Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The life and times of Nicolas Cage

Coincidence?

I think not.

In the beginning, when it was just Nic Cage, his twin brother and a precocious dream of stardom, no-one could have predicted the level of success that he would go on to achieve. Especially not in the early days when the 'Jessica-Parker-Cage' four-tet could be found pedaling their extreme form of performance art in various parks around Chicago. However, after a particularly vicious argument between the Cage twins, the handsomer and more virile Richard went missing. Never to be seen again. Under the stress of this "disappearance' the crew broke up, with Nic's girlfriend Sarah accusing him of the murder of the much loved Richard.

Sarah Jessica-Parker moved to New York, to the city, to get what Nic could not give her. Sarah's sister was rumoured to have appeared in a straight to video B-movie where the level of her performance got her struck out of the Actor's Guild.

Meanwhile Nic began to carve out a niche for himself in Hollywood. His style was at first uncompromising. He recently confessed in an interview:
“I welcomed the idea of bad reviews because that would mean I was doing something that challenged the critics. I thought I could change acting, which isn’t really my goal anymore. But at that time I was headstrong.”
Despite this repentant tone, evidence suggests that Cage's hunger for bad reviews has yet to subside. Who would have guessed that this man had won an Oscar:



His career reached a nadir in 2008 with Bangkok Dangerous. Re-making a critically acclaimed Thai movie but changing the central character (and therefore the whole plot really), from a deaf mute to a man who could speak and hear, because he wanted some lines. The man has won an Oscar don't you know.

After Bangkok Dangerous bombed he was faced with the daunting reality that no-one was going to fund any more Asian influenced action movies in which he was the star. Undeterred, Cage hatched a radical plan to build a time machine to take him back to a more innocent time, when overweight white men with greasy hair could conceivably be highly paid action movie stars. In the year 2017 he finally succeeded, sending his longer haired and chunkier self back to 1988 under the pseudonym 'Steven Seagal'.

Finally he was free to make as many films dangerously free of any plot or semblance of the craft of acting as he cared. And cared he did. His finest hour was in 'On Deadly Ground' when he beat up a septuagenarian and reformed a racist through a game of extreme slaps, all in the same scene.


Here's the link to the entire scene. Words cannot describe.

Now that both present and future Nic Cage's careers are drying up at the same time we can only hope that 'Steven' will reintroduce himself to his past self and that they can combine to cross that final frontier and make an album of immeasurable beauty.

Basically what I am saying is that Nic Cage needs to stop pretending he cares about cinematography, put on some weight, grow a ponytail, buy a leather jacket and make some abysmally good action films. Just never re-make 'The Wicker Man' again. FC (Bees video courtesy of AC)

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