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Happy 50th Birthday Nic Cage: Here Are The Five Best Worst Cage Flicks
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jan 7, 2014
Modified Mar 19, 2014
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Cage Composite via Alamo Drafthouse
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jan 7, 2014
Modified Mar 19, 2014
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Today Nicolas Cage turns 50. His earnest mustache painted banjo-laden memories across our childhoods, memories that aged into a lottery-winning, skull-coveting, self-loathing, lizard-hallucinating mosaic of his artistic and public personas. But what of Penumbral Cage? The Cage seen in films that reek of the sweet, fecund aroma of cinematic compost? The Wicker Man is child's play (and also terrifically boring). Check out five of Cage's finest films you may not be familiar with.
In chronological order:
Zandalee (1991)
Cage's only NC-17 movie (that's right—David Lynch compromised his principles) features "sensational film newcomer" Erika Anderson as Zandalee Martin. Our protagonist becomes disenchanted with her marriage to Judge Reinhold's character, Thierry (choice line: "I want you like we used to want"), and her gaze turns to the wayward artist, Johnny Collins, played by Cage. Despite this wildly fanciful plot line (who tires of cohabiting with Judge Reinhold?) this film feature's Cage's best haircut. Joe Pantoliano plays Zandalee's gay confidant, and Steve Buscemi also collects a paycheck in a film that grossed only $500K at the box office. In our hearts, it's a Blockbuster.
Red Rock West (1993)
If your film features enough cigarette smoking, manic drives between dusty roadside fleabags, and Dwight Yokham, it will maintain a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Red Rock West keeps Dennis Hopper's beefy, signet-ringed finger on the trigger, but you'll be begging him for 98 minutes to pull it. Lara Flynn Boyle is in full Scarlett O'Hara, and Wayne Brown at his Wayne Browniest.
Deadfall (1993)
Deadfall is perhaps one of our favorite shitty movies of all time. Directed by Cage's brother Chris, this film's got it all: Cage snorting his weight in cocaine and speaking in at least three strange accents and four different guttural moans, a plot that's supposed to revolve around diamonds, that dude from The Monkees, and JAMES COBURN. When Lionsgate writes that "double cons leads to triple cons," they're talking about the point in the movie when you go "UNNNGHGGH" and blood trickles out your right eye because the cons are just wrapped in so many goddamn cons. Charlie Sheen's in this thing too, so take a sip every time he strokes his cute little Three Musketeers goatee.
Kiss Of Death (1995)
Every day David Caruso wakes up he thanks his lucky sunglasses that he never has to act next to Nicolas Cage again. This remake of a 1947 film about a mobster's betrayal is good because Cage carries it on his A-shirted shoulders. Sam Jackson, Ving Rhames, Michael Rapaport, Stanley Tucci, (On Cagemas, when my 14 children gather around a fraser fir that we have sculpted to look like Cage, we will watch Kiss of Death and shout "SHUT UP, STANLEY" every time Tucci bleats out one of his pathetic one-liners.) all seem tiny next to the goatee that won't quit.
8mm (1999)
This is an extremely dark movie about the investigation into a rich man commissioning a snuff film, but Cage's scenes with Peter Stormare (evil pornographer "Dino Velvet") are unsettlingly hypnotic and deeply hilarious. It also features the most suspenseful use of Aphex Twin's "Come To Daddy" in existence.
Tagged
milestones
nicolas cage
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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