoy it. Uh, I just don't know that I can think of another movie, which hits the sweet spot for, Hey, we're having family movie night and we want an action movie that everybody's going to be happy with. It's a crowd. I think national treasures that it's just a perfect club, but not a great movie, not even a great Nicholas cage performance, but, uh, but really it is best in breed for what it is.
Sonny00:20:09It's, it's a fascinating movie. And again, Keith Phipps talks about this in his book, age of cage, some, uh, about how that movie it got a sequel and the sequel actually did better than the original, uh, and, uh, but they, Disney couldn't figure out how to turn this into a ride and they were like, well, we're not gonna, we're not gonna make it a franchise. And I find that, I find that totally baffling. I like, I, the idea that you can't, you can't turn that into some sort of like, like go to like where the hall of presidents is and Disney world and make like an Americana.
JVL00:20:38So they can do that for Philly, Disney, Disney, Philly. Right next to HIV needle lane, horse poop, the horse poop eating buffet.
Vic00:20:48The, uh, but no, you could do it like underneath, like, uh, you know, you could do a whole Masonic. For that. Like underneath, like a pyramid. Okay.
JVL00:20:58All right. For my, for my final pick, I'm going way off the wall.
Sonny00:21:03Oh boy.
JVL00:21:03All right. Something that none of you even had on your radar.
Sonny00:21:07All right. Let me pick, let me, let me, I'm gonna, I'll throw a guess out. Let me throw a guess out. Drive angry.
JVL00:21:14Wrong, wrong, uh, matchstick man. Wrong. The death of Superman lives. So people may have forgotten that there was a moment in which Nick Cage was very nearly Superman. This is, oh, Tim Burton was directing. John Peters was producing. The script was written by Kevin Smith and Nick Cage was going to be Superman. And this was following the death. Of Superman and he was going to be resurrected and it, it was in development. It was really far along in development. Uh, and then it just fell apart and died and somebody waged a Kickstarter campaign to get the money, to create a documentary on how this movie fell apart. And they got everybody to participate in it. Like Peters is there. Kevin Smith is there. Nick Cage is there. Tim Burton is there, and it is a fascinating look into an alternate history of superhero movies in America and Cage is it's, it's wild. It's interesting seeing him and hearing him talk about it. It's great. Really, really great there.
?00:22:28Okay.
Vic00:22:29Um, are we doing one more round or no? That's it. No, that's it. That's my third pick.
Sonny00:22:34I've got, I've got for me, that's mine. You each have one more.
JVL00:22:37Got it.
Sonny00:22:37I have one more pick. I pick next and then Vic, you pick last.
JVL00:22:40So Sonny, you were shaking your head at me. You don't like the death of Superman lives.
Vic00:22:43It's not, it's not, it's not that I don't like it's, uh, I mean, it's a fine pick.
Sonny00:22:47I guess Nicolas Cage is in it both as a subject and an interview and an interview. I got, I mean, I, I, it, it's not what I would, you're right. It was not what I would have picked as it's far off. It's far off the beaten path, but for the, for the seven people who are listening to this, who have seen it, Sonny, what do you got? Um, so I want to go with a late, I want to go with a later Nicolas Cage.
Vic00:23:13I want to go with a later Nicolas Cage movie. Oh no, port of call, bad lieutenant. No, I know what he's going to say.
Sonny00:23:17He's going to take it from me.
JVL00:23:19Oh, pig, he's stealing pig from you.
Sonny00:23:21I, I, I have a choice here. It's either pig or Mandy or Joe. It's one of, one of the three here. And now that I know that Vic wants pig, I'm very, I'm very drawn to it.
Vic00:23:32You're literally stealing pig the way the pig was stolen.
Sonny00:23:35Stealing, stealing pig right out of your, no, I, I won't, I'll let you have pig. I'll let you have pig. Even though I, nobody has championed this movie harder than me and I am a, I am a, I am a pig Stan, you know, but the movie I'm actually, I'll go with Mandy. Cause I actually love Mandy. I love Mandy a lot.
Vic00:23:49Is that with the little girl? It's him and the little girl.
Sonny00:23:52No, no. So Mandy, uh, is essentially a.
Vic00:23:56Oh, Mandy. You love that. What he looks like. He's all like, that was your like backdrop on. That was my Twitter.
Sonny00:24:02That was my Twitter header for a long time was, was Nick Cage and Mandy, but Nick Cage. What is Mandy? I don't even remember. So Mandy, Mandy, Mandy, it's like a psychedelic, almost rock opera. It's like, it's like the side of a 1970s van brought to life. Oh, um, but it, it is, uh, Nick Nicholas Cage plays what may or may not be an immortal spirit living in the woods who, uh, who's, who has chosen a life of peace and who has that taken away from him when a traveling cult comes and kills his woman, Mandy, and he has to take bloody vengeance against them. Um, and it is, uh, it is, uh, it, it kills on the violence quadrant. Oh, it kill it. Absolutely. One, a plus. A plus, plus, plus based on that, uh, there are chainsaw fights, there are chainsaw fights. There are, uh, Nicholas Cage has an ax that he forges out of, you know, precious metals. Um, uh, it is, uh, it is a, it is a very visceral, very, uh, I, I don't, I don't think you would love it, honestly, JBL, but the, uh, but the other thing about it is it has a great sound design. It just has a great soundtrack. It's got a great score. It's got like this heavy, this like. 70s, proggy, heavy metal type score. I think, uh, King Crimson, uh, provides the title track. I mean, it is, it is, it is, uh, again, like I said, it, it is like somebody took a panel van with like, uh, Dungeons and Dragons scene painted on it with like the Frank Frazetta
JVL00:25:32lettering and it's come to make it sound like something I would like turn it.
Sonny00:25:36You should, you should watch it. You should watch it. I it's, uh, it's good. All right, Mandy. That's what I'm, that's what I'll go. I'll let Vic.
Vic00:25:42And I'm taking pig. What a great comeback for Nicholas cage.
JVL00:25:45Not that he ever left, not that he, very good.
Vic00:25:50Um, you, uh, you know what else I had on my list? Just in cases back up, um, uh, honeymoon in Vegas. I really liked that. I think it's still funny. Impossible to one impossible to one. And it's also happy Vegas. It's not sad Vegas. It's flying.
JVL00:26:11It's very funny.
Vic00:26:12Um, believe it or not, I've never seen, I've lied about this. I've lied about this just because I don't want to have to make a whole scene of saying, no, I haven't seen it. And they're like, why you haven't seen it, but I'll say it right now on the air. Um, for our listeners who pay, uh, I have never seen gone in 60 seconds.
Sonny00:26:31Well, I mean, you're not, Oh, I'm not missing anything. Oh, good. I like, I actually like God in 60 seconds a lot. I saw that in theaters in 2000 or 1999, whenever it came out. I, I actually, I actually liked that movie quite a bit. Uh, and it has a, just a fantastic, it has an amazing cast. I mean, it's got Nicholas Cage, obviously, but it's also got Angelina Jolie, Delroy Lindo, um, Vinnie Jones. Uh, I think, um, Oh, what's his name? The Giovanni Rabisi. Uh, like it, it's just a, it's a, it's a really, it's a very solid cast. Uh, and, uh, early Timothy Oliphant is in that Timothy Oliphant has a, has a small part. Um, okay. Anyway, I, I. I, I, I quite, I quite like that movie.
Vic00:27:13And nobody, nobody chose Moonstruck, huh?
Sonny00:27:15Nobody chose 8mm.
Vic00:27:16Nobody chose, uh. Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes. Oh, Snake Eyes. JVL, you and I saw that in the theater. We were disappointed. We were, we were, I wanted so badly to like it. I was so into it. Nicholas Cage, Brian De Palma, what can go wrong? Everything. And I liked the idea. There were some great angles and camera shots. Do you remember the ending in the, when the credits are rolling? I still do not understand it to this day. It looks like they're. The camera stops and focuses on what looks like a ring stuck in the wall. And I said, what means something?
Sonny00:27:47It's one of the characters got buried. I, I, no, I said the same thing. I saw, I said the same. Talk amongst yourselves for a second. Cause I have to look this up on my, on my, on my letter.
JVL00:27:57So bringing out the dead was not, did not get mentioned. I'm surprised adaptation. I thought somebody would pick adaptation.
Vic00:28:05Thought about adaptation.
Sonny00:28:05If we had gone, if we had gone like two more rounds. That would have made it in there somewhere.
JVL00:28:09My other pick, Spider-Man is to the Spider-Man. Spider-Verse because Nick Cage voices Spider-Man Noir. Noir, which is very funny. It's great. He's very, very funny. Yeah.
Sonny00:28:17So this is, this is what I, I watched it again last year in August. So this is what I wrote on just a quick capsule review on Letterboxd. It's lesser to Palma, but that still means it's fun to watch. That said, why is the big reveal at the end during the credits, the Ruby ring, the henchwoman was wearing in the concrete pylon. Like was, was there a cut of the film where we didn't know what happened to her and the end credit sequence is just like a remnant of that. I don't understand. It like, it bothered me. It bothered me for like a week after I watched it. I was like, why is this here? Why, why, why is, why is this in this movie?
Vic00:28:48I thought you were just going to tell us you have the answer to this now.
Sonny00:28:51I don't, I don't know. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't, it's, I, I, I, when I watched the movie, I was like, wait a second. I remember being annoyed by this 20 years ago when I saw it. Still, still annoyed. Still annoyed by it. I'm sure it's fine.
?00:29:11you
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