Oh, God. Oh, my God.
Look back, but
don't look back in anger.
Yeah, it's like cool kids don't look at explosions.
And you don't look at poops.
Yeah, I don't look back.
I just hit flush and walk away.
The plumbing situations in God's hand.
Yeah, now God, God has not blessed me with that, so we might be in trouble.
Battery operated vagina.
Oh, yeah, level check warmed up.
What did eight millimeter go up against the first time?
Bad Lieutenant.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, this was definitely a lesser of two evils when
I still have fondness for that one, but I definitely understand for bad lieutenant.
Yeah, I mean, I get bad.
Well, the movie is worse than eight millimeter.
I do not deny that.
I think that cage's performance is wilder and more fun.
So it's another one of those like who the fuck knows how we actually decide
how what are we voting for these days?
Sometimes we vote on performance.
Sometimes we vote on overall movie quality.
Sometimes ensemble. It's like, fuck it.
I mean, this was definitely one where I voted along the lines of
I never want to watch bad lieutenant again.
Yeah, that's fair.
I never wanted to watch eight millimeter again, and now I'm going to have to watch
it another time. You don't know that.
Probably. We've been swayed before.
That's true. But not by the likes of Adam.
No, I feel like I have nothing to add to whatever is about to happen.
Oh, you're a planet, Ed.
Welcome back to Cajamash, calling around about wave, many Nicholas cage.
I'm your host, Sean.
You're with my cohost Nick and our producer Peter.
Hello. And we have back for the third time.
Third third time.
I should have known that answer.
Our buddy Adam. Thanks for having me back.
Yeah, it's the third time because I did in season one.
I did National Treasure two versus the wizard one.
And then I did Primal.
Such a good film versus a different movie.
Actually, after what we watched, you know what?
Yeah. Primal versus National Treasure.
Was it National Treasure?
I think it was. Yeah, I did both national.
Of course, I did. Yeah. National Treasures.
Thank you for letting me do both national.
Yeah, of course. Nobody had the gumption takes real courage
to come on this show.
This is a show.
I'm actually going to get this out at the beginning of the podcast this week.
I'm amazed. I love it.
So the show where we take 64 Nicholas Cage movies and March Madness
bracket style, Nick and I decide what is the cagiest film of all
based on metrics that sway wildly.
Yeah. And I mean, what I really like is that this is a prime example
of like how weird the bracket can be.
Like this is in the serious guy bracket.
And we have two movies that are very dissimilar.
Yes, we have Captain Kareli's Mandolin,
romantic wartime drama and eight millimeter.
A romantic wartime drama.
He goes through his own personal war.
At first, when I was watching these, I watched eight millimeter
and I was like, oh, Peter Stormare. Awesome.
And I was like, that's our connective tissue.
He's also the Swede.
And I was like, no, he's not in Captain Kareli's.
No, that was wind talkers.
There's no common thread.
Nicholas Cage is in both of them.
Hey, there's our.
Threat.
Adam, why don't you tell us all about Captain Kareli's Mandolin?
Sure. Why not?
A perfect circle, because it was fucking pointless.
There's nothing redeeming about this movie.
Actually, you know what? I'm not going to say that the set
and costume design were all pretty good.
It had a bang and cast Penelope Cruz was pretty good,
which I would normally never say.
I've never been a big fan of hers, but I thought this was one
she was pretty good in.
Christian Bale was good.
I was watching it this morning.
I was at my I've been at my friend's house this weekend,
taking care of his dogs.
And I tend to watch almost everything with screenshots on.
You remember the scene where they're unloading all the sandbags
so they can blow up on the bottom of the beach scene in the movie?
And the guys are the guys are singing as they're unloading sandbags.
Men's men's scatting because they're singing in Italian.
I want to show you this one of the picture while we're here.
Is that Rainn Wilson? Yeah.
Or is that old Nick? Right.
It's about the same thing.
Yeah, I absolutely thought that was an age filter.
Yeah, I have to go through a John C.
Riley phase before I really settle into my Rainn Wilson elderly years.
But it's a good arc.
So I thought I thought John Hurt did a fairly solid job, but
really, the best performance in the movie was David Morrissey.
He was great.
I thought he I thought, I mean, you know, we're we're working on a comparative
spectrum here because it's this movie.
So the best character was the Nazi.
I the best performance.
The best character is the guy who gets the peace stuck in his.
Yeah, so he gets to take it out.
And then once the people in later.
I movie has so many so much depth to it.
It's a it's about an hour and 50 minutes between credits.
And this took me maybe almost three hours to watch.
I just found it very, very difficult.
The Nick Cage and Penelope Cruz have no chemistry on screen.
He's just that's not that was not a good role for him.
You don't like his accent work.
No, I didn't.
I didn't like it.
I did like when he said, fuck off.
Yeah, that's it.
That was my quote for the from the first season.
I believe, yeah.
Was that also was that his first line in the film?
No, he said, you know, Bella, Bella Bambino.
Oh, yeah.
He cat calls. Yeah, that's right.
But this the the storyline just didn't make sense.
If this movie had been made from more of a perspective of like,
we're doing a historical drama and there's a love story,
maybe there would have been legs there.
A lot of what they tried to portray apparently really, really happened.
Like the earthquake also happened.
Oh, fun, because I was at my friend's house when he's out of town.
He just leaves a radio station on for his dogs.
And I didn't bother doing anything with that.
So I listened to the I just had the radio on as I was watching this.
And during the earthquake scene in the finale,
Bloyster Colt came on.
Don't fear the reaper.
Don't fear.
Like, I mean, at the same time as the earthquake,
like John Hurt falling down the bottle breaking on the floor.
Just some ripping cowbell. Yeah.
So just a quick reminder.
What this film is actually about is a thing
on what's the island, Catalan, California or something
Italian during World War Two.
Italian troops occupy this island.
Yeah, Grecian Island, Grecian Island.
And Nick Cage plays Captain Kareli and falls in love with local
lady, local mandolin, Penelope Cruz. Yes.
What did I say?
And what did I say about this movie?
The first time we watched it like, man, does she want to fuck that mandolin? Yes.
I stand by it.
Also, for this move, this being about a movie about this man's mandolin,
doesn't come into play that much. Not a lot. No.
So yeah, I mean, so it's maybe it comes in more in the book.
But for the movie, they really don't focus that much on it.
They take the strings off of it to repair his broken arm.
Yeah. But I think or maybe some broken ribs.
There was a lot going on. Yeah.
You get shot. It's a rough day.
The way it was filmed, the setting, the script,
the amount of music
that they were incorporating could have had more mandolin, honestly. This.
They didn't want to overshadow the man.
This this script would have been great for a theater performance.
Awesome. That's what this movie should have been.
High schoolers. At least the first two thirds of it.
Yeah. Yeah.
But the last 20 minutes were the only interesting parts of it.
Now, this movie takes a hard turn into just wartime drama.
I mean, it's sort of the sound of music doesn't mean I like
sound of music either, though. Fair enough.
I also haven't watched the sound of music since like the third grade.
And about the same amount of mandolin, same amount of singing, too.
There's a lot of singing in this movie.
The Italians are very cheery and singy and.
This whole thing felt like
20 separate one acts that all involved the same characters of the same story.
But there were there would be scenes that just happened
without any lead in.
And then the next scene had nothing to do with what had just happened.
And we're never going to revisit that again.
There's probably some like master cut of this that's five hours long.
And all things are explored.
But is that is fucking wants to watch that.
That's the only reasonable explanation for what I had to watch today.
I forgot about it, but I noticed again this time when the Italians.
Sorry, one second.
I'm going to say that to you.
Hey. Other dogs exist.
I get shot.
Somebody do something about it.
Hey, if he gets shot, you want to join the podcast?
You've invited me back for a third time, but it's like you could.
You could do this full time if he gets killed.
We're all basically cogs that can be replaced.
We're not trying that hard.
How's your Photoshop work?
Come on, man.
You're going to do that.
I can barely use an iPhone.
So when the Italians are like flying over the island
and the Italians like parachuting on the island is done really poorly.
So when you have the paratroopers coming down,
but they are disappearing behind the planes that are flying behind them.
The scales all fucked up again.
This is my weird artist eye.
So I just see these things that no one else pays attention to.
I didn't pay attention to actually to illustrate how I much
how much I agree with you on that when that scene was happening, I was like,
these people are they dropping supplies here?
There is no context for any scene.
It's funny.
Then there's the big fight at the end for reasons.
Right. Because they have to make him sympathetic,
like Italian, like it's important to remember.
Italians aren't people.
Italians are not people.
I think I boldly made that declaration last time we watched this movie.
Last week, too, we decided it's OK.
It's not racist if they're Italian.
Actually, one of my biggest takeaways from this is the very last scene
when he just shows up and she's like looking for lemony.
He was like, oh, she's down over there.
I was doing the whole like I tried to live without you,
but I can't live without you.
And all I could focus on was suit.
The reason was because of when that movie was made, when we did the
when we did the episode with National Treasure
and I was making fun of Sean Bean's suit being so overly sized.
And Peter was like, it was of an era.
And that's like I sat there looking at I was like another suit made by Jinko.
And then I just heard Peter go, it's of an era.
And it was like, oh, my God, why?
Why are there no tailors?
You know, five years ago, what I took away from that scene,
this is the this movie does one thing perfectly that no other movie
we've watched has done.
And this movie is the best movie because of it.
Nick Cage gets a haircut between leaving the island
and coming back several years later.
Yeah, I hate when people have the same haircut for seven years,
and it's the same length.
Do you remember what this movie went up against in season one
because this went through is like, oh, it was against Lord of War.
Oh, yeah.
Lord of War was bad.
Yeah, that's another that's one that I did not make it through.
I did make it all the way through both of these films.
That's literally the bare minimum.
I'm asking you this the minimum for this.
This was this was a rough round for me, I'm going to be honest.
Yeah, the juxtaposition on these two movies is something else.
Listen, they can't all be bangers.
The so a millimeter has some bangers in it.
I was just thinking about how great of an idea would be to just continue
inviting Adam onto the podcast forever,
but not actually doing the bracketed movies
and not telling him just constantly worse and worse movies.
Seasonal, you know, I don't know how all of these keep making it further
in the bracket, Adam, but we're going to need you to watch 211
and pay the ghost. So have have any of you
like watched White Christmas recently?
I mean, no. OK, so I'll watch White Christmas
on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
And then we just watch like Hallmark Christmas movies all night.
But I watch White Christmas at least once a year.
And it's White Christmas.
It's a little, you know, white supremacy movie from back in the day.
If anybody remembers it, it starts out in wartime
and because it was made like 70 years ago,
the set is clearly like just a painted backdrop
and really bad lighting.
And what they were trying to do to imagine
what war might be like for people.
And this movie reminded me of that.
It was just like all of it was filmed on a stage somewhere.
And it is actually filmed on the island where all of this happened, I believe.
And it's like it was a gorgeous setting.
And they still took no advantage of what they had.
And they just it was like a different director.
Every scene. I do enjoy a movie like those sorts like.
OK, we have Greeks and Italians, but everyone's going to speak English.
But just to remind you that the Greeks and Italians, every once in a while,
they'll say one word in a different language.
That really bothered me.
Apparently, Ebert, one of his biggest beefs with this is like
a character said something in English with an accent
and somebody else said in English, what did he say?
And then it was repeated
in English, but in a different accent.
And it was like, man, we're not trying here at all.
I really like that this movie had prostitutes in it.
Were they? Do we know that?
We had to have been. They were hanging out with Italians.
Oh, yeah. She's.
A real quiet Mike night for Nick until right then.
Yeah. Like, OK, they do call them prostitutes.
So if they're paid to be there, like is it just a free vacation?
Like all expenses paid thing, are they getting paid by the hour?
It's probably like an expense account thing. All right.
Wait, do you build that to the government?
The Italian government? Yeah.
So most of the taxes go
our prostitutes and cigarettes.
I was sort of trying to figure out while I was watching it,
like, where's Nick Cage going to just do Nick Cage shit?
And no, I actually it I didn't notice it when it was happening.
And it might have been scripted.
I don't want it to have been.
But when the character, I think his name was Carlo came in,
he had been fighting in like Albania or something.
And then they sent him over to this island. And he like.
Nick Cage's battery was admitted that, oh, we haven't seen any action.
We're just we're just hanging out on the beach,
doing whatever we want singing because we all like opera.
It was like, do you sing?
And then just started singing and was like trying to bring him in
and like hand motions and like, oh, hand motions.
And he just stood there silently.
It's very possible that Nick Cage just did that.
And the actor playing Carlo was I don't I don't know what I don't know
what we're doing because he just stood there and stared blankly.
Either way, it's pretty good.
Carlo also seriously loved Captain Curly.
I mean, through no like real reasons that we see.
But like when he gives her when he gives Palme Cruz, the speech is like
that you love him.
You think without him, your world would end or whatever.
That speech is like, oh, you also love this guy enough to die for him.
Yep. Yeah. Was he was he the human shield?
Yeah, that's what I thought. He's the biggest one.
Yeah. The most absorbent.
It's bullet sponge is a term in video games.
Yeah, right. Screw you.
Fuck off. Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
I found the whole thing kind of disjointed.
It was too many stories.
None of them really fleshed out at all.
And then there's just like a bunch of people just get murdered.
Then there's an earthquake and then it's over.
Yeah. I think this movie is it.
I don't feel as negatively about this movie as you do for sure.
But I think that the first two thirds of it are really the only parts
of the movie that I care for.
Yeah, it could definitely have just been a series of rumps
around the island and just make it a little more of a comedy.
Yeah, that's weird.
Having a comedy about an Italian soldier during World War
two and his prostitutes.
But it would have been a lot of fun and I would have enjoyed it.
Parts were fun.
Little bits and pieces.
You get that kind of vibe with Mondra's in a way.
I mean, it doesn't go on a comedic route.
It's a little playful until, you know, and his mom makes fun of his penis.
Yeah. Yeah.
His mom does make fun of his penis.
Let's pitch a different titles for this movie,
because mine's the kakoldri of Mondra's.
I didn't come prepared to play your games.
And I don't have a follow up for that.
I think you just renamed it.
Yeah.
I did think it was a really stupid name for the movie after I saw it was like,
I want to say I'd be curious to read the book,
but my only reason for wanting to read the book was would be to confirm
my bias against the execution of the film adaptation.
Oh, I thought you were going to say confirm your bias against books.
I knew it. These things are bullshit.
OK, I can't remember.
Does John Hurt have a voiceover narration at the beginning of the movie?
Is it just at the end where they throw that in because they were done with this film?
No, it doesn't.
No, it's with the media res with the P. All right.
So, yeah. So this movie just at the end is just like,
and here's John Hurt kind of just hand wiping away the rest of the film.
We're getting over now.
But they kind of try that tight in with him writing a note to Captain Correlli
because she gets a record from Italy of the song he wrote for her.
But on guitar.
Yeah. Which like, what the fuck?
Well, you have one one job.
Play a fucking mandolin.
Yeah, the strings are inside his body.
He couldn't play it.
I like in the letter he wrote, like, I do not know if you are alive
or if someone sent your record and like,
you know, obviously he lived long enough to record a record.
So probably alive.
It's an odd film.
And I didn't care that they were together in the end.
It also just doesn't make a lot of sense that they would have been,
especially after that one lady got hung.
Yeah, straight up.
Rung up. Yeah.
Like just for, you know, the crime of liking a Nazi.
He was the captain of the Italian battery that was.
On a military like occupation of their country.
There's that scene right in the middle where he's like
saying something about the like the way he feels about her
leaves him feeling hopeless or something.
How I felt about the film and that scene.
But like, and then they just sort of like fuck in the woods.
And it's like none of this makes any sense that this would ever happen.
I will say them fucking in the woods at one and a half speed is hilarious.
I would recommend.
So that's I had no interest in revisiting this movie, but OK until now.
I mean, when you said you were going to like one and a half speed,
these films like both these films would be great chipmunked.
Well, it is. Yeah.
I mean, you kind of get that vibe, but it also has sort of that like
old school film vibe where it's like people trying to outrun a train
or like a building falling and then they're just standing in the doorframe.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So on the matrix of good movie, good cage, bad movie, bad cage, good, bad, bad, good.
Orac, where do you place this movie in this cage?
I thought it was a I thought it was a bad movie and I thought it was bad cage.
And I don't think it was bad cage because of anything he did.
I think just a bad casting choice that like
there are actors who could have played that role.
But a dramatic romance is not Nick Cage.
It just it just did not work for me.
If they had done his role like that, Wally's Wonderland or whatever,
where he just didn't say a word, maybe.
He does all of his speaking through his fingers.
Just yeah. That's that's that's very Italian of him.
When he was talking about how hopeless he felt and he was like,
and he he just written that song and played it for on Pandaline.
It's like my hands felt wooden.
This movie sucked.
I'm sorry. This movie sucked.
Yeah, I agree.
That's like Nick Cage is not right for this role.
And or if you want to have this performance,
this needed to be a more lighthearted screwball comedy.
Yeah. Or more about war like that could have worked, too,
because then he could have like been a weird
Italian army captain and like cage out and shoot guns.
And oh, yeah. Like if he went full fascist.
I don't know what you're trying to bait me into here.
I'm not. They're the Italians.
They're part of the axis.
They were. These are.
Facts. So I.
And are you are you denying these things happened?
It's. Are you denying these facts about World War Two?
That's another.
That's another weird thing about this movie is you don't know.
They make everybody into somebody you're trying to root for.
Tip Mondras. Yeah.
Fuck Mondras.
And all he ever did was stood up for his fucking island.
Yeah. And get shot in the ass.
Yeah. And tie his fiance to a chair for no reason.
He is kind of a douche bag.
Yeah. But yeah, he like he they get engaged.
And then at the party, he ties her to a chair and like pranks her.
Yeah. Ties like the back ribbon of her dress around the ladder back of the chair.
He looks so chuffed about it, too.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, it was a pretty good prank.
OK. Not just does some fucking fantastic, like little hops
and skips back before he goes to war the first time he like is a joyful little child.
And then it gets beat the fuck out of him.
Now, the scene where he was introduced,
when he gets shot by a bunch of rocks out of a cannon.
I think the way it's introduced, because there's still all the smoke
from the cannon fire, I thought that was going to be that was Nick Cage.
Just because that's the only part where like somebody's like
seriously screaming in a cage way.
He just like shazam out of that cannon.
Yeah. He was a genie.
It was like like a whole bunch of rocks got fired out of Canada
as like a show of like we're having this party and then there's just like,
Oh, God, it hurts.
I was like, it's a weird way to introduce Nick Cage.
And I don't know how a mandolin is going to come into this.
And then it's Christian Bale.
It's Christian Bale and his bare ass.
The machinist himself.
So Nick, what do you think?
I'm not opposed to Nick Cage's performance so much.
You know, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen him do.
It is not a good movie, though.
Maybe maybe like I said, the first two thirds are fine
ish for me if I just leave them as what they are.
But it's not a great movie.
Good Nick Cage and I don't know, tepid movie.
You give that good Nick Cage.
Good enough. I mean, again, I don't think and you even said like, you know.
I thought we were rating this on cagey performances.
Yeah, I read it on rules all the time.
Like how I feel.
OK, it wasn't it wasn't the worst thing I've seen him do.
And he was sorry.
Oh, no, I think he did what he was hired to do for this film.
I think everyone did.
Which is probably why it felt rare, because I don't think he ever does
what he's hired to do.
He does occasionally have to think about getting another job, though.
Yeah, that's true.
Let's talk about snuff films. Yeah.
Adam, why don't you describe the describe your favorite snuff film?
Yeah. Now describe the plot of a millimeter.
Oh, man, I watched this with Ramona and both of us were like
both whose first time either one of us had seen it.
And it was like, what the fuck?
How did this get written?
It's especially odd when you think about that.
This is also the director of
what's the vampire film, Teenage Vampires.
Twilight. Now earlier than that, on the boardwalk,
Kiefer Sutherland. Oh, yeah.
Lost Boys. Yeah, the same directors Lost Boys.
I think he's like a private investigator.
Yes. See. And some woman's looking for her missing daughter
and had been like six years or something.
Sorry if I get some of these details wrong.
And some of the evidence she had was, I mean, a snuff film that her
daughter was in.
And she was like, I can't be real.
And Nick Cage decides to take it on.
And then his wife decides to take it off.
Catherine Keener does not take it off.
Yeah, she really found this performance.
Dude, she's a good actor and she's so.
Yes, it's really bad. She's great.
She's sweet.
She misses you. Yeah.
And then he so he just like he's.
Play your wife.
That would make your husband rather stay in L.A.
watching snuff films and come home to you.
Yes. So that was the prompt.
Nick Cage starts trying to investigate this and and finds himself getting deeper
and deeper into the apparent seedy world of snuff films
and looking for what was the name of the character that had the machine?
The machine. Thank you.
Because you said machinists and I started laughing.
I was like, yeah, there's the connective tissue.
And I was going to get I was like, that definitely was not Christian Bale.
Awkward sex scenes also.
And then, OK, gross.
And so kind of figures out that that this girl had
had been murdered in a snuff film and starts trying to track down the people
that did it and then decides like, I'm going to find them
and I'm going to take retribution into my own hands.
And then just it's it's it's kind of like
I can see how it relates to Captain Kelly's mandolin,
because in the last 20 minutes of the movie, everybody just gets fucking murdered.
Yeah. Like it's just it just becomes a bloodbath when before that, it was like
kind of an interesting concept of a film, I guess. Yep.
So you had most of that.
The that's all I care to remember about it.
He gets the job from the wife of like a deceased rich dude.
And she was like, hey, we were she's old.
And she's like, hey, hey, I was going through my husband's things.
And I found this this porn.
You have to watch it and tell me it's fake.
And then he was like, I can't say that it's fake, but I'll look into it.
I'll give you all the. That's right.
I'm sorry. I was thinking of a scene where he calls the girl's mom.
Yeah. It's just like.
Tell me I can hurt them.
Tell me you want me to hurt them.
That's a weirder way to introduce this whole story
is just like a rich widow in a mansion.
Well, it ties in the involvement of the lawyer and all this other stuff.
Yeah. It's also the sleazy lawyer from Kiss of Death.
So what? And Peter Stormare from Windtalkers and.
Rage. Rage.
Yes, because he was in a wheelchair in that, right?
Yeah. Well, iron sides.
If Jeremy Irons ever gets into an accident and has to use a wheelchair,
I'm going to have the hardest time not calling him Jeremy Ironsides all the time.
Yeah, like I don't ever think or talk about Jeremy Irons.
But if he was in a wheelchair,
I would talk about him a lot for like three weeks.
You think Jeremy Irons is on Twitter?
I'm going to tag him.
Oh, Jeremy Ironsides.
Yeah, we should start like making a bunch of ableist comments towards him now.
Just really taunted for his disability.
His potential future disability.
100 percent.
Oh, yeah. Good idea.
All right. I'm here. I want it, guys. Let's do this.
So the thing that made me really hate eight millimeter
was that I had never seen it and it was life changing.
It was made.
It was made at a time when M. Night Shyamalan was culturally relevant.
And so the whole time you just know
that there's going to be a plot twist when it comes to the machine.
And you just know and you know, and then you finally get the the Scooby
Doo like stripping of the mask.
And it's just the guy from True Blood who hadn't been introduced
to at all and is just another dude in the movie now about to be murdered.
He had like 20 seconds of screen time.
So disappointing.
He did some body work, though.
Yeah. OK, fine.
He has the soft.
We don't know.
Lumpest flesh, though.
But his body like.
Sorry, Chris Bauer.
Just feels so it looks just so full.
And it's like also he's actually a pretty good actor.
So could they just only get him for the one day
because he was working on something else?
Because how do you get a good actor like that and just keep him in a mask the whole time?
Yeah.
He has like three lines before he gets shot.
The movie's two hours long. Yep.
And I spent like an hour and 40 minutes, like a hundred minutes
trying to figure out who was going to be
the villain that we've already been watching like.
And it just was nobody.
Oh, I mean, it's rich people, I guess.
Sure. Was that really the message they were trying to send with this movie?
I don't think so.
Rich people are always the problem.
Yeah. They got all this fucking good ass porn.
They're not sharing.
Making one of ones not showing me.
Also, Joaquin Phoenix is in this movie.
Yeah. Joaquin Phoenix.
As Max California.
Best role in the movie.
He's fucking great.
He's great in this.
Yep. It's got a great death.
Throat slit. Yeah.
On that weird cross. Yep.
Killed by the machine at the will of Dino Velvet.
Oh, my God. So many great names.
Oh, OK.
I'm still blown away by the like score in this movie.
It's so off putting all the like really weird, aggressive kind of
it's it's very women music.
Yeah, it feels like racially charged music.
Like this is a movie about terrorism, but it is not.
It not. I mean, like to me, it sounds like the music that
Zack Snyder used for Wonder Woman scenes.
Same vibe. Yeah.
Terrorist. I didn't I didn't pick up on that.
Now I'm I'm.
They have to go back and watch it.
I mean, I I I still have it.
Oh, you got it. I still have it.
Exactly what I'm talking.
I still I still have it rented for another 24 hours.
I could do it. Yeah, dude.
Who doesn't want to watch eight millimeter twice in two days?
I'm taking PCO tomorrow.
I guess so.
You know, instead of instead of doing my subject tank project,
I'm going to watch eight millimeter.
It's going neck deep and shit either way.
Thank you, Sean.
Well, what did you guys think about it for this rewatch?
I still enjoy it.
It's a lot of fun for me.
I love just how deep and weird this world goes.
So Sean, did you say it's a good movie?
Yeah, it's a good movie.
It's a good movie.
It's an uncomfortable movie, but that doesn't mean it's not good.
I don't think it's a good.
It was a good movie.
It lulled me into a place of security.
And then it's.
I felt good.
I felt good watching it.
Yeah, but that's because like I've heard at least two real stories
of your life where you have just found bags of porn.
So this is kind of, you know, a dream world.
Like, OK, I mean, it's not a comfortable movie to watch.
And it's about a lot of dark shit, but like the performances are good.
I don't think anything about it's like actively terrible.
Except for Cage's wife.
Yeah, but she's barely in it.
It's like it's not overly.
I mean, it's it's long, but it's not.
I don't think there's a lot of wasted time there.
No, I mean, in general, I agree.
I can't think off the top of my head of like, oh, these three scenes
were totally worthless and could have been cut out entirely.
I mean, sometimes you can really do that with these movies, but.
Everything about the baby could have been cut out.
There's no need for the baby.
I mean, it's the loose risk that Dino Velvet is going to do something
to his family, but like, you know, we don't need to know
that his daughter's name is Cinderella.
But we do now.
I assume that was a nickname.
I know. I know you assume that you assume that last time, too.
But why use it in the first time that you address the child?
I don't know.
It only has to be her name.
But I always forget Cinderella by the end of the film
because they forget about you forget about his family immediately.
There was no actual risk to them.
Yeah, because she's sweet.
Other than second, she misses you.
I I really just I think that's movie had a lot of potential.
I think the story had a lot of potential.
And I agree with you.
There are some really good performances.
It just felt like it was written during a writer's strike.
I don't know. The script felt very June like JV to me.
Like it was it has the feel of like a true
like based on true events kind of movie where it's a lot of just like
matter of factual scenes like this happened, then this happened,
then this happened and says, being like that's a good overly like
that's what's the Ramatize I feel.
So it it has kind of those vibes.
And like, I don't have a problem with that.
I think what this would have been better for me is if it had actually been
like an eight to 12 part TV show like The Killing or something like that,
where it's just a murder mystery spread over a long period of time,
diving into the weirdo scenes and porn.
You can bounce between different locations in the country
without it feeling so fucking jarring.
You know, I don't know.
I think that would help this to not be a movie
and be something else.
All right. Yeah, I I I can agree with that.
A quick, tidy mini series.
And I mean, I was disappointed mostly because I expected there, like
for a film like that to not have kind of a major twist in the third act
was really weird for me.
It ended like Lord of the Flies where it's like and then Nick Cage showed up
and it was over like it just just sort of.
That how Lord of the Flies ended.
It's been a long time since I've read that one.
Do you remember the Lord of the Flies episode of The Simpsons?
No. The way they ended that episode was a narrator came over and was like,
and then they were all saved by, I don't know, let's say Mo.
And then it's like, OK, so there was.
Yeah, there's not really a big reveal or a big villain.
He just finds he just goes down the rabbit hole and finds out
who, you know, paid for the tape, which was the lawyer who dies.
And then Peter Stramair, who filmed it, dies and then.
He tracks down Gandolfini, kills him and then goes back to New York
to kill the machine.
So there's not really like a villain other than
just horrible people in the world.
And so, and again, it has that kind of vibe of like
more of more of a true crime, like we're based on true events
where you kind of like, hey, we're not really here for a twist.
At least that's what I got out of it.
I wish they would have done a better job for the audience
setting up that you're getting yourself into more of a drama
than like a psychological thriller.
Because the whole time I was waiting for the like,
what's going to be the weird thing?
OK, did you have a favorite deviant?
I really like the really tall, skinny like skeleton guy.
He's your favorite, too. Absolutely.
Yeah. With his little like, like garters and stuff.
Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, that guy's amazing.
Yeah. He really did a good job.
I don't know. I hadn't thought about it that way.
Which purveyor of like sex did you appreciate the most?
Well, I mean, given the mask I'm wearing, I think
say the machine. Yeah.
Yeah. You definitely came in full like machine garb today.
And I appreciate that.
It took me by surprise when you voiced your opinions on the movie. But
I don't know that I don't know that I'm going to answer your question
the way you might be asking it.
Joaquin Phoenix was a really great character for me in this
because I could never quite figure out if he was a good guy or not.
I mean, there there's like a lot of a lot of it.
I was like, he definitely is doing some murdering.
He thinks Max California is like a.
But that's I mean, that's how I had set myself up.
Like as we were moving in through the film, that's I built my expectation
that that somebody was hiding something and like a character
that we were getting to know was really, really hiding something.
So I thought he did.
He was he was my favorite character in the whole movie.
Nick and I have watched it before.
And I remember my first watching assuming Max California was going to kind of.
Be on the wrong side of things at one point, but no, it's just a just a decent
just a decent place. Yeah.
Yeah. Nick Cage was really bad at asking after snuff films.
He was just like going up to anybody being like, snuff film.
You got you got snuff.
Yeah. And everybody was like, I'll fucking kill you if you say snuff.
It's like, why don't you just say no, dude?
We don't carry that.
Got real extreme, real fast.
Who do you think this place is?
I do. I do like a den of filth.
Max California, like a particular snuff.
Here's something that's real dumb, though,
because I did not know what I was getting into with this movie.
And I don't know. That's why I wanted you to do it.
I don't know. I don't know.
You're welcome. I don't know anything about handguns.
So I definitely thought this was going to have to do with handguns and not move.
Like, oh, yeah.
Different kind of shooting here. Yeah.
And that's the thing now is I don't even know if there's like an eight millimeter
handgun. There might be.
I have no idea.
I don't know anything about handguns either.
I don't know anything about handguns.
Just about snuff.
We're looking at you, Nick.
I mean, more popular is the nine millimeter.
I don't think there's an eight millimeter.
What's your cop audience like?
I would guess our cop audience is very low.
Hey, if anybody out there is a cop, you got to drop down in the comments
and tell us.
You trap us in part by law.
Yeah. One comment per cop, please.
Yeah, I I had it orderly.
I had a drop a mustache emoji in the comments.
I had I had no clue what I was getting into with this movie.
I I kind of remember when it came out.
And actually, I had I think it came out around
same year, maybe, or thereabouts of a snake eyes.
Yeah, it's a snake eyes is 98 and this is 99.
Yeah. And I had seen snake eyes in the theater.
And that's the only time I've seen snake eyes.
But I actually couldn't remember.
And I mean, I thought I might be watching that again.
So it was a very it was like a total like I did the same thing
the first time around.
And then and then I was watching with my wife, who is.
An appropriate level of discomfort with snuff.
What a square.
Can you define that for me?
So I know where I stand in this.
Nick wouldn't want to say anything rude or untoward about this.
So I'm not going to say anything rude.
They don't want to say anything rude about this.
Yeah.
Before I get into my Bailey's morgue file.
She's she's teaching herself watercolors.
So she's like painting my family farm and watercolor
while we're watching this movie together.
The whole experience was weird, guys.
Watercolors are a wildly inefficient way to paint a farmhouse.
gonna get good coverage.
You're an idiot.
Well, I had one thing, one request, Nick, for this because this came out in 99 and we were talking earlier this week about how movies of this era had wraps.
Want you to freestyle a little rap about eight millimeter.
Yeah, if you're dome.
Yeah.
Wait, you freestyle?
I've known you for years.
This is fucking fire dog.
Is I thought you were learning to bake during COVID you free freestyling.
You threw you threw a bag of bread at me over my fence because we couldn't get near each other in 2020.
I'm not going to pursue this.
That's fair.
Just like, you know, most things I take up in life.
I will continue to pursue them.
No, I'm not.
I'm not freestyle rapping.
Okay, very disappointing.
What did I?
That's the most I could have hoped for out of that bit.
Why am I using why am I using PTO tomorrow?
Then I came over here.
The promise that I was going to I was going to get us a wrap.
So Sparkle buddy.
I know I need a cool down period after I watch eight millimeter because it's hard to get back into my work pants.
The front's real tight.
So I got to take a day.
I will say I watched this on Thursday and I actually fell asleep and I fell asleep with about 25 minutes to go.
And I woke up right at the end and Romano was like, you're going to have to go back.
There was no reveal.
Everything we find out.
We find out who did it.
We know who the machine is.
And so I go back and then I watch it and I was like, so the machine is just some dude.
She was like, I know it's so dumb.
She liked the machine was the old lady.
She did such a great job of building me up to thinking like, oh, shit, I can't believe I fell asleep.
I gotta go back.
And it sucks.
It's all going to come around the whole time.
We're going to tie this up into a nice, tidy little package.
The real villain, I guess, was the lawyer, which I could have told you.
Yeah, lawyers are bad.
Yeah.
Cop adjacent.
Yep.
So on the spectrum of good movie, good cage, bad, good, good, bad, bad, bad, bad, good, good, bad, bad, good, bad.
Where do you put this?
Even though I didn't like it.
I'm going good.
Good.
Like it.
I don't want to really watch it again, but.
I misunderstood what it was supposed to be.
And I also kind of go went in thinking it was snake eyes.
That one.
That one's on me.
I take responsibility.
How did you think this was a G.H.L. movie?
I think for me, I don't like this movie that much, but I agree.
I liked it more this watch than I did the movie.
I agree. I liked it more this watch than I did the first time.
So I will say good, good, because I do think cage does a good job, even though he's really not that cagey in a major way.
It's just it's a better performance than Corelli's.
And a better movie.
That is also true.
And weirdly more mandolin.
And they fuck this one.
Yeah.
I'm still very positive on this movie.
I like it.
I'm still good.
Good.
I think the things that I dislike the most about it are all wrapped up in the wife and like his relationship, like him gaslighting her in the beginning, being like smoking.
I'm not smoking.
You're you're crazy.
It's like that didn't have to be none of that plays out.
Nobody cared about your relationship with anything other than porn.
What was like?
Is there an explanation for why there was a weird and unnecessary focus on cigarettes in this movie?
Oral fixation.
Oh, yes.
Sucking and fucking buddy.
Don't forget chucking rocks.
So sucking and fucking and chucking rocks and.
Asked as hello, Trent.
Fucking dildos.
No, I I think this is a good movie and I think it's a great performance.
Great performances all around.
I mean, it's not something I would normally seek out in terms of like my normal movie watching experience.
But it's one of those ones that I'm like, I don't know what I expected from this going in, but it's like this is just good all around.
All right, Orick, which one would you put forward knowing that your opinion matters?
Nothing to us.
I mean, probably snake eyes.
We already eliminated that.
Yeah, what it's Nick has loose to.
It's not too late for you to vote for primal.
You can still amend your mistakes from the past.
You know what?
Having to watch these two movies this week, I agree that I probably should have put forward primal because now I've seen these.
I mean, you would have still seen these.
If you put forward primal.
I mean, to me, it's it's clear like the only choice is eight millimeter Captain Carly's mandolin is just the only redeeming qualities as they I don't know got John Hurt to be in it.
I mean, my vote is definitely eight millimeter as I don't I don't hate Kareli.
Like from what I heard about the movie before watching it, I expected Kareli to be absolute dog shit.
And I'm like, it's not great, but it's not like it's not so bad that it's like funny.
It's just there and it's fine.
But eight millimeter is a very strong movie.
Strong performances, great directing overall, just a good movie.
Keep in mind, Sean, that I don't have the like scar tissue that you all have built up for having watched this number of Nick Cage movie.
It's a lot. It's a high volume of Nick Cage.
So I can see where you'd be like Captain Carly's mandolin.
There's some redeeming qualities where like, man, if you're not as invested as Nick Cage's or into Nick Cage as you are, it's it's pretty on good.
I mean, the second episode being Army of One really ripped that bandaid right the fuck.
It's tough when you meet perfection.
So early in the process, that one is one that every time we go back to I'm just like listening.
I like it more listening to you guys talk about Army of One and the the Rapture movie that he did.
And there's a and there's a 9-11 one in there, too.
That is like allegedly exactly just like how now even the movie is a conspiracy.
It's like I don't even know about that soon enough.
Our episode won't even have existed.
You need to delete the episode like out of all platforms.
I'm very much an eight millimeter guy in this.
I think when Carreles did something well, it did it well, like it had some cuteness to it.
It had some interesting characters.
It it managed to like keep me kind of watching it the whole time.
But I don't think it really ever sold me on being worth my time.
While eight millimeter, I'm just very much into and interested.
I like it. And to your audience, I'll say just very personally,
just from me having been on a number of guys weekends with a lot of people
and including the members of production team of this podcast,
I will confirm next point that he's an eight millimeter guy.
That's so small.
It's like just a little mushroom.
There's a little button sticking out of Bush.
Manderas's mom's gonna make fun of it.
That's true.
Just a mushroom nestled between two boulders.
Just poking out.
So there we go.
Eight millimeter millimeter.
What do we got up on the docket next time?
We'll get ready for next time because it's your birthday and we want you to have fun.
It's your birthday.
And we're killing everyone.
Yeah, that's how it goes.
It's a Willie's Wonderland and Wild at Heart going up next.
Two vastly different Nick Cage performances.
Totally.
Willie's Wonder.
What did I?
I said like Wally's World earlier.
That's that's from the original vacation.
Yeah, that's right.
Willie's Wonderland is what I meant.
We'll just cut that in clean.
Yeah, I'm not doing shit.
Anyway, thank you all for listening.
We are on social media Cage underscore match underscore pod or cage match pod.
You can support us on Patreon and if you want to you can join and be a Sparkle buddy like Josh,
Sean, Josie, Rico, Matt and Adam and Bill almost forgot that one.
Bill and you can join us on Patreon.
And the next year up is the cage dancers, Ira, John Freeman, Lance and Nathan.
Thank you all for your support.
Thanks for having me back guys.
Oh, yeah, dude.
Thanks for coming.
You want to promote anything snuff?
Well, I don't know where you can find me.
Just flash your lights at any truck stop.
And Adam, I just pop up.
I got a couple consultation opportunities popping up.
One of them might be in Ireland.
I don't know.
Whoo.
Hey, we'll see you in Ireland.
Yeah, it was nice having you as a friend, but I think borders are going to be where I draw the line.
I'm not moving.
Bye bye.
I think it turned out pretty well.
Yeah, I think so.
We still have to mint Gooncoin though.
Just make it out of just draw it on cardboard.
We'll just get a hole punch in the sprite box.
Now, squirt box.
Of course.
Yeah, they still make squirt.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, they still have squirt.
You can't get rid of squirt.
Can't keep squirt down.
The country of Mexico would revolt if you tried to take away squirt.
That's what that looks like.
The microphone looks like a microphone.
Sure does.
It's a foam hat.
I could definitely get all that in my mouth.
Oh, yeah.
It's weird when you like get close to it and you like kind of stare at it and then your eyes kind of cross and you're like, should I put it in my mouth?
No.
Yeah, this is one of those ASMR podcasts.
My loosely shaved chin.
Yeah.
People are definitely going to masturbate to this episode.
Absolutely welcome for that.
I've got to try.
People already masturbate to this.
Absolutely.
I don't know.
OK, so this is my first male dog and I've never had a dog that I've had to get fixed.
But did they clean up down there?
What do you mean?
Like when they remove the stuff because.
Do they just leave like a loose sack?
Well, because that's what Brian was saying, like they didn't do a great job with at his dogs,
neutering and he's like, they just kind of left stuff.
That's repulsive.
I mean, if you go to a good vet now.
OK, you're coming in at a good time.
Yeah, that's repulsive.
Or it is here.
And then we're talking about dog ballsack, so we're not too far off.