Oh, God. Oh, my God.
Yeah, if I pull my wiener out, it's a new episode.
And we're already on the third episode this minute.
Double duck it. Yeah. Oh, perfect.
Welcome back to Cage Match, a roundabout way of meeting Nicolas Cage.
I'm your host, Sean, here with my co-host Nick and our producer Peter.
Hello. And this week we are discussing the movie Kick Ass.
Welcome back, Eric.
I believe it's actually kick ass, kick ass, kick ass kick ass kick ass.
Ass kick.
It doesn't make sense to know.
I thought that was a solid joke.
That was a good one. It's a very good dad joke, at least.
He was proud of himself.
And that's what's important with dad jokes.
Also the mustache. Great. Great. Dad's dash.
Why is his name Big Daddy?
Oh, I wouldn't.
I can't figure that out.
If you have a little girl sidekick, like who is the sidekick in this situation, too?
I mean, it was Hit Girl.
Big Big Daddy is the sidekick.
Yeah. Well, he's like a mentor, right?
I mean, like he's he's trying to get around. He's growing.
Yes, exactly.
He's Big Daddy's grooming.
I mean, at least unlike the last time we watched Nicolas Cage get called daddy,
it wasn't with weird sexual energy.
When was the last time you got called daddy?
Fucking matchstick man.
Oh, well.
Daddy.
Was that the the con the con man movie?
Yeah. OK, gotcha.
So, Eric, you had seen Kick Ass before.
Right. I had seen Kick Ass before.
And maybe like you guys, you remember enjoying it more.
When when did this come out? 2010.
See, that makes sense.
I would have enjoyed this more in 2010.
I didn't do it more in 2010.
I think I was on the opposite side of it.
In 2010, I thought it was too much of a try hard movie.
And I was like, I was too cool for it.
I actually have a little anecdote about seeing this movie
because I loved the comic when it first came out.
Mark Millar, John Romita, Jr.
But the comic shop I used to shop at comic outpost rest in peace
was having a crappy superhero like costume contest to get early screening tickets.
So my buddy Justin and I decided we were going to like dress up
as like shitty superheroes.
The only rule is your costume had to cost less than twenty dollars.
So I took my old wetsuit that didn't fit me anymore,
made a mask out of a scarf, put on like a Russian furry hat that I had.
And I just cut out like a Safeway paper bag and slapped a D on the front of it.
I was D bag. No words. And I won.
Oh, good. Justin was my sidekick plaid lad.
He just put on a bunch of plaid.
But my battle cry was I'm going to punch you in the dick.
And then the owner of the comic outpost
and later that night went home, got into a fight with his wife
and told her in the day told her I'm going to punch you in the dick.
And she's like, where do you learn this?
And he proudly said D bag.
And then I got to see kick ass a week early in theaters.
That's the best anecdote that you've ever told.
That's really like that. That's better than this movie.
I had never seen this movie and I actually really enjoyed it.
I mean, I agree.
I think it is kind of a try hard of that era, but it was a lot of fun.
I mean, all it was missing was a fucking what's a serial eaten comedian
who is awful and somehow still has a career.
I think his name is Carrot Top.
No, Carrot Top is amazing.
Fucking shut up.
I don't know. He always like Count Chocula made a thing.
He's like, oh, you feel.
I don't know. What are you talking about?
Is this Cheddar Goblin?
No, Cheddar Goblin is cool, though.
I miss Cheddar Goblin.
We all miss. I'm going to remember his name like halfway through this episode.
And I'll tell you that. Shout it out.
Yeah. Everyone shut the fuck up.
Oh, wake your baby upstairs.
Just good.
Shouting this shitty comedian's name.
Demetri Martin.
Might be it. No, no.
I like Demetri Martin.
Is there a Dante guy, something Dante?
Tell me about this movie.
Well, again, I feel like for me who saw it
or remember seeing it back in the day,
I recall just like the best parts of like Nick Cage, like just being more prominent.
I thought that was like more of the film and that and I wish it was more of the film.
Same. I remember him having a much bigger role in this movie than he does.
Yeah. So when I when I rewatched, it was like it took a really long time
until he like jumped in there at all.
That first scene that's that he's in there is is tremendous.
I love it. Oh, where he shoots his daughter, where he shoots his daughter.
Yeah. As a father of of a daughter, not much younger than than her.
I don't know. Fantasy's have been had.
That would be fun for the whole family. Yeah.
Mostly you therapeutic.
He looks like he's having a blast.
So the cast of this one.
So you've got Aaron Johnson, who I don't know if he did anything
other than the two kick ass movies.
He's he was Quicksilver in the age of Ultron.
That's right. So he's Dave and also kick ass kick ass.
Christopher Mintz, plus who everyone thinks that I look like him
is Chris D'Amico and or Red Mist.
Mark Strong is his dad, Frank D'Amico and Chloe Grace
Moretz is Mindy McCready slash Hit Girl.
And then Nick Cage is Big Bang Daddy.
Rick Gotter. Daddy.
Nick Cage did have a name in this, didn't he?
Well, yeah, he's a there was so much.
McCready. Oh, OK.
Damon. OK, he did say that.
Marcus most importantly.
Yeah, Marcus is the good cop.
Yeah, most importantly, the big tatter.
The biggest daddy kick ass young.
What we're doing, we're doing a high school movie.
He wants to what superhero fantasy.
He wants to be a vigilante.
Somebody needs to do something.
His friends talk him out of it.
They say you would get your ass kicked.
You would die. And what he tries to help somebody
and he gets his ass kicked and he almost dies.
It's stabbed and hit by a car. Yeah. Yeah. But.
Stop going down that alley.
Stop going down that one specific alley where there's two guys
always fucking jumpy.
But it's the shortcut.
That's where what that's probably where like the fake kick ass got killed to.
It's the same alley.
That is crime alley.
That's where fucking Batman's parents die.
Oh, man. Oh, it's a bunch of stray pearls everywhere.
So what he gets the he gets the nerve damage so that he is.
I don't know.
He can handle more.
He can take more hits and he gets a metal implant.
So so apparently could take some more damage, too.
But still, he gets his ass kicked like a lot.
You know, knowing old people who have fake hips, those things are not that sturdy.
No, I don't think they're improvements usually.
You're usually worse off.
Yeah. So I guess my favorite.
OK, this does my favorite part is, yeah.
So after he gets mugged and gets a superpowers
superpowers of being a dude who got mugged, a dude that got mugged.
What? He can just get his ass kicked harder.
The whole high school, because he was they think he was sexually assaulted.
Think that he's gay now.
Oh, yeah. Which is which is pretty generous of them.
What his new best friend, Katie, comes up, not because she is worried about him
because she thinks that he was just sexually assaulted and beat up in the street
and left naked and for dead.
And I was really she's excited to have a gay friend
and has always wanted a gay friend ever since she was a child.
I was waiting for the shoe to drop that she had other gay friends
who just kept turning out to like be straight.
And she was worried that she was turning all the gay men straight.
And it's her own superpower. Yeah.
So it's like really tearing her apart.
It's the opposite of my superpower.
I've always wanted a gay friend, but
this piss is too good and it keeps just driving the men wild.
They got all this milkshake.
That's what that's what they should have gone with. Yeah.
Oh, you turn you turn me straight.
What am I supposed to do? We have to check.
I can't confirm that I'm straight.
Well, turns out I am. Yeah.
Oh, so what Dave's been going, going, going.
Dave starts going on vigilante justice missions or what?
Just one via my space. OK, wait.
No. So he has a my space account.
But really. OK, so who does he go and talk to for Katie?
Right. Oh, Raul. Raul. Raul. Raul. Raul. Raul.
Oh, right.
And were they were they an item?
Ra's so cool.
You know, it never clarifies like it really seems like it's just a hardcore
drug dealer or something.
I don't understand why they were hiding.
She volunteers at the needle bank.
Yeah. Suicide hotline and that kind of stuff.
And Katie got in deep like she was fucking that dude. Yeah.
So what? Up to this point, Dave has been, you know, what?
Slap it. Slap in people in the street.
Oh, yeah. Stuff like that.
With his baton with it with his baton. Yeah.
My favorite line from this film is like right before he gets into his
like second major fight is kick ass.
The one that makes him famous is he's trying to save a cat
and just and right before he falls like that's how it happened.
Yeah. Right before he falls off a billboard thing, he's just like,
fuck you, Mr. Bidey.
I love that the cat's name is Mr. Bidey, though.
That's good. Why would you even go looking for that cat?
Fuck that cat. That's what made him a hero.
He's going to go save Mr. Bidey.
Nobody else would help Mr. Bidey.
They say fuck that cat. Yep.
Turns out Mr. Bidey didn't deserve it.
What? So Dave goes and confronts Razul in his like crime gang.
Who? Kade is pretty sure that's who is still still weird that they that they hung out.
I don't I don't know how they got involved.
Like he sounded just like a junkie off the street, like he was in
and slipped in the bushes or something like that, but he was moving weight.
He worked for D'Amico.
He worked for D'Amico. He was a made man.
He had a doorman with a gun. Yeah.
Like in their shitty.
Like what is this guy doing in the needle exchange?
He's giving them out with samples.
He's there. He confronts Razul, says, you know, leave Katie alone
and then tases Razul in the face. Face tases him.
Yeah. And then that's a fucking you're starting a fight.
Yeah. And then he gets like held down
and Razul gets out the big knife
and then gets stabbed through with this shitty CG sword.
Yeah. But then we get the best scene in the film.
Absolutely. Of Hit Girl just murdering three gang bangers
and then killing a sex worker and a just guy who was just doing nothing.
She she told me she was a sex worker.
Are you just making assumptions now? Yes, I am actually.
At least the woman did like pull like smash a bottle and pull a bottle.
Yeah, I think the guy on meth just wanted to continue out of the bathroom
and was like, oh, no, no.
The meth guy was just there.
There was another guy in the bathroom who just walked out.
Oh, you're talking about the only white guy in the guy came out of the bathroom
was also white, I think.
He pulled a knife. He pulled a butterfly.
You think just the white guy lived?
Is what you think? No, he didn't. OK.
No one lived. I think that the lady would have been OK, but she like
she pulled a bottle. She was like, come at me.
She got aggressive. Yeah, she did.
You should have just begged.
You beg for your life in that situation.
I don't care how big I don't care how big a bodyguard you are
or how big your gun is.
If I saw two like bloody katana blades come through a door, I'm like,
not paid enough for this. I just walk away and come back tomorrow.
And that that woman, she watches all these guys get murdered,
like in front of her, and they fought hard.
And she's like, all right, like now you're now you're in for it.
Yeah. Heineken bottle.
But yeah, it was terrific.
Seen what that was like Heineken.
Flowy Grace Mertz is a big debut right there.
I mean, she really was made a giant name for herself.
Just murdering people.
The insane cunt, the graphic violence and language
was so shocking that it was just fun, fun for the family,
for their family.
I mean, she really kind of is the main character of the story.
She's the one who has kind of the arc, like loses her father, gets revenge
in the story that you wanted to follow.
And that one random.
Sorry, it was Dan Cook.
What do you mean?
Uh, Dan Cook was the shitty comedian
that I was thinking would fit perfect in this movie.
They absolutely didn't cook in cereal.
Yeah. Didn't he do a thing where you're like, I don't know.
I don't like his comedy.
So like, I only kind of remember from college, like people.
And he's like, oh, I love you, people.
They're all.
You know, I. OK, I hear it now.
I totally I knew it was going to be named Cook,
but I wanted to see if he'd find it.
We got there.
I had to go back through waiting.
I knew he was in waiting and I had to work through that one.
You had been a little tuned out for a while.
Also, Luis Guzman was in waiting.
Yeah, it's true.
Oh, man, I love it when Luis Guzman shows up.
Oh, he's don't.
You don't. You know, Peter hates Luis Guzman performing in a movie.
You haven't listened to our last episode.
Yeah. Fucking Luis Guzman.
What?
I was talking about like kick ass.
Just killed people. Yeah.
Nick Cage in this is the best part of this film.
He's not in it a lot, but he is the best.
No, he's got like he got to do whatever he wanted.
Yeah. It's like you get to be you got like five scenes.
It's just like just ham it up.
Eat, chew scenery.
Like, I don't think anybody asked him to do Adam West.
Why did he have kind of the Batman costume?
Like, I don't know.
I love it. I love how when they're interrogating that guy is like, no,
but it's not Batman.
I never said Batman is like Batman.
Like him really similar.
But we're not talking about Batman.
And then the boss just goes, OK, so then Superman.
No, it was Batman. It wasn't bad.
I never said Batman.
I loved it. I loved the detail with the mustache, the dustache.
That's a good way to like disguise your personality.
If the only thing that's going to be seen on your face is like your mouth area.
But so and you're committed to having a mustache.
He has distinctive facial hair. He has the proper like dad sash
just like bushy just above the lip.
But when he goes into superhero mode, he puts on like fake
spirit gummed Fumanchu attachments.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
So and like we get to put it on part of the movie.
And it made me think of this really shitty 90s like pornography TV,
like superhero TV show Night Man,
who was like a jazz musician by day and was a superhero by night.
But his costume had a wig on it so people wouldn't recognize his hair. Sorry.
He must have been a shitty jazz musician if he had to play jazz during the day.
They like only good jazz musicians at night.
So he's he's like daytime like he's the guy that does the intros on.
He's just like,
well, hey, everybody.
Welcome back to my NPR show where I talk about the plants I'm growing.
Exactly. Yeah.
So I did it. I did.
I did like the send five dollars, the mustache detail.
It is valuable.
I also didn't notice the mustache.
The only time in a superhero movie where we see someone apply the eye black.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
What? So I don't much.
I mean, OK, what guy, guy that Peter that people think looks like Chris
for Mitzvah, I think that's unfortunate that they make that red mist.
That they say that.
I think you look so much like that other guy.
I've absolutely also looks like Chris from Mitzvah.
Wait, which one are you talking about, Tim Curry?
Are you talking about?
Oh, you're talking about Charlie Kaufman.
But I'm not talking about Charlie Kaufman.
He's going to find it.
You're talking about Donald Kaufman. I get it. Yeah.
No, that's me.
What he comes in and as as red mist, I really didn't like him in the whole movie.
No, well, he's kind of a cunt.
He is. And he was he was a perfect.
He was a perfect McLovin.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. He did great role models.
I don't know. Christopher Mitzvah.
Yeah. But other than that, yeah, I thought I didn't like him.
And I didn't like scenes with him in there.
He was a character with a face that was perfect for punching.
And he got very little punches to the face.
Not enough punches.
He does have a punchable face.
Wait, fuck. Do I have a punchable face?
Oh, no, not like that.
Oh, thank God.
Have you guys your face is punchable for different reasons. Excellent.
Have you guys seen the what kick ass to never know?
I saw a trailer for it to buff it.
It's way they Peters look alike.
I have a hard time learning the Christmas class.
I it's the three names.
It's always serial killers. Yeah.
It's just extra effort.
He's just so much worse in that one.
They just make him so much more annoying.
It's terrible. So I'm glad that says something because he is quite annoying.
He's annoying.
But like it's just like they just take it up to like a volume level.
That's just really obnoxious.
And just he's just yelling all the time and he shouldn't be yelling.
He's just like more of a little shit in this one.
Just me. It was funny when he jumped off the dumpster and he's like, Oh, fuck.
I think I bet you I have a feeling like that was like not in there.
And he's like, Oh, shit, that hurt a little bit.
What do you think of the violence in this?
What it was definitely made to be shocking.
And it was fun when it was, especially when you had a little girl doing it.
That was the that was the big thing of the movie.
I thought it was just like little girls swearing and murdering.
Yeah, you're hyper violent.
Jay Barichel. Oh, yeah.
I mean, more than Christopher Mintz plot.
I think that one's way more fair.
Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Just without the voice.
Oh, yes. The violence was I mean, no, this was this was meant to be like shock value.
Like they gave the you know, the big black bodyguard bazooka.
That was all the best. He never got to use it.
It was his dream and it got taken away from him.
D'Amico getting killed with the bazooka was it was a cool death at the end.
That was a pretty decent way to go.
I do appreciate this.
I learned this from mythbusters that, you know, like with RPGs and like artillery
like that, they have to travel a certain amount before they're armed.
So like he gets hit in the hit in the chest of the shell.
It flies him out of the building before it explodes
because it would take that long to like trigger.
I appreciated the attention to detail.
I mean, that might not have been attention to detail.
They might have just been like,
wouldn't it be so much cooler if it tossed him outside and then exploded?
If they didn't like blow up everybody in the same room. Right.
Yeah, but it is nice.
I'm like, that's true or not.
So let's leave a sequel open.
I did. I did really love the comic when it came out.
I haven't read it since.
I don't think it'll hold up.
But this movie is barely grounded for the most part.
I was going to say they lost me as soon as he named himself kick ass.
Like he's sitting there and he's like workshopping names in his thing.
And he's just like, it wasn't one of them like nighty night.
Oh, God.
I was like a night ass or like
a night kicker or something like that.
I would hope everything just ended with ass night.
Yes. Well, again, what it was just so.
Did you know something really?
I don't know. Low hanging fruit to increase the shock value.
But like this movie does try to like stay relatively grounded
up until they give him a jet pack with fucking mini guns on it.
I thought that's where he became a superhero. Really?
I mean, that's when you started doing like some something
other than just baton and people.
Yeah, that's when he stopped sucking.
Yeah. And started killing.
He started. Yeah. He said he's calling like a last.
Oh, he got OK with murder.
You know, he fucking Gatlin a bunch of guys.
He sure did. Yeah.
That was the coolest thing he did in the whole movie.
Yeah. No, he didn't hesitate.
And he looked like he was having fun at that point.
Yeah. Like he's like, why didn't I start murdering ages ago?
He sort of overall sucks shit, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a weird protagonist. Yeah.
Again, like the story is really a hit girl story. Yeah. Yeah.
She comes in and she's the real story.
And that opening scene, you're shooting his daughter in the chest.
It was such a good and they have a lot of good father daughter moments.
They play it really well.
I also want to say this movie does do one thing where it's like kind of Bucks
tradition where you have like the mafia father who's like ashamed of his son.
Now you have a very supportive mafia father.
Yeah. Who likes his kid and takes him to the movies and gets him popcorn.
Nice little mafia family unit. Yeah.
But you knew he was a monster because he got Twizzlers.
I love Mark Strong.
Explain his movie theater. Yeah.
I enjoyed him at the like theater, but like I I really liked him
going through his order of like that's what I'm talking about.
You get this and this getting a Twizzlers and some this and slushy
and slushy red mix with blue.
Oh, man. You remember when he's going through
he's chasing the fake kick ass. Yeah.
And kick ass gets like a couple high fives and he's like high fives.
What the fuck is this high five motherfucker?
I'll give you a high five. High five your mother.
You really went OK.
Mark Strong is so good.
I keep thinking that he and Cage had another movie overlap,
but it's because I keep mixing it up with the dude that was in the Humanity Bureau.
Oh, yeah. Definitely not the same guy.
The guy's wait, Matt Damon.
Different. You're going to have a different humanity.
There are different things.
Who was in that? You're thinking of this cage was.
And I know what you're thinking of a different humanity or a different
beer, humanity report that now it was a bureau something.
Yeah, it was a beer.
Something might have just been the bureau.
So what do we think in terms of the Venn diagram?
Good cage, bad cage, good movie, bad movie, good, bad, bad, good, bad, bad, good, bad.
Well, again, man, Nick Cage made the movie better.
Yeah, every way.
And he should have been in there more.
Also, one of his best death scenes to date.
Oh, absolutely. Good Lord.
I like burning and shit.
He's yes, he's.
Oh, that's true.
Kryptonite.
Kryptonite. Oh, my.
That's the delivery still hurts me.
I don't like that at all.
I remember when I saw it the first time, it's just like, couldn't you prioritize
like putting out daddy fire first?
Like, that's what I tell my kids if I'm going to teach him anything.
If daddy's on fire, pee on him.
Daddy's on fire and kill everybody.
I mean, what the hell for the schools were around them.
She could have at least not be burned and knocked him out of the fiery area.
Right. Just not the chair back burning underneath him.
Yeah, I do.
And then you start.
I do like the doom style first person like night vision, like, oh, no murder scene.
Little the little girl murder scene.
Yes, whenever she was killing people.
Great. Yeah. Her fight.
Mark Strong, like just like, oh, man, that is a child.
Like when he just like grabs you by the throat and she's like
dangling two feet off the ground.
Oh, it's while getting punched.
It's the reality of the situation.
She's just a little girl.
Yeah, but then he's a Mark Strong man.
Oh, eventually you're going to hit back.
Oh, man. In the comics, though, like when Hit Girl gets captured, like
they take a tenderizer to her face.
I'm not familiar with the source material.
It's again, I remember enjoying it when I read it and I read it
before the movie came out.
So I'm sure my opinions will have changed.
But also John Amita Jr.
Drew it, who did all the art for the movie.
And I absolutely love John Amita Jr. I think Good Cage.
I'm going to say Good Movie. Good Cage.
Fine movie. Oh, what?
I definitely say Good Cage.
Fine movie. OK, good, good movie.
Those those quintessential cage moments of him screaming,
him just being wacky for no reason, just introducing character traits
that maybe nobody asked for, you know, all good things.
If this movie was on TV and I came across it on or near a scene
with Nicolas Cage, I would watch it.
But if I was just scrolling through and it was just like kick ass
talking about stuff, I might just come back later.
Right. That's not what's going to grab you.
Yeah, no.
So it's not enough reason to stop and watch the movie.
But Nicolas Cage would be.
I do want to point out one difference between the movie and the comic.
And the comic would make more sense with the Adam West presentation.
Because in the comic, he's just like a weird super fan,
like weird comic fan.
And when Nicolas Cage's character.
Yeah. Big Daddy.
And when like D'Amico's people like finally capture him
and they like open up like his bag of guns,
it is just like first edition Spider-Man's.
Like he's not a cop.
He has no like crime fighting history.
He's just a fucking guy who wanted to be a superhero.
The cop angle, I think, makes more sense for how deadly he actually is.
Yeah, it makes more sense for this movie, or at least makes it more fun.
It was strange that he was watercolor painting
all of the good at it, too. Yeah.
And that's all John Amita Junior.
But yeah, how often do you have somebody write their confession in comic form?
But when Marcus shows up at the at the safe house, Marcus reads the comic
that is the origin of Big Daddy and Hit Girl.
Not only did you write a confession, you illustrated it and water colored it.
Yeah. Here's a storyboard.
And then it's going to get burned.
And then later on, Hit Girl just reading it.
Mindy's just reading it.
Oh, Big Daddy. Big Daddy. Big Daddy.
Oh, I hate it. I hate it so much.
I'm going to send you a Christmas card this year and be like,
Merry Christmas, Big Daddy.
Oh, no. Rachel's going to be so confused.
And it'll just be a picture of me and Sean laying on a bed like looking at hamsters.
Yeah. Gazing lovely at guinea pigs.
I don't know. Just just a watercolor Nick Cage face with that mustache would be.
That's all I need. Would be just fine.
That gets me over the edge every time.
Hmm. And then Big Daddy.
OK, how do we wrap that one up?
Yeah, that that wrapped itself up.
Yeah, I think we're good then.
Yeah. Cut right in the middle of one of those big daddies.
Big Daddy. Oh, God.
OK, thank you all for listening.
Tell them about the Patreon daddy.
No. OK, if you want to support us on Patreon, you can find us at Cage Match.
Thank you to our Sparkle buddies, Josh, Sean, Josie, Rico, Matt and Adam
and our cage dancers, Ira, Freeman, John and Lance.
And yeah, if you want to chat with us at all and call us
Big Daddy Daddy,
you can chat with us on Friday at Cage Match pod or Instagram
at Cage underscore match underscore pod.
Big Daddy. Big Daddy.
Indeed.
And everybody biggest that is.
That sounds like a John Grisham book, the Bureau.
I think it probably was.
No, that was the firm.
The firm, what?
Oh, nice.
The firm Pelicans briefs.
Yeah, nice.