Back in the Cage

John Travolta: But I thought you were--

Nicolas Cage: ...in a coma? Nothing like having your face cut off to disturb your sleep. Read the newspaper lately?

-Face/Off

If you have read the newspaper lately, you have no doubt noticed that Nicolas Cage is taking up a disproportionate number of column inches. It began earlier this fall, when financial troubles forced him to put a number of his properties, including a German castle and haunted New Orleans mansion, on the market, in an attempt to raise the millions he owes the IRS in unpaid taxes. According to Cage, the situation is the fault of his former business manager's "unsound investments," which are frankly strong words coming from a man who spent $500,000 to buy a Lambourghini from the Shah of Iran and $276,000 on a dinosaur skull bought at auction after a heated bidding war with Leonardo DiCaprio.

But economic hardship and laughably ridiculous purchases are not the only reasons Cage has been in the news: his starring role in Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans won him rave reviews, and inspired a particularly insightful essay by Manohla Dargis, in which she offers a brief history of his career and concludes:

I have begun to wonder if the narrative that many of us have grafted onto his career — the early if erratic promise, the mature successes, the dire midlife choices — does him an injustice... He has made a habit of failure and frequently pimped out his talent. And yet, as “Bad Lieutenant” shows, he remains the same Nicolas Cage of his early, later and most critically lauded career: the man of a thousand facial tics, a student of all accents and a master of none, a star who, for better, worse and sometimes both, gives us reason after reason to go the movies.

And if that wasn't praise enough, last week the United Nations gave Cage the Global Citizen of the Year Award and named him a goodwill ambassador, citing his extensive charity work establishing rehabilitation centers for former child soldiers and campaigning for international arms control. In what is almost certainly in the top ten greatest statements ever released by the UN, executive director Antonio Maria Costa said: "The Lord of War has become a messenger for peace, the Bad Lieutenant has turned into a good cop, and the inmate from Con Air has become a champion of prison reform. Nicolas Cage's characters have exposed us to some of the darkest aspects of human nature. Now he is championing one of the most noble - the quest for justice."

It is this concatenation of events that has acted to wake CAGED from its nearly year-long coma; slicing its electronic face off to rouse it from its blogging slumber. There is much work to be done-- babies to steal, wars to fight, and women to hit while wearing a full-body bear suit. But we must not not falter! Though the road may be long, we must rev up our ghostly, flaming motorcycle, take a swig of whiskey, and drive onwards. Ever onwards.

(Not to even mention the recently released Sorcerer's Apprentice trailer, which just looks so fucking nuts.)