Oh, God. Oh, my God.
So I don't know how much road construction you think is appropriate on 420,
but I went through three different construction sites.
I think it's all a trap.
Yeah. They're just planting cops all over the place.
Oh, speaking of weird shit.
So I went on a walk early this morning and right outside of my house.
You know, that's about where everyone just like sits and smokes weed
and like has their music on in their cars. Intimately.
Yeah. My people. Right.
There was just like a huge mound of shit and it was like loose sod
and tree stumps hoping it was wrapped in blankets
and then tied to a telephone pole with the cord going straight across the sidewalk.
Oh, my God. Giant Bindel.
Yeah, it was basically a giant Bindel. Wow.
You have giants moving in.
Yeah. Was Wiley Coyote walking across the street.
I mean, it was just like, what is this thing?
And everyone sort of from the neighborhood was wandering up and being like, huh?
Wow. Yeah.
Your neighbor is just like my dogs.
They just if anything's out of place, like a piece of garbage sitting on a street,
they get very upset.
Yeah. I mean, we were all just kind of like, huh, you see this?
What is this shit?
It's great. Speaking of random shit.
How's your quest going to keep people from throwing stuff out in your garage
and your garbage?
Oh, it stopped.
Did you kill someone?
No, I think allegedly exuded the willpower to set their lawn on fire.
But didn't set their lawn on fire. Right.
You just exuded the ability to.
Yes. Gave that vibe.
Heavy arsonist vibes. Exactly.
You do cut a specific silhouette.
Well, shit. All right.
Here we are. Saturday morning.
Saturday morning.
These are weird records. They are.
Wasn't Moonstruck one of our first morning records?
No, it would have been next.
And whatever we had with Darrell the first time.
Darrell would have been our earliest one. Yeah.
We drink coffee a couple of times.
I'm surprised you guys did next.
Well, that we know that movie has the most exploding,
exploding Jessica Beals I've ever seen. Sure.
I did relisten to that clip again.
Every month, I listen to that five minute window of me just losing my shit.
I've never heard you laugh like that.
Oh, man, it's it's it makes me laugh hearing me laugh.
I'm just going to insert that five minutes right here.
Just as a reminder to people. Exactly.
Go back in time, two minutes.
OK, neck in martinis.
He meets Jessica Beal.
There's a whole plot point about her teaching on a reservation.
Yeah. Why did they do that?
It was to set up the FBI using the photo
like the traffic cam to get the permit number for her reservation access.
So they could track her by that permit.
So dumb. It could have been a fucking license plate.
No, there was no license plate on the front.
Yeah, I understand that there was no.
They could have just written that there was a license plate on the front.
That's how movie making works.
But then there's no obstacles to overcome.
And we don't know that she's a nice person.
Yeah, because we got to know she's a nice person. Yeah.
Also, it gives her the reason we wouldn't care when she blows up later.
Oh, OK. Yeah. My favorite part of this movie is when Jessica Beal just explodes.
OK, that was great.
And also the I laughed so hard, the news reporter just sitting there
and the cameraman's like unflinching.
He's like, we're going to keep filming the spot where the body zoom in.
Yeah. And the news reporter is just like having an emotional breakdown
because she just saw somebody explode.
And the cameraman's like, I don't want to miss a thing.
How often do you see someone just explode?
I don't know. But I think the director for the news
program would be like, hey, man, shift that camera to the other side,
like just pan so that like the reporters on the other side of the shot.
It's like, oh, you're not looking at an exploded lady anymore.
I don't know.
That's when like the card has to come up with the elevator music that says,
you know, you know, we'll be right back.
We're experienced technical difficulties.
Yeah. Like news bursting at the seams or something. Yeah.
Something really out of like
this thing at the seams is rude show.
That that's what I was going for. Hmm.
Here. So also in this movie, there's a group of European terrorists.
I got a real question about these guys.
It's the Russian, right? Yeah. French.
I was watching this with subtitles on because maybe they're terrible.
But it's like there.
It's always speaking French, speaking French until one part
where someone is definitely speaking German.
And the subtitle said foreign language.
What was with those guys like they obviously knew Nick Cage
had some kind of power, right?
Because they were trying to like get to cage also.
And like trying to assassinate.
Well, they why did they know originally it was just they wanted him
because the FBI wanted him and that but they didn't know why.
And then suddenly they knew why.
Also, why is Colombo in this movie?
I've never seen Peter laugh this much.
I can't stand this shit.
Oh, my God, you're a red dude.
This movie is so fucking dumb.
And it feels so long to for an hour and a half.
It is so goddamn long, man.
All right. Then where are we?
Has he used his time power to fuck her yet?
That's about where we're at. OK.
And now back to our regular episode.
What was I supposed to remind you of?
You were supposed to remind me of something.
Yeah. We remind you of.
No, because Bill's a sparkle buddy now.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Oh, yeah. We have a new sparkle buddy, Bill.
Thanks for joining.
I'll try and remember your name at the end also.
But in case I fuck it up, Bill,
just take a clean one, just so you can like throw it in there at the end.
Bill. There we go.
And Bill.
I've never said Bill that many times. Bill.
Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bill.
We love you.
Well, with that, welcome back to cage match,
calling around about meeting Nicholas Cage.
I'm your host, Sean, here with my co-host Nick.
I'm Nick and our producer, Peter.
Hi. And we have a special guest today.
My friend Ian. Say hi. Hello. Hello.
Welcome aboard. Yeah.
So I think it's safe to say this podcast is one of the reasons
you and I are friends.
I would say so because someone's like, oh,
Sean has a Nicholas Cage podcast and you're like Nicholas Cage.
I have opinions. Lots of opinions.
How do you not?
How do you walk through the world without having a bunch of Nicholas Cage opinions?
I thought I had Nicholas Cage opinions, but apparently they were all wrong
until I started this podcast. Fair enough.
I have two opinions. Nicholas Cage is bad and Nicholas Cage is good.
And they're both right simultaneously. Always.
It is the constant of the universe.
So, you know, what got you started with cage?
Like, why? Why do you know so much about Nick Cage?
Fair question. I suppose.
The Rock would be the the correct answer as a child.
Just loved the Rock group near San Francisco.
Was for some reason much cooler that Nicholas Cage was there
instead of it just being a really weird island with a prison on it.
So I would say that's probably what got me in at the beginning.
And then it's Nicholas Cage. How do you not just hold on?
But there are a lot of people who saw the Rock and then only ended up watching
like two other Nick Cage movies ever. That is fair.
Have you seen everything at this point other than some of the most recent stuff?
I have not actually had a had a count. I'm about half.
OK, so I'm I'm about 70 ish, 60 ish over 50.
That's that's where I'm at right now.
That's about where we're at.
Yeah. With the whole bracket giving us 64.
And then I think we've had 10 bonus episodes.
So, you know, like you keep finding new ones.
They're just they're out there.
Have you seen the Crudes?
The Crudes I have not seen there.
But he has seen Crudes, too.
As we all have.
I mean, we saw we watched National Treasure to first for this podcast.
Yeah, it was a good choice.
That was the superior national treasure.
And it failed to Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Because Sorcerer's Apprentice is a lot of fun.
It is a lot of fun. I do love Sorcerer's Apprentice.
But this isn't about Sorcerer's Apprentice.
No, what are we talking about today?
Today, we're talking about Moonstruck and Guardian Tests.
For that one person who complained, why don't you tell us what those movies are?
Moonstruck is about Cher finding love and all the wrong places.
And Guardian Tests is about Nicolas Cage being kind of a sad gun nut.
Interesting takes.
Yeah. OK, now, Ian, you describe these two movies.
Yeah, we have a guest here, so I don't have to work as hard.
I'd say Moonstruck is is about Cher finding love.
But I wouldn't say in all the wrong places, necessarily.
I'd say it's a story of love for everyone involved.
You know, it's the mom struggling with her.
You know, marriage, veiling dad doing the same.
I mean, it's a it's a whole story of love.
I feel like where Nicolas Cage gets to be an absolute nut
and complained about his hand the whole time. Love that.
Guardian Tests, I would say, is a story of a man
who is disgruntled in his job, hates everything about it.
And it's a kind of full circle finding your way back to what you know,
essentially by shooting someone's toes off, by shooting someone's toes off,
which is the only way to find ourselves back to where we need.
All right. Now you go, Nick.
It's a lot of kissing.
There are both movies.
There's a lot of kissing.
Let's do Moonstruck first. I don't know.
I'm feeling drawn that direction.
All right. The Bella Luna's caught your eye.
The Bella Luna.
I still love the grandpa.
I love all his dogs.
I love that the actor is deaf and just kind of
waited till people stopped talking to give his lines.
It made it so good at the end when he's just like sitting there crying.
He's like, I'm so confused.
Yeah. But I don't know.
Stellar performances from everybody.
It's like just kind of campy and big enough
that everybody's interesting.
Even like the liquor store owner and wife that are arguing or about whatever.
It's interesting to watch. They're fun.
That's cute. All right.
Because I'm going to fuck this up a lot.
Which one's Johnny and which one's Ronnie again?
Johnny is the engaged.
Ronnie is the one who lost his hand played by Nick.
Is the cage. Yeah.
Who has a wolf inside of him?
A wolf wolf. He's got a wolf.
He's a wolf.
Johnny cares about his mom. Ronnie does not. Correct.
I'm just going to put dingbat for Johnny.
Yeah, you got it.
This movie to me is about how women rule and men are dumb children.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt about it the entire time watching it.
Fair. Johnny's such a big baby.
Johnny's a big baby.
Professor Hot Pants is a big John Mahoney.
Yeah, John Mahoney.
How old is John Mahoney in this film?
Probably 55 or so.
People aged more back then.
We had this conversation.
Yeah, it just looked shittier.
Yeah, like we're we're a good
decade older than the cast of Cheers when, you know.
Oh, yeah. When Cheers was going on and we all look younger than all of them.
Indoor smoking was a wild thing.
It's fucking true.
It was only like 45 when this movie came when like this movie came out.
Forty five, forty seven.
Yeah, looked older than that.
Yeah. I mean, he was known as an old actor.
He never played roles as a young actor.
So we all just know him as Frazier's dad.
Essentially, I kind of would like to see John Mahoney, the action star,
like just one high intensity role.
Also, I burn notice he's the villain in the first season of Burn Notice.
Well, that's not what I'm looking at.
He gets he jumps out of one for notice.
He jumps out of a helicopter that I'm looking for,
but I'm not looking for the rest of the show.
I love Burn Notice. I know.
I'll forever deny it.
I was going to also give props on the the Cheers reference
that we got all the way back to Frazier's dad.
So we kind of full circled there. Yeah.
Has anyone seen the Frazier revival?
No, no, I have not.
I hear it's good.
I have heard the opposite.
So Frazier holds up weirdly well.
I watched like the first few seasons on Hulu recently.
But how do you feel about Frazier?
Not in Seattle.
And I mean, he was in Boston originally. Yeah.
For Cheers.
But then Frazier was Seattle. Yeah.
And now he's gone and moved in with his son.
I still really want to play boss dragons and scrambled eggs.
The Frazier. Yes.
I think that's going to be a lot of fun.
I just don't know enough about Frazier to really be good at it. But
the concept of that hurt so much.
What is this?
They made a tabletop RPG based on Frazier.
So it's like Frazier, but with magic mystery.
I don't know, man. I'll send you the PDF.
It's pretty funny.
This might be my birthday game. Oh, we should do it.
Yeah, I would have to actually watch Frazier for a bit.
But I mean, I'd run it. Oh, good. Yeah.
But I think the players still need to understand Frazier related references.
You're playing like Niles and Frazier and the girl Daphne.
Yeah, that's right.
Ross. That's yeah.
I both of them, I think.
Eddie, the dog.
I don't think Eddie is in there.
Too bad he is now.
Hey, that's the power of imagination, right?
My dog is long dead. Oh, yeah.
So is John Mahoney.
Not my imagination.
John Mahoney.
Also, John Mahoney's chair should be a playable character.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
OK, so Moonstruck.
I found it charming on second, you know, go around.
I think it's it's a lot of fun.
I do think that the ensemble cast really adds to everything.
You and I both noticed the same thing on this rewatch when.
Checking my notes, Johnny is talking about his brother,
and he like raises his left hand, he looks at his hand and like
sheepishly puts it away.
Also, what a stupid concept.
It's like I'm pissed at my brother because he distracted me while I was slicing.
He made me look wrong.
Hey, he wanted the bread.
He distracted him while slicing the bread.
By what, like tickling him?
Oh, maybe. I mean, question.
Johnny's really annoying.
I find him quite distracting.
Well, Ronnie is an active listener.
He's a good guy.
That's why he gets share at the end.
He's a hand talker. Yes.
Very passionate about his hand.
I loved all the hand talking in this movie again.
I and as soon as I started to notice again, I was like, oh, that's right.
There was that one aunt who happened to be the hand coach for the whole cast.
Oh, that's right.
And then I was Italian.
What's going on here?
And then I was just a racist stereotype for the rest of the day.
And I'm not upset about that.
It's fine.
Didn't we decide that Italians aren't people?
I'm pretty sure we did during the Captain Kareli's.
Yeah. So that still holds for Italian Americans.
Fair. Do you think he's got attachments for that hand now?
I hope so.
I mean, assuming that that character was a real person
and that we're now 35 years later. Yeah, of course.
Yeah. How do you think that marriage panned out?
Oh, I mean, great.
How could it not?
I think they got divorced and he turned into Dr. No.
And so that's why now he's got like cool claw hands and martial arts.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's better.
He turned to crime.
I can't do a good Ronnie as Dr.
No, I'm going to keep checking the notes for this whole time.
I mean, it is tough to keep it in your head for some reason,
but like it shouldn't be that hard.
No, their names are too similar.
Why did they make it?
Johnny and Ronnie, they have a shit mother.
That's probably why Ronnie doesn't talk to his mom.
It's true. Ronnie does not talk to his mom.
Johnny loves his mama. Yeah.
The scenes with her dying.
So good when he's just like crying at the foot of the bed and she's like,
ah, just waving him off, baby.
So Peter and I talked about this a bit yesterday.
How long a period of time does this movie take place over?
I think about a week.
Yeah, it can't be terribly long.
Like they get it.
Yeah, they get in three days.
On the short end, it's three days.
They get engaged.
She goes to meet between her meeting Ronnie
and her being engaged, Ronnie is.
48 hours. Probably.
They meet at the bread shop.
They go to his place. They sleep together.
Let's also talk about how they are terrible of an idea.
Johnny had to get engaged, then get dropped off at the airport.
Like you're not even going to.
Consummate your engagement whatsoever.
Like, yeah, that's going to go well.
Johnny, that's like a big consummator guy.
Yeah. And she convinces Johnny doesn't fuck.
Johnny does not fuck.
Ronnie, Ronnie Fox.
We all can agree with that.
And also, they're pretty far off in age to be brothers.
I mean, there he could be his dad.
I mean, that's just because Johnny looks like shit.
Speaking of like premature aging.
Now, Ronnie looks like shit to different kind of shit, though.
Fair. And Nicolas Cage still had his baby teeth in this movie.
He did. He was missing that one.
One of the IT one.
Is that the one he pulled out for Birdie?
I think so.
Yeah. Commitment to a bit.
Also, like his fucked up teeth are pretty charming.
Like, I like that look on him a lot versus just veneers.
But I'm not a celebrity.
So yeah, you know, you're not a copula.
Well, my IMDb star power is increasing.
So hey, call me when you reach my level. Yeah.
Are you looking up Danny Ayo's age?
Yeah, it's like a 30 year difference.
Is he really 30 years older?
It's a lot.
I mean, shares quite a bit older to born 1933.
Holy shit. OK.
Wow. He's K. World War two sixty four.
Fuck.
They're brothers. They're totally brothers.
They're one year different.
Their mom. Fucks.
Their mom fucks for real.
I'm crazy.
I mean, he does look like an old dude.
It's like, what is sure.
Why does she like him?
She would be. She's not.
Like, it's just I withered husk.
Can you imagine pushing a baby out of like.
It's just crepe paper.
Maybe that's why they hate each other.
Between two stale.
I was going to say tortillas, but what's Italian to out of like a fucking.
Can I? Yeah. A stale cannoli.
Gross. Gross.
That's so fucking sick.
Sprinkle some pistachios on it when it comes out.
Munger.
That's the border.
That's the summit.
We'll see how much of that makes the cut.
All of it. Yeah.
Oh, God. Fuck.
It's a good thing I'm Italian or else I'd be offended.
You're like, oh, that sounds pretty nice.
Actually, I could go for a cannoli.
A little gabagool.
They got a little.
This whole this whole cast fucking rocks.
Olympia Dukakis is great.
It's just great to say her name. Yeah.
I love when she tells the girl I love when she threatens to beat the grandfather to death.
Oh, yeah. Like you give those dogs any more of my food.
I'm going to beat you to death.
Kick you to death. Kick you to death.
That's very specific.
Kick you to death is a really specific one.
I feel like the cast has a lot of depth, like you even care about the aunt
and uncle for no reason.
And he's got the moon and it's his moon, you know.
And he's such a weird uncle.
It's nice to have that like super sweet, but kind of off.
I love the way he starts it.
I love the way he starts the moon story by I never told you this
because it's not really a story.
I want to.
I saw your father outside with the moon.
You didn't see nothing.
Cosmos, a fucking dick.
I love him.
Him with the people talking about plumbing is so good.
He's just like disgust at least scraping at that pipe.
Look at this. Look at this.
When he gets called out for his philandery at the end
and just like slams the table and sits back down, it's like, well, that's over.
Yeah.
My big stand.
I mean, and his wife just kind of takes it all, almost cheats on him
and then walks it back.
It's kind of like, well, that the whole story is about how women are better than men.
Yeah.
I love a turn.
I remember the line exactly.
But when she's having dinner with John Mahoney,
after he's gotten water thrown in his face the second time this film by a younger woman
and she's and she says, she's too young for you.
And he goes, I'm too old for me.
I relate to that statement.
They're no.
That feels accurate.
I mean, we're about 10 years older or 10 years younger than that right now.
We can we can we can feel that later.
Soon enough. Soon enough.
The Reaper is coming.
And I think we're all middle aged here.
Yeah, but John, not me. I'm not even 40.
I mean, neither am I.
OK. Yeah, I'm close.
Looming. We're all I mean, the three of us are close.
I don't know. Where are you at?
That's fair. I'm going to keep it anonymous and not even not even.
You know, got the grays.
Don't worry. You could be anywhere from 25 to 50.
I feel like that's the whole conversation we've had about this film.
So I'm just saying we could all play teenagers in the 90s.
Oh, absolutely.
Well, what about guarding tests?
How does everyone feel about the baseline for that ensemble
compared to the baseline of the Moonstruck ensemble?
I don't think in guarding tests like everybody stands out the same.
There's there are like background characters.
Yeah. A lot of the other Secret Service agents just kind of background.
Yeah. Now, Frederick, the nurse is awesome.
I can't remember his name.
Yeah, I think the uncle from Harry Potter.
Yeah. The the cast for Moonstruck just stands out nicely.
Yeah. Now the story is more about the family.
Yeah, it's a family story.
Family love.
Hmm. Agree.
Phrasing Nick Phrasing.
And but yeah, I mean, before we jump into guarding test, though,
in like a full on way, like more on Moonstruck.
Yeah. Like I still love it.
I love it's a human story. It's a very yeah.
I lost my head.
I lost my bra.
Johnny has his and Johnny has his bride.
Bring me the big knife.
Josie asked me if I think that he fucks with the hand on or the hand off.
Oh, I'm definitely. Yeah.
That's what I was asking about attachment.
Fuck with the hand. Yeah.
You put the one on that goes like this and then.
Well, what's the other one go like like this?
Yeah, like that. Oh, yeah. OK.
I can wait. And then it's got the one that goes kind of like this.
Oh, that's wild. No, you can't do that.
That's illegal. Listen, man.
Not in his house.
Only in 48 states. Yeah.
Yeah. Chrissy, the woman who works at the bread shop, she has such a small role,
but like her weird obsession with him or weird watery eyes.
Like I really like him.
He doesn't know the bread shop is also wild.
Like, let's talk about how fucking crazy it's the 80s.
It shouldn't have like a dungeon with a guy loading like.
Yeah. Stuff into this.
It literally looks like any underground tour
in like a major metropolitan area.
Right. It's like, oh, these buildings are flooded out and burned and haunted.
And this is where we make bread.
This is my favorite fecaccia stone.
You know, it was probably like I had normal ovens originally,
and then he lost his hand. He's like, no, it needs to be darker.
Fair. I need a place to shovel coal.
Yeah. I mean, what is it?
Queens? Yeah. Right.
So I don't know if every place in Queens has that, you know,
just their own little dungeon, you know, their own little Nicholas Cage waiting there.
I do want to get Queen's thing.
I do want to talk about the lost art of like painted background.
Yeah, I agree. I feel like that that kind of really just went out of fashion.
It's probably because of higher definition stuff.
Yeah. But like there's there's artistry to that.
That's really cool.
And it's just gone. Yeah.
Now let's just make a backgrounds.
OK. Sean, Sean, quit the podcast.
Get the big knife.
Look, it would be faster and cheaper
and we wouldn't have to deal with all those fucking artists and their opinions.
Yeah. God damn artists.
All right. Favorite scene from this movie.
Wow. Run around the table.
Oh, the first time Sharon Cage
hook up and she like she's making him breakfast or food or.
Yeah, she's like, I'm going to make you a steak.
I don't want a steak.
You're going to eat a steak and you're going to like it.
I want it well done.
You're going to eat it bloody.
It's good for your blood.
And then like he eats two bites of the steak and then just fucking sweeps
the table. He's he just picks her up.
She's like, where are you taking me to the bed?
I love it.
It's just the manliest
sex scene that I've ever seen.
Nicholas Cage.
I like how like they go to the bed.
She's like, take me.
Leave nothing left for Johnny.
And then they get up in the middle of the night to look at the moon
and go back to bed.
And the next morning, she wakes up and she's like, Holy fuck.
It's Cosmos Moon. Moon spells.
She was moon struck.
She was.
That's hard to beat.
I don't think you can really beat that scene.
That is probably the best scene.
But other good ones.
I mean, the dinner table scene at the end is just when everyone's like kind of
figuring their shit out and filtering in.
And every time somebody comes to the door, it's like, oh, it's going to be Johnny.
No, it's the aunt and uncle.
No, it's this person.
I think I think the opening scenes really good, too.
I think the Italian restaurant,
you got the waiter who's been his waiter for Bobo Bobo, the waiter.
And he's like, this this is our loyal.
Johnny's been our customer for 30 years.
You know, it's like you get you kind of get brought into the movie
through the Italian restaurants, I would say.
Also, Bobo fucking rules.
Every Bobo in every cage movie is good.
All two of us.
All Bobo's what other Bobo are we talking retirement plan?
I mean, plan. Oh, yeah, you're right.
Yeah. Ron Perlman plays an excellent Bobo.
Ron Perlman's Bobo could definitely kill the other Bobo.
So my best friend growing up was Bobo.
So I had a Bobo. Yeah.
Oh, my God. He's in Korea now.
He's a six foot five Korean man.
You know, that's that's Bobo.
Exactly. That's not where I expected that story to go.
That's a good Bobo. That's a good Bobo.
It's kind of like when you told me about your cobbler or Rachel's cobbler.
Like an actual cobbler.
Remind me of a story that I told you.
I was talking about like some boots and Rachel's like, Oh, you should take him
to my car. I'm like, you have a cobbler and I'm like, like a telling.
I was like, no, Chinese. I'm like, what?
Oh, yeah, that's Rachel's cobbler.
I love that. You're like, yeah, like that.
Sorry, you told me it's a conversation between you and Rachel.
You were in the car. I was in the car.
Yeah. Reminds me of that story.
You were tangentially associated with.
I don't remember the I didn't remember the facts
until I worked my way back.
That's how memory works. We got there.
That's fine. Do you think do you think John has a haberdasher?
No, I've asked him.
I wish I'd be awesome. Buy his hats off the rack.
With a head like that, you got to get custom fits, John.
Gosh, what's the regular at Scott?
Oh, yeah. He's definitely got a haberdasher.
You know, that dude does.
You know, nice hats.
He does. I walked by.
I walked by his house once not knowing it was his.
I just like looked in a window and there was just a wall of hats.
I'm like, Scott, I'm here.
I wrote a song. I wrote a song about it once called How Many Stetsons on My Wall.
Did you have a favorite scene?
I mean, I love I lost my hand.
I lost my bride.
I love the old Italian woman who puts a curse on the plane.
Oh, yeah. She was pretty cool, too.
That's those are the pieces of this.
I'm like, the fuck? Why is this necessary?
It's not weird.
I wrote this movie. Yeah.
Did you know they weren't going to have Nicolas Cage do it?
But Cher request like said she would not do the movie if it wasn't Nicolas Cage.
I love that piece of trivia on this.
Yeah, because I cannot imagine who it would have been.
You know, well, also imagine writing this film and being like, well,
we have to have Cher.
It's like how many movies is Cher even been in?
Like you could have other people do this role, but obviously it is a time and a place.
It makes the movie.
I said this last time, like I've never quite gotten like Cher
as you know, like I don't get the big deal.
And I saw this movie like, I get it. Cher's great.
Good and splash, too.
She was in splash.
Am I misremembering?
Wasn't she? I don't know.
This is an area of film that I don't rewatch.
The 80s Nazi mermaid films.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's that's a different one.
That's Darryl Hannah.
No, Darryl Hannah is great.
Also, yeah, I guess she was in Mermaids.
Sorry. Oh, God.
Get your what a misremembering film
in order.
Fucking mer films.
Where cats mer films.
Oh, man. I don't like what you're becoming here.
So in the matrix of good movie, good cage, bad movie, bad cage, good, bad, bad, good.
Where do you put this one in?
Oh, I put this up.
This is towards the top.
It's the top 10.
My dad was a huge fan of this movie as a kid.
Very strangely, like my dad was my dad was a cop.
But like drank white wine, listened to share and love moon struck.
You know that that kind of that kind of vibe.
This is a cop I can I can get behind.
And both my grandpa's were cops and my other my grandpa's favorite movie
was guarding tests.
So this is a good kind of alignment of my dad versus my grandpa almost.
I was going to say the mustache makes sense now.
Right. That's our tradition.
The only thing I carry over.
We have to.
I think this is a great movie and I love Nicholas Cage's performance in it.
Just even the little things when he comes in at the end
and shares trying to get him out of the house and the mom's like,
do you want to help me? It's like, yes, this is a caporelli cover.
What's the last name? His last names.
What's their last name?
Camareri last name, but I can't remember what theirs is.
Yeah, it's like this chair.
Sure. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, shares mom. I would love some oatmeal. Yeah.
I bet it's going to be good. Yeah.
Well, I think it's a great movie and a terrific performance.
Very full performance.
It's got a good range and he cared the whole time.
Yeah, he was engaged.
So I loved it.
I like how they both have a glow up halfway through.
Yeah. Clean up real nice.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, this is definitely in a it grew on me for sure.
I think that I would count it as a
very good, very good on both sides.
Good. Yeah.
Very good. Very good.
Very good. Even some might say Bill.
Molta Bene.
All right. Well, guarding test, then let's let's talk that one out.
What you got segwayed.
He just said what the next movie was.
Yeah, that's how you do it. Yeah, I know.
Feels like a segue.
It's a meh movie overall.
It's a weird one.
It suffers from trying to do more than it's capable of,
and it's only trying to do two things.
Yes. Yeah.
Well, it's two movies.
Yeah, it's two movies just jumbled into one movie.
Yeah.
The the thriller aspect of the kidnapping comes
too late in the movie.
Like you get like that sense of like shit gets weird
with the driver and whatnot.
But yeah, it doesn't mesh in super well.
The whole having brain cancer thing or the brain tumor doesn't do anything
for this film because this is a movie about her trying to like reconnect
with you with another human being because she's dying or it's just there
for no reason.
And then she gets kidnapped.
And that's kind of what brings them all together in the end.
Well, I mean, assuming what's it probably came out with ninety five ish.
I'm guessing we're all supposed to think this is just Barbara Bush, right?
Or is it supposed to be?
You know, Reagan, like regardless, no one cares about this person at all.
Yeah, right. So it's like the fact that they make her a total
terrible person in it doesn't help because the whole society
already hates this person off the bat.
Yeah, I feel like they really could have leaned into their
growing friendship way more and just fuck the kidnapping plot.
Yeah. Or just just make it more of a kidnapping movie.
Or make it a kidnapping movie.
Right. It's like, go one. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, like I was when I was watching it, we get to the point
where right before she gets kidnapped and she's having her picnic
and he goes and like checks her pulse because she falls asleep.
It's like, I would have been a great time for like, it's like, oh, God,
let's get to the hospital.
They find out they talk about it like you connect all those threads.
No, they just she gets kidnapped by characters
that we've never been introduced to.
I so I was just sitting here not listening and I was thinking to myself,
this movie would be so great if it was like weekend at Tess's
and she dies early on.
But then the president's coming to town for that library.
So Nicholas Cage in the secret secret service has to like
weekend at Bernie's Earth through this whole thing.
I would be a much better film.
I man, I'm already feeling much better about this movie.
I do like that idea that would be really fucking funny.
You think we can get them to do it? Yeah.
I'm just Carlisle.
Yeah, definitely.
Can puppets. Yeah.
Full Marionette.
How do they keep Bernie from smelling in that movie?
Axe body spray.
This is before Axe.
I mean, we can have Bernie's.
It's only one weekend and then we can have Bernie's two.
He's underwater. A lot of that movie.
It's true. He's a zombie.
Yeah. So he's like mostly clean.
I don't know.
Well, I so I probably just processed this out of my brain.
There was a second one. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. He gets turned into a zombie.
Yeah. By a witch doctor.
So he wants his treasure. He's fueled by music.
Yeah. And reggae music makes him walk like steel.
But he get he is empowered by the sound of steel drums. Yeah.
You haven't seen.
National Weekend at Bernie's, too.
Oh, my God, man. It's so good.
I mean, it's not, but.
That sounds so stupid.
You're going to go home and watch it, aren't you?
I'm going to do my best.
Oh, man.
I'm pretty sure I got all that right.
You nailed it. Yeah.
A movie I saw once when I was like nine.
All of that could be lies.
And it's just so good that I want it to be true.
It is true. It is true.
I kind of wish that Sean had just made that up off the dome.
And I went along with it and was like, yeah, it's totally bad.
That's what goes on.
I did this in.
I was describing a scene from what's the train movie?
The ice fall.
And the snow piercer.
Snowpiercer, I was describing a scene from Snowpiercer in a group chat.
It's like, yeah, it's like when Allison Peele pulls the Uzi
from the basket of eggs and shoots Captain America.
Now you're all wondering if I'm fucking with you.
Go watch. No, I like the three different train movies we came up with.
Yeah. Bullet train.
Three times a Yuma.
Good choices. No, sir.
Three times a Yuma is definitely the best of those three.
Oh, yeah. You fucking rules.
I don't know. Bullet train is really good.
I fucking love bullet train.
I mean, Snowpiercer.
Great movie. Great, great, great.
We're just a bunch of fucking train enthusiasts.
Yeah. We're a train pod.
So, Ian, why did your grandpa like this movie so much?
Well, so my grandpa watched mostly Westerns.
I think this just kind of aligns with a shitty Western.
In some ways, you know, it's it's playful, it's fun, everything's going fine.
And then all of a sudden, guys got to take care of business.
And I think that's kind of the way a lot of people from that generation saw Phil.
Yeah, that's fair.
You need to take charge moment.
You need to take charge moment, which I think is who wrote this
was probably that of that generation.
And you're like, oh, this is great.
This whole this whole story kind of like
kind of like cowboy who is told to sit down and relax and not worry.
And then all of a sudden, boom, it's your time. You know. Sure.
He's the tamed cowboy.
He's like got the home out on the ranch or whatever.
Exactly. And as soon as his lady gets taken away,
there's many multiple there's many Nicolas Cage movies that are exactly that.
Yeah. Oh, we need now is the stuff bunny.
Then he finds his spine. Yeah.
Oh, that's great. I love it.
I do like the relationship by the end, because he just like his character
just wants to be guarding the president, guarding someone of import.
He wants like he wants his big action moment towards the end of the film
to track down the kidnappers.
He shoots off the toe of the chauffeur who like helped with the kidnapping.
Yeah. Earl Earl.
When they finally like get to test, you know, it's like the cop,
the other detective was like, he shot a man to find you.
Like, no, you finally you finally got to shoot someone to kill him.
No, ma'am.
And she's like kind of ashamed of him.
Disappointing. Yeah.
Oh, after all your practice. Yeah.
Yeah. What was the point of all that practice?
Well, the other side of it is like, I mean, look, it's the 90s.
How do you kidnap someone in the 90s?
Like you're going to what are you expecting from this?
Like you're going to be rich and walk away.
A million dollars, a million million bucks.
They asked for 15 million.
15 million bucks, which used to mean something.
Sure. But like that's like 45 million now.
Josh, tell us.
It's just like robbing a bank now.
It's like, do you really think you can successfully rob a bank
and just walk away from it?
OK, so I'm from Kansas City and I'm a Chiefs fan.
And there was a Chiefs fan.
Oh, I know the mega.
Babadur. Yeah.
He robbed lots of banks.
He got about a million bucks out of it before getting caught.
That's a lot of work for a million.
It is a lot of work for a million bucks.
But yeah, but he got caught again.
That's the he did get caught. That's the thing.
But he did. He was on the spree for like a year and a half.
All about the rush.
Which one is that? Is that the one that dresses up like a wolf?
Yeah, yeah. That's that one.
Yeah. And also fuck the Kansas City Chiefs.
Yeah, that's right.
But are you you're a Niners fan?
I'm a Niners fan. Yeah, yeah.
I get it. Fair.
I mean, I just don't see the point of of kidnapping or or,
you know, robbing a bank.
You know, it's you're going to eventually get caught.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I don't know, like the house gets flash banged, like helicopter shows up.
And then we see the kidnappers beat to shit.
They got roughed up.
Yeah, that was the hardest this movie goes.
Like, just we're going to enter this home and just assault you.
And then they buried her.
That was the hardest and most honest this film got.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
No, not warrant. Boom.
And then he gets off like from after shooting the guy.
She just calls the president and is like, I don't want anything to happen to him.
Well, yeah, obviously, I mean, he saved her life through that action.
No, I know. But.
And Earl was a shitty driver.
He was a piece of shit. Yeah.
Also, Earl, it was the 90s.
Like everyone just kind of assumed whatever a president says is good.
Yeah. Now it's a different time.
Different times. Yeah.
Now presidents have Twitter. Yeah.
And ex presidents have truths.
Yeah. I love that his stock is just dropping consistently.
Oh, man. Did you see that they're
riding the like NASDAQ or whatever,
claiming like market tampering through short selling?
Incredible. Like people are short selling our stock.
And that's making it worthless.
Yeah, it's worthless because it is worthless.
You fuck. Yeah.
Apparently now, meanwhile, Goon coin, you can get it through the podcast.
That's totally legitimate.
Just send me five dollars in an envelope and I'll send you one.
Goon coin. Yeah, you'll be issued one goon coin.
It's guaranteed to go up.
I love that. Do I get it?
Do I get any good coin for being here today?
Two good coins.
Love that. We have to bribe our guests.
Worthless crypto.
I used to live in a house that we call it physical.
I used to live in a house we called Goon House.
And we were all such trashy people.
There was 13 guys living in this house.
Holy shit. 13 goons.
And so if you walked around barefoot in said house,
you would get a thing called Goon foot.
This is funny because Gooning has its own connotation.
And yeah, different vibes now to different vibes.
So yeah, we would.
Goon foot was a was a real part of my life.
So guarding tests on the grid, bad movie.
Mid cage. Agreed.
Yeah, I I wouldn't go as far as to say it's bad, but it's not great.
It's fine. I think I described it last time as like a Sunday afternoon.
It's on TV and you're watching it with your dad or uncle
or something like that kind of movie. Yeah.
Or grandpa. It's exactly that.
It's a you're watching it on TV because it's on
and somebody has some minor interest in it.
But it's definitely a Sunday afternoon film.
It tries to be more than it is.
Yeah, it tries to wake you up in the second half.
But it just it just is two movies, two different movies.
And like I said, it's kind of a Western and it kind of fits into that film.
But I don't think he really sends it home at the end.
It's kind of meh. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
But a good cage. I enjoy Nicolas Cage.
Yeah, he's a good character.
I mean, he's kind of like you said, he's sort of a gun nut dork.
You know, really just wants to have his piece of the action.
But he's like a nice guy ultimately, you know, like his whole life is just the job.
Yeah. And like he wants that hero like cop moment.
He wants that's what he wants his legacy to be.
And like we see his apartment for a second. It's sad.
Oh, yeah. With like they're like a samurai sword in there.
He's like, Oh, God.
Oh, he's an incel.
I love when he comes back and Frederick's just like, Oh, you're back
to pick up your accoutrement.
And he's like, What?
He's like, You're back to pick up your shit.
Frederick fucking rocks.
He's the best part.
This is definitely.
Oh, so I'll put this in the same category as like Captain Kareli's,
where it's definitely glorifying
an unglorifiable situation like he's being kidnapped.
He's held at will.
And he's got Stockholm syndrome by the end of it.
And you just have to say, Oh, he's better for it.
He's a better man.
Oh, I'll also compare this to Captain Kareli's mandolin in that
it's kind of just a fun, like
awkward, like little movie until it's really not.
Yeah. Then it gets super violent and weird.
It's cute. It's not.
And then it's over. Over.
Yeah. That doesn't really.
That's the thing. It's it's not an action film.
It's a weird, cute film.
And then it becomes an action film.
So it just doesn't have any place to go there. Yeah.
I would love it if this movie
took like an eight millimeter style
turn where it starts out cute
and then it gets really fucking disgusting and like hardcore.
And then there's a fight in a cemetery
where he has to beat the machine to death.
And then like he comes back out and it's just cute at the end again.
Like, I want just like a momentary darkness.
Yeah. But like way more violent.
Got it.
I like that we've managed to now talk about both of the movies
that we're talking about next week in eight millimeter and Captain.
Kareli's.
No, I think it's perfect.
Nice work. Yeah.
A little primer for you.
Adam on for that.
I'll have fun. Yeah, it'll be a good time.
You know, your classic Captain Kareli eight millimeter weekend.
Sounds great.
Oh, man, I can't wait to see what you think.
Talk about dildos again.
Oh, and there's a there's a double Batman connection in these films.
Got Mondros and Schumacher.
Oh, yeah, true.
Batman. Batman.
Mm hmm. Batman's.
Batman. Well, that man.
Well, he was also the mayor of Gotham City in The Dark Knight.
Fun. C. Senor.
I don't know why I'm continuing that.
Well, I think we kind of already know the answer,
but we do have to put it on tape.
Which movie advances?
Yeah. And what would which of these two movies would you put forward
knowing that your opinion does not matter?
Knowing that my opinion does not matter, I would say Moonstruck,
because I think we talked about Moonstruck earnestly and honestly
and had a great conversation.
And then we kind of fucked off
the rest of the. Correct.
So I think we all know that.
But I'll let you all earnestly decide.
I think Moonstruck's an easy choice on this one.
Yeah, it was so refreshing to watch it again.
It's like Weatherman and how nice it is to just sit down
and watch it and be like, Weatherman is just so good.
I enjoy every minute of this.
I don't regret watching a movie.
Like, I don't think about other things I need to do.
It's nice.
What did Guardian test go up against originally?
Can we all just talk about Weatherman for a minute now?
Yeah, that was great.
Man, imagine Michael Caine is your dad and you walked around the city
with a bow and arrow. Done.
And life. Just Michael Caine.
Just my favorite part of that film is just Michael Caine going,
What's all this sucking and fucking I'm hearing about?
Yeah, they call your daughter Camel.
It went up against a matchstick man.
That's right. Wow.
I preferred matchstick men.
These guys did not get it, did not do it for me.
It's just so transparent from the beginning that I couldn't.
It's a good film.
The daughter character just.
There's some gross daddy stuff in that.
But I don't know. Of course.
Of course, but it's still a little better film than guarding tests.
I don't know.
Ah, it didn't do it for me.
This is how the show goes. Yeah.
It. Oh, sweet.
This is why your opinion doesn't matter.
Also, my opinion doesn't matter.
Also, since since we've just did the this preamble for the last hour.
So this podcast, we take 64 Nicholas Cage movies
and put them in a bracket style system and whittle it down
until we eventually get down to the most cages film as decided by Nick and myself.
That's us. Yeah, that is us.
So Moonstruck's going forward. Yeah. Awesome. Good choice.
Anything you want to promote or pitch out there?
Now to that, not much.
Hopefully one day I'll be back when you're getting down to the,
you know, nitty gritty.
Hopefully I can talk Moonstruck one more time.
Maybe if it makes it to the master eight.
I mean, given that you guys picked
guarding tests over matchstick, man, I don't know that
it will make it that far.
Do we know what we should know what's going up against by now?
I'm just going up against Army of One.
Oh, I fucking love Army of One.
God damn, that's such a good movie.
I'm sorry, Moonstruck.
Man, this country is the best goddamn chicken.
I'll go home and watch Army of One.
I'm sorry, everybody.
I promised to.
It's a perfect thing to go finish smoking meat, too.
Yeah, it's 420. Why not?
Yeah, yeah.
Penny boy.
All right.
Also my favorite sword fight ever.
Yeah, it's great.
They get so sourced together once they go, oh,
get stuck in the ceiling.
Yeah. What a dumb movie.
I love it.
Let's talk about Army of One for a minute.
No, we're done.
We're done.
Oh, what are we?
What are we talking about next week?
We already covered it.
It's eight millimeter in Captain Kareli's.
Don't forget to say thank you to Bill.
Yeah, yeah, I got it.
Thank you for listening.
And if you want to hang out with us on social media at all,
cage underscore match underscore pod or cage match pod,
we are on Patreon.
We're also on IMDB, which still chuffs me.
And I mean, you put us there.
I know I did all the work and it's great.
Put us there, but they let us.
They let us do it.
Those fools.
But if you do want to support us on Patreon,
you can find us at cage match and thank you to our sparkle buddies.
Josh, Sean, Josie, Rico, Matt, Adam and Bill
and to our cage dancers, Ira, John Freeman, Lance and Nathan.
I got there. Wow.
Nailed it. Impressive.
That's the most impressive part of the book.
Oh, thanks.
Me remembering 12 names.
Oh, no, that that many people will pay us for that.
That is the most impressive.
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.
What were you going to say?
Something about murder mysteries.
That's ham.
But then I was also just.
Ham piston sounds terrible.
It is prude.
No, that I just got thinking about that clock's Mermater song.
This is a song about murder.
Twenty thousand leagues under the sea.
Well, because we did we did mimosas at least once.
Oh, yeah, we've done them at least at least twice.
And then with the with Moonstruck, we did the champagne with the sugarcube.
Dude, for good luck.
Marissa. Yeah.
Are we getting Marissa back?
If Marissa wants to do Joe.
That could be fun.
That sentence is fun.
Eric doesn't listen to this anymore.
Probably not. Can't blame him.
There's a lot of stuff in this one you can't use for me.
No, that's true.
This is going to be a delicate cut.
Somehow it's all going to get cut in a way that I sound more offensive.
That's the best way.
That's fine.
We just have an audio filter that makes all the horrible things sound like you.
Hmm. You just turn the treble up.