Oh, God. Oh, my God.
I got who's going to who's going to take their shirt off first?
Oh, my money's on Nick, because I'm the fat one.
I mean, I'm I'm I'm a speaking of insulation.
I'm a I'm a beefy boy.
I'm just more compact, beefy, packed beef.
Mm hmm. Please don't start on that line.
It's going to be hard not to. Yeah.
So is this where we say welcome back?
Welcome. It's your first time.
Yeah, Dick move.
There's only two episodes and you go to the second one and you don't even listen
to the first. Yeah, it's not like there's a long list that you have to get through.
No, we're not asking a lot.
Now, anyway, welcome back to Cage Match, Colin, a roundabout way of meeting Nicholas Cage,
the podcast where every episode we take two
films of America's finest, most hardworking actor
and pit them against each other.
And we will decide ultimately what the best Nick Cage film ever is.
Yeah, definitively definitively.
There's going to be no question about it.
No. Oh, hi. I'm Sean with my cohost Nick.
I'm Nick and our producer Peter. Hi.
So this week we are discussing two fine films,
but you're in for a treat because you get an extra cage for the price of two.
We're doing adaptation and Army of One.
So do you want to give us the first movie?
Well, like, you want to. Sure. We can jump right in.
And adaptation. Yeah, let's just bang this out.
All right. So I don't think it should take us that long to talk about this.
Yeah. Adaptation is a 2002 film starring Nick Cage
and Nick Cage. Nick Cage plays a fictionalized version
of real life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman
and then fictional fictional twin brother Donald Kaufman.
Charlie Kaufman write off the heels of writing.
Being John Malkovich has to adapt a film about.
Orchid, the Orchid Thief is the name of the book.
It's a book by Susan Orlean.
It's about another real life person. Yeah.
Fictionalized in this, which I got to say, that's the most wild shit about this.
Like, did Susan Orlean and John LaRouche actually
buy off on this or just like give away?
We will get we will get into this. I have I have notes.
So Meryl Streep plays Susan Orlean.
Charlie Kaufman trying to write this screenplay.
Can't write the screenplay.
Everything's going to shit. He's circling the drain.
Can't get a girlfriend.
Can't even sack up to meet Susan Orlean to get any idea of what he is.
Supposed to be writing all the while his layabout twin brother
is taking a screenwriting course and writing the worst, best action film ever.
And just immediate success sells it, gets a girlfriend,
has all this unearned confidence that just gets him through life.
So Charlie asks his brother to help out on the screenplay
and they wind up stalking his prey like to get a better idea for this film.
They start watching Susan Orlean
follow her down to where was it?
Florida, Tallahassee, something Louisiana, somewhere swampy.
It felt panhandling. I think it's Florida.
Florida sounds right to find out that she's mixed up with.
Yes, because it's the Seminole tribe.
Boom. Yeah. Florida State or whatever.
And she's mixed up with growing these orchids.
This is a sports radio podcast now. Sorry.
Growing these orchids for drug purposes
and having an affair with John LaRouche played by Chris Cooper,
who is a character.
He's certainly something there.
We'll get into more detail as we kind of discuss the film.
Yeah. Do we want to just do that now? Yeah.
I mean, we're done recapping. That seems like the perfect time.
Yeah, that's probably probably good. That's Nick.
Oh, man.
This was a tough one for me because it was literally like just watching
Cotton Mouth. It was just hanging out with him,
a friend of ours who's super kind of in his head for like two hours.
Yeah. I mean, literally, you are listening to his inner.
Yeah. Inner thoughts.
But it was a really well written movie.
It's a really well structured movie.
I understand why it's such a highly regarded movie,
and I liked watching it.
It's just stressful to me. I get that.
I mean, he is not a.
Relatable protagonist.
Other than right now, how sweaty he is at the beginning.
Oh, my God, he's very relatable.
It is warm in Seattle today.
I mean, I personally loved this film.
I haven't seen it since like 2004, but it's so good.
It has so much fun stuff and just.
You get a lot of like cage on cage action with him acting against himself
and also just masturbating a lot.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that that happens.
But just watching him spiral and trying to write this book
that has no central right.
Write a screenplay about a book that has no central plot and circling
the drain, trying to figure out what it's about.
Yeah, there's no action, no drama.
It's just about looking for a flower.
Somebody get shot.
No, like, I mean, in the in the movie that he's trying to write a screenplay.
Yes, there's none of that. Yeah.
No, there's no action, but we find out there's plenty of action behind the scenes
as Susan Orlean is having an affair, getting down with.
I mean, I think the real star character here is John LaRouche, just like the
star character here is John LaRouche, just walked out crazy guy missing.
He's missing his front teeth.
Obsessed with whatever strikes his current fancy.
At the beginning of the movie, it's orchids halfway through its online
pornography and the making of online pornography.
Mm hmm. I don't forget the most important one.
Dutch mirrors.
Oh, I did forget about that.
This is supposedly a comedy.
Yeah, I kind of think that we got this miss categorized.
It should have been better suited in the fucking weird area.
I think it's sold as a comedy.
I mean, it definitely is sold as a comedy.
That's how it's listed. It's sort of a dark comedy.
You know, Wikipedia classifies it as such.
IMDb classifies it as such.
Did I laugh?
I have a couple.
I had one particular one.
When Donald gets launched out of the car.
Yeah, it's a it's a good scene.
Just at first, very ragdoll style.
Any specific scenes speak to you on this film, Nick?
It's a hard one because it's not really told in a good
and a very linear fashion either.
It cuts around a lot like favorite scenes.
I don't know if I have like a scene that really kind of struck me.
I enjoyed the cleverness of La Roche
when they were talking with that sheriff in the beginning.
Oh, yeah.
And, you know, it was kind of funny, but it's kind of one of those
where it's like, oh, ha ha, this guy, he knows his way around this issue
and he's going to talk around the cops and everything's going to be hunky dory.
And it's like, oh, OK, that's what you get.
See, that was the weird one for me.
So watching Charlie made you think of our buddy Cottonmouth.
But La Roche just made me think of my friend who got really into meth.
Oh, yeah. Just that very, you know, I know a lot about everything
and can talk my way out of any problem.
But meth, apparently, he wears a fedora now, I didn't told.
Boy, I didn't think you could get lower than meth.
But fedora, those are two things I generally don't put associate with each other.
Imagine how fast he can skank.
That one got me.
If only adaptation had writing like that.
I think we do need to talk, though, about like Nick Cage with Nick Cage.
Oh, I do want to say, speaking of writing,
it's it's funny that this movie adaptation
has Donald Kaufman listed as a co-author.
So it's written by Charlie and Donald Kaufman.
This movie is meta as far.
Yeah. For the Academy Awards, it was both Charlie and Donald that were nominated.
Fake twin brother Donald. Yeah.
But like, just let's talk about the fact that, yeah, Nick Cage is acting
against Nick Cage for large chunks of this film.
Yeah. And it works really well.
And those are the best parts.
And those are those parts are pretty funny.
Watching Donald try and like write this.
The premise of Donald's movie that he's writing is it is a crime thriller
where a kidnapper kidnaps a woman and the detective is trying to find her.
But they're all the same person.
Yeah, that's the twist at the end.
There's a great I don't remember the full quote,
and it's not my favorite quote of this film.
But there's a great quote about when Charlie's like, How would you even film that?
And Donald's just like, can camera angles.
All right, because it's a she's locked herself in the basement or something.
Yes. No, but there's so much good just back and forth there.
And when they're in the swamp, like running for their lives,
they have a really great moments together.
And you find out that Charlie's never been happy
because he's never done anything.
And Donald is just happy in the fact that the brief moments of happiness
he's had, even if they've been taken away, were still his.
So he could live with that.
Yeah, he has a nice moment where he talks about like liking somebody.
But, you know, he's not worried about if they don't like him back
because that's their deal.
Not his. Yeah.
I was like, oh, that's a sweet sentiment.
I mean, kind of.
I mean, I get it in a soft headed sort of way.
I can say soft headed.
I'm pretty sure we can say soft headed.
It doesn't really mean anything. I'll look it up.
Yeah. Google it.
Oh, I'm trying to think who any other noticeable notable people.
Well, speaking of just like the Nicholas Cage, Nicholas Cage
back and forth the first time we meet Donald, I really enjoyed that scene.
He's just like laying on the ground.
And Charlie's just having a hard day.
And Donald's like, oh, I want to talk to you about this thing.
I figured out what I'm going to do.
But I have to lay down my back.
He's just laying on the floor trying to do this scene with himself.
And it's just great. I did enjoy that.
Well, I think my laughs came less from the dialogue and more situationally.
Yeah. What did you guys think of the writers workshop?
Oh, God, what's the name of the what was the name of the guy?
Oh, the author, the McKee or something like that.
Brian Cox is the Robert McKee, who is apparently a real person as well.
We can get into that later.
I thought that was great.
The whole like fuck voiceovers.
Yeah, this movie ends on a voiceover and then is well,
calls back to McKee saying fuck voiceovers.
McKee's going off and saying like, oh, don't don't use a voiceover.
Don't use a deus ex machina.
Like, don't when Charlie's trying to work on this script,
he goes through a whole list of shit.
Not to include in this because he wanted to avoid all the Hollywood tropes.
So he's like, don't make it a heist movie.
Don't include drug running, sex, guns, car chases, profound life lessons.
The characters growing, overcoming obstacles or learning to like each other.
And literally every one of those things happens throughout this movie and all
like neatly compact in the end where it's Charlie writing the ending to it.
So he just crams everything he didn't want in the movie into the last like 30 minutes of it.
Oh, well, so the movie and the movie starts off with this.
The world the universe is created, you know, plants spreading.
It's spring up from dirt.
Fish walks on the land.
You see a baby's head crowning, which did not need.
But 41 minutes into the movie, when Charlie gets his bout of inspiration,
he writes that exact opening to his script.
Yeah. If you've ever watched the Detroiters, it's a lot like the scene
where Tim Robinson and Sam What's His Face
take a bunch of uppers and brainstorm a commercial.
It's just like that.
He gets all sweaty.
He's talking into a recorder and then I think he throws a chair at a window.
I can tell you my biggest laugh from this film, speaking of Deus Ex mocking
and how not to introduce in the film Deus Ex alligator.
Yeah, they're being chased through the swamp.
La Roche has Charlie dead to rights
and alligator just pops out of the water and just mercs La Roche.
Yeah, it was very incredible.
There's examples of it in every movie.
I don't need to fucking make a reference.
You know what it looks like when a big animal eats a small animal.
And then Meryl Streep shows up and just is crying because her hillbilly lover is dead
after being directly responsible for Donald's death.
Yeah.
And tells Charlie to shut up, you fat fuck.
Yeah.
It's really the twisting of the knife.
He wore a fat suit for this movie.
Did he?
Yeah.
See, I figured he would have just gained the weight.
No commitment to the bit.
You know, he never breaks character on set, but...
Which character?
All character.
So he's both Charlie and Donald the whole time.
Is that true though about him not breaking character?
He stays in character real hard while he's on set.
I did not know that.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
That makes Army of One.
That makes Army of One real rough.
What's-your-face, Marcy from Army of One, talks about that in an interview about him.
He just stays in character.
Before we get to Army of One, there are some real interesting things around adaptation.
Oh yeah, there's lots of great things.
First and foremost, Charlie Kaufman was hired to adapt a screenplay of The Orchid Thief,
got massive writer's block, couldn't figure it out for all the reasons he couldn't in the movie,
so wrote this instead.
Didn't tell his producers he was doing this, just assumed he was going to be fired and never work in Hollywood again, and turned it in.
That's crazy.
That's pretty ballsy, but I guess if you're just up against a wall and you've got a deadline,
at least this was somewhat connected to what he was supposed to do.
You just turn in homework.
Yeah, that's fine.
It's just weird that you wrote an essay on a multiple choice test.
Pretty much.
Oh, but directed by Spike Jonze, who went to bat for this script.
I hadn't realized how few movies he's actually full on directed.
Yeah, it's not many.
Four.
Yeah, it's not many.
It is not many.
Not good with names and stuff. What's he done? Tell me and the audience.
Being John Malkovich was first, obviously tied with Charlie Kaufman, then adaptation, then Where the Wild Things Are,
and then lastly and most recently was Her with Joaquin Phoenix.
He also did a really awesome short film, Where They Come From, or Where Do They Come From.
It's all about where a pair of old sneakers you find in the gutter really come from.
I won't spoil it for you, but Google it.
It's on YouTube.
It's amazing.
Other fun fact, Susan Orlean was not okay with this when she found out what this was.
Saw the script and was just like, No, you cannot do this.
But apparently came around on the idea, but was genuinely worried this would completely ruin her reputation.
Right.
And I mean, yeah, not a great character in the film.
Yeah, I guess if you're like a writer for The New Yorker, you don't want movies coming out about you shacking up with toothless Floridians.
While doing a bunch of weird green blow.
Yeah, which I mean, at least Meryl Streep did a great crazy strung out Susan Orlean.
Yeah.
Well, I assume it's great.
I don't know what Susan Orlean's actually like, but I'm assuming a lot like the performance.
La Roche and Orlean were on the phone together.
They were both really high on orchid.
Oh, yeah.
And she had him like match dial tone sounds.
Yeah.
She just wanted to make a dial tone.
Like, don't do anything else, just go, oh, like, no, you're doing it slightly wrong.
Oh, sorry.
Much better.
I mean, you do.
You got to give this credit, right?
Like three people got nominated for Oscars on this one one pretty damn good.
Yeah, no, I don't want to make it sound like I don't like the movie.
I do like the movie.
It's it's really cerebral.
It's good.
It's got it took me on a great ride.
I really enjoyed watching it both times, but it's stressful.
It is very it's a stressful film.
Yeah.
If you have anxiety, it can be upsetting to watch this.
I know.
That's all I got.
It's a fun movie.
I do have I mean, I do have other things.
Oh, all right.
Go for it.
I've been just telling my friends.
OK.
Once again, this is not a movie originally intended for Nicolas Cage.
It was going to be Tom Hanks playing both roles from what I've read.
But Nicolas Cage came in for five million dollars again.
Hey, and he got both roles.
That's two and a half million for each role.
I can't really picture this with Hanks playing that.
No, neither can I.
What was Hanks doing in 2002?
He was working on the terminal.
OK, why not?
Sure.
The terminal list with Chris Pratt.
Yeah, actually, no, I do know the answer to this.
He was doing Catch Me Catch Me If You Can.
Oh, yeah, that's that would be the right era.
Still airplane related.
Weird.
Yeah, right.
In one scene, Charlie Kaufman plays the double for Donald.
But the other stand in is Nicolas Cage's actual brother, Mark Coppola.
Fun bringing, you know, family in and those Coppola's need, you know, need all the help they can get.
Yeah, they're a struggling, struggling family.
Struggling winery.
Speaking of finances, this movie cost about like 19 million to make and it made like 22 million.
So pretty bad.
That's a shame.
I mean, it is an arthouse film, though, so it's not.
It did break that hundred thousand mark, which is it did beat Jiu Jitsu's hundred thousand.
Yeah. All right. Is that the hurdle that movies have to clear?
Yeah. Can you clear the Jiu Jitsu mark?
I always am curious about these movies, why they decide to release them when they do, because this came out in
early December and just got washed by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
And then two weeks later, the Lord of the Rings, the Twin Towers, the two towers.
Oh, yeah.
He's in a 9-11 movie.
It's like I said, I liked it.
Nick, do your favorite quote from this film?
I did have a favorite quote from this movie.
Donald on the ground just saying, I can't believe I got shot.
Isn't that fucked up?
And then Charlie just saying, shut up. Stop laughing.
So mine is Donald while brainstorming and writing his film with his girlfriend in the room talking to Charlie saying,
I'm putting in a chase sequence so the killer flees on horseback with the girl.
The cops after them on a motorcycle.
And it's like battle between motors and horses like technology versus horse.
Yeah, Donald is really the best character.
Donald is great.
Probably why he doesn't exist.
I do want to see Donald's movie, though.
It sounds kind of like even if it was like a 30 minute short, that'd be pretty rad.
Yeah, I'm into it.
I mean, I assumed it would have been directed by Sean Alon.
But yeah, by and large, I still really enjoyed this film.
It's got a lot to like and yeah, there is a lot.
I recommend it.
It is a good movie. I enjoyed it as well.
So Nick Cage staying in character all the time.
This is oh my God.
That sounds awful for this next film, Army of One from 2016.
Nick, do you want to do you want to sell our listeners on this film?
Yeah, this is pretty much everything I have on the film.
And it's about Gary Faulkner, part time, sometime construction worker
and unemployed handyman just meets up with an old high school crush,
then gets a message from God telling him that he needs to go to Pakistan
to kill Osama bin Laden.
Capture Osama bin Laden. Oh, yeah. Sorry.
Now shot, not kill. Yeah, that's right.
But yeah, capture Osama bin Laden.
Bring him back for justice and stuff.
I think the important thing that was missing from that synopsis is that this is
largely based on a real guy and accurate to the story as far as I know.
Yeah, it's a wacky. Yeah.
But it is another terrific character role.
It definitely is a character role.
And hey, man, that's not a character that somebody just like, I think, makes up super easy.
This guy, he was something. He was.
It's OK. So let's just let's just say the voice is terrible.
I don't know. I found it soothing.
Do I have to be that guy?
Do I have to be the guy that defends the people with bad voices?
I mean, at this point, I think you have to. Yeah, it was it was rough.
I did get used to it after a while.
But boy, when it first came on, I was like, what is this?
You know, I heard that voice and I was like, oh, fuck.
I identify with this so much as he's just like,
he's got a bad kidney and he's getting dialysis and he's just sitting there.
He's like, you know, what's fucking wrong with this country?
Oh, my God. That is the voice. Fuck. Yeah.
Yeah. That's why I feel attacked right now.
Fuck. Well, that's that's all my jokes out the window.
No, it's OK. You can you can lay it on me.
No, it's tough.
I'm getting more why it's a shame this movie isn't better because it should have been better.
When we get into who was behind this, it should have been much better.
What you mean, like who directed it?
You mean the director of Borat or Religulous or Bruno or the Dictator?
Because this is what this guy's done.
He's also was involved in the like 2001 tick show entourage Kirby enthusiasm.
He's got a pedigree like a Dalmatian.
It's spotty. I'm not saying it would be.
I'm not saying it would be a great movie, but it should have been a lot better.
Well, especially if you think like the cast is actually not bad.
No, no, it's got a pretty good cast.
It's got like in Rainn Wilson in it.
Paul Scheer, Will Sasso. Yeah.
Also, Paul Scheer's character's name is Pickles. Pickles. Yeah.
Pickles. Great name. Gary Faulkner's best friend.
This movie starts off as the most cage thing ever.
The first scene of the film is Gary Faulkner hang gliding over Pakistan with a katana.
It's an American flag. American flag hang glider.
American flag like hang gliding goggles and a sweet ass beard.
A boombox hanging from the hang glider playing some like surf rock.
Yeah. Generic surf rock. Something you can really enjoy hang gliding to.
Yeah. And that's how it starts.
And it's really all downhill from there. Yeah.
Like the next scene is him as a child running with a balloon, then getting bullied
and then hearing the voice of God telling him his balloon stick was his righteous sword.
And then we cut to Nick Cage and Tidy Whitey's living in a construction site.
Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't have money, so he's just crashing in construction sites that he's worked on.
It's pretty good. Then goes to an American flag sleeping bag.
American flag sleeping bag. Because he's a patriot.
He is a patriot. Let's not forget.
I think the first big scene is him at the bar with Pickles and Roy, played by Will Sasso,
where he gets into it with a Marine because he's complaining how, you know, the Army hasn't caught
and the military hasn't caught Osama Bin Laden yet.
And a Marine, you know, starts giving him shit.
So he challenges him to a knife throwing contest. Yeah. Just whips out a big ass.
Gary challenges the Marine. Yeah. The Marine has nothing to prove.
But it's great. The Marine throws the knife, hits the dartboard. Everyone's duly impressed.
Gary lines up, throws the knife and just hits this dude. Will Sasso. Will Sasso.
And apparently it's not the first time. Not again, Gary.
Third time he's hit him with this knife. Apparently always comes back with just a bruised ego.
It's awesome. It's a great scene. There's like it's a great scene.
That's the start. There's a lot to like at the start.
Then he meets he's at the Home Depot, mansplaining everything that you can only buy American made.
You don't want to buy a French toilet because it can't handle a strong American shit.
Well, let me tell you one thing. When you work in construction,
you know that you know more than everybody at Home Depot.
It's all right. Fair. I can't I can't argue with that.
No, I know nothing. Everybody I know less than any Home Depot, especially you, Clem.
I hope you hear this someday. Don't sue us Home Depot or Clem.
Fuck it. Come at me, Clem.
That's going to be a bit that's going to be on a T-shirt.
Come at me. Clem is going to be our first T-shirt. Yeah.
But no, I mean, like it was a great scene, too, though. I agree with you.
Yeah. And then he meets up with his old high school crush,
who apparently used to have a crush on him. And she's got like an American flag tramp stamp.
It's not just an American flag. It's a Bruce Springsteen American flag.
He somehow slides into her DMS.
Shows up. Well, he's you know, voice aside, he's a charming guy.
He's so charming. Well, yeah. You know what? He's an authentic American male.
And it's all right. That's fair. I'm not going to deny you that.
And then she has the weirdest request for going out with her, which is find me.
Oh, yeah. Her only request to for someone to date her is for them to stalk her and show up at her house.
Yeah. Well, it sounds like she's pretty busy.
So it could have been just been like a nice way of just being like, sure, I'll go on a date with you,
but I don't got time for weeks. So you're going to have to just find me.
And then he does and never leaves and just brings ice cream for her mute child.
Gary's unstoppable love for this child. Yeah.
Like he is such a nice guy. Like he's always doing things.
He helps rebuild like he tears out their ramp.
Yeah. Their wheelchair ramp for their house because it was shit.
And he goes and builds a new one for them.
But it takes him a really long time because Gary's got, you know, admission from God and other things.
But he's a nice guy. He builds them a wheelchair ramp.
He brings her gifts like he plays along and he doesn't do anything to kind of come down on her for her disability.
And it's like, it's a really nice guy.
We I think we forgot to mention, though, who plays God in this film, Nick?
Oh, it's Russell Brand, obviously. Everyone's vision of God.
Yeah, usually. I mean, Russell Brand literally looks like just walked off the street and they just pointed a camera at him.
Yeah, they didn't do anything to kind of like, well, they put like little like godly hand wrappings on him.
Again, I think he just walked off the street with that.
Oh, maybe. But yeah, Gary gets going for dialysis because he's got bum kidneys and he's told he tells everybody in the dialysis center what it is just on every subject.
Yeah. But then gets a visit from God to track down Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Bring him back to America for justice and stuff for justice and stuff.
God speaks to him a couple more times, despite telling me never going to talk to Gary again, because Gary's apparently a fuck up who needs God's help.
But God will only help those who help themselves.
Well, that's tough love God. And Gary needs a little tough love.
Also, God sells him a katana on the home shopping network for a penny.
Yeah. Well, OK, we're really jumping a bit.
So like God tells Gary to go stop Osama bin Laden and he's like, OK, well, obviously I need a plan.
Thinks about it and he's like, OK, I'm just going to go down to San Diego.
I'll buy a sailboat for a thousand dollars and I'll sail to Pakistan from San Diego.
I'll capture Osama bin Laden and bring it back to America.
Boom plan. And he's confronted with the fact on a couple of occasions that he doesn't know how to sail.
Yeah. And not I mean, a really enjoyable line from later in the movie is just Gary saying, you know, thinking back,
not knowing how to sail really was a big setback to this whole plan. And it's like, yeah, because you crash your boat and ended up in Mexico after like a week on sea.
But I think you guys you missed on the fact that Matthew Modine is his doctor, who's a pretty good actor.
And that's for some reason in this movie. Oh, yeah.
Gary, Gary Collins, his doctor out of the money. Yeah.
And he's going to get married for the boat, his liver doctor.
He tells him it's for an engagement ring so he can marry this girl.
Definitely not for a boat to sail to Pakistan.
So his second plan is to because he can't fly to Pakistan.
So he's going to hang gliding to Pakistan.
And he's going to go to the hang glider store while at the sporting goods store, asks the guy selling the hang glider how many pieces they should cut on the plane.
The guy's like, you know, yeah, it's supposed to come in a piece, one piece.
He also asked the guy what some really sweet hang glider music would be.
And the guy's like, I don't know, Tom Petty.
And he's like, wrong answer.
Yeah, let's I want to back up real quick. He went he flew to Israel.
That's right. To hang glide from a mountain to Pakistan.
And once again, I pulled up a map. These are not adjacent countries like they're not even close.
He would have had to be in the air for like a week on a hang glider to get that far.
But his whole thought was like, if he crashed, he would just land in the Dead Sea and float because he doesn't know how to swim, which again goes back to the boat thing.
What? Yeah. So he crashes his hang glider and then shows back up at Marzies broken and battered.
Yeah. There's a portion in the middle of the movie where it almost feels like kind of the montage of Gary goes, tries a wacky plan.
It doesn't work. He comes back to Marcy and you see the strain on the relationship as it continues to happen because she likes him and she wants him around.
But his mission for God always takes precedence for him.
He goes back and forth. He has a couple like a little personal crises as he thinks about like quitting.
And then God comes back and tells him that he's an idiot and God doesn't like quitters.
So him actually getting into Pakistan finally, because he has to go and get special special visa, special visa.
And the guy's just like, no, I'm not going to give you that.
And he goes off on his rant about how he's gone to Pakistan to capture Osama bin Laden and bring it back for justice.
Yeah. And the guy just shrugs and stamps, stamps the paperwork and sends them on his way, which is I feel is just assisted suicide at that point.
And then goes on his way. And then we have a weird 15 minutes of him just bombing around Pakistan.
Yeah. You really see like how aimless his mission was and like how he had no plan.
He's just in town in Pakistan asking people about the bearded one.
I'm also how aimless this movie is. This is really the slope. This is the slope.
Yeah. But looking for baby boy.
I think it's the part that probably is the most accurate. Yeah.
I think it's the part that has the least embellishment.
Are we also do we also assume that the scene where he totally sorted some guys to death in an alley is probably also real?
I think it's likely. I mean, that's a weird scene is all I'm saying.
Yeah. I think it's funny that like he's just like bumbling American Batman in Pakistan just like has a sword and not getting his dialysis, not getting his dialysis, obviously having hallucinations.
My favorite of which is when he hallucinates MTV's Cribs Osama bin Laden.
Yeah. The next sword fight that we've talked about previously happens in this movie.
Yes. So he bumbles around Pakistan for a while.
A friend of his slash security guard for the hotel he's staying at gets gunned down in the street and he assumes it was Osama coming for him.
So chases this guy into the hills, falls down from exhaustion or just not getting dialysis for like a month and is immediately hang gliding over Pakistan.
Yeah. Sees Osama bin Laden down there is coming for him coming for you, Benny boy.
And then they then he wakes up in a cave on his dialysis machine across from Osama bin Laden also on a dialysis machine because he did require dialysis.
Yes. Yeah.
Authenticity.
This movie knew exactly when to end. And it's right now.
Like they're like no one's sticking around for any more of him like bumbling around. Let's just put him in a cave together.
So yes, they have their sword fight.
Yeah. So one of two Nick Cage sword fights.
Yeah. Osama bin Laden, Nick Cage, katana sword fight after getting dialysis in a cave.
It's a great moment.
It is.
For Americans.
I also love when they both just like swing the katanas at each other and they hit each other swords and they both just drop their swords like how that hurts.
Oh, yeah.
As anybody who has not practiced in swinging a sword will do the first time.
I mean, I would know I've never swung a sword.
No, I imagine it's like rebar and I've swung rebar around.
It's just metal in your hands. It just hurts.
Yeah.
You got soft hands.
But it was a fun sword fight.
It was a good one.
It was a fun little like action scene, which this movie had plenty of decent action.
Yeah. Like I said, there's a lot in this movie that should have been better.
We do get to see him masturbate.
So that's both movies Nicholas Cage masturbates in and plays fictional versions of real people.
Mm hmm.
So, yeah, after his fight with Osama, he wakes up in a hospital bed and is immediately sent back to America.
No charges filed.
Yeah. Well, so the CIA or whatever had been looking for him because they'd been hearing about an American samurai who is just terrorizing this neighborhood and they couldn't find him.
And eventually, so they find him, they send him back and.
Gary goes home and makes up with mercy, swears his mission is over.
He just wants to be a be a family man.
Then, you know, all the news outlets show up on our house on our doorstep.
Mm hmm.
Then cut to.
Again, sorry.
Another thing from this movie is the protagonist questioning who was going to play him in the script of the movie.
And he's like, Nicholas Cage can play me.
Everybody tells me that Nicholas Cage and Conair looks a lot like me.
It's like, oh, Jesus.
And we did end up with two of the most meta Nick Cage movies.
I guess the new one is pretty meta, too.
But it's surprising that we ended up with these head to head just randomly.
Yeah. Yeah, no, it was.
I mean, it was really convenient that we got two movies where he plays fictionalized characters of real people.
But just to wrap up the movie, the Barack Obama speech, we got him.
Oh, yeah. And then, you know, Marcy is clearly happy that this dumbass reek and end.
And Gary just loses his shit about how why don't they show us the body?
Yeah, they never caught him. He's still out there.
Full conspiracy theory. Planning his next sojourn.
Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the movie, you get a little splash of text that tells you Gary is looking to use the move or the money he receives for this movie to buy a new kidney so he can continue his mission.
Which, boy, I don't think there's a lot of money in this for Gary.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm sure like he got paid something. I don't know how much a kidney goes for, but I got like half off of a kidney, at least.
But we do have in his story option.
Yeah, we get to see some of actual Gary on like he was on the view. Yeah.
And he has a very normal speaking voice.
It's not as affected as Nicolas Cage is for sure. But Nicolas Cage obviously gave us a great character.
It definitely rambled for a while and then suddenly ended.
And a little crisis of identity in the last third, for sure.
But yeah, I don't this movie doesn't is his character supposed to be funny because how absurd he is.
Are we supposed to like root for him? Is he actually a hero?
Yeah, the problem really is that just nothing really happens.
There's no resolution for what Gary is trying to go through. No. And that's unfortunate. Yeah.
What do you do? It's an ongoing story. He's still out there fighting the good fight.
God bless him. Looking for the bearded one.
Bearded one. Benny boy. Do you have a favorite quote?
So this has three and I'm going to give them to you in my favorite order.
And they're all obviously from the beginning of the movie. All right.
The first one is when Gary's on dialysis and I'll try not to do.
Now, I'm just going to Gary voice it. Man, this country makes the best goddamn chicken wings in the world.
Now, I haven't seen the whole world. I haven't tasted chicken wings in Africa.
But I'd be willing to bet the right ball on a broke dick dog that no place makes better wings than they do here.
That was my quote. Man. I love that.
That's a good quote. It starts off so strong. Yeah.
And he's just like fucking at church basically here in dialysis, just preaching to people about his weird ass shit.
I love that one. It's not my favorite quote that I like it, but it's not my best.
The next two are both out of the Home Depot scene because he's just walking around and like Sean said, he's just giving terrible.
It's not even advice. He's just belittling everything at Home Depot.
So he's walking past two guys that are just looking at two by fours.
He's like, I don't know what you're putting up, but that ain't going to hold it and just walks fast.
And it's like, what? And my favorite was just don't buy that toilet.
That toilet was made in Africa. Pygmies made that toilet and they take small shits.
Your turd, your potty, your poo, as it were, won't bake it past the flusher.
That's my favorite. The poo, as it were.
And I'm sorry that I have the voice for this. It took me back immediately.
I know I tried to do a bit of a deep dive and find any information I could about this movie, and it is it's absolutely tough.
There's like nothing out there. The only thing that really made me laugh.
I love a good succinct statement. And in Wikipedia talking about reviews, it just said this received negative reviews.
Yeah. Yeah. Fucking bad.
All right. Well, hit me, Sean. What do you got? You took my favorite quote.
Do you want to try to read it in the voice and see who did it better? Now it's all right.
I've got it. I got to touch on one thing that I brought up earlier.
So I was looking at the music for this. Sean was asking some questions about it and I was looking at the music credits at the end.
And I realized that there is one song listed as performed by Nick Cage.
And now I have to go back and watch this whole fucking movie to try and find it.
And I assume it's performed by Nick Cage as Gary.
Well, if you find it, I really would appreciate it if it was our outro music this week.
Oh, yeah. I don't know if we get sued for that. Don't sue us.
What are you, Charles? Just us making the noises of it.
Like, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude. And the theme from Doug.
And we can't confirm or deny that. All right.
So this gets us to the main main question then. Right.
Do you want to explain what we're doing here again just for the listeners and all the people who complain that we just jumped the gun last week?
Oh, yeah. The people who tune in at the power mark.
So the main sons of bitches, they're taking food out of my kids' mouths.
So, I mean, the main thing is that it's a head to head match up.
It's bracket style. There's 64 Nick Cage movies. We're going to go through them all week by week.
So these guys have to decide the winner. But the rules are made up and they don't matter.
Yeah. Yeah. What's the winner?
It's adaptation. It has to be adaptation. It's Army of One.
My God. I honestly would rather watch Army of One.
It's not a better film, though. Doesn't matter.
Wow. Episode two. And we've already. Controversy.
In this head to head match up, like one of these has to win.
I'm OK being an ultimate tiebreaker if we need it.
But I think it's better if you guys debate and figure out a consensus.
We should have discussed rules for this beforehand. It wouldn't matter.
The rules are made up and they don't matter. Yeah. Fuck. You're right.
Hoist on my own petard. I mean, we've always been clear about this eventually boils down into which movie do you want to watch more?
Because you will watch. Yeah, we're going to have to watch it again.
It's true. And yeah, theoretically three to four times. Yeah.
Yeah. Three times total view like weeks of it, three episodes of it. Yeah.
But I've watched all of these movies multiple times in preparation for it.
And I can say that, like, through my watching, like, yeah, I mean, structurally, the script, the acting adaptation was a more complete movie.
But I didn't leave the movie thinking about parts of it that I liked.
I finished the movie and I was like, oh, OK, that was a good movie.
And I did something else. Army of One gave me reasons, good and bad, to think about the movie.
And I didn't stop thinking about it. You can't. Yeah.
And I think ultimately that wins it for me because I finished it, but it wasn't done with me.
That's hard to argue. And OK, I get it. I've definitely thought more about Army of One, but not for good reasons,
but mostly because it is so bad. There's just so much more fun to talk about it.
But sometimes bad fun. No, I agree. I love terrible things.
I see you. Ice Pirates. We need that. That'll be for the page.
And we'll just watch it. It says nothing. Yeah.
Jujitsu. I mean, I'd rather watch Jujitsu. Really? Yeah. Love Jujitsu.
I've had two friends who've watched it because of our first episode and they're still my friends.
Yeah, somehow I don't think we're going to get any big converts to Army of One.
I mean, that's ultimately what it is for me is I can't.
Last week, I was adamant that people should watch Jujitsu. No one should watch Army of One.
I disagree. That's up to that point. And even in the end, it's interesting.
It's a much more hopeful story. It's made me it made me aware of it.
It made me interested in it.
Normally a story like this has to start with words like Florida, man.
And it's not. He's from Colorado. He's just I don't know. So unique.
I like the character. I keep going back and I'm like, maybe it would have worked better for like,
I mean, obviously he's a real person.
I can't just say this would have been better in like a sketch performance kind of SNL sort of situation, like recurring character.
But he seems like the kind of guy that would just pop into your life.
It's fucking weird for a little bit. And then he goes to Pakistan and to find it been one.
Yeah. And I've had weird people like that in my life. I have, too.
And most of them have fucked me over, which is why I don't think I like Gary.
That's fair. But I don't think you have a sweet born free like tramp stamp.
I don't. My tramp stamps are something very different.
I think that's what it ultimately comes down to. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the perf.
There's a lot to be said about his performance, because as we said last week, Cage never stops.
He's never doesn't get a half ass performance and he gives it his all.
And I just think it was the wrong creative decision.
I don't know. It's like you get this blue collar American hero for the audience
and you just see him put into situations where like, yeah, he doesn't succeed every time.
But when he does, it's what counts. And it's in like building relationships, having a family.
I will I will renege on something here.
This is ultimately a movie or ultimately a podcast about Nick Cage films.
Adaptation is an Oscar nominated performance. Army of one is full cage.
In terms of a film that is 100 percent a Nicolas Cage film.
It's Army of one, I guess. Oh, that's that hurts my soul.
I have to watch this again now. I want it on the record though.
Adaptation is a better film. Yeah. Structurally, like critically.
Sure. Yeah. I'm sure Nick Cage made five million dollars.
That seems to be the pattern. Peter, do you have thoughts on which film should win?
You know what? Honestly, guys, like I don't I don't think it fucking matters.
I do think that Nick kind of hit on the main point.
Like if if this is about like the movie, the Nick Cage movie that you can just watch a million times,
then and that's the thesis for our show, then that's the winner.
Right. Like what's the thing that you can continue to go back to?
And like and we're talking about the best Nick Cage movie.
It doesn't have to be critically the best movie. This is true. Right.
Like Ghost Rider could be the winner, right? Even though that's not now.
No, Ghost Rider Spirit to Vengeance. Sorry. Excuse me.
Could be the best movie. So, yeah. All right.
That's our second film definitively.
And if you have other opinions, I don't care.
Yeah, we're not on Twitter or anything. So just write about it into the void.
Again, just shout it at your neighbor, but be sure to tell him that it's for Cage match.
So he has to listen. Yeah. Cage match. Cage match with Nick and Sean.
Yes. Specifically, Gorilla marketing. Yeah, that's right.
You know, your complaints about our opinions at your neighbors and tell them where to go to hear said opinions
so they can yell them at their neighbors. Yeah. So I'm excited about next week's.
We keep saying week, but, you know, things happen. People get COVID neck.
I'm excited about it. I'm just a really good kisser. I can't help it. It's true.
I didn't get it, though. Nice.
So next up is Pig. Oh, critically acclaimed, which you guys have seen.
And I have I have not seen it's going to fail because it's going up against his absolute worst rated film left behind,
which is like definitely some sort of Christian allegory, ridiculous shit.
So have fun, guys. Yeah. We.
What does Hayden have pizza pockets? I mean, he strikes me as an uncrustables guy.
Fuck you. That's the meanest thing you ever said.