Latest / Cage Match: A Roundabout Way of Meeting Nicolas Cage / Bringing Out The Dead vs Windtalkers

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Bringing Out The Dead vs Windtalkers · Cage Match: A Roundabout Way of Meeting Nicolas Cage

0:00
Oh, God. Oh, my God.
0:13
Run us through your thought process for your method podcasting, please.
0:18
Oh, I don't know if there were like thoughts that like precluded me doing this,
0:23
but I kind of thought like Nick Cage is this great, like
0:27
a well known like method actor, like or he brings a lot of method into his acting,
0:35
which is to say that like he puts himself in the shoes or the
0:40
the mental state of the character.
0:43
So like a lot of with leaving Las Vegas, there was a lot of time spent drunk
0:48
and filming himself drunk and things like that to find out how he was in that situation.
0:56
So and something like Renfield recently, he just was Dracula on set.
1:01
Yeah, pretty much all the time.
1:03
He says it wasn't all the time, but I mean, who knows?
1:07
You had the chance to just have people call you Dracula and wear a cape all the time.
1:11
Wouldn't you do it? Yes. Or count or count.
1:14
So if you're nasty.
1:15
I was doing a back to back this morning and in bringing out the dead,
1:22
Nicholas Cage plays a very burned out paramedic and he exists
1:29
just on like caffeine and whiskey and he doesn't eat so much,
1:34
but he's like always really tired.
1:37
So I I thought I'd try to put myself in that mindset while I was watching
1:42
specifically that movie to see if it affected things.
1:45
So I I smoked some weed, but that's fine.
1:49
I live in Washington and then I drink a whole lot of caffeine
1:53
to make myself like really out of it.
1:55
So I was like battling tired and like hyperactivity and stress
2:00
throughout the whole movie.
2:02
And I will say it made it interesting.
2:05
And we can talk about that more.
2:06
But like when we get to that movie.
2:08
But so, you know, I was just trying to put myself
2:11
into his character's shoes as much as he put himself into his shoes
2:16
or into that character's shoes, just so I could see what it was like.
2:20
And I don't regret it, but I wouldn't have done it on the day
2:22
that we record if I did it again.
2:25
You hear that, people?
2:26
Nick is willing to put his body through real stupid things
2:29
for your entertainment. Yeah.
2:31
Welcome back to Cage match, Colin, a roundabout way of meeting Nicholas Cage.
2:36
Oh, I tasted the fat of it.
2:39
So you can't tell it's going to be a very special episode.
2:43
We cannot use this.
2:47
No, we're using it. I'm not.
2:48
I'm not. I don't do. I don't do two of these.
2:50
Oh, God. This is not usable.
2:52
Oh, it's perfectly usable. It is not.
2:54
We're using it. We are.
2:55
We are. All right.
2:57
So what's the conceit of this podcast?
3:00
Welcome back to Cage match, Colin, a roundabout way of meeting Nicholas Cage.
3:04
Peter.
3:06
I'm our producer.
3:08
Hello. I'm here.
3:10
I'm one of the hosts, Sean, here with my other host.
3:16
Wiggle Bottoms McClure.
3:18
Yep. Nick.
3:22
As you can tell, this is going to be a interesting episode.
3:26
It's going to be a good one.
3:27
We're going to be like clean.
3:28
We're going to be fucking cutting it nice.
3:31
We're going to be like. Yeah.
3:32
It's a solid start. Yeah.
3:34
You already got yelled at.
3:36
This show is one where we take 64.
3:40
I know that it was a collective.
3:42
Oh, OK. OK. Good. Including me.
3:45
If it's an everybody's in trouble, that's fine.
3:47
Yeah. We're all going to time out.
3:50
See you guys in 10 minutes.
3:53
This show is off the rails already.
3:56
This show is where we take 64 of Nicholas Cage is best movies,
4:01
more notable, more notable movies.
4:03
And we're going to systematically go through them,
4:07
break them down and figure out what Nick Cage's best film is
4:10
as decided by us to total authorities and subjects.
4:15
Yeah, I think at this point, you guys probably can claim that.
4:18
I were about like 80 hours of Nick Cage movies in.
4:21
I was actually watching the movies this week and I was sitting there
4:24
and I was like, man, I almost never watch movies without Nick Cage now.
4:29
And it's actually like stunning when I do watch one,
4:32
because I'll be watching and I'm like, there's Nick Cage.
4:34
There's no Nick Cage.
4:35
Like, I don't know any of these people, even though I know all of them,
4:39
because it's still a Marvel movie or some shit like that.
4:41
I and it's like, huh? You're right.
4:44
No, I couldn't put my finger on it, but I did go see Guardians of the Galaxy
4:47
Volume three and the whole time I'm like, something's missing.
4:51
It's Nick Cage. Nick Cage.
4:53
You know, he could have been a great Kevin Bacon stand in
4:55
for the holiday special to.
4:57
Yeah, but the holiday special, that's not like movie star stuff.
5:01
That's a holiday special.
5:03
Yeah, that's true. He doesn't do not movie star stuff.
5:05
That's like direct streaming.
5:07
Yeah, good point. Good point.
5:09
That's below our Nicholas, which is why he's not in the now
5:13
canceled National Treasure TV show.
5:16
I wonder why it got canceled. No, Nicholas Cage.
5:20
Yeah, that's probably its only issue.
5:22
Nicholas Cage might come cheap, but he still won't do TV.
5:26
I can't blame him, you know.
5:27
I don't want to work that hard.
5:29
You got to have your scruples, right?
5:31
Well, TV's hard.
5:32
There's the shooting schedule is intense.
5:34
Fucking sucks.
5:35
Can't just come in and out like 10 days, five million dollars.
5:39
That's right. You can't just sit in front of a green screen
5:41
and in a cowboy hat and talk to the camera for,
5:44
I'm assuming, about six hours worth of work or yell about a piano
5:48
or favorite chair.
5:51
He was actually in that scene, though.
5:53
Oh, OK. Yeah, had to be.
5:55
There was a fight. Yeah.
5:57
Which is not in either of the movies we watched this week,
6:00
because this week we watched Bringing Out the Dead 1999
6:04
and Windtalkers 2000 2002.
6:07
Yeah. So not too far apart.
6:08
No, not logically.
6:10
Both directed by kind of prestige directors.
6:13
Yeah. And both box office bombs, too.
6:16
They were real both definite failures outside of the directors niche.
6:21
Yeah, for sure.
6:22
In terms of the bracket, this is the serious guy bracket.
6:25
And we have the succeed,
6:28
which is bringing up the dead against the 11 seed, which is wind talkers.
6:31
So serious, serious cage.
6:33
So there will be no jokes in this comedy podcast.
6:36
No. Peter will cut out any levity.
6:38
Absolutely. If we laugh once cut, we'll start over.
6:42
It's just going to be quacked.
6:43
Yeah. Now, every time we laugh, we have to start over.
6:46
No quack it.
6:47
Damn it. Welcome back to Cage Match,
6:49
calling around about way of meeting Nicolas Cage.
6:50
I'm your host, Sean, here with my co-host Nick and our producer.
6:54
Peter. Hello. No humor.
6:56
Not we're fucked. God damn it hurts.
7:00
Let's just get into this because I cannot right now.
7:04
What do you guys want to talk about first?
7:05
Let's do wind talkers. Sure.
7:07
Nick, do you have a high coup this week?
7:09
I don't have a high coup this week.
7:16
Do you have anything?
7:17
I have cold sweats. Good.
7:19
That's perfect. That is actually perfect for this.
7:20
All right. Summarize wind talkers for us.
7:23
So it's been a really long time since I've watched a war movie.
7:26
Nick Cage is this military guy who went through some really shitty
7:31
action on the Solomon Islands and he gets paired up with a Navajo
7:37
code talker guy.
7:39
This is in World War Two and he's like protecting him
7:44
but also like dominantly protecting the code.
7:47
So he's got orders like if the code talker was to be taken,
7:54
he has to like kill him.
7:55
And so it's just a couple small elements of the Pacific front.
8:02
Nick Cage trying to keep himself emotionally distant from this guy,
8:06
even though he has to spend all this time with him and then, you know, drama ensues.
8:11
Yeah, that's pretty good.
8:13
Also, just an apology from the last episode when we were talking about introducing
8:18
this episode, I said incorrectly that it was about Apache code breakers.
8:24
Yeah, it's Navajo. Yeah.
8:27
Yeah. OK. So that's pretty good.
8:29
Yeah, I thought so. That was great.
8:31
No, that's actually pretty much the story and it goes for two hours and 14 minutes.
8:36
Nicholas Cage plays Joe Enders and Adam Beach plays Ben Yazzie,
8:42
Yazzie, which is a great name, except I kept thinking Ben Gazi the whole time.
8:47
Yeah, me too. Every time his name came up, it's like Ben Gazi, Ben Gazi.
8:50
Oh, I was thinking Ben Yazzie, Krosha from Zero Punctuation.
8:54
Yeah, that's a good one, too.
8:56
The cast for this movie, though, was fucking awesome.
8:58
Yeah, no, there were so many people in this movie.
9:00
Christian Slater.
9:01
You always know you're going to have a fun time with Christian Slater.
9:03
Yeah. Once upon a time, he did things. Yeah.
9:05
Yeah. With his time, Mark Ruffalo.
9:09
Yeah, Mark Ruffalo.
9:10
He had a pretty small part.
9:12
I mean, as a Mark Ruffalo and. Yeah. Yeah.
9:14
Honestly, I think he had the weakest bits of script like his dialogue.
9:20
Fucking sucked. Yeah.
9:22
Like when he was talking about, oh, Santorini.
9:25
Oh, you got to go to Santorini.
9:28
It's like, oh, man, you're just like some very bad stereotype. Yeah.
9:32
There was a lot of stereotyping in here because like, what's his face?
9:36
Noah Emmerich, the guy with the big gun, the kind of like loose, not loosely racist.
9:41
The racist guy named Chick. Yeah.
9:45
The guy that I kept like, I couldn't stop thinking just like, oh, he's like
9:49
Biff from. Yeah.
9:51
He's the Biff of this movie is the Biff.
9:53
But he does actually kind of get a little character redemption in the end.
9:58
He's the one he has.
9:59
He's one of the few characters who has like a full arc where he starts off as
10:02
I'm racist and I hate everybody who's not a white American,
10:06
including my own allies who just happen to be Navajo.
10:10
Yeah. And then he gets saved and he's like,
10:14
you know, my granddad used to tell me stories about killing engines.
10:17
And now who knows, maybe in 50 years, we'll
10:22
sit around with expletive for a Japanese person and have a beer.
10:26
And like, oh, yeah, I know it's a period.
10:29
So you can have a Sapporo. Yeah. Yeah.
10:32
I know it's a period piece, which sounds fine to me right now.
10:34
Yeah, that's not pretty good.
10:35
But I haven't really eaten today, so.
10:37
But yeah, I mean, Ruffalo's character basically is like, I'm Greek.
10:42
And the end of his story arc is I'm Greek. Yeah. Yeah.
10:46
And alive still. Yeah.
10:47
Which I could have sworn he got shot in the chest in that final shootout.
10:52
He did make it, but I remember him getting shot at one point
10:54
because there were only four of them and one of them definitely got shot in the chest.
10:58
Oh, you know, if we're talking about the final shootout,
11:00
can we talk about the end credits real quick?
11:02
How fucking weird and kind of bullshitty was it that they put up footage
11:08
of the characters in black and white from the movie
11:12
next to their names, like in slow motion, like it was an in memoriam. Yeah.
11:16
But it's not a true story story.
11:19
There was no indication that this is based on any real people.
11:24
And then they just slow motion in memoriam, everybody. Yeah.
11:27
And it's like, OK, I'm like, I'm going to watch
11:31
the credits for us. No, I'm done.
11:35
OK, so we can break it down in three parts.
11:39
Solomon Islands, Hawaii, Saipan.
11:43
It opens up on the Solomon Islands.
11:45
We've got a bunch of Marines.
11:49
Nick Cage is a Marine in this.
11:51
They're securing this swamp.
11:53
They have to hold this position.
11:56
He refuses to retreat.
11:58
He's not going to retreat.
11:59
His orders are to hold it and everyone does.
12:02
His entire unit gets killed and he is injured,
12:07
which will in the next scene in Hawaii
12:12
kind of introduce us to this nurse who takes a liking to him,
12:16
kind of helps him recuperate.
12:18
He's got this fucked up ear because of a grenade.
12:21
And so his balance is out and he can't really hear so well.
12:26
That only comes up a little bit.
12:27
It's not necessarily that's not a plot point in this film.
12:30
Yeah, really. I think they could have played that up more, but
12:34
or just not done that at all.
12:35
They use it as a character point for like why he ended up
12:39
getting stuck in this detail, right?
12:42
Because he was a good fucking Marine.
12:44
He held the swamp to literally the last man.
12:48
Yeah. And so now it's like, oh, despite his little injury,
12:53
he's going to be the guy that has to kill the Navajo Code Talker.
12:56
If necessary, because he's a good fucking Marine.
12:59
Him and Slater are given the same detail with a different Code Talker.
13:03
Yeah, we've got Ben with Nicolas Cage and Charlie,
13:07
who is rolling with Christian Slater and Slater's character is quick,
13:12
fast becomes friends with his Code Talker.
13:15
They discover a level of music.
13:17
They actually start bonding.
13:19
And of course, push comes to shove.
13:21
Slater can't do it. Yeah.
13:24
So after Hawaii, we've kind of got Cage's ender going back into active duty.
13:31
He gets sent on this
13:34
detail with the Code Talkers back out to Saipan.
13:38
And from here, we get a couple different
13:42
engagement zones, I guess you'd call it.
13:44
There's quite a few of these, and they all kind of blended together for me.
13:48
There are three major fights, three major engagements.
13:52
Yeah, no four, if you count the town. Yeah, four.
13:55
So yeah, the first one is when they first get there and they're taking.
13:58
Yeah, they kind of take that beachhead. Yeah.
14:01
And then they're just moving north through Saipan.
14:03
And there's the friendly fire incident. Yeah.
14:06
Then the town and then the final minefield debacle. Yes.
14:11
Yeah, no, you're right.
14:12
They do all the fight scenes in this really do blend together.
14:15
And yeah, it's a war film, but.
14:18
It could have easily cut half an hour of this film,
14:21
and it would have had the same impact.
14:24
No, I feel like I'm not a fan of war films.
14:29
I'm not either.
14:31
And when I was watching this, I was actually thinking like,
14:33
it's been a really long time since I've watched a war movie.
14:36
And war movies actually handle this violence a lot differently
14:40
because it is it's graphic without exploiting the violence.
14:45
No, it's not. It shows how truly shitty this is.
14:48
But when a person is shot, there is an exit wound.
14:51
There's blood.
14:52
John Wu went with a very realistic take on war.
14:56
The battle scenes are kind of graphic.
15:00
I mean, in the very opening of one of them,
15:03
like you get a guy whose hand is chopped off with a katana.
15:07
At one point, a character's head is cut off with a katana.
15:12
There is just a limb gets blown off.
15:15
You know, there's lots of different.
15:16
Yeah, very, very graphic.
15:17
A lot of things with mines.
15:20
There's a lot of artillery shelling in this.
15:22
Every time someone goes back to like help their buddy, they generally get mowed down.
15:27
No, it's I mean, it's terrible.
15:29
And I'm assuming it's realistic.
15:32
Drop down in the comments if you've ever been.
15:35
Please don't.
15:36
It's interesting thinking about like, you know, Band of Brothers
15:39
or any of those movies or back to like Saving Private Ryan and things like that.
15:43
They have very long and I was I was thinking when I was watching this,
15:47
I was like the opening Solomon Islands scene is
15:51
a fairly long feeling depiction of this.
15:56
But then I was thinking back to like Saving Private Ryan,
15:58
where it was like almost like 25 minutes or some shit like that.
16:02
It's like insanely long just on the D-Day landings and stuff like that.
16:09
Yeah. And I mean, I'm not going to go back and watch Saving Private Ryan
16:12
because like we established, I'm not really a war movie guy, but it's intense.
16:18
It's not like overly gory.
16:19
But one interesting thing I found out about this is
16:22
John Woo really tried to make this in kind of war drama,
16:27
a very serious depiction of war.
16:29
And the studio was like, no, we want this to be more of an action film.
16:32
This was supposed to come out in 2001.
16:34
It got bumped for obvious reasons.
16:37
And they made him take out half an hour
16:40
of content, most of which was more gruesome wartime war fighting.
16:45
So half an hour of this movie was cut and that was largely more combat.
16:51
Speaking of this being a John Woo movie, the second movie is a Martin Scorsese.
16:55
So good names.
16:56
This movie and next movie, neither of them necessarily feel
17:00
like they were made by these directors.
17:03
No, there's like one scene I felt in this movie where it felt like John Woo
17:09
was really making the call.
17:11
And that's when Nicholas Cage is drunk and Ben is smoking the cigarette.
17:16
And there's just like kind of slower, more artistic shots of him, like
17:21
blowing the sick. He was doing like a cleansing ritual sort of thing.
17:27
And he was like blowing the smoke over Cage's drunk body and like trying to,
17:31
like drop ashes and stuff on him to kind of cleanse him or whatever.
17:36
That's the only time I really felt like this felt like a
17:39
John Woo movie.
17:40
So this felt like more like a John Woo movie to me in that
17:44
in all of the combat scenes, you always have a guy
17:47
from standing position, go into a shoulder roll,
17:51
standing up and shooting someone for no reason.
17:54
It happens a lot.
17:55
Yeah. I like shooting somebody or throwing a knife.
17:58
Yeah. There's a lot of like that.
18:00
I'm like I was introduced to.
18:01
Yeah, I was introduced to John Woo with like the killers, like his
18:05
his old school stuff.
18:07
So I see a lot of that cinematography and a lot of that kind of violence
18:11
in this film, which he's good at what he does.
18:14
I do have a quote here from John Woo.
18:16
This was his second to last film in America that he made in America.
18:20
He did Mission Impossible 2 right before this.
18:23
This is why he left.
18:26
All Hollywood offers me is crap or big action pictures.
18:29
I want to do something good.
18:31
Yeah, that's pretty good.
18:33
That is a pretty good quote. Yeah.
18:35
Give me a war movie where you do something artistic that's unique.
18:38
You know, show me a different angle so I can get into the trenches, so to speak.
18:42
You know, where it's like it feels different.
18:45
Like I don't need to see limbs being blown off left and right.
18:48
And like the gruesomeness of war all the time.
18:53
My problem with war movies is just that they're all presented
18:58
as like a hero piece, but there just doesn't seem to be anything
19:03
that feels heroic about a war movie to me.
19:06
No, like it doesn't matter.
19:07
Like you could go through heroic actions.
19:10
You could do very noble things.
19:12
But just the the fact of watching a movie about a war,
19:16
it doesn't appeal to me unless that war happens in stars.
19:21
Yeah, that's a very different.
19:23
That's an important point, though, like that.
19:24
That is a vibe that takes some of the like grit out of it.
19:28
Yeah. And like Star Wars can be gritty, but at the same time,
19:31
and or was great, it's abstracted, right?
19:34
Well, I guess that's what it needs to be.
19:35
It just needs to be fictional.
19:37
Yeah, I'm not interested in a historic war piece
19:40
because ultimately you can look.
19:43
I mean, we're at a time now where we can look back at a lot of these wars
19:47
and there's not black and white intentions for everybody.
19:53
And I'm speaking for America.
19:55
There isn't black and white intentions in a lot of things.
19:58
And it's not good people.
20:02
Right. The time.
20:03
And it just kind of puts everybody on a pedestal in a war movie
20:08
because they're all heroes.
20:11
History is written by the victors.
20:12
Right. Yeah, it's a really interesting concept.
20:14
I mean, all these people in this movie getting shot and killed
20:18
that are just fodder, right?
20:20
Like there's so much shelling, there's so much machine gun work.
20:23
And it's just like bodies flying everywhere.
20:26
Now, this is also a conversation from three weenie little art kids.
20:30
Yes. Who have never been involved with the military.
20:35
When I was in high school, I took the ASVAB and they're like,
20:39
yeah, you should probably go in the military.
20:41
And I took that as like, oh, I probably don't have very many options in this life.
20:45
But I thought about it, honestly, for a moment.
20:50
And then 9-11 happened and I was like, y'all are fucked.
20:53
Sorry, I'm not.
20:54
I'm not going to join in war time.
20:56
My dad was in the military for a good chunk of his life, left home
21:00
at 17 to join the military and they fucked him over.
21:04
They just they, you know, he had two years left in his service.
21:07
And they're like, well, we can't afford your pension.
21:09
So we're going to bust you down to private or you can take this money and go.
21:15
And he gave him the finger bottom motorcycle and moved to San Francisco.
21:19
And then you came about.
21:20
Then I came about not fucking.
21:21
Yeah.
21:22
So he made some choices.
21:24
Boy, I'm trying to think like we are kind of anti-government
21:27
and we are pretty anti-cop and definitely anti-cop anti-establishment.
21:32
And have we I guess we're pretty anti-military now, too.
21:37
I think so. I mean, I like no, we're not anti-military.
21:40
I like a good rogue agent like a Gary.
21:43
But outside of that,
21:45
even more garry's, if you can, if you can handle it, don't worry.
21:48
We've still got one more Gary.
21:50
Maybe maybe a second run at Gary.
21:52
Maybe Gary's the one who's going to go all the way.
21:55
You called it early.
21:56
Yeah. I think you called your shot.
21:58
Man, let me tell you about this guy, Gary.
22:02
We're also three guys pushing 40.
22:03
Talk to us in 15 years, which seems to be when all of our parents get into it.
22:07
You turn 30 and you have two options.
22:10
You can get really into historical war movies or smoking meats.
22:16
And I'm an established meat smoker.
22:18
Yeah, I was much more on the meat smoking.
22:20
I mean, I like from Missouri.
22:22
And you don't have a choice. That's true.
22:24
I'm from San Francisco.
22:25
This means something completely different for me.
22:27
Yeah. You're going to have to get really into Birkenstock.
22:30
So I don't think you can have either of these options.
22:32
You are just comfortable.
22:34
I hope you like telling us all about your veganism later.
22:37
Talk that 15 years.
22:40
All right. One thing because we're just going to jump around a little bit.
22:42
One thing that I want to talk about.
22:43
So Peter Stormare is the like gunnery sergeant.
22:48
And he's a dick.
22:49
Well, he's a dick.
22:50
But like, was he trying to have an American accent?
22:54
Like, I can tell.
22:55
No, because they call him the Viking.
22:56
He's very clearly like of Swedish.
22:59
Yeah. I mean, his name is like Helmsted or something like that.
23:02
But like whatever accent he ended up doing was no accent.
23:07
And it sounds fucking weird.
23:10
I think they were just trying to if they were trying to do anything,
23:13
tone down his Swedish accent for like a Swedish American immigrant feel.
23:19
Maybe it ended up sounding so off to me like I couldn't deal with it.
23:23
I liked his character.
23:24
I mean, he was a piece of shit.
23:25
But like, yeah, I can understand a piece of shit character.
23:29
They're Marines in the shit.
23:30
Yeah. I want to just also just if we're going to just talk about characters,
23:34
the female character, I will say character in that.
23:38
What was the point of her?
23:39
They yeah.
23:41
Like she keeps writing them letters that he doesn't read,
23:44
but they still do voiceovers of her writing them.
23:46
I mean, to your point, like there is not much of a reason for that character.
23:52
It's just like, oh, there's a nurse who feels strongly for him
23:56
based on the couple of weeks that he was there with,
24:00
you know, the bends or whatever.
24:03
Yeah. The bends.
24:05
This this film supposed to it's a movie centered around the idea of Navajo
24:11
co-talkers, yet your main character is Nicolas Cage.
24:14
Ben is integral, but Ben is not the focus of this movie.
24:19
No, but you can have a movie about a subject
24:23
from the perspective of an outsider.
24:27
You can, but I don't think that's what this was at the end of the day.
24:30
That is exactly what this was.
24:32
I mean, yeah, I guess I just don't think it was done well.
24:36
Yeah. In that regard, I think John talked about that, too,
24:38
where he talked about how he really wanted this to be more about the friendship
24:41
aspect and like the camaraderie that comes from being in a fucking horrid situation.
24:48
And Studio, as you pointed out, really wanted it to be a different thing.
24:52
Yeah, it needs a rewrite.
24:54
Yeah, for sure. Because whatever they did with
24:57
Cage's character, Ender, it really kind of hollowed him out.
25:01
And he does have a bit of an arc, but it's very shallow.
25:05
Yeah. Fun fact.
25:07
Nicolas Cage learned to speak Navajo fluently for this role,
25:11
claiming it would help him understand the script better.
25:14
Jean-Louis said that Cage didn't understand which character he was supposed to be playing.
25:21
I mean, Cage also spoke some Japanese in this.
25:24
And it got me thinking, why does a kid from Jersey
25:28
who had all the troubled past that he did, like they talk about him
25:32
assaulting a priest in Cage's defense with this vice principal of his Catholic
25:37
school and things like that.
25:39
And so he's got like this whole like story of like, oh, he's just no good.
25:43
He's only good at being a Marine.
25:45
And then like he knows all this Japanese and stuff.
25:49
And it's like he actually has a conversation at one point
25:53
with a lady and her child in this town.
25:57
And it's like, did you just pick this up in like the two years
26:01
that you've been actively probably in the army or the Marines?
26:06
Like, it's a weird character point.
26:09
Yeah, it kind of makes me think I think it was family guy, like early seasons
26:14
of family guy at some point somebody speaks in Spanish.
26:17
Just, I don't know, Brian or something like that.
26:20
And he says something back and then they continue talking.
26:22
Oh, I know the line you're talking about.
26:24
But it's just like, well, they learned these things and this follow up sentence.
26:27
And then it's like, OK.
26:29
Yeah, that's the Brian and Stewie big road trip.
26:33
Yep. That's right. Yeah.
26:34
Yeah. Pepperidge Farmer remembers.
26:36
Yep.
26:37
What are we doing here again?
26:39
Oh, let's talk about Nick Cage's performance, I guess.
26:42
Yeah, it's as a Nick Cage podcast.
26:44
It's good. Yeah, it's fine.
26:47
I don't think it goes out of its way to do anything.
26:51
There's a couple scenes, but not much.
26:54
It's pretty wooden. Yeah, that was my feeling.
26:57
Yeah, it's like I didn't love the movie.
26:59
I didn't love his performance, but I think a lot of that is script.
27:02
He plays a closed off man well, so I guess he's doing that.
27:06
But, you know, it was hard for me to connect with him as like a human
27:10
to give a shit about.
27:12
So there's a few scenes where they have to call in airstrikes.
27:14
Oh, the clip from the boats.
27:16
OK, the clip from the boats.
27:19
That's terrible because it's just like we're going to use some old footage
27:22
of like gunboats or like.
27:23
But pretty expensive.
27:25
Yes. An aircraft carrier.
27:27
So beyond that, I was going to talk about the planes, the flybys.
27:31
Oh, yeah, because they have these planes that are CG and it's early 2000 CG.
27:35
But they use the same animation for every time a bomb is dropped.
27:40
So the plane always comes in from the same angle
27:42
and is only ever lit properly for the first time it's used.
27:45
So every other time it's used, it's lit in the wrong direction.
27:49
That's something I never.
27:51
Again, again, visual artist here.
27:53
So I pick up on the most noodley things.
27:55
But like this had a decent budget.
27:57
I know. Fifteen million dollars for this.
28:00
It's like they could have gotten.
28:02
I mean, you're not going to rent a fucking gunship and have it shoot.
28:05
Now, artillery.
28:06
But you could CGI that better than their like 1920s footage that they.
28:11
Yeah, yeah.
28:13
I will say that the artillery was all very accurate.
28:17
Actually, everybody was very accurate in this movie.
28:21
They got a lot of like.
28:22
You could be shooting your gun from your hip
28:26
and you would take out seven Japanese warriors.
28:29
Yeah, you could be jumping and somersaulting through the air
28:33
and you'd be taking people out artillery.
28:36
The mortar rounds were always hitting.
28:39
Yeah, like there was never a miss.
28:40
It was never questionable.
28:42
It's just like, boom, straight into this tank and this and that.
28:44
And it's like, you guys are really good at trigonometry.
28:47
John Woo's.
28:48
Well, just John was like early films again, like The Killers.
28:52
The whole final scene is a 20 minute gunfight between two guys
28:55
and usually the mafia.
28:58
And you by the time they've mowed down like the 10 named characters in the movie,
29:03
you just have guys and like painters overalls showing up
29:06
for like 50 more guys to get mowed down for the big action set piece.
29:09
And that's how that last kind of stand feels.
29:13
You have four guys and they're like, we're almost out of ammo.
29:16
And then you have a 20 minute gunfight where they don't run out of ammo.
29:20
What do you what do you got for like quotes on this movie?
29:23
What do you bring in here?
29:24
What do you bring to the party?
29:25
So word wise him, this is right after
29:30
Joe and Ben kind of start to open up to each other, be friends.
29:34
They're drinking.
29:35
And Joe has just been given
29:38
a medal for saving the day, even though it's really it was Ben's idea.
29:43
And, you know, Ben was the one who had to dress up like a Japanese soldier
29:48
to get it done, but doesn't get recognition.
29:51
And so Joe is talking about the first time he got a medal.
29:57
First one they gave me through in the ocean.
30:00
Ben, what you get that one for?
30:04
We're not dying.
30:06
15 men who fought with me got decorated to.
30:09
We're dying.
30:11
Really good line. It is a good line.
30:13
That's actually kind of the only one that stood out.
30:14
So I'm curious what Nick's got.
30:16
Good fucking marine.
30:20
Yeah, this movie is not thick with comedic lines.
30:25
You'll get a chuckle here and there throughout the movie.
30:27
But and it's not like
30:30
it never earned the character development for a lot of like
30:34
very well, like emotionally connecting lines.
30:37
But what I got is this same scene
30:41
where Ben and Enders are Joe are talking
30:45
and Joe's drunk and he's just just talking about how
30:51
he did what he was ordered to do.
30:54
And you can tell, like he has his own kind of internal struggle with it.
31:00
And Ben's just trying to like
31:03
calm him down and like get him to just be like, hey, man,
31:07
it's not your fault whatever happened.
31:09
And Cage just comes back with, yeah,
31:13
I'm a good fucking marine.
31:17
That's why they gave me this detail.
31:20
And he just kind of like looks at that.
31:22
And Ben doesn't know that, you know, push comes to shove.
31:25
He's going to shoot him.
31:26
But it's where you kind of see Cage having more internal conflict
31:31
with it as they've started to develop a friendship. Yeah.
31:35
So you can kind of see like a little bit of character growth in that moment.
31:39
And we get a good we get a good just classic cage,
31:43
just screaming scene in this film, but not a lot of gold
31:47
in terms of great line reads.
31:50
No, it's a very movie specific performance for them.
31:53
So we're not getting a Nicholas Cage performance.
31:55
We're getting a wind talkers performance for this movie.
31:59
Which I mean, the man has range.
32:01
Yes, he does. And, you know, we know he's a good actor.
32:05
He did this. Yeah, he did do this.
32:08
Yep. He also did this.
32:10
The other movie.
32:11
Bringing out the dead in 1999, Martin Scorsese, starring Nicholas Cage
32:16
as Frank Pierce and Patricia Arquette as Mary Burke and another
32:21
Paul Schrader as writer and Paul Schrader's writer.
32:24
But before we get into that, I was going to say and a cavalcade
32:27
of other amazing actors, both these movies cast astoundingly.
32:32
Really good. Yeah.
32:33
We got John Goodman.
32:34
We have Ving Rhames with a full head of hair, which I did not recognize him.
32:39
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
32:41
Until I paused the movie.
32:42
I was watching on Amazon.
32:43
I paused it and it gives you credits.
32:44
And I'm like.
32:46
Never seen Ving Rhames with hair.
32:47
Yeah, he looks weird with hair. Yeah.
32:49
And then you've got a Tom Sizemore, Tom Sizemore,
32:52
and Cliff Curtis is a drug dealer guy named Cy Coats.
32:56
And then a weird one that I definitely didn't recognize him
33:00
because he's made up pretty well is Mark Anthony, the like
33:03
singer songwriter is like a drug addict guy who got
33:09
I think he got shot or something at some point and he lost his mind.
33:12
Yeah. Yeah.
33:14
Drug dealer conflict.
33:16
I thought he did a good job.
33:17
He did a great job.
33:18
Also, just fun little like blink and you miss it performance from
33:23
I don't have her name written down.
33:24
The actress who played Carla on Scrubs. Yeah.
33:27
In the final scene.
33:28
But yeah, Judy, Judy Ray.
33:30
Judy Ray is. Yeah.
33:32
We did also have a single scene from somebody I fucking loved.
33:37
And that was Michael Kenneth Williams.
33:39
He just played a drug dealer who got shot and dies.
33:42
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
33:44
But I mean, you'll know him.
33:45
He played Omar.
33:48
Well, OK. Oh, that was in The Wire.
33:50
So he played Omar in The Wire.
33:51
He's been in like all the HBO shows. Yeah.
33:55
He's fucking he was fucking great.
33:58
I think the only other character of note that I kind of saw
34:01
was that Mary Beth Hurt was playing the like intake nurse at the hospital.
34:07
Yeah. Who is like a real piece of shit, but maybe has a heart of gold.
34:11
I don't know. But anyway, she is.
34:13
Well, she definitely has a soft spot for Mr.
34:15
Oh, for sure.
34:16
And she is Paul Schrader's Paul Schrader's wife.
34:20
Oh, is she? Yeah. Unfortunate.
34:22
She must have a soft spot for bad people.
34:25
Speaking of speaking of a I couldn't think of a way to not say it meanly.
34:29
Speaking of I'm putting out there just dumb, dumb.
34:32
She's got a soft spot for dumb, dumb.
34:34
Speaking of spouse, speaking of spouses, Nicholas Cage and Patricia
34:37
Arquette are married at this point in their lives.
34:40
Yes. They would get divorced two years later.
34:43
So, yeah, this film, Nicholas Cage plays a EMT end of his rope.
34:49
He hasn't saved a life in a year.
34:52
He's haunted by the people he's lost, specifically one young girl named Rose,
34:57
who he sees everywhere.
35:00
And the movie takes place over the course of three nights
35:03
where his first call is saving
35:06
a man who's had a heart attack and is Mary's father.
35:10
And that's how they meet.
35:11
And we follow him over the course of three nights and his ups
35:15
and downs with Mary's father kind of being the through line to
35:19
his mental state and where he's at with the world.
35:23
Yeah, it's kind of a vignetted film.
35:25
Most the three nights he has a different ride along, a different partner every night.
35:29
And they each kind of take him down different avenues of the job.
35:35
The major like through line and the piece that ties everything together, though,
35:39
is Mary, because it's his involvement
35:43
with her father's case and her that opens up, you know,
35:49
the worlds of the drug dealing.
35:51
It kind of ties in this character, Noel, who has had a head injury
35:56
and is very not right anymore.
36:00
It's the story.
36:01
Yeah, it's Nicolas Cage and Mary throughout her problems with drugs,
36:06
his problems with the trauma of his job and just how the two of them
36:12
ride through this wave, not necessarily together, but parallel.
36:18
Yeah, parallel to each other.
36:19
I mean, Nicolas Cage puts in what I thought was a great performance.
36:22
Like he's you see him losing his grip on reality more and more as the film goes on.
36:28
This movie is done in kind of a vignetted style where it's three nights,
36:32
three different partners ride alongs.
36:35
And let's start off with John Goodman, who is great.
36:41
I mean, John Goodman's great. He's always great.
36:43
Yeah, this happens to be his normal partner at this moment.
36:47
Yeah. So they ride along together.
36:49
They do a couple like smaller things, nothing huge.
36:53
Yeah, it's a Mr. O is one of the main ones.
36:55
Yeah, they introduce us to Mr.
36:58
O, who is just outrageous like drunk.
37:02
I mean, drunk homeless guy. Yeah, drunk homeless guy.
37:05
He smells really bad and they call him Mr.
37:08
O because all he ever seems to say is, oh, which Nick Cage is thrilled about
37:15
because it means nobody's going to die. Yeah.
37:19
Just gets to pick someone up and drop him off.
37:21
Yeah, you just have to deal with the hospital and nobody likes picking up Mr.
37:25
O. So every time Mr.
37:27
O comes up, there's just a big debate and Nick Cage always wants to take that job.
37:32
But so they start with Burke.
37:34
Yeah, Mary's father, who had had a heart attack, locked himself in the bathroom
37:39
and they got there 10 minutes after he'd stopped breathing.
37:42
Right. So for the remainder of the movie, he's a good guy.
37:45
Kind of in a vegetative state.
37:47
It's Nick Cage checking in at the hospital where he dropped him off, both with Mr.
37:54
Burke's doing, but really in relation to like how it's affecting his daughter, Mary.
37:59
Yeah. And kind of creating a relationship with her throughout.
38:04
So that's our like major timeline. Yeah.
38:07
So we go Burke. We got some Mr.
38:08
O. We get the conversation on the pier.
38:11
They go to stop so John Goodman can have a bit of a nap. Yeah.
38:16
Because John Goodman is completely checked out at this point from the job.
38:18
He's he tells about his plan, about how he's going to start up his own
38:22
ambulance company, like out on the island.
38:24
It will be the boss. The captain.
38:26
He'll be. Yeah. I'm the captain now.
38:28
And in like a year's time, that's kind of his plan.
38:32
And he's just like, it's just a job.
38:34
Yeah. Oh, he doesn't think about it when he's in the van at all or the ambulance at all.
38:39
There's a stop for like food or coffee. That's all he's thinking about.
38:43
In the beginning, where they're driving around, he's like, oh, man,
38:47
we got to go get some beef lo mein beef lo mein.
38:49
I mean, close in five minutes.
38:50
Chuck, we got to the expletive is to the left here.
38:55
And it's like, oh, you missed it. Yes.
38:57
Take the next turn. Oh, it's a party.
38:59
A lot. All he thinks about it is this.
39:01
And then like at the very last second, like as they're turning to the Chinese plays,
39:06
he just like slaps the dash. He's like, oh, fuck.
39:09
And Cage is just terrified. He's like, I had beef lo mein last night.
39:14
I can't have it two nights in a row. We got to go somewhere else.
39:17
What do you want? It's like, Jesus Christ, it's two a.m.
39:21
I mean, that's literally all he thinks about is like where he's going to take break.
39:25
That relationship is all about like one person distancing themselves emotionally from
39:31
the realities of their job. And then it goes into the next night.
39:37
Before we get into Marcus, I do want to talk about Frank's relationship with the dispatch
39:43
with his boss. He comes in late every night.
39:45
Oh, God. Yeah, the captain. Yeah.
39:46
The captain's like, you know, it's your ninth time being late.
39:49
You've called out sick four times. You can't call it sick anymore.
39:52
Like, you know, the higher ups want me to fire you.
39:54
He's like, good. All right. Cohen was like, not going to fire you.
39:56
It's like I told them if they want you fired, you got, you know, they got to come down here.
39:59
It's like, you know, they won't do it. You got to do it because Nick Cage just wants out.
40:05
Why did he bark at him to show he's the big dog?
40:08
Yeah. Yeah. Big dog energy.
40:10
Yeah. He just barks at him.
40:11
God, if I had a nickel for every time some big dog barked around me just to show him.
40:16
And I love the scene because he's like, I'll fire you tomorrow.
40:19
Yeah. You tomorrow.
40:20
And then as Nick Cage defeatedly is about to go out, just turns around and goes,
40:24
you know, I could bark to it's like, sure you can.
40:28
I was going to say I used to have this job that I fucking hated.
40:32
And, you know, like 80 percent of the time it was OK, but there were things that they just asked me
40:39
to do or out that were outside of what I had originally agreed to do.
40:43
But stuff always.
40:46
Now, that's what you agreed to do.
40:47
Yeah. Always. But stuff. And then they want me to do outside the but stuff.
40:51
Yeah. Which, you know, it's always in.
40:52
Yeah. Got to be in the but.
40:54
I'm a clean guy. I don't like messes.
40:58
I got to start over. We laughed.
40:59
Yeah. Welcome back to Cajun Match.
41:01
Going right about way to Nicholas Cage.
41:03
Oh, is that what it is?
41:04
Every time somebody laughs, we have to start the episode over.
41:06
Only on the serious episodes.
41:08
OK. OK. That's a fun challenge for season two.
41:13
But yeah, they made me do Christmas lights.
41:15
And it sounds stupid to be like, oh, they made me put up Christmas lighting for rich people.
41:20
And it's like, no, fuck that.
41:22
I don't like the holiday and I don't want to do it.
41:25
I was always trying to get fired.
41:28
And there was one day like I get called in boss's office.
41:31
He's fucking tearing me a new one about something that isn't relating to me.
41:36
It's like I was just supposed to supervise somebody and he put me on a different job.
41:40
And then they fucked up elsewhere.
41:42
He's like, giving me the right act.
41:44
I just fucking toss my keys down.
41:45
I'm like, fine. Fucking fire me.
41:47
Fire me right now.
41:48
Get me out of here.
41:49
Like, you fucking hate having me here.
41:51
Just fire me. He looks me in the eyes and he's just like, Nick, it's a bigger punishment to keep you.
41:59
So night two, Marcus night.
42:01
Yeah. Yeah.
42:02
So Marcus played by Ving Rhames, who with hair with hair is a hot air character.
42:10
And he's so fucking good.
42:12
He's like more in the realm of, you know, they're doing God's work there.
42:16
They're saving people.
42:17
He's fully leaning into the religious redemption and it's Jesus saving people.
42:26
It's like, yeah.
42:27
So Marcus is angle and this is like, it's all in Jesus's hands.
42:32
You know, when things go well, they did a great job.
42:34
When things don't go well, well, that's just God's will.
42:38
And he even talks about how, you know, he pulled a jumper off a roof and they cage like,
42:45
yeah, that happened.
42:46
You know, and Ireland wants this woman was going to jump in like the wind push her back.
42:50
It's like the classic story of the cliffs of Nick.
42:53
Yeah.
42:53
And Nick cage is, you know, and he's like, well, the wind helped.
42:56
And Ving Rhames gives one of my favorite readings of his is I'll preach heaven and beat the hell out of you, son.
43:04
I think my favorite thing was that as like any good Christian, he seems horny as fucking shit.
43:10
Yeah.
43:10
Oh, man.
43:12
I didn't write it down because I knew we were going to talk about it regardless.
43:16
There are a lot of prostitutes in this movie because it's.
43:21
Yeah.
43:21
It's New York, Manhattan in the 90s.
43:25
And by God, it's like every other shot is a hooker and it's a no, no, no, because it's the 90s.
43:33
So it's OK to call him hooker still.
43:35
And also there is a very professional difference between the two.
43:39
So the scene with Ving Rhames and Nick Cage, just like driving through like Times Square or something.
43:49
And being Rames just has like a huge fan of cash that he's just like waving in front of his face.
43:55
He's like, let's go look at the hookers.
43:57
Yes.
43:58
Oh, well, he's so horny for Queen Latifah as the dispatcher for that night.
44:04
Oh, yeah.
44:05
Yeah, love.
44:06
Apparently, they went on a blind date once and she like smashed a bottle over his head.
44:10
Yeah, she seems bad.
44:11
Why are you going to bring that up?
44:14
Yeah.
44:14
I mean, being Rames steals this movie and they really put him right in the middle of it.
44:19
So they do wind up saving someone that well saving one someone that night.
44:24
They have two good moves that night.
44:26
Their big action is they go to this nightclub.
44:32
I love the music in this movie.
44:33
It's great.
44:34
And great soundtrack. Super deep.
44:36
And I don't know, maybe this recording was for this soundtrack, but there's a super deep
44:42
Jane's Addiction cut when they're in this club that I've only ever heard on a really weird
44:47
B side album.
44:48
So maybe it was recorded for this movie.
44:50
I don't know.
44:51
But just like, oh, Scorsese always has great music in his films.
44:54
He does.
44:55
Again, peak 90s movie, just industrial club with a bunch of people in black leather.
44:59
Oh, yeah.
45:00
It's definitely like they go to the goth.
45:01
Club that plays Jane's Addiction.
45:04
Yep.
45:04
Because goths.
45:06
Yeah.
45:06
Love Jane's Addiction.
45:07
Yeah, that's their thing.
45:09
But we have this scene of them like going off that look.
45:13
They have this scene.
45:15
They have this scene going on.
45:17
How many more times can we hear you to start this?
45:20
Welcome back to Cage Magical and around about wave meeting, Nicholas Cage.
45:22
I'm your host, Sean.
45:24
He was my co-host.
45:27
They have this scene like going to this nightclub.
45:29
There was a cardiac arrest and they show up, bring all their shit up top,
45:37
and they're kind of looking around.
45:38
They scope the scene and they're like, yeah, there's drugs.
45:41
There's this drug that they've talked about that's hot on the scene.
45:44
Red Death.
45:45
Yeah.
45:45
Which is like your typical heroin, whatever.
45:48
I mean, Ving Rhames' original response to the body.
45:52
Oh, shit, he did.
45:53
Yeah.
45:56
Nick Cage checks and he's like, oh, I'm going to go to the bathroom.
45:58
He checks and he's like, oh, he's got like a pulse.
46:01
So they're the narco.
46:03
Yeah.
46:04
So they get the Narcan out.
46:05
Narcan.
46:07
Do you just want to do it?
46:08
Yeah.
46:08
Ving Rhames goes into a dialogue with the rest of the people that are there,
46:13
which happens to be the remainder of the band.
46:17
The person on the ground is like the singer or something.
46:20
The drummer is there and there's some groupies and there's just a dialogue.
46:25
I rebuke the spirit of drugs in the name of Jesus.
46:29
What's his name?
46:31
Ivy Banging.
46:31
What do you mean Ivy Banging?
46:33
Ivy Banging.
46:34
The hell kind of name is Ivy Banging.
46:37
I don't know his real name.
46:38
It's Frederick Smith.
46:40
Okay, Freddy.
46:42
It's Frederick.
46:43
Okay, Ivy Banging, we're going to bring you back from the dead.
46:48
Dear Lord, here I am again, asking one more chance for a sinner.
46:54
Please Lord, bring back Ivy Banging, Lord.
46:58
You have the power, Jesus.
47:00
You have the might.
47:02
You have the super light to spare this worthless man.
47:09
And Ivy Banging sits up.
47:13
Rise up, Ivy Banging, and start your life anew.
47:17
Lord, oh thank you, Lord.
47:20
What happened?
47:22
So there's only two things that I do well in this life and that's the...
47:26
A Ving Rhames impression.
47:27
Ving Rhames impression and Gary Faulkner impression.
47:30
Yeah, you're pretty good at both.
47:31
So thank you very much.
47:33
But that fucking scene is so fucking funny because while they're sitting there like,
47:38
and Marcus is doing all of this, Nick Cage is like slyly putting the Narcan into Ivy Banging.
47:45
Into Ivy Banging, so like Marcus has everybody holding hands and like holding this like little
47:51
Jesus vigil over the goth boy just so that they can like posture this whole scene.
47:58
Marcus is very theatrical and fun.
48:02
Everybody's got their thing, their shtick, and Marcus is just very over the top.
48:08
And so...
48:09
I mean, one of the outcomes of that is like he also is kind of a drunk and he has a bunch of booze
48:14
in his work bag and then they fucking crash the ambulance.
48:18
Yes.
48:18
So that comes in after their next call.
48:24
So this is in a kind of burnt out old building.
48:27
They find a young teenager's...
48:32
I mean, a crack den's a crack den.
48:33
Yeah, it's a crack den.
48:34
And again, a great Marcus line, oh shit, a fat crack head.
48:38
Because there's a pregnant woman who...
48:42
I forgot about that line.
48:43
They're saying is having like in cardiac arrest, no, she's in labor and her boyfriend is just like,
48:50
impossible, we're virgins.
48:52
While she's actively giving birth to twins.
48:54
Yeah, and I'm looking at him and I'm like, yes, you are.
48:58
And then he even says like, it's a miracle.
49:00
But yeah, they...
49:01
My favorite part about like giving birth is like Nicholas Cage is down there.
49:05
He's like, oh, there's three legs.
49:07
And then Fingrave's like, that's too many legs.
49:10
Well, I was going to say they look down.
49:11
It's a breech birth because there are three legs ticking out.
49:14
Yeah.
49:14
Yeah.
49:15
So they have to save the baby.
49:18
Fingrave's got a healthy baby boy, Nick Cage.
49:22
Gets the one that dies.
49:23
Gets the one that dies.
49:24
Yeah.
49:24
So he doesn't save someone.
49:26
He's giving it CPR all the way back to the hospital and it just doesn't make it.
49:30
Yeah.
49:30
So Fingrave is on cloud nine because he saved a baby boy or got to deliver a baby boy.
49:37
And Nick Cage is only focusing on the one that died, not the one that lived.
49:42
And they get in that ambulance and they're driving and Nick Cage just, you know, he's like,
49:48
oh, fuck it.
49:49
You know, we're done.
49:50
We need like, it's time for a drink.
49:51
We've had our win for the day.
49:53
And so he's got an orange juice in the medical bag.
49:57
Yeah.
49:58
Marius just has his bag and he's got like a container that would hold like saline solution
50:05
or something.
50:05
Yeah.
50:06
It's definitely a medical container and Cage pulls it out.
50:09
He's like, I fucking hate gin and starts pouring out gin and juices.
50:15
And then Marcus, this is where they get another call.
50:20
And Cage is like, don't take it.
50:22
Don't take it.
50:23
We're done.
50:23
Just tell him we're drunk.
50:24
Tell him like, like the bus is broken down.
50:27
And just tell him anything.
50:29
Because it's love.
50:30
Yeah.
50:30
And Marcus is just on such a high.
50:33
He's like, just fucking give me another one.
50:35
I'll fucking save somebody.
50:37
And he takes the call and like speeds off and immediately a cab pulls out in front of them
50:43
and he swerves and manages to just flip and roll the ambulance with them in it.
50:49
They both get out laughing.
50:50
Yeah.
50:51
Praise Jesus.
50:52
Yeah.
50:52
Marcus is like, oh, we made it.
50:54
And Cage is like, fuck this.
50:56
I quit.
50:57
And just like walks away into the night.
50:59
But that is kind of the motivation for him to go seek out Mary again.
51:04
Nick Cage follows her to her dealer.
51:06
And yeah, she's they mentioned that she mentioned she used to be a junkie,
51:10
but this is where she's she could be married.
51:11
The nun or marry the junkie.
51:13
And it didn't matter to her.
51:14
Yeah.
51:15
She just wants Cage to like hang out outside.
51:17
So she's not like using and staying there.
51:20
She just wants to like leave.
51:21
But ends up she's there.
51:24
He goes upstairs to like find her after whatever they're pre record pre.
51:28
We it's very charming drug dealer.
51:30
Yes.
51:31
I is great.
51:31
I really like the way he approaches drug dealing.
51:35
I think it seems like a good dude.
51:38
Like, yeah, you don't ever repeat customers if you kill them.
51:40
Yeah.
51:41
Good, good fucking business practice.
51:43
And he's got an aquarium.
51:44
That's pretty cool.
51:45
Some saltwater fish.
51:46
That's very chill vibes.
51:48
Takes a lot of work.
51:49
Yeah.
51:49
But you know, Nick Cage gets side gives him something to help him sleep.
51:53
He he has a bad reaction to the drugs like King Kong's his way out of there,
51:58
like grabs Mary over the shoulder and like gets her out of there.
52:00
Yeah.
52:01
And I love size line as he's getting in the elevator.
52:04
You owe me ten dollars.
52:05
Yeah.
52:07
So night three, we are teamed up with Tom Wolves, his former his former partner
52:15
that he used to ride with.
52:16
But he had Tom Sizemore.
52:17
Yeah.
52:18
Way of dealing with his job is to just be like, I get to decide who lives and dies
52:24
to the point where he tries to do a murder.
52:27
I don't think it's like he's actively trying to murder somebody,
52:30
but he's trying to kill fucking he's trying to kill that guy.
52:34
He hates no, he hates no.
52:35
He's a very heated his way of just like living with the stress and trauma.
52:44
The only way he can like cope cope or whatever is having this like big moment
52:50
because even when they're driving like this big violent moment when they're driving,
52:55
Cage is like, I just got to like break some windows or something.
52:58
And Tom's like, well, we can't like what?
53:01
Why are we doing it?
53:02
What's the point?
53:03
We need something.
53:05
There's got to be a reason.
53:07
And then they roll up on a taxi who's like who stopped in a crosswalk.
53:11
And he gets into a racist, pretty racist, but very heated road rage exchange.
53:19
And it's like, that's all he needed.
53:20
Like, it's never about the person that he's accosting or upset with.
53:26
He just needs a reason to justify the way he feels.
53:30
Yes.
53:32
He's kind of like the manifestation of like everything that could go wrong,
53:35
like all the stresses of this job, all the shit that you have to see the like depravity of humanity.
53:42
Yeah, he's a cautionary tale.
53:44
Right.
53:44
And he's he's at the precipice.
53:47
Yeah.
53:47
And maybe you're right.
53:49
Maybe he isn't going to do a murder necessarily, but like he's so close.
53:53
No one would have died if Nick was dead.
53:56
He most likely would have.
53:57
Even if he didn't kill him, he would have left him for dead.
54:00
Right.
54:00
That's what I mean when I say murderer.
54:02
He's a killer because he would have killed somebody.
54:04
I feel it's complicated because he says like he was released.
54:08
Nick Cage is like, but he's crazy.
54:10
He's not a criminal.
54:11
He's crazy.
54:12
And he's like, why isn't anybody locking him up?
54:15
Why isn't anybody doing anything about him?
54:17
It's like this is just an aspect of society.
54:20
We still have this problem.
54:21
Yeah, people with mental health issues for any number of tragic reasons,
54:29
just being pushed in and out of the system, be it hospitals, mental care facilities and whatnot.
54:37
And there's never a resolution or there doesn't seem to be like a way to help these people on
54:44
the streets. And all Tom sees is this weight on society of somebody that's being like
54:53
dragged in and out.
54:54
And it's when Tom sees him in this scene and he's breaking car windows with a baseball bat,
55:00
just because.
55:00
Yeah. Well, and going to your thing about how, you know, there's no point to just like Nick Cage
55:05
says he wants to smash something and he says there's no point to it.
55:08
When Noel is smashing windows, it's Nick Cage's job to distract him.
55:11
No tells him to like take a crack at it.
55:14
So Nick Cage like smashes out like a car window and Tom's like, what the fuck are you doing, dude?
55:20
Yeah, I think that was more of like Tom just wanted him to like go up there and
55:26
distract him and push him over.
55:28
He thought it was like a simple plan.
55:30
Nick Cage has more history with Nolan.
55:33
He was never into the plan to begin with.
55:36
Tom is a broken like, I mean, kind of like how John Goodman had checked out by just being like,
55:41
I'm almost done.
55:42
And everybody is broken.
55:44
Yeah.
55:44
In this movie, nobody is handling things well.
55:47
But the way John Goodman's character was just like, I'm almost done.
55:50
I can do this for another year.
55:51
Then I'm going to be the boss.
55:52
Tom's a lifer and Tom's just like, I'm going to do whatever I want.
55:56
Right. And he's compressing his rage down constantly because he's dealing with shit that
56:00
people shouldn't fucking have to look at in a day to day situation.
56:04
Then we get into how Nick Cage deals with things, how he deals with control of life and death by
56:11
deciding that Mary's dad has had enough.
56:15
Unlike Tom, who just was like, I'm going to get my aggression out with Noel.
56:21
When you see how Nick Cage decides to take out Mary's dad, it is completely premeditated
56:28
because he so what he does is he's moving to the ICU.
56:31
Nick Cage goes in there, says, you know, I'm the one
56:34
who brought him in, goes in, close, close the curtains.
56:37
He's already got heart sensor pads on his body, so he removes all the stuff.
56:44
So the machine's tracking his heartbeat and just lets the man die and lets the man code
56:49
before putting everything back in.
56:50
So it's important to note that we've had a couple scenes leading up to this where Mr. Burke,
57:00
you know, has an episode or whatever at the hospital.
57:04
Pretty much every time Cage is there, there will be a scene where Mr.
57:10
Burke's either like Mr. Burke wakes up and like or his volume wears off and he like is
57:16
trying to get the tube out of his throat or his heart fails again.
57:20
They talk about how they have to shock him 13 times.
57:23
I think it's insane.
57:24
Like he's just constantly the family wants to keep him alive because the wife believes in miracles.
57:29
That's what the nurse tells Nick Cage, Nick Cage is having this like presumably in his head,
57:37
telepathic conversation with Mr.
57:39
Burke.
57:40
It's not nearly as weird as that when he's with him.
57:43
He is just hearing Mr.
57:44
Burke say, let him go.
57:46
Desire to die and Nick Cage is on no sleep and all caffeine and yet some drugs to some drugs.
57:53
He is definitely not in his right mind throughout most of this movie.
57:57
His belief is Burke just wants to die.
58:01
I think one thing that we're kind of missing, part of the reason he seems to be in my mind
58:06
on a little bit of a high is that he did end up saving the drug dealer.
58:10
He saves the drug dealer and almost would have fallen off the roof in the process.
58:13
So also that was beautiful with all the sparks out into the city sky.
58:17
Yeah, it was really nice.
58:17
Kind of has this near-death experience as well as finally saving someone.
58:21
So yeah, he is running that high.
58:23
So we have that scene.
58:24
Then we have the Noel kick in.
58:26
All right.
58:27
So he's now saved two lives.
58:28
Yes, he saved two lives.
58:29
Well, because he brings Noel in and he is still covered in Noel's blood when he comes in.
58:35
And that's when he sees that Mr.
58:37
Burke has been moved out of the emergency room.
58:40
He's got a unit in ICU and that's when he goes and does what he was going to do.
58:44
He does his mercy killing.
58:46
Yeah.
58:47
Then goes to Marius to tell her her father guy that they resuscitate him one too many times.
58:53
They hold each other as he nods off.
58:56
That's pretty much it.
58:57
I liked this one.
58:58
I thought it was really good too.
58:59
It was really good.
59:00
I thought we had a good performance from Cage.
59:03
And I thought we had a good performance from everyone.
59:05
It was really just.
59:06
Well, it's filmed really well.
59:07
Like, I mean, you talked about being a little stoned and then kind of having uppers and
59:11
everything.
59:11
It's like the upper downer.
59:13
The way it's filmed feels that way.
59:15
Like, it's so blown out and it's so like light affects you in a major way.
59:21
Oh, the lighting in this movie was incredible.
59:23
The DP like fucking killed me.
59:25
Really well.
59:25
I wanted to just briefly touch on how during every ride, there's a very different intention
59:31
with the shots when he gets when you get to Tom, like when Tom starts driving off, it's
59:35
just really all like everything sped up quick shots, like just the the manic mania.
59:41
Yeah, there's a manic intensity to the calls that they take.
59:45
Yeah.
59:46
But I mean, that's when they're structured like in the scene,
59:49
when they're in the scene, they're slower, they're calm, they're in control,
59:53
they're professionals.
59:54
Yeah.
59:54
But like that getting to and fro that AB connection of everything, it's very intense.
1:00:01
And it's it's kind of like a little drug trap.
1:00:05
I kind of felt like this movie, I wrote this movie sort of like there's something out there.
1:00:11
And I don't think it's a Guy Ritchie movie, but it feels like this could have been a Guy
1:00:16
Ritchie.
1:00:16
For sure.
1:00:17
So I know, Peter, you have some thoughts on Schrader's writing for this because I wanted
1:00:22
to say that, man, Schrader shouldn't direct.
1:00:25
Well, OK, fully, fully agree.
1:00:27
Schrader should not direct.
1:00:29
I think he's a bad director.
1:00:30
I think he's a better competent writer.
1:00:33
This is an adaptation of a novel, though.
1:00:35
That's what I was going to say.
1:00:37
So I don't think that Schrader's original work is very good.
1:00:41
I think that he did a good job for this movie, but there's a lot that was the groundwork.
1:00:47
Was there a foundation is there?
1:00:49
Everything I read about it was it's pretty close to the original story.
1:00:53
Like there.
1:00:54
Yeah.
1:00:54
He didn't take a lot of liberties in this one, which is good.
1:00:58
But I was talking to Josie about this and I was like, man, if he had done something
1:01:03
about like fringe people in New York on a decade by decade basis.
1:01:09
So like he had taxi driver.
1:01:10
Oh, yeah.
1:01:11
If he had done something was taxi driver in the 80s.
1:01:14
Yeah, I think so.
1:01:14
So we got taxi driver.
1:01:17
We got this.
1:01:18
If he did some this in the 90s, if he had done something like in the 2000s
1:01:23
and maybe done like a New York in the 70s movie.
1:01:26
Right.
1:01:27
Kind of covering these fringe people that I mean, that would have been a great arc.
1:01:31
And it would have been a really fun story.
1:01:34
But we got things like Dog Eat Dog and the other one, everything else instead.
1:01:40
Fun fact about the film.
1:01:42
This was one of the last two films to be released to the Laserdisc.
1:01:45
You want to give me a guess what the other one was?
1:01:47
Did it include Richard Gere?
1:01:49
No, it's got Johnny Depp in it, though.
1:01:51
I prefer Richard Gere.
1:01:52
I do, too.
1:01:54
Also Christopher Walken.
1:01:55
Late 90s.
1:01:56
Wait, Sleepy Hollow.
1:01:58
Oh, shit.
1:01:59
Yeah, those were the last two movies released to Laserdisc.
1:02:02
What a fucking bummer.
1:02:03
Yeah, I had a professor that's going out with a fart.
1:02:07
I had a professor in Montana who would invite all of the lighting staff members to come
1:02:15
over and we would have a big thank you thing every year.
1:02:19
And like his wife would make all this food.
1:02:22
He'd buy all this beer.
1:02:24
And once everybody was drunk, we'd go back into his house and he would put on Pink Floyd's
1:02:31
Pulse Tour on Laserdisc and he would just air drum through the whole thing because he was
1:02:36
just crouched.
1:02:37
Nice.
1:02:38
I fucking loved Mark.
1:02:39
He was a great professor.
1:02:41
Schrader, so Schrader went on a ride along before he wrote the script on that ride along.
1:02:47
He saw a gentleman who had been severed in twain.
1:02:53
I honestly probably got to be now.
1:02:56
I'm going to go silver lining here.
1:02:58
A pretty great situation for some people because all clothes shopping would be half off.
1:03:06
Sean, have you got any quotes for this?
1:03:07
I do.
1:03:08
Oh, well, why don't you why don't you put one on my ear holes?
1:03:12
Right on those ear holes.
1:03:14
Put it on my ear holes.
1:03:16
Vibrate those holes.
1:03:17
They just got no Nick Cage is just talking to me.
1:03:19
Nick Cage is just talk no holes.
1:03:23
Nick Cage is just talking into the ambulance because no one wants to die and won't kill
1:03:27
himself and Nick Cage convinced him to get in the ambulance by saying there's a special
1:03:30
room at the hospital where they'll kill you.
1:03:33
So he gets in.
1:03:34
That's when they go and pick up a drug dealer who had gotten a shot.
1:03:37
And he's dying in the back and Nick Cage is, you know, it's like you're not going to die.
1:03:41
And no one's like, what?
1:03:42
It's like you're going to die.
1:03:44
He's not.
1:03:45
And he's having no like hold the guy's arms up and he's like, hold this.
1:03:50
If you let go, I swear I won't kill you.
1:03:53
I fucking love that.
1:03:54
That was a good line.
1:03:56
Do you have a Nick Cage quote for this?
1:03:58
I do.
1:03:58
And it's from when he was riding around with Tom and he's in the back of the bus,
1:04:05
the back of the ambulance and Tom's just looking back there.
1:04:09
He's like, what are you doing back there?
1:04:10
And Cage is concocting this like IV cocktail for himself.
1:04:16
Then he comes back up into the front and he's got like an oxygen mask on and he's got an IV.
1:04:22
And they're just having this conversation.
1:04:26
And Cage is just like through his oxygen mask.
1:04:29
He's like, it's great to be drunk.
1:04:31
Sobriety is killing me.
1:04:33
His character is such a sad sack.
1:04:35
He's always saying like, I don't feel good.
1:04:37
I feel sick.
1:04:38
I can't be here.
1:04:39
It's like he just fucking hates his job.
1:04:40
Yeah.
1:04:41
Well, he also only consists on alcohol and coffee.
1:04:44
He never eats.
1:04:44
Eat a fucking sandwich, dude.
1:04:46
Eat some chicken.
1:04:47
Yeah.
1:04:47
Eat a half chicken and fries.
1:04:50
He is very sickly looking throughout this movie.
1:04:53
So malnourished for sure.
1:04:55
Nick, what's your vote?
1:04:56
I mean, I'm bringing out the dead guy.
1:04:58
I'm.
1:04:59
Yeah, I've been very pro on this movie for a long time.
1:05:02
It's it's weird.
1:05:04
It it almost feels like it shouldn't be in this category
1:05:09
because of how like kind of comedic the movie comes across.
1:05:13
It's very dark.
1:05:14
It's very serious, but it's got some comedy.
1:05:18
But most dark things in life.
1:05:20
Yeah, that's how people it's about.
1:05:21
It's about people coping with time.
1:05:22
And a lot of people do that with comedy.
1:05:24
Yeah, I'm a I'm 100 percent bringing out the dead is my choice.
1:05:29
So that's going forward.
1:05:31
So this week in Cage, there is a Lords of War.
1:05:37
They're doing a sequel to Lord of War
1:05:40
where with Nick Cage and Bill Skarsgard,
1:05:42
where Bill Skarsgard is going to play Nick Cage's son, who is also an arms dealer.
1:05:46
Now, this might just be like everybody's on board.
1:05:50
It isn't like maybe in production.
1:05:52
I don't know. Yeah.
1:05:53
I'm just saying that news I read this week.
1:05:56
Yeah. Also, Nick Cage's earliest memory was being in the womb.
1:06:00
Yes.
1:06:00
I still need to watch the 60 minutes.
1:06:02
I'm a bad Nick Cage.
1:06:03
It was fine.
1:06:04
You get to learn about him having a raven and like a snake.
1:06:09
I wish I had a raven.
1:06:11
Yeah, I wish I had a snake.
1:06:12
Huguen.
1:06:13
My mom was afraid of.
1:06:15
Well, he's still afraid of snakes.
1:06:16
Well, I haven't checked in.
1:06:18
Yeah, she might be OK.
1:06:19
Now I'll bring a snake home next time.
1:06:20
Good. That's a way to figure out if someone's still afraid of snakes.
1:06:23
Peter, what are we watching next?
1:06:25
Next up, we've got the last of the six seeds versus 11 seeds
1:06:30
in the fucking weird category.
1:06:32
Mom and Dad with Selma Blair and where I think they all have to kill their kids.
1:06:38
I don't know.
1:06:39
It looks like the purge meets.
1:06:41
Yeah, I think it's like there's some kind of like brain virus,
1:06:45
airborne disease or something that makes parents turn against their kids.
1:06:49
Yeah.
1:06:50
And then it's up against next, which is where he is.
1:06:54
I think a charlatan who can predict the future.
1:06:57
He has some knowledge of the future and a bad thing's going to happen.
1:07:00
Yeah, there's there's two.
1:07:01
There's one called knowing and there's one called next.
1:07:04
Yeah, they are very much the same.
1:07:06
It's upsetting that they're not going against each other.
1:07:08
Yeah, they could, Sean.
1:07:10
They could.
1:07:11
I was looking at the bracket.
1:07:12
They both would have to go to the final round of fucking weird.
1:07:14
Yep.
1:07:15
And I don't know.
1:07:16
I haven't watched either of those films yet, but it seems like one of them will lose to Mandy.
1:07:20
But who knows?
1:07:21
Something will lose to Mandy.
1:07:22
Something will lose to color out of space, I'm sure.
1:07:25
Yeah.
1:07:25
Not to say that we pick favorites, but obviously those are those are standouts.
1:07:30
There are good movies and there are bad movies.
1:07:31
Yes.
1:07:32
And then there are Nick Cage movies.
1:07:33
Good night, everybody.
1:07:35
No, we still have to say the other stuff.
1:07:36
Oh, like and subscribe.
1:07:39
Yes, please rate, review, subscribe.
1:07:41
We are on Instagram at Cage underscore match underscore pod.
1:07:45
Guys, I'm bad at segues.
1:07:46
And when I have like a good outro, you guys just like, no, we can't have that.
1:07:49
You didn't.
1:07:50
That's not a good time to have an outro.
1:07:51
Just because you outro doesn't mean you can't have an outro.
1:07:54
Outro doesn't mean we're with you.
1:07:56
That's a shitty spot to leave.
1:07:57
We have to do the other stuff.
1:07:59
Good night, everybody.
1:08:00
Hey, remember that time you started the podcast in the middle of the podcast?
1:08:04
OK, we're also on Reddit at Cage match pod.
1:08:06
And if you are interested in supporting us, we are on Patreon at Cage match.
1:08:11
Also, if anybody wants to watch this week's movies,
1:08:14
you know, when talkers is on HBO and bringing out the dead is on Paramount plus and.
1:08:20
So Amazon with Showtime, I think I just.
1:08:24
Oh, yes, I had HBO.
1:08:26
I should have watched one time.
1:08:27
There is also the pirate bay.
1:08:29
There's that too.
1:08:30
Not that I get a Plex account.
1:08:33
What's Plex?
1:08:34
How exactly isn't that just people pirating movies and putting them into an online folder?
1:08:38
Yeah, I think that's it.
1:08:40
How is that different?
1:08:41
I don't know.
1:08:42
Don't ask us.
1:08:43
Thanks, everybody.
1:08:45
Not going to say it again.
1:08:46
I said it twice.
1:08:47
Yeah, you're done.
1:08:48
We we.
1:08:49
Good night, everybody.
1:08:50
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
1:08:56
Bye bye.
1:09:02
Because my initial idea was a twink coin toss coin coin cost a twink cost twink.
1:09:10
It cost you get a very different thing or twink tax.
1:09:14
I got to pay the troll toll.
1:09:19
Yeah.
1:09:20
Plus, I'm too fat.
1:09:20
I'm more of a I'm more of a bear cub.
1:09:26
Now, have we ever been shy about opening them up?
1:09:28
Do it at a poignant moment.
1:09:30
Yeah, exactly.
1:09:31
Let's talk about a really emotional scene.
1:09:35
As soon as he gets real serious, he's going to tell us like the story of like
1:09:39
his great aunt, like dying in his arms.
1:09:43
No, that's my only living family member.
1:09:45
Your great aunt.
1:09:46
Yeah, for now.
1:09:47
Keep that in, Peter.
1:09:48
I will.
1:09:48
Good.
1:09:54
Did you get that?
1:09:54
No.
1:09:56
Are we all going to stop in five minutes?
1:09:59
Thanks, Mom.
1:10:00
Guys, guys have to pee.
1:10:03
We just stopped.
1:10:04
I didn't have to pee then.
1:10:05
Do it in your pants.
1:10:07
I was going to say it's your chair, but it's my chair.
1:10:09
Yeah.
1:10:10
Fuck your chair up.
1:10:12
You guys are going to have to pee now.
1:10:13
I'm going to have to pee.
1:10:15
You guys are going to have to pee now.
1:10:17
God damn it.
1:10:18
Go.
1:10:18
You're going to have to hold it.