Author: Robert Skuch Published
Fans of Nicolas Cage and Swift have one thing in common that might surprise you: You have to appreciate all of their different eras. I need to confess that I proposed this “Where to Start Watching Nicolas Cage” post over a month ago, but I was so overwhelmed by the prospect of my views being archived forever that I spent more time than I care to admit opening blank documents and trying to answer this question in a completely satisfying way.
Here’s the thing: Nicolas Cage is one of the most prolific and greatest actors of all time, and you can’t encapsulate his entire essence in just one movie. Just like Taylor Swift, he has his times. He has layers. Our one true God is an onion that we must peel carefully.
If it were me I would recommend stickman As a reliable entry point, for reasons I’ll introduce later. Because proposing this guide is essentially the highest level of public service I can commit to, I do not take it lightly. I think we need to get a deeper look at each era of our favorite new shaman actor in order to properly showcase his willingness to lose himself in a character, no matter how good, great, or downright terrible that character is.
So, dear reader, be gentle. I lost sleep over it and felt like Frank Pierce in 1999 Heal the wounded and rescue the dyingone of Cage’s best low-key dramas. Here I’ll try to unpack what I consider to be the most crowd-pleasing films of Cage’s career, but you need to know that times and perspectives change. Plus, Nicolas Cage has been doing so well over the past few years that I have reason to believe he’s working on another three dozen movies. There’s no reasonable way for me to go all out, because there’s no way to reasonably keep up with the man, the myth, the legend that is Nicolas Cage.
Beginning with the Holy Trinity
If you want to experience Nicolas Cage through the spectacle and bombast of big-budget action movies, we need to talk about his epic run in the ’90s, when he made three top-notch action films between 1996 and 1997. The total production cost is approximately US$230 million, rock, United Airlinesand face to face/confrontation It is the pinnacle of Nicolas Cage’s action movies. This is known as the “holy trinity” to die-hard Nicolas Cage fans, and for good reason.
1996 rock It’s your classic hostage situation, but also an odd couple adventure that you can really get into. Dr. Stanley Goldspeed, played by Cage, is a chemical weapons expert working for the FBI, and John Patrick Mason, played by Sean Connery, is a lifer in prison and the only person to successfully escape from Alcatraz. When former patriot Francis Hummel (Ed Harris) breaks out of the high-security island prison, it’s a tense race against time to ensure that San Francisco and the rest of the world don’t fall victim to an explosive nerve gas that could endanger countless lives.
Speaking of prisons, in 1997 United Airlines This is our next entry point. With iconic lines like “Put the rabbit back in the box,” you can’t miss this movie thanks to its large and talented cast (John Cusack, John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Dave Chappelle, etc.). you basically get Die Hard On the plane. Cage plays Cameron Poe, who speaks with a Southern drawl and is serving a sentence for manslaughter. He must now work with agents on the ground to ensure that the hijacked plane lands safely after serving his sentence without causing any collateral damage. Spoiler alert: there’s too much collateral damage.
Nicolas Cage’s Holy Trinity ends with John Woo’s insane plot. This little movie, 1997 face to face/confrontationis the peak of Cage’s madness, because he weird friday With John Travolta. Nicolas Cage plays Custer Troy, a hired terrorist who accidentally kills the son of FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta). When Archer was tasked with putting Custer Troy in prison forever, he did the unthinkable and became Custer Troy through an experimental procedure that allowed them to swap bodies. As a result, we have Nicolas Cage playing himself as John Travolta plays him, and vice versa. Numerous set-pieces were fraught with leads, with both stars bringing their top game to the table and seeming to enjoy teasing each other a little too much.
We could stop at Trinity and say “mission accomplished,” but I think it’s in our best interest to get into some drama with the sole purpose of proving that Nicolas Cage is more than just a one-trick pony.
‘Oscar winner Nicolas Cage’ goes back to a movie
In 1995, Nicolas Cage took a huge creative risk, Leaving Las Vegas. Telling the story of a self-destructive alcoholic who plans to drink himself to death after losing his job and marriage, legend has it that Cage prepared for the role by traveling to Ireland and having an epic orgy. This “research” paid off as his behavior on screen was difficult to accept in the best possible way.
The casino scene is actually a runaway black cage, his original delivery Leaving Las Vegas That’s why he won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actor. Every frame drips with self-destructive sincerity, and if I were Nicolas Cage, I’d use the title “Oscar-winning actor” every chance I got.
If you’re a casual Cage fan and looking for more movies in this wheelhouse, Martin Scorsese’s Heal the wounded and rescue the dying Comes with a strong recommendation. The feeling of self-destruction is equally palpable, but in a completely different context. Over the course of three night shifts, Cage’s Frank Pierce experiences multiple mental breakdowns as he is exposed to trauma that first responders deal with at an alarming rate. His struggle to insist on humanity where there is none is something no other actor can reasonably replicate.
Let’s be weird, let’s be insane
My personal favorite era of Nicolas Cage falls right into the “cage rage” wheelhouse. stickmanTo me, this was the perfect entry point into sparking curiosity about Nicolas Cage because it checked every box. Cage plays Roy Waller, a prolific con man who works alongside Sam Rockwell’s Frank Mercer. They defrauded the elderly and defrauded them of large amounts of cash.
Everything goes off the rails when Roy, who suffers from OCD and Tourette’s Syndrome, stops taking his medication, discovers he has an estranged daughter who wants to reconnect with him, and is suddenly given the chance to pull off the heist of a lifetime. Here, as Cage tries to overcome all these obstacles, he goes from calm, collected, and thoughtful to completely unhinged. His crazy experience with the pharmacy was one of the best experiences of his career, and his unraveling made the show very interesting.
Early examples of Cage’s complete madness include, but are not limited to, 1988 vampire kisshe plays Peter Loew, who believes he’s turning into a vampire and goes to great lengths to play the character in the most over-the-top way imaginable. If you’re wondering what his character was like before he completely went off the rails, a lot of people, myself included, have called him the model for Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman. american psycho.
Nicolas Cage screams the alphabet, eats a live cockroach, and runs through the streets shouting “I’m a vampire, I’m a vampire, I’m a vampire,” which is great if you want to see Cage lose his mind in real time.
We can talk about 1993 die Same here, but honestly pretty bad. One of the reasons you might still want to see it is that it was written and directed by Cage’s brother, Christopher Coppola. Cage is completely out of control in this movie and apparently no one can calm him down. He clearly knows how far he can push things, and just imagining driving home after a day of filming is enough to make you roll on the floor laughing.
Not all straight-to-video outings are bad
For a time, Cage ceased to be a box-office star, and his growing financial problems led to some questionable performances during this time. This is what we call the direct video era. Look, I’m not here to tell you how to spend your time, but after renting most of these movies on Redbox, I’m here to say that there are some hidden dangers.
My personal favorite movie from this era is 2013 frozen land. Based on true events, we see Cage and Cusack reunited in a sinister game of cat and mouse, inspired by a series of real-life serial killings that occurred in the early 1980s. Cage is a jaded detective named Jack Halcombe who is hell-bent on arresting Cusack’s Robert Hansen, a man who kidnaps women, drags them into the woods, and hunts them for fun. This is a tense procedural crime thriller with strong performances from both leads.
JoeThe 2014 film had a very limited theatrical release, but most people watched it at home. Many critics saw this as a triumphant return for Cage, who had made a series of laughably bad films up to this moment, including 2006’s wicker man is the most notorious example. Joe is a tense thriller about a hard-hearted blue-collar worker who takes care of a 15-year-old homeless man trying to escape the clutches of his abusive father. This is a softer version of Cage, but his down-to-earth performance seals the deal.
Let’s go gonzo
I could spend hours here, but I just want to highlight the main ones that serve as solid entry points. For the past decade, Nicolas Cage has been nothing short of gonzo. If I had to pinpoint the exact moment this shift occurred, I would point to 2017 mom and dadA horror comedy about parental surrender 28 days laterInfected with rage, they want to murder their offspring. In the song, Cage sings “Hokey Pokey” while smashing up a pool table with a pickaxe and trying to dismember his children with a saw, with morbidly hilarious results.
2018 Mandy An explosive, kaleidoscopic exploration of grief, Cage wields a chainsaw and hunts down a religious cult known as the Children of the New Dawn for the brutal murder of his wife. Mandy This is a psychedelic, violent odyssey of grief, revenge, and redemption that’s not for the faint of heart. It was jarring, but also cathartic.
I’ll end this with one of my favorite recent Nicolas Cage works of 2021 willy’s wonderland. The film is as brutal as it is simple, with Cage not speaking a single line of dialogue for the entire running time. After being locked inside the eponymous family entertainment center, the animatronic mascots inside come to life and he must kill them all through brute force and sheer willpower. Things get complicated when a group of teenagers break in and become trapped inside, forcing Cage’s character (known only as the Janitor) to fight off the possessed animals with whatever weapons he can find. Whenever he needs to recharge, he plays pinball, drinks energy drinks, and that’s it.
We’ve just begun to scratch the surface
I tried to be exhaustive, but there is just too much to cover. I didn’t even mention Raising Arizona, Disappears after 60 seconds, angry driving, pigor dream scene. What I’ve done is point you to what I consider to be the most important eras of Cage’s career, and in the process highlight the best works from each period.
Being a Nicolas Cage fan is a full-time job, and it’s not for everyone. If your curiosity about Cage has gotten the best of you and you’re ready to dive in, this book should serve as the primer you need to get started. If you are still with me, dear reader, you have a long road ahead of you, and I wish you good luck and all the best.
