171964172009

Today, somewhere on the planet, Nicolas Cage will turn 45.

GetCaged wishes him a happy birthday and urges readers to celebrate by checking out the Knowing trailer, to which this post is an homage of numeric portentousness.

Peggy Sue Got Married

Peggy Sue Got Married is a little like the result of a drunken tryst between Valley Girl and Back to the Future, combining as it does aspects of both films (teenage love triangles, an idealized vision of postwar America, time travel, etc) with the symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome, most notably erratic behavior and speech impediments. The film opens with a middle-aged woman at her high school reunion, ruminating on the current state of her life-- she is in the process of divorcing her husband "Crazy" Charlie Bodell (Cage), an unfaithful appliance salesman whose moniker derives from his commercials, those peculiar eighties ads in which a loud sportscoat-and-bowtie wearing man boasts of his own psychosis, a mental illness as yet unrecognized by the DSM which manifests itself in the desire to sell goods below wholesale cost-- and wondering if things would have turned out better had she made different choices in high school. This kind of thinking naturally summons the Fairy Responsible for Granting Rhetorical and Ill-Advised Wishes, the Fulfillment of Which Teaches Important Life Lessons, Ultimately Revealing the Ill-Advised Nature of the Wish and Instating In The Wisher A Newfound Appreciation of the Status Quo (cf. Freaky Friday, It's a Wonderful Life) and she promptly faints and wakes up as a seventeen year old in 1960. After a requisite period of confusion during which she, like all unwitting time-travelers before her, stumbles about asking "What am I doing here?" and mystifying other characters with her oblique hints of the future, she dons her poodle skirt and begins to revel in the chance to relive her teenage years. Seeking to avoid the years of infidelity and misery that Charlie presages, she dumps him and begins pursuing the school's lone beatnik, a turtleneck-wearing, Keruoac-quoting poet who does everything short of breaking out a pair of bongo drums. She remains unwillingly drawn to Charlie, however-- sighing wistfully to her friends "He IS cute, isn't he?" in what is probably the movie's high point, a scene where Charlie and friends (one played by then unknown actor Jim Carrey) sing an acappella quartet while dressed in gold lame jackets and doing choreographed jazz hands--  and on prom night she winds up sleeping with him, an act we know will lead to her pregnancy and her and Charlie's subsequent marriage. As she irrevocably sets herself on the path to the future she has already had, she wakes up back at her high school reunion after a period of unconscious. As she asks herself that hoary question, "Was it all a dream?" she sees Charlie is anxiously sitting nearby, and the movie closes with a hint of potential reconciliation.

Playing Charlie, Cage is breaking type: he is the rich, baby-blue convertible driving, popular boyfriend that his characters usually steal women from, seducing the girls with his bad boy charm and leaving the boyfriends with naught but their popped collars/football trophies/Harvard diplomas to keep them company. If this movie is the child of Valley Girl, Cage is Tommy Jr.  Cage's performance, however, reached a level of controversy Michael Bowen's could only have surpassed had he played Tommy as a blackface-wearing nun-rapist. To portray Charlie, Cage insisted on sporting a bleached blond pompadour and set of false teeth, and throughout the film he talks in an exaggerated nasal whine, giving a performance described as "stylized," "off-the-wall" or (as he himself put it) "Jerry Lewis on acid." This approach alienated both fellow cast members and the producers, who put strong pressure on director Coppola to fire him, which, either through familial loyalty or genuine artistic support, he refused to do, sticking by Cage and comparing his affected voice and dental inserts to Marlon Brando's cotton-stuffed mouth in The Godfather. Co-star Kathleen Turner was particularly displeased, repeatedly telling Cage "You're ruining the movie!" and summing up the situation in her 2008 memoirs: "Oh, that stupid voice of his and the fake teeth! Honestly, I cringe to think about it." Cage does not offer much in the way of his own defense: 

I started doing this way-out voice, and people were rolling their eyes and saying 'What the hell is going on?' Kathleen Turner was frustrated with me. Here she is in this great star vehicle, directed by a great director, and her leading man comes along with buck teeth and ultra-blond hair, talking like Pokey from The Gumby Show. I can understand why she was pissed off. Can you blame her? I was basically working without regard for anyone on the movie, just doing whatever I wanted and hijacking the movie, for better or worse."

It was in fact for the worse, at least for the sake of the movie, which critics nearly unanimously praised all aspects of except Cage's performance. The strained relationship between the stars did not go unnoticed, as the New York Times review of the film bemoaned the "lack of any sense of rapport between Miss Turner and Mr. Cage" (a rapport which has only worsened through the years, as Cage recently sued Turner for writing in her aforementioned memoirs that while filming Peggy Sue he had been "arrested twice for drunk driving and, I think, once for stealing a dog. He'd come across a Chihuahua he liked and stuck it in his jacket.") However, although his eccentric performance did not win Cage many friends on the set, he was cast in his next two films, Raising Arizona and Moonstruck-- arguably two of his best movies and certainly ones that elevated his career to a new level-- on the basis of his turn as Charlie. In the end, he got a lot from doing this movie, even if not a chihuahua.

 

Quote of the Week

A new feature on Caged, to provide insight from the man himself. In true Freudian fashion, let's begin with his thoughts on his mother:

She would go away for years at a time. When she got too erratic, she went . . . away. My childhood consisted of going to see her, going in there with crazy people. She was institutionalized for years and went through shock treatments. 

She was a gentle, sensitive woman. If I look at home movies of when I was two years old, I see that she was a very caring mother the way she touched me. For lengths of time she was naturally 'out there,' naturally surreal, with all kinds of poetry flying out of her. It gave me an original perspective.

I used to have nightmares that my mother's head was attached to a cockroach's body, and she was living in the garage. That really freaked me out, so I was really horrified of bugs.

 Source: Robb, Brian J.  Nicolas Cage: Hollywood's Wild Talent.  London: Plexus, 1998.

Reminder: Bangkok Dangerous Opens Today!

Although I have untold hours of Cage to watch before I can formally discuss this film, I just want to remind everyone that Bangkok Dangerous is in theaters today. If its poor critical reception and Cage's lanky black locks (an attempt to win the part of Professor Snape in a remake as unnecessary and poorly conceived as this one?) are scaring you away, at least watch this scene complete with a boat chase, exploding motorcycle, and propeller-based limb amputation. You will not regret it.

The Boy in Blue

"[The Boy in Blue's female lead] Cynthia Dale is the finest musical actress in the world. No one woman has her physical beauty, dancing skill, wonderful singing voice and acting ability today or in any other era. 

Unfortunately she was not able to display her talents in this role."

-William P Cunnings, Amazon.com

Indeed, The Boy in Blue is a showcase for many things-- extravagant handlebar mustaches, Nicolas Cage's sweaty, glistening pectorals, a series of plot devices so ludicrous and contrived they make Face/Off seem an exercise in plausibility-- but talent is certainly not among them. Without a doubt, it is Cage's worst performance so far: his bumbling attempts at innocent naivete come across like a poorly cast high-schooler in a production of Peter Pan. In fact, given that the film is based on a real-life historical figure (Canadian rowing champion Ned Hanlan, seen on the left memorialized in what Wikipedia dubs a "surprisingly revealing" statue), the whole thing has a whiff of high school project to it, and a poorly executed one at that: one thrown together at 11pm the night before the due date with a borrowed camcorder, a two paragraph biography copied from the World Book Encyclopedia, and a variety pack of false mustaches.  I have seen this movie twice now, and I will tell you right now there is only one way to make it palatable to even think about reliving the experience: by drinking heavily. I encourage you, readers, to play along: take a swig for every inexplicable plot twist, gratuitously shirtless Cage scene, and virulent anti-Harvard sentiment. If you are especially hardcore, drink whenever there's mention of comical facial hair, but I cannot be held responsible for the possible alcohol poisoning/death that may result.

 

The movie opens with Ned Hanlan (Cage) living on the bucolic Canadian coastline, enjoying the company of his busty girl Dulcie and smuggling moonshine across the river; using his speedy rowing skills to evade the police who threaten in geographically inappropriate Irish brogues to lock him up if they could only catch him, begorrah! This simple life is disrupted when Hanlan's talents begin to attract the attention of more than just the law, and a mustachioed businessman comes calling with the promise of glory and lucre to be gained from a sculling race in Philadelphia. When they get to town they find their boat is missing, but it just so happens (how convenient!) that a cantankerous old man with a bushy white beard and mad genius reminiscent of Doc Brown has one waiting for them. And not just any boat for our hero: this boat has a sliding seat. "All them Harvard boys won't give it a chance," Doc laments, and when Ned first tries it we see why: he immediately capsizes, falling into the water as a group of other rowers literally point and laugh. But soon enough he gets the hang of it, and goes on to win second place in the race. Unfortunately, this does not sit well with a cadre of evil businessmen who have set up a sculling gambling syndicate, and they endeavor to exact revenge by sending out thugs to break Bill's arm and poison Ned's drink. Thankfully wise old Doc is suspicious, and pawns the beer off on a passerby who then keels over, apparently dead, although this goes completely unnoticed by the tavern's patrons.

In any case, there's no time to dwell on it, because suddenly we're back in Canada, and Ned is being showered with attention: the mayor presents him with a medal, a cheering crowd carries him away on their shoulders, and oily businessman Knox, leader of the aforementioned gambling syndicate, wants to be Ned's new manager. Ned is reluctant, knowing a stock caricature of avarice when he sees one, but is still drawn to Knox's niece (the ostensibly talented Dale), a haughty society girl who is nevertheless taken by his raffish charms. Unfortunately she is also taken by her fiance, a blond man whom Ned walks up to at a party and pushes to the ground, shouting "Get up, Harvard man!" When Maggie is inexplicably put off by this behavior, Ned spirals into an alcoholic languor, and returns to the seedy world of moonshine smuggling, where he is soon caught and imprisoned. To raise bail money, Ned is forced to sign with Knox, who makes him undergo a rigorous training regimen as he and his wealthy cronies sit on the porch homoerotically admiring Ned's shirtless body: "He's like a moving sculpture."  

All the training is in preparation for a big race in Boston against Australian sculling superstar Trickett, who strides into town with a 70s porn-style mustache and large entourage, all of whom wear matching red and black outfits with "T"s embroidered on the chest. Also in Boston are Bill and Ned's former flame Dulcie, who are now happily married. Ned is thrilled to see them (although even he seems taken aback by their marriage, saying "I didn't even know you knew each other!") but their joyful reunion is soon marred when Ned learns of their nefarious purpose there: Knox has paid Bill to sabotage Trickett's boat. Ned is a fair-minded fellow and and after a bit of high-principled shouting at Bill, manages to surreptitiously warn Trickett to check his seat. He gets little thanks for this during the race, though, which Trickett spends shouting insults at Ned until Ned, shouting "You bastard!" can take no more and rows directly into the side of Trickett's boat.

Of course, that kind of behavior is one thing for a rough young bootlegger, but it doesn't fly in the mannered world of rowing, and Ned is expelled from all American sculling races and dropped by Knox. With nowhere else to turn, Ned goes back to old Doc, who apparently used to be a rowing champion himself (he is truly a paragon of convenience, that man) and agrees to train Ned for the World Championship in England. Ned emerges from his second training montage with a newfound sense of peace and calm which last until the very next scene, when he jumps on the back of Maggie and Harvard Man's carriage, hitting the door and shouting "DO NOT MARRY THIS MAN!" This is evidently exactly what Maggie was waiting for, as next thing we know she is sneaking into Ned's room at night for a sweaty topless training montage of their own. Via reasons that are both too complicated and nonsensical to even mention, they manage to blackmail Knox into consenting to their marriage, so soon the happy couple is off to England for the big race on the Thames.

Although this race is billed as a "World Championship" the only contestants are Ned and Trickett, who begin the race evenly matched, rowing furiously to remain neck and neck. But before long Ned is forced to stop when his oar develops a loose screw. He fruitlessly tries to screw it back, even as Trickett rows farther and farther away and all seems lost. Luckily Bill is there to save the day by jumping into the water and swimming over to give Ned a wrench (Who doesn't bring a wrench to a sporting event?).  Although Trickett has had several minutes to build up a lead, Ned manages to catch up with him fairly easily and after slow motion sequence which tries valiantly to generate a modicum of suspense, Ned finally wins. 

Surprisingly enough, this is not the end: perhaps taking a cue from the unpredictable sitcom-esque final moments of Birdy, the last scene finds Ned and Bill reunited and celebrating when Knox's thugs come out of the shadows menacingly. As they advance, Ned and Bill put up their fists to prepare for a fight, and Ned says jovially "Here we go again!" Then-- and only then-- do we get a merciful cut to black.

There  is probably some cutting and insightful analysis to be done here, but fuck that-- now I'm wasted. Although still not as wasted as the film onto which this movie was shot. 

WANT TO LEARN MORE, HARVARD MAN?

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watch a scene...en francais

Birdy

aka Cage at War Part Two: Vietnam Punched Me in The Face

In many ways Birdy is a perfect companion to Racing with the Moon: two childhood friends return from war, injured and disillusioned. One (Birdy, played by Matthew Modine) is locked in a psychiatric ward, refusing to speak since returning from the jungle. The other (Cage's character, Al) brought in to try to rouse Birdy from his stupor, has bandages covering half his face and suffers nightmares about the shell explosion that put them there. Grim scenes from the hospital contrast with flashbacks of their happy exploits as "crazy Philly kids" in which they tooled around their neighborhood, playing baseball and scoring with chicks at the boardwalk. Their innocence and eagerness to go off to war-- as seen in Racing with the Moon-- are rued as foolish here: "We didn't know what we were getting into with this John Wayne shit...boy, were we dumb."

Yet Birdy's fairly standard wounded-vets-recall-their-innocent-childhood plot is nearly completely overshadowed by a far less common story: man-determined-to-fly-gradually-comes-to-believe-he-is-a-bird-and-falls-in-love-with-his-pet-canary. 

Birdy's obsession begins innocuously enough, with a plan to raise and sell carrier pigeons. To help him collect the pigeons he recruits Al, whose initial enthusiasm fades when he is forced to don a feathered suit ("I look stupid!" "Not to a bird, Al") and climb atop a precarious roof. Soon enough Birdy slips, and ends up hanging on the edge with one hand, looking at the vertiginous drop below, and quietly laughing. Sensing as well as anyone that this is a harbinger of madness, Al redoubles his efforts to reach Birdy, but he is too far away. Not worried, Birdy declares his intention to drop onto the pile of hay below, causing Al to exclaim incredulously "You're going to jump?" only to be told, for the first of many times, "No, Al. I'm going to fly."

His attempts to fly become more serious as he builds a set of man-sized wings, although hardly more scientific: his engineering skills are put in serious doubt when he declares that flying is "mostly a matter of confidence" and that all you need is to "believe the air has substance and will hold you up," a philosophy of flight reminiscent of Douglas Adams, who famously declared flying to be a matter of throwing yourself at the ground and missing. When the wings fail ("I don't know what happened" he says, mystified, "I was going real good then I just fell out of the sky") he takes a different approach: he will fly by becoming a bird.

He keeps several canaries in an aviary in his room and he spends hours communing with them, to the increasing alienation of Al. When he buys a new one, he and Al have the following conversation, which pretty well sums up the entire movie:

Al: What are you going to name him?

Birdy: I don't know. I don't speak canary yet.

Al: Yet?

Birdy (to canary): eep! eep! eep!

Al: Fuck. This is getting weird.

Poor Al doesn't know the half of it-- Birdy has taken to sleeping naked in his aviary and having erotic dreams about his female canary Perta. In a voiceover to the audience, Birdy describes a dream in which "Perta waits...cups herself to receive me...I hover, then lower myself into her. Perta and I become one. I see through her eyes, fly on her wings. I am no longer alone."  Having earlier in the film dismissed female breasts as "overgrown mammary glands" (prompting Al to deliver a heartfelt speech extolling the wonders of tits) he spurns his prom date's advances in favor of a night spent stroking and kissing Perta, as the camera traces a birds-eye-view flight path through the town.  When Birdy decides to tell Al about this breakthrough, saying jubilantly "Last night I flew!" Al is naturally skeptical, and when Birdy insists "When I fly I AM a bird," Al reacts with hostility and storms away. Next we see him, he is wearing an army uniform and walking down the street as Birdy watches from the window.

Back in the present day of the movie, Al is alternately apologetic to Birdy ("I shouldn't have left you") and angry, trying to provoke a reaction through insults: "You don't hop like a bird, you don't really sit like one, and you sure as hell can't fly like one." But for scene after scene Birdy remains unmoving, perched naked on his bedpost staring at the window or curled up under the sink. Cage does an impressive job of carrying these scenes, showing Al's tender care for his friend, his desperation to help him, and his anger and depression over his own injuries. 

When Al is not talking to Birdy, he is developing an increasingly belligerent relationship to the hospital staff, especially Birdy's doctor, who begins dropping veiled threats that he will lock Al up as well. After a particularly intense war flashback, it looks like he may get his wish: Al cries to Birdy "You're right, we should just hide out and not talk to anyone and every now and then go crazy and spit and throw shit at them." But this, at last, gets a response-- Birdy looks up and says lucidly "Al, sometimes you're so full of shit." Al is thrilled and asks, "How come you decided to talk?" to which Birdy shrugs, "I don't know, it just happened." But when the doctor comes in it won't "just happen" again, and faced with an unbelieving medical establishment Al has no choice but to push the doctor against the wall and punch out the two orderlies who follow. He drags Birdy up the stairs as more staff pursue them, and they end up on the roof where Al can barricade the door. But the roof is a dangerous place to bring Birdy, and as soon as Al looks up, Birdy is poised on the precipice, arms flapping and outstretched. Al runs towards him but it's too late-- Birdy jumps! Al rushes to the roof's edge and looks down to see...Birdy, standing on an adjoining roof perhaps ten feet lower. Birdy looks up at Al, smiles, and says innocently, "What?" as the wacky beats of La Bamba kick up and the credits roll.

As one might expect, this ending is somewhat controversial; there is healthy IMDb debate over whether Birdy jumping to his extremely foreshadowed death would have been fitting or boringly predictable. But it's not simply that Birdy doesn't die that makes it odd: everything from after he first speaks seems lifted from a parallel universe where Birdy is less a meditation on the nature of madness and identity and more a wacky sitcom called My Feathered Friend, where Al and Birdy having to escape a mental institution is just another weekly adventure, where Birdy's insouciant "What?" is the catchphrase equivalent of Urkel saying "Did I do that?" after knocking an elaborate five-tiered cake onto Laura's prom dress. I would argue that Al was a bit premature, and it's not until Birdy starts talking when things really get fucking weird.

Weird as it may be, though, the Cage fan can find comfort in certain traditions upheld: the lower-class family background (Al refers to his father derisively as "that fucking garbageman"), the face-centric violence (we learn that shortly after Al arrived in Saigon he was disciplined for striking his superior officer, breaking his nose and knocking out 4 of his teeth) and the gratuitous toplessness. As one IMDb comment put it, under the subject "Cage Lifting Weights":  

I was thinking he looked pretty scrawny in this movie until the scene where he had his shirt off and he was lifting weights, then I was like wow! Those abs were FINE! But he sure had bad teeth back then.

And if you think Cage's shiny chest and bulging arm muscles are on fine display here, you will love the next film, in which he is a professional sculler whose endless supply of slow-motion training montages give the camera plenty to ogle. Stay tuned and stay caged!

 

EXTRAS

Learn what Siskel and Ebert think!

Read all about it! Birdy is based on a novel that sounds even weirder than the movie.

Like movies where dudes totally do it with animals? Check out Passion in the Desert, aka Birdy with leopards: watch clips here!

Racing With The Moon

Originally I had intended to watch this movie-- which follows the exploits of two rambunctious young men about to ship off World War II-- as part of a double feature with Cage's subsequent film Birdy, about two young men who return from Vietnam severally mentally and physically scarred. Unfortunately Birdy proved extremely difficult to acquire, so consider this Part One: Let's Drink Some Coke Before The Horrors of War Destroy Our Innocence and That of Our Nation's.

To be fair, Racing With the Moon certainly aspires to be more than a sepia-toned romp through Nostalgia Towne, and to some extent it succeeds. Yet its desire for both realistic, hard-hitting emotions and hilarious hi-jinks make for a somewhat uneven tone: when the scene in which two poor 17-year olds are being threatened by the pool sharks they tried to hustle to get the money to pay for a desperately needed abortion is played for laughs and scored with a jaunty swing beat the audience cannot but be somewhat confused.

Less confusing is Cage, who spends much of this film engaged in his traditional pursuits of wearing a wifebeater, swigging from a flask, and occasionally screaming curse-filled monologues at innocent bystanders.  He is one of the aforementioned 17-year olds, Nicky, the stalwart best friend of the protagonist, Henry "Hopper" Nash (Sean Penn). Hopper and Nicky are shipping out for war in a month, and the movie follows them as they wile away their pre-combat time walking through their Norman Rockwell painting of a town, leaping over white picket fences with their faithful dog, eating pie at the diner, and plotting how to get laid.

Although this lands Nicky with some unintended consequences, Hopper ends up happily in love with a spritely brunette he spies at the library. After stealthily jumping on the back bumper of the bus she is riding, Hopper sees she lives in a huge Victorian mansion, and thus is what he and Nicky dub a "Gatsby girl".  For a moment, this seems to presage Valley Girl-style class conflict, as Hopper and Nicky come from less distinguished backgrounds-- the son of a gravedigger and abusive alcoholic ne'er-do-well, respectively-- and both have unglamorous jobs setting pins at the bowling alley (in fact, earlier in the film some "rich bastards" [distinguished from regular bastards by their plutocratic argyle sweaters] were shouting insults at them as they worked until Hopper ran up the lane and-- prepare to be shocked--punched the leader in the face).

But everything goes smoothly between Hopper and Caddie, and soon they are playing "Heart and Soul" duets together and making sweet love by the pond. Unfortunately, Nicky's girl's "trouble" begins to loom larger, and after failing to win the money at pool, Nicky feels he has no choice but to ask Caddie for a loan, which he does with characteristic tact by suddenly shouting "DAMMIT CADDIE, I NEED 150 DOLLARS!" with no explanation, then storming away. After Hopper explains the situation, Caddie pledges to help, but there is a nervous look in her eyes that belies her dark secret: she is not the rich girl she is assumed to be, but merely the daughter of a wealthy family's live-in maid.

Luckily her employer's daughter is an extremely understanding girl Caddie's age, who gets her the money easily, but the incident sparks first a fight between Caddie and Hopper (of the "You only liked me because you thought I was rich!" variety) then Hopper and Nicky (of the "You're always making a mess of your life and I have to get you out of it!" variety). After some encouraging words from his dad, Hopper is ready to make amends, which he does first with Nicky-- in a Hemingway-esque conversation full of emotions conveyed through terseness and repetition: "We gotta stick together, Nicky. We gotta stick together." "Yeah... yeah"-- and then with Caddie by buying her shoes (Oh, women! What won't you forgive for a new pair of heels?)

Soon enough time has come for the boys to ship off, and after saying their goodbyes they have one more instance of youthful shenanagins as the train begins to pull away from the station and they have to run alongside it and leap onto the side ladders, as the jaunty music strikes up again to send them off to their next adventure...WAR!

This movie was a good sight Cagier than the last, both in terms of screen time and extent of distinctive Cage flavor. Sean Penn proved an excellent foil, sharing enough of Cage's slightly unbalanced intensity to make them believable friends (let's not forget it was his character who punched the rich kid in the face) yet maintaining a practicality that grounds Cage's wilder moments, such as when Nicky decides to have an eagle tattooed on his chest (The beginning of the scene is viewable here, from 2:10-3:14, although the best part is later when Nicky is drunk and Hopper has to pull him away from picking a fight with a tattoo artist.) It will be interesting to see what happens in the next movie, where the dynamic is reversed and Cage plays the sane one, who has to take care of his bird-obsessed friend. Watch for Part Two of our series, Cage at War... coming soon.