Oh, God. Let me bring up my ever so important
notes about this movie. Oh, good. Somebody took
them. Directed by Stephen Miller. A very great
name. Yeah. Timely. Yeah, right. Timeless. Timeless.
One of the greats. This is Steven with a V, though,
so I think he's like the good kind of Steven.
Steven? I feel this way about the Phillips that
spelled their name with two L's. It's like they're
kind of aberrations. Yeah, so they're usually
like, I'm just imagining them over there twirling
their mustaches and whatnot. I mean, I have a
disdain for any Sean who spells their name phonetically.
Are you talking like with a W? Yeah. With an
A? What the fuck is that? I embrace... Doesn't
your name have an A in it, though? Yeah, but
in the wrong... Wait, it's in the third spot.
Fuck! Are you one of those Sean's who spells
his name C -H -O -N? Sean. Hi, Sean. I knew it.
I knew there was something you were keeping from
me. That is a power move. You're right. I embrace
all Nicks. All Nicks are good in my book. Every
Nick is a good Nick. Yeah. Three I's. There's
never been a Nick I haven't liked. N -I -Q -U
-E is a valid way to spell Nick. Yep, that's
fair. That's repulsive. Get out of here. If that's
how you like it, that's how I like you. What's
the name of this movie again? Arsenal. Has anyone
figured out why it's called Arsenal? Because
I sure couldn't tell you. No, there's no reason
it should be called Arsenal. This is kind of
like there was a movie that we watched with a
guy. Guy Ritchie. Guy Ritchie. Guy Pierce. No,
it was Guy Pierce. Guy Ritchie directs. Guy Pierce
is an actor. Because we had the conversation
where I thought Guy Ritchie was Guy Pierce. And
I did, too. And still do, apparently. And that
movie, like, it should have been called The Hungry
Rabbit Jumps or whatever. Oh, yeah. And for whatever
reason, it was called, like, Trespass or some
shit. Like, I can't remember what it was. Like,
Killing Zone or some bullshit name. Like, what
the fuck was it? It's one of the things that
makes me wonder if they wrote the script in a
completely different language, like non -English.
And then in translation, it got switched over.
Or was it just a bizarre choice that somebody
made? This has the stink of like AI writing on
it, even though it can be. Oh yeah, definitely
pre. But it just has that kind of just, there's
no real structure. There's just archetypes of
characters. it's just like now it's time for
this beat in the story with no actual like build
to it i think my favorite example of that yeah
we'll talk about it later but there's so much
just a character does exposition and sets up
the rest of the plot for the other characters
and you're like here i'm solving this problem
for you i will say off the top my favorite example
of all right it's time for the next beat is oh
yeah this movie ends now Speaking of things that
should have ended a long time ago, welcome back
to Cage Magical and a roundabout way of meeting
Nicolas Cage. I'm your host, Sean, here with...
One of many Nicks. Any spelling counts. Yeah,
all Nicks. And our producer. Peter, hello. And
our special guest, my brother. I'm Peter's brother,
Philip, spelled with one L, very important. I
will hold a grudge if you spell your name with
two L's. Philip. How do you spell Peter, Peter?
Three T's. Yeah. That's it, actually. No other
letters. So one L, wouldn't that actually just
be like Philippe? I don't know. I think the two
L's really gives you that Phil -lip sound. It's
true. Which I like. I remember when we were at
the first restaurant we worked at, my joke nickname
was Full Lips, and Peter will know why that's
funny. Because they're thin as fuck. True. And
so this week on Cage Match, we are discussing
Arsenal with Nicolas Cage and John Cusack, who
we get to see them again, but not together this
time. They exist in different places. Third movie
together, but they don't do anything together
ever. What was the second movie together? Well,
so obviously there's Con Air, and then there
was... Oh, that's right. Frozen Ground. Frozen
Ground, yeah, right. I was thinking Looking Glass
for some reason. Yeah, Frozen Ground, where he
plays a real fucking creepo. I don't know why
it completely spaced on Con Air there. Because
I was thinking Frozen Ground, but that's probably
because their faces have swollen to unrecognizable
growth. I'm just glad John Cusack didn't have
white guy dreads. oh yeah that would be pretty
cool though i don't know when he shows up in
that first scene with the do -rag just in the
car and i'm like i i honestly hope that two minute
conversation was going to be all we saw of john
cusack for the whole movie and that was just
him there so they could put his name on the poster
i was pretty happy with what he was doing for
most of the movie Where he's just sitting back
and doing fuck all and just being John Cusack,
collecting that paycheck. And then he got into
the action. I was I was annoyed. I didn't want
that. I wanted him sitting on the porch. I wanted
him riding up in the car. I wanted him just kind
of sitting around. My favorite part of John Cusack
in this movie is his real inconsistent five o
'clock shadow from scene to scene, including
scenes that take place within a three minute
span. Like when when they. When they go to dude's
brother's house, he has a much darker mustache
than he did in the scene before it. Sure. Yeah.
So here, let's run the characters down real quick.
So we've got Adrian Grenier as JP and his big
brother is Jonathan Shaq, who I have literally
never seen in any movie ever. That's Mikey. And
then Nick Cage as Eddie King reprising his role
from Deadfall. Kinda. uh did he die in deadfall
yeah he got friolated man yeah uh john cusick
is sal uh who's like a narco kind of fucking
cop yeah some kind of detective and then my favorite
guest star christopher coppola nick cage's brother
as eddie king's brother buddy amazing performance
so fucking terrible uh also director of uh deadfall
right i I think it was Deadfall. Did he direct
Deadfall? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that makes
more sense. Now, is this the first movie that
the brothers have shown up in together or have
acted in together? He's he did. He bought he
body doubled for Nick Cage in adaptation. Damn,
that's a deep cut. When the when the twins had
scenes together, he would like body double for
Cage. Yeah, nice. We need to stand kind of three
quarters into this shot. yeah but don't look
we need some of that coppola butt i will say
i do love how they got nick cage's brother to
be in this to play his brother in the movie and
the way you know their brothers is because they
both have the worst fake facial hair you've ever
fucking seen yeah that mustache that they put
on chris is just so bad it's so bad the goatee
that's about like a centimeter to the left where
it should be i was saying while we're talking
weird face stuff uh Is there an in -universe
reason for why Eddie King needs such an intense
nose prosthesis? I was trying to figure that
one out. I don't know if this comes from the
previous movie that he was in or what. Yep. So
I have a running theory that Nicolas Cage, whenever
he does a role as a favor, he, in his writer,
puts in big fake nose. Because he's done it a
few times. And it's always one of these things
where he's like, in the like you can tell he's
doing this as a favor to someone so i don't know
if he just gets off on it or if it helps him
like get into character but it's a thing he does
yeah i think it's telling that saturn wasn't
one of the uh producers i know one of the five
producers even he kept his name kind of out of
it for for people who listen to the deadfall
episode you already know this but in that movie
He plays Eddie King, who's this like unhinged
kind of criminal agent and chaos agent who's
like all obsessed with this deck of cards he
has. That's all jokers. He has a wig and a fake
mustache and a fake nose. And at the end of it,
he gets a great spray tan. And at the end of
it, he gets friolated. He gets put into a fryer
and is dead. But then this movie happens after
that, like at least theoretically. Yeah, I mean.
It's possible he survived friolation and then
needed more fake noses and just got bigger, deeper.
We really fucked up the RPG episode without having
like a multiversal Eddie King. Holy fuck. There's
no saying you can't do another RPG episode, right?
That's true. It's going to be Eddie King's all
the way down. We all play. We all play Eddie
King. Yeah. Which version of Eddie King are you?
Eddie King is a virus that's slowly taking over
every individual human on the planet. I mean,
Bobby Peru is kind of a virus, too. So it all
works. This is kind of like Nick Cage's Bobby
Peru. Sort of. Philip, you get the the wonderful
job of summarizing this movie for our dear listeners.
So take it away. The most dubious honors. I appreciate
that, brother. speaking of brothers um i don't
know if you guys know but this is a movie about
brothers uh so you can say it's about it's about
brother love it's about brother love it's a little
bit about brother hate too as we as we will see
but uh yeah it's mostly about brother love and
uh it's about some new orleans brothers crime
brothers and then some mississippi brothers some
good old boys so we've got these two mississippi
brothers who like a good old -fashioned arcade
and they like playing baseball these american
pastimes and they also incidentally like slapping
the shit out of each other while calling one
another the r word that was that was fun it was
definitely placing us in the the early 2000s
i was like hmm yeah that's quality writing you
know you know you've got a good writer when when
they're dropping the hard r So it's also a movie
about brothers who fight. And it's mostly also
about two Coppola brothers who really like eating
pecans. So that's kind of where we're starting.
So to kick it off, the movie brothers are little
brother J .P. Lindell and big brother Mikey Lindell.
I just was assuming that they were part of the
Lindell pillow empire. Yeah, the MyPillow empire.
It's unconfirmed in the movie. Maybe distant
relatives. They look like they vote Trump, you
know. They do. They do. Yeah. So in an unnecessarily
long flashback, we see the boys living life together
in the late 90s. They're going to the arcade.
They're using their quarters. Very importantly,
it's established that little brother JP never
gets quarters from big brother Mikey. He's very
stingy. He'll never give his little brother quarters,
except when, sadly, tragedy strikes. The uncle,
who's kind of the guardian for the boys, he shoots
himself. And so Mikey gets on the scene. The
big brother sees everything, protecting his little
brother from that. vision that gory vision he
uh gives him quarters finally and sends him back
to the arcade to play and this is like their
origin story very deep and i just wanted to bring
this up because i think uh quarter this movie
is the quarter motif and money as a metaphor
for something and i'm not really sure what i
think the movie doesn't really know what it's
a metaphor for yeah so he he goes to the arcade
and then mikey shows up to the arcade too And
in the back of the arcade is just like a murder
hole. Like what? I completely forgot how this
all linked together. When I was writing up these
notes, I was going, wait, how the hell did Mikey
get to the arcade now, too? I thought he was
dealing with the dead uncle and everything. But
yeah, they keep setting up the back of the arcade
with these plastic sheets and using it to murder
people. So they don't lay the plastic sheets
out in any way that keep blood off of anything.
There's a cool sheet maze. Yeah, it's just a
sheet maze, which looks very fun. I had a weird
thing. I meant to go back and rewatch this, but
got distracted by life. But in that opening,
when Mikey's going through the arcade, I like
look down to like make a note on my phone. I
looked up, then it looked like he was in a strip
club. I'm like, what? And then he was in the
sheet and then the plastic sheet maze. Did I
like blink and like miss something? I think it's
a classic Biloxi arcade strip club murder sheet
maze. Also, they got their money's worth on that
sheet maze set because they use that same set
a lot. I think Eddie King just really appreciates
a good sheet maze. Yeah. These are now two things
that I know about Biloxi, that they're known
for joint strip club arcades and also shucking
oysters. Hell yeah. Go shuckers. Shuck, shuck,
shuck, shuck. I don't know if anyone has seen
the. Japanese and or Chinese poster for this
movie, but it's fucking badass. I don't know
if I saw that one. No, looking up the foreign
posters for films hasn't been a priority yet,
but it will be now. Yeah, I know this like this.
The poster, this poster looks so much better
and makes this movie look so much more interesting.
Are you looking at the one with featuring Nick
Cage holding a gun and there's flames all over
the place? Yeah. yeah that does look way better
and adrian grenade the actual star of the movie
is just like a tiny little icon in the corner
i mean let's be honest yeah it's where he belongs
yeah i just realized this whole movie technically
is a flashback because the first scene you know
you're in for a good time before the uh before
the title card where you just have the main character
standing in a shipyard cocking a gun title flashback
to children 20 some years later and then an hour
later we're back to standing in a shipyard cocking
a gun 23 year jump is a pretty substantial time
jump for a movie like a lot of shit has happened
obviously but it it doesn't help you give a shit
about either of these characters no no there's
a whole thing where you like start on the action
start at the most interesting part and This movie
feels like it's everything but the most interesting
part of this movie. There was a scene in here
that really pissed me off for some reason. And
I don't know why it's just like stuck in my craw.
And it's JP comes home to his wife and they have
like a new kid or something like that. And she's
in the tub and. He's just like, we're going to
like, fuck. And this is awesome. And he climbs
into the tub fully dressed. Yeah. He's wearing
his jeans. Like he's fucking RFK Jr. It's like,
bitch, you are in your own home. Just take your
clothes off and climb in. this this also happens
in man the second superman movie uh the second
zack snyder superman movie batman v superman
there's a whole scene where like clark can't
fully dress gets in the bathtub and i'm just
like was this a thing in the late 2010s like
in movies i just can't imagine all that what
i wonder if jp's wife had to cut him out of those
jeans after the fact you know they're gonna you're
gonna swell you're gonna get stuck in those things
yeah it's a disaster What if they had to take
that shot multiple times? They didn't have multiple
gene budget. I mean, they had the slow -mo budget,
so... It was really embarrassing when he ripped
ass during that scene, too. They just had to
keep it. It was the only take. This movie's the
first time we've ever gotten Chekhov's flashbang
in a movie. Mm -hmm. Well, he tried to sell it
at the pawn shop. Right. and the guy was like
what the fuck is this he's like it's a flashbang
it's like what am i gonna do with a flashbang
yeah well there's a scene later in uh the house
and yeah it goes off and you wouldn't know it
unless you've been paying attention to this movie
which i did which is one more than i've got for
it i was in and out i'm gonna be honest with
you i'm just gonna say at top i kind of loved
this film for how just bad it was like just no
no two scenes look like they belong in the same
film no like there's no real character development
you're just told to care about people you don't
uh jp's whole motivation is he's my brother and
then you just kind of have this like very dull
run -of -the -mill suspense thriller and then
jp's niece gets backhanded by her boyfriend as
she's opening the front door to leave his place.
And JP first time, this has happened to the whole
movie. Slow -mo just kind of like comes through
the door and just boots, dude. I thought Plex
was fucking up because of the slow -mo. Cause
I'm like, at no point did they do that before?
And then it comes in later, uh, two more times
where they just cut to like artful slow -mo.
For no reason. Artful is doing a lot of heavy
lifting in that statement. We'll talk about the
other slow -mos later because those are worth
talking about. But apparently this director is
known for his high -octane action scenes, I think
is what IMDb says. They called him high -octane?
High -octane. Jesus. Not even close. No. One
of the shots I did like was the toilet cam. Sorry,
I know. I always love a toilet cam. Fucking set
it up. god damn it i like that shot though like
it was kind of horrifying but you know watching
that guy get drowned yeah i like the idea of
the toilet cam a lot so for context no context
no context mikey's uh like is giving a guy a
swirly and every time he like sticks his head
to drown him in the uh In the toilet, it cuts
to a very bright lit shot from inside the toilet.
So the lighting's all fucked up and it completely
ruins it for me. You don't have a ring cam in
your toilet? Yeah, lighting's important when
you've got a toilet cam. This is how you have
to evaluate your stools. Yeah, stools. PSA time.
Yeah, you should look in your own shit to see
what's going on. Oh, man. staring at a barrel
of a gun just slow motion watching it go off
can you imagine a slow motion toilet cam shot
are we talking about this movie or are we talking
about your toilet again oh it can be both Yeah,
so, all right, what did we do? We did the flashback,
and we come back to modern day, and it's all
the establishing the relationship between Mikey
and JP. JP's very successful. He's got his own
business, a $350 ,000 business, by the way, just
in case you were wondering. But he has the wife,
the newborn, the big house. And meanwhile, Mikey,
I think, I can't remember if Mikey had moved
out for a while and then came back to Biloxi.
I think he was military. yeah he was military
okay he was in the marines or something and we
know that he was he had been working for eddie
king before uh but we'll get into that later
but so he got out of that situation he went to
the military came back um and so yeah that's
kind of the situation with those two different
different uh i mean great character work you
have the perfect guy and the guy who's a fuck
up uh i mean no notes uh so yeah mikey's making
it struggle uh struggling to make Try that again.
Mikey is struggling to make ends meet and pay
child support to his ex for his teen daughter,
Alexis. And, you know, he's refusing work at
JP's office company and all that business. So
the plot kind of kicks off when John Cusack's
character, Sal, who I. generally did not realize
was a cop until about halfway through the movie
uh he's they had to put a badge on him because
it was so unclear what his what his job was and
what the fuck he was as a character you don't
even establish his relationship to them as this
movie is all exposition like everything kind
of just goes along and then later they're like
wait we need to explain that because uh mikey's
in trouble because he buys some coke which is
where sal shows up to tell jp and then like 15
minutes later they have to explain that he got
the money from the coke from jp because it was
a loan to help him like get on his feet but he
wanted to double his money and just they have
to exposit everything after the fact because
the plot makes no sense yeah it's like ostensibly
to buy his daughter some braces which then made
me only think of the simpsons dental plan you
know it's also interesting that they they never
seem to want to let the viewers hate mikey for
too long it's sort of like oh we can't he's a
bad dude but we can't really make him a bad dude
we got to make him redeeming and so you can only
be disappointed in him for about five to ten
minutes like thinking you know well we'll get
to later when he's meeting with eddie king but
thinking that he's actually working with eddie
king and then another you know exposition dump
where it's like oh actually he's not he's been
kidnapped after a massive run around with between
John Cusack and uh and JP between Sal and JP
they're going around and talking to well i'm
sorry no no that's good that is one of my favorite
lines in this movie is they asked the guy that
like broke into the house about some somebody
else and they're like yeah i know that ginger
bitch yeah what's the guy's name too is it it's
like rusty or is it rusty i was i think it was
rusty classic ginger nickname so also when we
see rusty the one thing i did not notice about
him was the color of his hair he's ginger right
he didn't look like a ginger to me when he was
robbing him he looked like he had like dark brown
hair they needed that toilet cam light maybe
he got recast after they filmed that shot of
him like saying oh that ginger bitch oh god wait
we gotta back up a second are you saying that
brothers there's a good one and a bad one philip
always yeah i don't i thought you knew this fuck
i mean you and i you and i are here so we can
just throw it onto the third brother and be like
it's it's him it's clearly not either one of
us and then when i'm with him i say the same
thing about you it's the constant pointing at
each other triangle i love it does anyone out
this whole conversation just making me think
of the rick and morty episode uh intergalactic
tv it's like two brothers where there's two brothers
and then they're brothers and they're in a truck
and they're brothers and there's a meteor two
brothers That about sums up the plot of this
movie. You did a way better job summarizing this
than I just did. Well, that actually, like, the
inanity of that is exactly what this movie was.
Like, so Mikey gets kidnapped, quote unquote.
It's all bullshit. And JP calls him and it's
like, hey, Mikey, it's me, JP. It's like, you're
on the phone, you fucking moron. JP can't be
his government name. And it annoys me that even
when it's an emergency and he's running out of
the house, his wife still just calls him JP.
Like at no point do they say his actual name.
His government name apparently is James. I don't
know his middle name, though. P. What's oh, it's
Mike Lindell. Never mind. Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit.
What kind of pillows do you guys have? I got
a real flat, shitty pillow. That's how I sleep.
Yeah. I like to suffer a little. It's awful.
I have a $300 pillow. Best purchase I ever made.
Yeah. Josie's got a real expensive pillow, too.
Every once in a while when she's not around,
I'll take a nap with it. And then I like try
to put it back where I found it. So let's see.
We'll get into Eddie King in a little bit. I
don't know why that story made me laugh, but
it did. It's a really bad story. Hey, man, they
can't all be bangers. That's true. OK, so we'll
get into Eddie King in a little bit. But I wanted
to talk about Adrian Grenier as the main character.
Who is that? Dude, he fucking sucks so much.
So he was like notably only from the movie or
the TV series Entourage. Oh, OK. Oh, yeah. He's
the main character from that. Yeah. And he's
supposed to be like the hottest shit. He plays
Aquaman in the series and he's like everybody
wants him and he's a great actor and everything.
But like clearly not true. I don't know what
it is about that guy. He has nothing. There's
like no charisma for me. He doesn't provide a
lot on the screen. He's not like tough. You know,
there's that scene where he don't fucking lie
to me and he slaps the wall and it's like that
was soft as shit. Yeah. I think they threw a
baseball cap on this guy because he's got such
a baby face. So it's like, oh, we got to cover.
He doesn't look convincingly threatening when
we're having him bust down doors and stuff. So
just put a cap over it, cover it up. Slow -mo.
Mm -hmm. I have no idea what any of these projects
he's been involved in since this movie. Love
at First Glance, Miles from Tomorrowland, Affairs
of State. Nope. And so on. But yeah, I mean,
it's interesting because like this is still like,
Sean, you've got that pulled up. When was Entourage?
Because that's like early 2000s, right? Yeah,
2000, 2000, 2011. Yeah, right. So like he hasn't
been relevant now at this point for six years.
And is the leading man in this? It's like, I
think it's showing. The Entourage movie came
out in 2015. So there's like a four year gap
between the show and the movie. And then two
more years to this. Four year gap. Just enough
time to make the people hungry for more. Hungry
for that Grenier. Did they finally produce Medellin?
Was that the movie? That was the movie. I haven't
thought about that word in fucking years. I cannot
believe that you pulled that. Yeah, I'm vaguely
remembering. I had a girlfriend in college who
was really into that movie or a show. Who was
your guy? Oh, Dom. dom wasn't actually part of
the core crew he was the friend like the childhood
friend who comes back and he's a real piece of
shit like the first episode they have him there
he's just like banging out this chick super loud
in the mansion but like with the door wide open
so nobody can do anything but hear him yeah he
looked like uh oh what's that guy from the shield
Michael Chiklis. He looked like Timu Michael
Chiklis. Timu Michael Chiklis. Yeah. Excellent.
Were you a turtle guy? I don't know. I mean,
a turtle in the early seasons was kind of fun.
And then he became sort of like they tried to
make him a sweetheart or something like more
of a romance character or something. It was better
when he just like smoked weed and drove around.
Yeah. OK, you know what's sadder than than his
IMDb post this movie? John Cusack. Cause it's
the same amount of movies and I've not heard
of a single one of these films either. Oh no.
Yeah. That's a rough go. Yeah. It's too bad.
Like you got to get that money, right? I suppose.
Yeah. Got to get your quarters for the arcade.
Okay. So we, we established that. So big brother,
Mikey. Got a brick of cocaine to sell to get
some money to support his daughter, get her braces,
apparently, which I completely forgot. And he
that gets stolen. He eventually, you know, tracks
down the people and ends up in the strip club
with Eddie King and his crew. So this is Nick
Cage's character, Eddie King. And they start
talking. Eddie says he owes that Mikey owes him
money from, you know, back when they were working
together. and he wants to use mikey's connection
to jp to extort uh jp for money because as previously
established he has a 350 000 whatever business
he has i don't know he's some kind of construction
construction like a yeah he's a general contractor
i have a question though and it's going to take
us all the way back to the braces again because
we're not going to move past that today it's
the most important part of the movie so yeah
alexis If you're going to borrow $10 ,000 for
braces from your brother, or if you're going
to borrow $10 ,000 from your brother and you're
going to use it to buy cocaine, why would you
choose something that is so visibly not getting
taken care of? Like, I need $10 ,000 for my daughter's
braces. Oh, by the way, I'm bringing her to the
barbecue later, so you'll totally know that she
doesn't have braces. She's just eating ribs.
Yeah, just loving ribs. Not a care in the world.
Did I say braces? I meant Invisalign. Yeah. I
don't know. That seems like Mikey wasn't really
a thinker. I don't know. First clue. He looks
like low rent Joe Manganiello. Yeah, I kept getting
that vibe throughout the whole thing. So actually,
speaking of Joe, though, like this movie reminded
me of the movie Joe a little bit, but like bad.
Like this is everything that. could have been
shitty about that movie that wasn't you know
it's like it's shot fairly well it's not terrible
but it's just not good yeah yeah fun this whole
movie i was so caught up in like fun yeah i'm
amazed that sean this is one that you were like
that's all right i'm not because it always turns
out to be the movies that i'm not into i actually
i actually enjoyed it oh no okay i was we were
so at about the 25 30 minute mark i'm ready i'm
just kind of like all right this is and then
we got to slow mo door kick and i'm like this
is gonna get weird i'm i'm back in yeah i don't
know i think Before we even got out of the flashback,
I already had phone in hand and I was getting
occupied elsewhere. I was like, we'll just get
back into this when Nick Cage shows up. So let's
get into that. That man knows how to make an
entrance in this. We get a sure does reservoir
dogs where he's like torturing a guy and then
he takes a lead pipe in the guy's mouth and then
baseball bats that lead pipe into dude's skull.
Yeah. Oh, that was the first slow -mo. Yeah.
Yeah. What's the song that's playing every time
that he kills somebody in the plastic maze? It
was a glory, glory, hallelujah. I can't remember
which one was. The first one was definitely glory,
glory, hallelujah. I don't remember if they did
it every time. So it's not the same song every
time. OK. If it was, it didn't stick in my brain.
Yeah. And church songs always get stuck in my
brain. So. Oh, yeah. They're real earworms. You
guys had church songs? We didn't have songs in
my church. We were Catholic. No, we were Catholic,
too, and we had lots of songs in our church.
Half of the church was songs. It's mostly songs.
How many ways can you sing Amen? Yeah, they give
you a whole book of just songs, and they expect
you, they put a little clipboard, or not a clipboard,
like a little marquee up there for you to know
which songs you're going to have to sing that
day so you can go through and preview. we like
we had psalms it was more spoken word and just
kind of like muttered under your breath oh man
i mean we had a lot of that shit too but we had
like a band oh like you had actually like a guitar
musicians and shit wow I just always think back
to good bonding moments with you, Peter, are
every Christmas that you would be in town and
we'd go to Mass. For whatever reason, there was
one song, I don't remember if it was, you'll
probably remember which one it is, Joy to the
World or something. There was a verse in that
where the entire congregation would fuck up the
lyrics to it and sing it wrong. And they would
just kind of muddle through the end of the verse
and we would just be cracking up. I think it
was Joy to the World. Because it's it's one of
these things where they like cram too many letters
into the cadence of the music can handle. And
like a musician can do it, but like the hoi polloi
can't fucking handle it. And they all just like
eat shit every time. And it is so funny. Oh,
let's be honest. This was like this was like
11 o 'clock, you know, mass on Christmas Eve.
And so we're getting close to midnight by this
time. People had had their nog before they got.
Oh, yeah. To the church. So there's a little
bit of that there, too. You also get the communion
wine. The rosy cheeks and noses. Communion wine
will always fuck you up. Sweet, sweet communion
wine. Ugh. The worst. The only thing to counteract
those weird -ass dry wafers. Sorry, I mean, body
of Christ. Yeah, those dry -ass bodies of Christ.
Or is it body of Christ's? I was bummed that
you couldn't dip them into the wine. Like, that
was kind of a no -no. What a shame. You just
have to lightly moisten it and press it to the
roof of your mouth, and then you shot your wine.
That's how you do it. Oh, did you guys have little
cups? No, we had to do the chalice or whatever.
Yeah, same. So I totally forgot. Speaking of
John Cusack needing white guy dreads, Eddie King's
henchman does have white guy dreads. It's true,
yeah. That guy. Yeah, man. He seems like a piece
of shit. Yeah, he did seem like. But then they
like try to make it seem sympathetic because
he's got like a kid. Does she need braces? Lisa
needs braces. Oh, no. Then I'll plan. But he's
also like known Mikey for years and he doesn't
want to kill him. But Mikey's just got to like.
Play along. OK, so that gets me to my my last
question about this movie before we talk about
Eddie King and Nick Cage, because that's why
we're here. They let JP infiltrate the arcade
strip club. Plastic sheet maze. Yeah. Why? Why
do they let him go free his brother? Well, he
didn't. How did he know where to find him? This
is what I was saying earlier, where like this
movie just decides it's time to end because it
just cuts to him untying his brother. So that's
actually the only reason that the flashback exists.
Yes, because he gives him the quarters in the
flashback. Then when he does the proof of life
conversation, Mikey says something about like
quarters. And that sets JP off on the quarters,
quarters. What do we do with quarters? We put
them in arcade machines and the arcade. That's
where the exposit. every plot point six times
that's the one that jp doesn't bother to be like
i remembered uh this place behind the arcade
uh where we saw that dude get murdered in the
murder hole in the murder well i mean i guess
if you figure oh they've got my brother where
would they keep him in the arcade behind the
titties Or in the murder cave. Probably the murder
cave. Also, do they ever see Alexis get saved
or is she just fine at the end? Who cares? She's
just fine at the end. You're right. She's a vegan.
Gross. But she eats a burger at the end. Good.
Because, yeah, they so they go, they save Mikey
and then slow -mo gunfight. And I just want to
be the one to say it. Shotgun to the dick. mid
-air slow -mo jump guy gets shotgunned right
between the legs yeah you follow the shotgun
straight into the junk yeah yeah i'm glad you
got there and eddie king gets like shot and jp
like rocks up oh and i do have one more thing
to talk about this rocks up cocks the shotgun
points it at him hard cut to like happy family
at the barbecue barbecue yeah exactly nothing
says somebody like consequences for their rampage
no no cops no nothing everyone's just happy at
the end even though there's like a definite trail
of like yeah police interaction for him because
he talked to an undercover cop at one point he
talked to sal all about these problems everyone's
happy hard cut to let's go play let's brothers
playing baseball yeah credits go shuckers and
okay i got a question how many baseballs did
he bring out with him because if you're gonna
go out and just hit balls like okay there's only
two of you so if he hits it past the pitcher
like you're gonna have to go get it so we just
constantly pulled a second ball out of the thing
but like how many baseballs do you bring and
how annoying is it to just like have to like
stop after 30 seconds of ball to go spend two
minutes picking up balls halfway across the field.
Sorry, Mikey, you drilled that one too fucking
far. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. Fuck you, Mikey.
Yeah. Mikey was the pitcher. Classic. All right.
Eddie King. Eddie King. So it's a pretty crazy
performance from Nick Cage on his spectrum. I
mean, he's definitely something. he brought all
the eddie king energy back like it like it was
just yesterday when he recorded deadfall i mean
deadfall was definitely more unhinged but i think
that was partially because like the audio of
it was fucked up and like they it was a cheap
production you know and they they like didn't
capture it as well as this maybe but he evolved
it over time too i mean deadfall was like 94
yeah so he's been thinking about eddie king in
the back of his 93 eddie king's been in the back
of his mind king lives there he's probably perfecting
that role over and over again i'm ready for the
next eddie king film bring him back baby yeah
whose brother will he be murdering that time
so philip you didn't you didn't see deadfall
but see i don't know i was a little let down
because no i didn't i didn't i saw the no i was
just gonna say i didn't see deadfall and so you
sent me a clip of or i guess it's a what do you
call it like a supercut Yeah, super cut. You
sent me a super cut. And it was all the zany,
very cagey moments. And I was kind of expecting
a bit more of that when I went in. So I had to
say I was generally disappointed in his performance
because he played it pretty even keel until the
scene where Buddy comes in, his brother. And
that was a completely different that that was
immaculate. I loved every moment of it. And it
was it completely it made the movie for me. But
yeah, I was I was generally let down otherwise
that he was just kind of even keel. I liked how
Eddie King's brother also had his own plastic
murder room. Well, listen, they got it from their
dad at some point. You know, everybody inherits
their first plastic murder room from their dad.
Yeah. What a nice day that was. That's how they
do it in New Orleans. So that's a problem, though,
with brothers, though. It always goes to the
eldest. Yeah. I don't remember a lot of basements
in New Orleans. Well, this was Biloxi. Oh, okay.
I don't think there's a lot of basements in Mississippi
either. That's probably true. How many strip
club arcades were there in New Orleans? Do you
know, Nick? Have you seen many of those? I'm
willing to assume that I saw at least two. It's
got to be a non -zero, right? Yeah, a non -zero
amount of them. But I'm willing to go back and
get a definite number if you need me to. Yeah,
we need the research. Yeah. OK, so, yeah. God,
Eddie King. He has that weird like letter to
his brother. There's the great monologuing. I
mean, I was trying to think about this. Sean
and I talked a while ago about like, why does
Nick Cage do these movies? So like to me, it
seems like there are certain scenes that he really
wants to do. And that one felt like that. And
then also he likes fake noses. Yeah. that seems
right i wonder if this was his like they needed
they needed someone that could get nick cage
for a decent price and nick cage is like cool
i'll be in this film but i get to play this character
like you forced eddie king to be in this movie
like because he didn't produce this he didn't
write it so it's not like someone came up to
him like we got a deadfall sequel for you he
had to ask for that to do that role I don't know
how you can ever say deadfall sequel. Yeah, exactly.
Like I'm assuming that Eddie King exists in a
world kind of like Mad Max, where it's just other
people telling their Eddie King stories. Yeah.
And you've all run into an Eddie King. And, you
know, maybe you think you killed him in your
story, but everybody else still has stories where
they think they killed him too. I put him in
a fucking fry later, man. He's like the Jason
Voorhees of like fake nose, big mustache. Bad
wig. Yeah. Gravel voices. I do love that wig.
That's such a good look. Yeah. That fucking helmet
hair with the stupid mustache and the big nose.
Maybe I'll get that tattooed on me. On my face.
I so I was feeling the same as Philip early on
in this film when we first see Eddie King. It's
just like it's played pretty even keel. It's
not. that interesting and i'm like all right
and then we get him meeting with his brother
uh the brother takes eddie to kill him in the
second murder hole the second plastic murder
room because there's too much heat on eddie so
then eddie has caucasian dreadlocks show up to
back him up and then he beats his brother to
death and that's our third slow -mo scene and
it's just like This artfully like Eddie just
like smashing his brother's skull and just whipping
blood all over the room. Yeah, there's a lot
of like weird jelly, grape jelly kind of blood
going everywhere. It's thick. It's viscous. It's
very viscous. You reminded me of one of the notes
I wrote when I the shotgun scene with the uncle.
I'd forgotten about that completely. I was like,
oh, strawberry jam. I should mention that on
the pod. Nobody gives me the raspberry. during
the final shootout we get another uh we get a
spit ticket guy getting shot in the face and
him like just spraying jam out of his mouth towards
the camera oh super gnarly yeah yeah and then
like to pause there for a second that was they
clearly like they built a model and they're putting
a lot of work into this thing i'm just thinking
like what was the budget of this movie i don't
know if you have that up peter but they clearly
sunk all of their money into that kind of stuff
you know the the hyper realistic violence the
ultra slow -mo and i'm just so desperate to know
how much of the budget went into that kind of
bullshit i couldn't find the actual budget for
this but what it pulled in was 41 000 so So,
yeah, it did not do great. People did not enjoy
this movie for reasons. It's rated a 3 % on Rotten
Tomatoes, which, like, this is his second lowest
rated movie other than Left Behind. Completely
unjustified. I think it deserves way more than
a 3 % on Rotten Tomatoes. It's easily a 12, you
know, like. Some people just don't enjoy art.
This was so much better than we were talking
about earlier before we started recording. We
were talking about Rage. What is it? Tokarev.
My God, that movie was one of the worst things
I've ever seen. Such a fiasco, except for the
ending, which was immaculate, which is what was
the moral like teenagers, dumb teenagers don't
play with guns like PSA. So good. The moral of
that movie is crime jackets are cool. Crime jackets
are cool, though. I mean, let's get fucking real.
Crime jackets are cool. That's right. That's
what this movie was missing, a crime jacket.
It's totally true. OK, so here this is a non
sequitur for everything. Nick, what is the correct
amount of Worcestershire sauce to celery in a
Bloody Mary? Yeah, I have never, never in my
life thought the celery needed to balance the
Worcestershire. I'm guessing like three dashes
per inch. Okay. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Inch per dash. Yeah, that seems reasonable. Inch
of celery. Submerged depth or? Full celery stick.
Total because you're going to eat it. Yeah. OK,
that's fair. They weren't even talking about
horseradish, which is like that's really the
main player in a good Bloody Mary. You got to
fuck with the horseradish. That's your balance
right there. I'm inclined to agree. Yeah. Yeah.
I prefer a horseradish over a hot sauce. So hot
sauce. Absolutely. Peter knows how much I love
horseradish. Our first time at Vegas. uh buffet
i went and got a soup a soup bowl to fill with
horseradish sauce because the ramekins weren't
doing it for me i was making those ramekins that's
that's fantastic yeah but was it like creamed
horseradish because they cut that with sour cream
they might have been yeah the guy at the carbon
station gave me a look yeah this is how they
knew to fuck This is how they knew to take the
shrimp away. People eat shrimp can get fucked.
Sean, we know you because of you. I'm sure if
you go back there, they're like, ramekins only.
It was a sign that they can tap. It's a really
sketchy, sketchy image of you on the poster.
Just ladling. Jokes on that I was a guy last
time. Yeah, there you go, right? There you go.
uh okay so let's do let's do some favorite quotes
um philip you want to kick it off oh yeah uh
i feel like i'm gonna pick everybody's favorite
quote but well it was a tough one it was a tough
one between uh both come from the same scene
buddy and eddie are uh you know talking to each
other they're meeting up because buddy wants
to well i guess we find out he's gonna kill his
brother but it was mostly because apparently
for the mob it is beyond the pale to extort someone
i couldn't figure out why it made no sense in
the movie to me maybe it's because he's a good
old mississippi boy yeah um but so i wanted to
do the line about eddie after he finds out this
brother's gonna kill him but i i think truly
the the most sublime and perplexing line for
me is buddy says talk travels fast in new orleans
just like tourists do Completely inscrutable.
Like what the fuck does this mean? I've been
thinking about this since I watched this stupid
fucking movie and I can't figure this shit out.
What the fuck does that mean? Talk travels fast
in New Orleans. just like tourists do what does
it mean that tourists travel fast in new orleans
are there too many tourists coming or do they
go through new orleans too fast and they don't
appreciate the local arts and architecture i
have no fucking idea what this means and i absolutely
love this line so that's my pick i like it sean
did you have one i did not have a favorite like
oh there were so many bangers oh i just none
of the none of them spoke to me like at no point
was i'm like i at no point did i like reach for
my phone to write one down yeah i can't say this
movie inspired me to uh remember anything from
it oh shit are you guys serious i mean i can
i can just do rapid fire here there's some hit
me with some more whoa wait i got my favorite
one all right all right all right hit me I don't
remember exactly when it happens, but at some
point, Mikey is talking about video games or
JP is or whatever. And Nick Cage's Eddie King
just goes, video games? You always were a pussy.
That was good. There's also the golden dildo
one. I can't remember how that set up goes, but
he's talking to the shopkeeper. And yeah, that
was pretty. I think you can take that 6K and
buy yourself a golden dildo, et cetera, et cetera.
But I don't really remember how that. i think
you got the gist i think you got this yeah but
no my other my other runner up was um so eddie
i had to put subtitles on for this one because
i couldn't quite catch what he said when it happened
but eddie uh finds out that buddy's gonna kill
him and he turns it around on him and he realizes
this and he goes oh Oh, my brother's trying to
kill me, man. All right. Excellent moment. Just
exposition for no fucking reason. This movie
rules. Yeah. Worth every percent of its three
percent rating. I did. I enjoyed the whole the
whole ride. Like when I initially sat down, I'm
like, all right, 90 minutes. I can get through
this. And I was here for every every second of
it. All right. So let's see. Do you guys have
anything else you want to say about this movie?
I think it's weird that this and Deadfall follows
such a structure about brothers because Deadfall
was all about like, oh, go out and find my twin
brother. You never knew I had and whatnot. And
now it's like, oh. Now it's two brothers trying
to do this. And then Eddie King's got a brother
who's played by Nicolas Cage's brother. It's
brothers all the way. Yeah, it's too many brothers.
It was distracting for me. Well, it's good that
we had a brother on this podcast. Yeah, and now
we got a brother on the podcast. By the way,
I am plotting your demise because you owe me
$50. So just, you know, just have that in the
back of your mind. Listen, man, I hope you really
like watching me eat pecans. I do. They're good
for your health. It's true. Did you loan him
that $50 so he could get Cora braces? Yeah. Cora
needs braces. $50 braces. That might just be
cramming a pecan in a mouth. Yeah, it could be.
Just rolled up tinfoil. Gross. So, like I said,
the movie starts off with standing in a boatyard,
cock gun, and then later... right before the
end of the climax of this movie we see him in
the same boatyard cocking a gun no scene takes
place in a boatyard other than the gun cock that's
good observation he went out to the went out
went out to the shipyard just to stand there
at you know at the golden he didn't want someone
to hear him oh yeah always cock your gun outside
of the place you're gonna do crime All right,
Phil, have you had one more thing? I got a couple
of things, actually. So, oh, Lord, fuck. Peel
this onion. Yeah. So I was thinking about, oh,
man, I lost track of the earlier one I had, but
I'll circle back around to it. But yeah, Grenier
at the end, the final scene, all of a sudden
he has a fucking southern accent out of nowhere.
He hasn't had an accent this entire movie. And
in the final scene, he all of a sudden has one.
And I was just like. Did I miss it the whole
time, or was this the first scene that they shot?
They probably filmed it backwards. Yeah, they
shot that. That's what I was thinking, too. Realized
it didn't work. Last thing I had was a question
for Producer Peter here. Uh -oh. Please tell
me that you looked up some stats on the Biloxi
shuckers. I need to know if they're... like tell
me about them are they good are they bad okay
so i did actually look up the biloxi shuckers
a little bit and uh i was intrigued to find out
that they're a minor league baseball team that
started in 2015 so this is actually a fairly
new team for this movie so maybe they sort of
like struck a deal to be part of it They aren't
anything particularly awesome. They've had some
interesting players over the years. They're not
particularly good. But yeah, they were a fusion
team from God, I can't remember. It's a Biloxi
and some other tiny ass Mississippi town. So
let's go shuckers. They used to be like a toad.
I don't know. Their mascot is and it's a nice
oyster. Yeah, I mean, that's exposed. Yeah, that's
about all I got. I didn't go into the deep dive.
I looked up a couple of the player names. I was
like, I'm not going to remember these. All right,
we got to wrap this shit up. Wait, can we just
take two seconds and talk about? Fuck you. Yeah.
OK, let's do the grid real quick. Great cage,
bad movie. Great cage, entertainingly bad movie.
Brief moments of sublime cage. Passable movie.
Passable is about the best way that you could
describe this. It is not a 3%. It's a 23. Ouch,
that's a lot. Sure, it's not like a 13. It might
be a 13. Tokarev was a 13. Yeah. It's better
than Tokarev. It's hands down better than Tokarev.
Oh, God, Tokarev. I think I like to rage more.
Maybe it's because I ended up watching it twice.
I just fucking hate that movie with a passion.
Well, let's get back together in a year and we'll
do a head to head between this and Rage and see
which one was really better. Thanks. I love that
you guys always invite me on this show when it's
just real horse shit movies. You got to watch
Con Air. Con Air was awesome. I'll give you that.
That was that was great. But yeah, come on, man.
All right. So next up, we've got Vengeance colon
A Love Story, which. has been described as a
terrible movie but a great nick cage movie so
yeah we're at the point in this experiment where
all of these movies have vaguely the same name
and i'm getting very confused yeah it's it's
tough and i mean like marketing departments really
don't like these low budget movies because they're
just like well we gotta get butts in seats so
what makes it work you know i like that they
added that it's a love story yeah we'll find
out yeah I'm going to get some like warming massage
oils for when we watch this movie. I'll just
like lay out some towels and it's a love story.
Yeah. And, you know, lay there expecting Josie
to massage me the whole time. Yeah. From out
of vengeance. Yeah. Vengeance, a massage. Anyway.
Thank you to our Sparkle Buddies, Josh, Josie,
Matt, Adam, Bill, Stuart, and Willow, and to
our Cage Dancers, John, Freeman, Nathan, and
Cameron, and to Bill Panks for our intro music,
and go Shuckers! Go Shuckers! Shuck, shuck, shuck,
shuck, shuck. Bye -bye! We're baseball players.
Of course we choose sunflower seeds like candy.
Baseball players. Of course we give each other
good game taps. We're baseball players. Of course
we're full of ourselves. We're baseball players.
Of course we play cards and rain delays. We're
baseball players. Of course we're not the Savannah
Bananas. We're baseball players. Of course we
have nice butts.