Oh God. Oh my God.
F**k!
Okay, I see waves and things so this is totally uh...
Shall we just make some noise for a second then play it back?
Am I just working?
Uh sure, yeah that sounds like a thing Peter does.
Because...
Yeah we're totally recording.
Okay, so where were we?
Uh...
Good audio, okay good.
Welcome to a very special episode of Caged Matt.
Calling around about leading Nicko's Caged.
I'm your host Sean, here with my co-host.
Nick, I'm Nick.
And not our producer.
Yeah, Peter's not here because his family got sick.
Or he's making excuses to stop hanging out with us when the day ball is out.
He's just making us do more work.
It's true.
What are we paying him for?
I'm assuming the sexual favors.
But that actually goes against the whole favor thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, I expect freebies on the regular.
That would be a favor.
Yeah, that would be good. I could use a little favor here and there.
Speaking of unrequited dreams, what are we talking about today Nick?
Oh, we're talking about dream scenario.
That's right, the new Nicolas Cage movie.
Yeah, it came out. It's in theaters.
And we went and saw it.
Yeah, we went to SIF last night and watched it with Patreon Sean.
Patreon Sean was there and Patreon John.
And Patreon John. Patreon Sean and John.
But not Patreon Sean John.
No.
He hasn't gotten on the train yet.
This movie is, um, initial thought, weird.
Yeah, it's a weird movie.
It was enjoyable.
It was fun.
Let me just tell everybody what it's all about real quick.
So Nicolas Cage plays Paul Matthews, a professor, a tenured professor at a university.
He teaches stuff irrelevant.
And right from the onset of the movie, people start like noticing that he's present in their dreams.
And it's not necessarily that he's doing anything, he's just there.
And as things move forward, the dreams get more...
Upsetting?
Yeah, and involved and everything sort of takes a turn for the nightmarish as his rise to celebrity and fall from celebrity is kind of just put out there for you.
Yeah. I mean, ultimately this film is about being famous for nothing.
And cancel culture.
And cancel culture. I don't know how I feel about this movie.
I know I liked this movie. I enjoyed watching it. I feel like there are themes that I am too stupid to understand off of a single watching.
Yeah. I, like, I can't say I didn't enjoy it. I did. I don't know that I ever want to watch it again.
Yeah, it's one of those, like, I'll totally watch it again. I enjoyed it to that degree.
Especially if I want to ever claim to understand the movie.
This is like a lobster for me. I'm like, I don't need to understand what's going on here to know I don't really like it.
I love the lobster. If you're ever into reading short plays, you should read The Rhinoceros.
Speaking of animal related things, it's short.
Okay. Maybe seven pages. I can read that. It's about my attention span these days.
But yeah, this movie, it's, it's hard to explain. So I'm just going to talk about, like, other things.
The main part of this movie is about dreams and, like, the interaction with them.
So I was sitting up last night and I was thinking about a couple different dreams that I've had in my life.
Some recurring nightmares, like the earliest recurring nightmare that I remember having as a child plays on standard dream tropes,
like you're flying or you're naked in school things.
And then also just like the weirder bend of dreams from, like, external stimulus.
Mine would be a nicotine patch during one of my many, many attempts to quit smoking.
I never had, like, super out there dreams.
Like, when I was a kid, I had a recurring nightmare about, like, an event where a face would show up in the moon
and then people would turn into, like, monkey critters and, like, go bananas. Huh.
But that's really, like, the most surreal they ever get.
As I've gotten older, they've turned into, you know, stress dreams about I'm not going to graduate school.
Or I forgot that I had this one math class that I've never shone up to and it's the final.
I did actually miss a final one time. This was non dream related.
I just had the schedule wrong. I slept through it and I came the next day for the final and they're like, no,
you can have an incomplete and you just have to take the test.
But then the professor quit, like he went to a different school.
So I never got the test rescheduled.
So I just had an incomplete and like a music theory class forever.
Actually, yes, it's still an incomplete.
So like my earliest remembered nightmare.
And this is a really weird one. I remember waking up like my parents were watching some Whoopi Goldberg movie downstairs.
But I would have these. This is like the time I remember it.
But it would be like just a sleep paralysis kind of dream where I'm just stuck there and it's a full field of white.
Like all I see is white and then in slow motion, Lincoln logs would just kind of pass across my field of vision,
like rotating and floating. And that was it.
Like nothing else happened, but I was just terrified.
And I always had a good relationship with Lincoln logs.
So I don't know what that is all about. Somebody analyze that and tell me in the comments.
I started dreaming again recently. I stopped drinking about three weeks ago.
I haven't had any alcohol, but I've been sleeping better.
But my brain is also like deciding it's like bored now. Let's let's get let's start to get weird.
Oh, yeah. I had a dream.
The most recent dream I remember, and I only remember it because it woke me up at three in the morning.
I was really mad about it is it was like all of our friends hanging out at like a cabin, lake house, whatever.
And we're just doing nothing.
And Peter is just staring at this glass top table just very intently, slowly looks up, turns to me, says, makes a joke.
But it's just gibberish or like backwards. And just in the dream, I think it's hilarious.
And then a second later, so in the dream, I just started cackling.
And then I wake up at three in the morning and I couldn't get back to sleep.
I was really mad at Peter for that. Oh, yeah. That's worth being mad at Peter.
Have you ever had any of those like like iconic dreams like a flying dream?
No, no, I don't think I've ever had like specifically flying.
But there was a period where I used to have Spider-Man dreams and I would web slay.
That's awesome. It was so much cooler than flying.
Oh, just swinging around through a city. That was pretty rad.
Incorrect. I have had a flying dream once.
All I could think the entire time was what if this stops working?
Yeah. So you start flying really low to the ground.
Pretty much. It's like totally negating the joy of flying.
I don't understand how this works in the first place.
What if it stops? I like that.
I like that your brain forces a little bit of concern and reality.
OK, I'm going to send this recording to my therapist today because I'm just remembering other dreams.
Like I have a recurring stress during where I'm in a car that either like the parking brake isn't quite working,
so it's just sliding. But sometimes I'm in the back seat of the car having to steer it as it's coming out of control.
OK, but there's no one in the front seat.
So are you like hugging across the driver's seat? Yeah, like I'm driving the car,
but from the back seat for reasons I've never cleared by.
Yeah, and that doesn't make sense. I've seen your legs. They're really short.
You wouldn't be able to reach up front.
No, like the car's out of control. Like I'm not controlling the speed.
I'm just trying to control like where it's going.
I'd be concerned about the speed as well. Yeah. Mostly the stopping.
So my external stimulus during my nicotine patch dreams, and I don't know if like you've never taken that or used a nicotine patch.
I mean, I had a friend when I worked in fast food who was trying to quit smoking,
and I don't know if it was a show of solidarity or just sleep deprivation.
But let me see what that's about. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
For a non smoker, bad idea. Yeah.
Having that constant like insertion of nicotine like into your bloodstream, like while you're asleep, it does like strange, weird things.
And I've never been able to recreate it without putting on a nicotine patch.
It usually has to be in the mid to higher level of nicotine.
But I had this one dream one time, and it was just so weird.
I was in college and I was walking down the street in my college town.
The dreams express are not that of a cake man, but solely of Nick.
Yeah. Nick and his nicotine problems, which I don't have anymore, thankfully.
So I'm walking down this street and this person that I know from school is walking down towards me.
And maybe they waved or something or not.
And I just like start running towards them and I'm like turning into this demon at the same time.
And as I get up to them, I just bought this enormous boner that's also a chainsaw.
And it just like swings up and like rips through their body, like from between their legs and then cleanly all the way up through the head.
And their body just falls apart. And I ran through it.
And then that was the dream. It's like I just kept running.
Were you watching a bunch of anime at this time?
Were you watching Devilman? It seems like something that would be in Devilman.
I don't even know Devilman, but I'm willing to try it if it's anything like this dream.
We should watch some Devilman sometimes. It's weird.
So dream scenario.
Yeah. You're going to get some weird dreams. I don't think there's ever like a...
The dreams themselves seem fairly sedate within the film.
Yeah, they're very much little snippets.
But Nicolas Cage gives such a good performance throughout the whole movie.
And I love his characterization.
And I really enjoyed like just the times that like in dreams, he's allowed to like be free with his acting choices.
Oh, he's so good in this film.
It's really something.
Yeah. This is such an amazing performance by the man.
I don't know if this is a movie I'll go back to. I really do appreciate his acting and his role.
I think he did a stellar job and the whole cast did a really good job.
Performances by his wife.
I will say, I was...
Really good. The children did really well.
I was bummed that Tim Meadows wasn't getting more to do.
I would have loved Tim Meadows.
Yeah. I would have loved more from Tim Meadows, but just his inclusion in the movie was very nice.
Yeah. And Michael Cera as a tech bro, influencer, marketing guru.
Yeah.
Like a bad one.
Because one of the things is they want to try and like find a way to use him in dreams to advertise things.
So they're like, we'll just put pictures of you holding Sprite.
Not right, you know, around 9 p.m.
So people will like inflate you with Sprite. Maybe they'll bring about Sprite.
Yeah. It's a strange movie.
I will say I did enjoy the theater experience. I did enjoy the SIF experience because there were a few people in the audience who were having reactions to this film.
Like when he starts getting like canceled, when like the dreams start going dark and he starts getting blamed for that.
You know, there is someone a few rows ahead of us.
It's like, come on. No, no, come on.
Yeah. Being able to see movies and theaters is just terrific.
I'm glad we're well and thoroughly past the times of COVID restrictions and things like that.
Think of it as you will. It's nice to be able to see movies together.
Yeah. I will say that was one of the odd parts of the film is when we get to the canceling.
And then it's just like trying to up until he tries to like apologize for it. Like this guy's getting a really bum rap because he has done absolutely nothing.
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know how much of this will we'll get in just for spoilers and stuff like that.
But Peter can make that decision. So if you're upset about what is or is not included in this episode, it's on Peter.
Yeah. But yeah, it's it's an odd one. Like having sat with it for a night, I'm like, I probably enjoyed it more than I did in the moment.
There are some very uncomfortable and hard to watch scenes in this film, not because they're like gruesome.
Now there's one pretty gruesome scene, but just the awkwardness of the scene and the awkwardness of this character dealing with his son and celebrity.
Yeah. Like there were times where I was like, I couldn't look at the screen for how cringey it was.
Now, the writers and the director did a really good job of portraying people who would not be accustomed to or equipped to handle meteoric rises like global celebrity status.
And the effect that's going to have on them, their lives, their families lives and everything.
I will say I have one major critique of this film, which is I think it needed to end 10 minutes earlier.
Like it gets into this really meta somewhat explaining what's happening, but not really.
And then it gets just it plays with a lot of fun ideas at the end, but doesn't really use them for anything.
And I'm like, if you were going to do that, it should have been throughout the whole project rather than just bumping it into the end.
And once you see it, you'll know because it takes a weird sci fi slant.
Yeah, I mean, I can see how you're going out of that. I enjoyed how it ended. I thought it was fine.
I liked just the natural progression of how people approach new technologies, thoughts, everything else.
It has to come with time. I don't think there's a really long period that this movie covers.
Seems to be maybe just like maybe two months. Yeah. So I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the ending.
I would recommend it to people. I think it was a lot of fun.
It's a lot of fun trying to figure out how you want to talk about it with other people.
And it's just yeah, five months walked out of that theater yesterday. We're all just like, huh?
Yeah, it's it's a very interesting movie.
And the concept of it is, you know, something something to take home for the holidays and talk with your grandma about.
Yeah, maybe she'll dream of Nicholas Cage. I know I will. Bye bye. Bye bye.