Oh, God. Oh, my God.
San Francisco, the beat walks something completely different.
That's just a time saver.
You know, sometimes you got to get somewhere fast. Yeah.
Uh, I got I got Sparkle, buddy, all over my notes and we can't go back in time this week.
Damn, we lost our powers.
Philip, what's your beverage?
I didn't see you said it's mango.
Oh, I've got the yeah, I got a mango white claw right now.
OK, yeah, that's fair.
Do you have a backup claw, a backup buddy?
Oh, yeah, sure do. Sitting right next to me.
Excellent. Smart. You understand the podcast. Oh, yeah.
You guys are popping my podcast, Jerry.
This is my first time ever on a podcast.
Well, speaking of things that haven't been thought through,
welcome back to cage match, colon around about way of meeting Nicholas Cage.
I'm Sean here with my cohost Nick and our producer Peter.
Hello. And our special guest who will now be introduced by Nick.
His name is Philip.
This is Philip. He's my younger brother.
And how much younger? Four years.
Four years. What was it like being four years younger than Peter?
I could make up some crap that, you know, he was like a horrible brother,
but actually it was cool.
He would let me hang out with his like high school friends and stuff.
And they were they were pretty chill, like letting me watch them play video games.
And they only threw a few, you know, glasses at me here and there.
So I say it was good.
I got out pretty unscathed, all things considered.
We got we got really drunk one time and we just started
smacking each other in the face and like gleefully laughing
and running around our kitchen. It was a pretty good time.
That's like that's a core memory for me.
Did he show you your first boob?
That's a good older brother. I don't think so.
I couldn't tell you when when I saw my first boob, but I don't know.
I mean, Peter, I would love to give you that honor.
But I think I was doing my own research.
When did you see your first boob neck?
My brother and I were about.
10 or 11, I think, when we found my dad's pornos.
And that's also when we found the phone numbers in the back of the pornos.
And that's how you lost a bunch of money.
Yeah. Yeah. My brother and I had to pay back a lot of phone bill.
The ones that had like real people that would answer were always the funniest
because like somebody would answer, we'd be like, oh, fuck,
it's not a recording. OK.
Sound like an adult. Sound like an adult.
That that was the content I wanted.
Let me see your boobs.
We love breasts. This is a phone child.
Hang up. I mean, you are now a 38 year old man.
Yeah. Who doesn't understand that this is an audio format.
You're constantly doing like close up magic.
It doesn't change. Yeah.
My close up magic is on on fleek these days.
I mean, there's no way to prove one way or the other to these people.
It's true.
Well, now that we've alienated our female audience, that's pretty good.
I don't know. Maybe drop down in the comments, ladies.
Tell me about the first boob you ever saw.
For us to start on this podcast, we talk about boobs as well as review
64 Nicolas Cage movies in a head to head style competition.
And we will inevitably whittle this down to the final best Nick Cage film.
What seeds are these, Peter?
These are so Conair is a four seed and rage is a 13 seed.
We are talking about Conair and rage today.
We're good at this.
And this is the serious guy bracket.
Or wait, no, it's a tough guy.
It's pretty tough. Yeah, this is tough guy.
Oh, I figured it was the Alabama guy category.
Look at me with egg on my face.
No, he's Irish in the in rage, isn't he?
Yeah, but it's filmed in Mobile, Alabama.
Oh, that's that's true.
It's an interesting connection.
Yeah. Yeah.
I didn't really think about that when I was watching Rage,
but I didn't think about a lot because I was just so busy being angry.
Yeah.
Angry for the stealing of his daughters.
Yeah, I think I can boil it down for you guys real quick.
Basically, first of all, if you're going to do crime,
you need a cool crime jacket, as we've spoken about before.
Yep. And then on top of that, guns are cool.
Alcohol is not cool.
Teenagers are stupid.
And yeah, I think that sums it up, right?
Strike this man from the podcast.
Alcohol is indeed cool.
Yeah, alcohol is cool.
Guns not cool because knives are quieter.
Nick Cage established that he is a knife guy.
Yeah, knife guy.
But not a nice guy.
Yeah. OK.
Well, don't drink and play with guns.
That's a really good lesson, though.
Spoiler.
We're I don't think that should be spoiling anything for anybody.
Anybody who's considering handgun ownership should probably know.
No drinking gun.
I mean, statistics in this country would say a lot of people do. OK.
This is getting into a serious topic here.
No, we're not going to do that.
Let's make it dumb again. Yeah.
We have the brief.
Don't play with guns.
Give us give us the why. Yeah.
Yeah, I can walk you guys through it.
Yeah. So basically he Nick Cage is playing
Paul and Paul is a former criminal.
He's been tied to the Irish mob and he has this crew that he works with.
But they're all retired.
And now he's he's become a, you know, straight upstanding
member of society.
And I think within the first two minutes of the movie, he says that
he kind of gives you his blue collar bona fides like six times.
He's like, yeah, I used to swing hammer all day long and blah, blah, blah.
And so now he's in the construction business.
He's left his swinging hammer days behind him to be kind of a businessman
working with the mayor and stuff.
He's he's a big wig, no longer a criminal.
He's got a nice family, a daughter who's I think she's like
16 or 17 or something like that.
And yeah, 17 seems right,
because they were talking about next year for the SATs.
That's right. That's right.
And he also says that at the end of the movie, he's talking about how,
oh, I was her age when they first gave me my my first knife.
Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah. So basically like something crazy happens.
There's a break in to his house while he's out to a very generic dinner
with his wife and all these people that are connected to some
construction project that he's working on.
They try to figure out who's kidnapped his daughter.
He has to kind of interrogate his his daughter's boyfriend.
I feel like I'm missing a lot of steps here, guys.
This is a very detailed movie.
And everything you miss will just cut in later.
Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.
Yeah. So anyway, he he goes and interrogates the
the boyfriend and it basically tells him this.
This just off the handle story about how he's like, yeah, I used to go in.
And one time I beat up this Puerto Rican dude
because he called my wife a slut and blah, blah, blah.
And well, anyway, you should have.
I would expect you to step in front of a gun and block a bullet for my daughter.
He's telling this to a 17 year old kid who's terrified out of his mind.
So he decides to go and call on his old, you know, crime buddies,
Kane and Danny after getting out his old crime jacket.
Yeah, his old crime jacket. Exactly.
So he they all get together and they start cracking skulls.
I think Danny and Kane decide that the best approach
to figuring out who kidnapped the daughter is to just go harassed to
drug addicts and like try and choke one by tying a rope around her neck
and throwing a cinder block out the window because nobody in this movie
understands how physics works.
So it's just like, yeah, sure, that that'll happen.
That'll pull her out the window, of course.
That was a real long rope, too.
And they were only on the second floor. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it certainly could have like broke her neck
the way he just kind of tossed it out.
But that's not how we played this.
But he did do that cool, like shoot the rope off the windowsill
when he like let her go.
And then he was walking away and he was all like,
oh, I can't believe that actually worked.
Danny was like, well, you've never done that before.
It's like, no, never. Awesome.
I did really like Kane. Yeah.
I mean, he was an idiot, but he was he was just like
the easiest going thug criminal guy.
Well, so throughout the film and we first see it when the crime jacket is donned,
a cut to a different crime.
Like for the life of me, I couldn't figure out who was supposed to be
who in this flashback. Oh, my God.
Because even though one guy had the crime jacket, it was the biggest,
fattest guy. Hey, that's rude.
That's Nick Cage's son, sir. Is it? That was call.
Yeah. Whatever his name is.
He's in another one of the movies.
Nick Cage's we need to we need Weston Cage.
Yeah. Weston Cage. That's his name.
We need it. We need to we need to quack that because we want Nick Cage on here
eventually. Yeah. Yeah.
Quit being mean to his kid.
He's a fat kid.
He expects you to take a bullet for his kid.
You son of a bitch.
The only child I mean to is Finn Wolfheart.
Yeah, that kid sucks.
Go back to episode two to find out why.
I mean, I think they can probably figure it out.
They've seen his face. Yeah.
But just the the one person who looks the least
like they could be Nick Cage in this film plays a young Nick Cage,
which is really ironic because it is a relation. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's like it's this big it's he's a big stocky dude.
And like he's about a head taller than the other two guys in the crew,
which Nicholas Cage is not.
Yeah, it was an interesting casting choice.
I mean, I assume just because they're related, it was chosen.
It was good, though.
I mean, he had the crime jacket on.
That's how I knew it was supposed to be.
It's crime time. Yeah. Nick Cage in the flashback.
Don't jacket.
But yeah, they they like beat this dude up and like throw the driver out.
And they take this car.
And then later, you know, we see them trying to like
cut this handcuffed suitcase off of the hand of the dude that's in the back.
And they're like, I can't do it.
So they just cut his hand off.
These are bad criminals.
Yeah. I mean, they were kids,
and probably just jacking their first drop off.
Oh, whatever.
They stole a bunch of money is how it really like boils down.
They stole a bunch of money.
That's probably mobsters.
How he, you know, funded his clean life.
And I watched the movie twice once today, both times.
At the end of it, I was just like.
What just happened?
Yeah, Phil, how many times did you end up watching these?
I watched this motherfucker twice, and I'm not super happy about it.
Conair was was great on the second watch.
But yeah, rage, man.
It was a slog getting through both times.
I kind of jumped around because you guys had primed me for how much it sucked shit.
And I basically watched the beginning and I watched the last like
30 or 20 minutes and that was about it.
You missed all the best parts.
Tell me more.
Yeah. So what happened next, Philip?
Well, yeah. All right.
So where were we? We were talking about how
crime, crime time, crime time.
Yep. Start rousting people.
What happens after the rousting?
Is this after the daughter is dead?
Yeah, we find out the daughter's dead.
Yeah, it doesn't take too long before they're like, oh, yeah, she is dead.
Oh, also the detective on this case, Danny Glover.
Yeah, Detective St.
John. All right. So yeah, they they go rough people up.
There's we have that flashback about when they were kids
and they killed the Russian mobster crime.
And then they start figuring out.
We have a little scene between Kane and Danny where they're trying to say, like,
OK, well, we were the only three people there at the scene
who killed those that Russian mobster.
So like one of us had to be the snitch, right?
But like, I know we didn't talk.
So the whole question becomes for the rest of the movie, you know, who
who killed Caitlin and who snitched that that then like led the,
you know, ostensibly the Russians to kill her.
They think it's the Russians because friends, the forensics
comes back or the ballistics comes back rather.
And she was shot with a Tokarov Tokarov, exactly.
Which was the original name for this movie.
Oh, was it? Yeah.
You can find a bunch of posters of like Tokarov.
Yeah. Episode zero. I was really puzzled by that.
I didn't do any deep diving into why it was named that.
So I was like, what the fuck?
Makes sense, I guess. But that's a dumb name.
Yeah. Rage is a dumber name. Yeah.
Yeah. They should have just named it crime.
But crime in a way that you understand that you're saying it crime. Yeah.
That's that's a font choice thing, right? Yeah.
An ellipsis in front of it. Just that that that crime.
Crime time.
This is quickly becoming crying time.
Sorry, I started this.
Yeah. So we know the daughter is dead and they've been.
They find the daughter in a hunt.
They find the daughter in a creek about two blocks away from their house.
And it takes them a few days.
I was going to say, what was she wearing?
But what's she wearing? I don't know.
I skipped this part of the movie.
I don't know.
Honestly, I don't I don't know if they talk about it.
I think she was just wearing whatever she had on
when we saw her in the house scene at the beginning of the movie.
So like, you know, whatever that was when she was hanging out with her friends.
That tracks.
I mean, I was just going to say, like,
depending on what she was wearing, she could have been asking for it.
It could not have been a crime. Jesus Christ.
Oh, my God. Shut the fuck up.
Sometimes I go outside and I'm wearing something.
I'm like, well, you know, if I got shot in the head and dumped in a creek today,
I'd be my fault. Look at what I'm wearing.
Just asking for it.
I mean, you do have that shirt that says, please, shoot me in the head
and dump me in a creek. Yeah, that was a gift.
Off of a body.
It would be rude not to wear it then.
Yeah, that was a gift from your grandmother.
Yeah. Well, you know, she's getting old.
So I don't think she got the font, the font choice.
It was all in old English.
You guys want some more of that sweet, sweet, fascinating plot.
All right. Keep going. Yeah. Lay it on me.
So decide that they need to get the attention of the Russians,
you know, because obviously, if the Russians did it,
they're going to have to get them to meet up or reveal themselves.
So they go to some random, you know, like poker,
backroom poker game where the Russians are hanging out
and they just start beating everybody up there.
But I mean, it is the saddest, slowest, most old man fight.
Oh, yeah. So I do love this scene, though,
because they have to like argue with the guy at the door to get in,
punch him through the door, just run in, start just decking people
up. As his as his crew is just beating up all these Russians.
Nick Cage just saunter's over to the poker table with a handful of cash,
throws it on the table, leans over, whispers something in the guy's ear
as a fight is happening.
And that's when the guys at the table decide to get involved.
Yeah, it was very weird. And he never recovered that money.
It was like thousands of dollars and like fifties.
Well, he was going to use that money to pay his boys and they didn't want it.
So it's still money. Yeah, right.
Like that's still you can track that.
I'm not arguing with you that that was his reasoning, but it's like, that's dumb.
He's a dumb, dumb businessman.
No wonder he f**king failed at being a criminal, giving all this money away.
This is also the first time we see his knife skills.
So he is like all pro knife.
Like he's not he doesn't know bang bang.
He prefers the knife. Yeah, he prefers the knives because they're quiet.
And we get our first kind of look at it.
We get a better look at it later.
But this thing looks like it came out of a spirit Halloween.
Oh, yeah. No, this is like a mall knife.
Yeah. He's like an all ninja.
It's huge. It's stupid.
And the handle is like engraved with faces.
He comes in stabbing and then immediately sheaves it too.
And it's like, dude, that's all going to dry in there.
And then your knife's going to get stuck.
Come on, be a better criminal.
I wrote down for this scene that get Paul some sharper knives
because it's just that ridiculous part where he's slicing the guy's wrist over and over again.
And for some reason, he thinks that's a viable combat tactic.
Well, we've even talked in other movies.
It's like he went across the street.
You got to go like down the block or whatever.
That's right. He's cut in the wrong direction.
Yeah, it was kind of like death by a thousand cuts.
Like he just kept cutting that guy's wrist and it's like,
oh, I'm trying to just saw it off or something.
And then some guy pulls a gun and he decides he's going to run across the room to stab the guy.
Yeah. And his buddy just shoots him.
Yeah. This was our first look at how action sequences were really going to be handled in this movie.
Oh, God. And it is hard.
It's like if you turn to Transformers movie on its side and just like shook it like you can't see
anything, it's the only way to hide the fact that, oh, let's see, Nick Cage would have been 49.
So he's like about 50 when this movie comes out.
And I mean, he's not the quickest mover.
No, it shows most of his attacks are kicks.
He's a kick attack kind of guy.
Kicks and knives. Kicks and knives.
The classic duo.
It's a real shame to having having this up against Con Air where he's doing like
sweet ass roundhouse kicks and just the editing of sequences is so much more dynamic.
And this he's a younger man toward people.
Yeah, it's true.
After he fucks up all the Russians at the poker game, we do get the classic.
He's in his like black tiled shower, leaned against the wall, back flexed as like water runs down.
Really thinking.
Yeah. Was this when you just asked to choke his wife in the most uncomfortable scene in the entire movie?
Yeah. Oh, with the most awkward kiss ever.
Like that actress wasn't having any of it.
Nick Cage's kiss just comes in so strong.
He was going to like, I don't know.
Yeah. Mouth up the entire thing.
And then it just evolves to sad, like ugly crying on both their parts.
It's just a bizarre choice for this scene.
They're going through something there.
Well, his daughter and her stepdaughter has died because that's a plot point
they keep bringing up for reasons that don't matter.
Why the fuck do we care that it's not like it's a stepmom situation?
It's what does Peter Storm here come into this entire.
Oh, at the daughter's funeral.
Oh, that's all iron sides.
Yeah. Yeah.
My favorite quote, I'm just going to get in here right now.
And it's not a quote.
It's the quotes that are in my head is after the funeral when he's like Cage's old crime boss.
And he rolls up on his wheelchair and he just says to him, like, can we take a walk?
And in my head, I'm just like, ah, 50% of this conversation can walk.
When he said that, I really I just expected Peter Storm
to just like step up out of the like wheelchair.
He just makes one of his guys like push him around as a power move.
Yeah, that would be sick.
But no, it's like, I don't want to use these legs. Fuck them.
Yeah. I think actually he's my favorite part of this only for that line,
like asking if they can take a walk when he obviously can't.
Then later when he meets with the Russian and they're on that ramp in the parking garage
and they get into a gunfight and like Peter Storm, it runs out of bullets.
And he looks over and there's a gun on the ground.
It's like, wow, gunfights really suck when people are in wheelchairs.
It's like this is the worst action ever.
But I do want to see like an all wheelchair action movie now.
So did you ever watch? Did you ever watch Crippled Masters with me?
What's that?
It's this ridiculous, ridiculous martial arts movie that I found in like a DVD bin somewhere.
No way.
Yeah, look it up. It's incredible.
Google it.
So it's I mean, the like the concept of this film is that there's these two guys
who are martial artists, but one of them has his arms burned with acid
and the other one has his legs like destroyed in some accident.
Yes, I do know.
And they end up having to team up together because one of them is strong in the arm.
And one of them is strong in the legs.
And they have to beat this guy who has like a weird turtle shell back.
And there's like four sound effects for the whole movie.
It it fucking rules.
I highly recommend anyone watch Crippled Masters.
Yeah, I'm watching this shit.
I'm just looking at some of this poster art and it is outstanding.
Yeah, it's a it's a good one.
Is this going to be another like eat a sandwich in your garage?
Then we watch this film.
For sure.
Yeah, why not?
Well, can we talk a little about O'Connell's accent?
Like, what the fuck is going on with this accent?
Peter Stormare, he's like he's supposed to be Irish ostensibly.
And I could not for the life of me track where his accent was coming from.
I don't know if he just that accent is 100 percent Peter Stormare.
I thought so. It's just him, right?
Yeah, that is just him.
I mean, I guess in Fargo, he sounded a little different.
They did not give him a whole lot of speaking lines.
And now I understand why it is interesting because like he and Kate are pretty dynamic.
Actors, but they just have no chemistry at all.
Well, they have nothing to do in this movie.
Fair. I like Peter Stormare.
Yeah. Yeah.
For reasons unknown to us, Danny Glover is kind of like in Cages corner.
And it's always like giving him free advice of like, you know, don't go back to your old ways.
Oh, yeah. And then like after that car chase, like when they kidnap Danny
and he's like chasing after the other criminals,
the one decent bit of action in the film.
Yeah. Although that was also super shaky.
It's like, come on.
It's not like cage is physically running after the cars.
I mean, I feel like you heard you could hear the sarcasm in the way I said.
But then like he gets into like this.
I don't know. There's all sorts of property damage.
And then the cops finally stop him and they catch him.
And it's like, no, just let him go.
You got a Paul Polly. Come on. Don't do this.
So Danny gets kidnapped by the Russians.
There's a whole thing where they like shoot up a meth lab
that the Russians are running.
We missed the whole chase scene with where he's chasing that guy out of the strip club
and ends up that leads to like this cagey as well as in the entire movie.
So yeah, but they yeah, they have to like escalate up to the next level of the rough Russian mob.
And they chase this guy out of the strip club.
And then Danny, one of the partners, shoots this guy.
And I love that Kane is like, you can't just shoot somebody out in the middle of the street.
And so Nick Cage chases, I put that heavily in quotation marks,
chases this guy into like some kind of warehouse.
And the dude's bleeding out. They end up on the roof and he falls down.
And Cage is trying to, or Paul's trying to like interrogate him and be like, all right,
you need to tell me who killed my daughter.
And he keeps being like, no, no, no, don't die.
And then he'll like beat the shit out of guy and like slam his head into the ground and like,
stop dying.
Yeah.
Don't die. Who did it? Um, the only I mean, the only reason this character is even relevant
is because he was the other guy in the carjacking from their youths.
Yes, he was the driver that they threw out.
And then like the Russian mobster thought that he stole the money.
So we like cut off some fingers.
We finally meet there like the leader of the Russian mob who kind of looks like Chris Parnell.
Kind of looks like Chris Parnell, but also just looks like a bull terrier.
Like they have the same face.
And then he just looks like a fucking sad, long face dog.
And he's this squinty eyes.
Yeah. The leader of the Russian mob is the only character I kind of get in this film
that I kind of like because he's the only one who has his head on his fucking shoulders.
He's like all this random violence.
What's it for?
You know, back in the day, people would tell you why they're killing you.
I just don't understand.
They used to take you out to dinner and wine and dine you before they killed your henchmen.
Times have changed.
Crime used to be cool.
But yeah, they go for Kane.
Yeah.
And he calls up Paul and he's like, you know, the Russians are here.
Oh, is this the yelling scene?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
This is when I this is when I actually tuned back into this movie.
Paul thinks that, you know, Danny's one who squealed.
Yeah, he basically he kills.
He accidentally kills Danny.
I don't think it was an accident.
It was pretty intense.
He killed him on purpose, but just, you know, it was a crime of passion.
Yeah.
And then he's like tries to like, like, Danny.
Oh, my buddy.
Sweet, Danny.
Joshy.
They're not doing that again.
This is rare for me, but I'm cracking my second buddy already.
Oh, shit.
This movie is making you turn to alcoholism, Peter.
It's completely understandable.
He didn't even watch the whole thing and he's got a problem.
This is a rough movie.
What do you guys think?
I'm addicted to heroin right now.
Jesus.
So Danny does.
Yeah.
Why don't you just fast forward us through the end of this film?
Yeah, I actually thought that the movie like I had missed something
because it basically went from that to him confronting the teenager.
Yeah, pretty much.
We get the shootout scene and.
Yeah.
Well, he goes home because he's like, oh, Tokarov, Tokarov, Tokarov.
I know where there's a Tokarov.
This really sold the movie for me.
This fucking scene where they so we find out it's the boyfriend that did it,
but it was an accident because they.
So basically retells it with this stupid reenactment.
And I don't know if anybody else was getting like Zoolander gasoline fight vibes from.
Yes, it was killing me because of the kids.
They're like, we were getting drunk and we wanted to ask what's his daughter's name,
Caitlin.
We wanted to ask Caitlin about her dad's.
We were like, oh, we knew he was a criminal and like, do you have any cool stories or
any like relics from back when he was a criminal to show us?
And, you know, she can't show them his his crime jacket.
Because he's wearing it.
So she wasn't wearing the crime jacket yet.
He didn't take that out until she died.
No, you're right.
Why not just show him the crime jacket?
This thing whole thing could have been avoided.
Yeah, that shows you that he's doing crime.
Yeah, no, but so she's like, OK, fine, I guess actually we have like a box full of guns
upstairs.
So so she takes him up to this this closet, gets the box out and they're all like passing
out guns and then like pretending to shoot each other and giggling and drinking straight
out of like bottles of tequila or whatever.
And then it's of course raining outside.
They decide it's a great idea to go run around in the wet grass and like chase each other
with guns.
And for whatever reason, the dumb boyfriend is like facing the other way and he's getting
very serious about pointing his gun.
And Caitlin comes up to him and taps him on the shoulder and he turns around and just
fucking shoots her in the head.
Yeah, it's the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a movie, but it honestly made the movie
for me.
I was not on board until that dumb as rocks twist.
So yeah, what does he say?
He's like, oh, what like guns there?
They're so scary and cool and I just didn't know what to do.
Yeah.
So like that him and his buddy go and like dump the body in the creek as you do.
And then they're like, look at what she was wearing.
Classic Creek outfit.
And then they have to go and like they come up with the story of the home invasion.
So they like smash the place up and then like take turns like taking like slugs from like
vodka from a vodka handle and punching each other in the face.
And this gets to my biggest issue with this film is to how terrible these cops are because
it even says in the beginning when like Nick Cage comes home, like what about the neighbors?
Did they hear anything?
No, no one heard a gunshot.
It was a very rainy night, Sean.
It was heavy rain.
You would still hear a gunshot.
Also, that bullet would have gone somewhere.
It did.
It went into her brain.
There would be blood.
Heavy rain.
Heavy rain, just the fact that she was put in the creek, like like you said, two blocks away.
And they didn't do a search immediately around the house to look.
Yeah, it's just Alabama cops.
What you're going to do, guys?
How does this thing end?
Yeah, basically, once it's all revealed, Paul decides not to kill the boyfriend.
He shoots a couple of rounds in the ground, goes back home and prepares himself to be
shot by the Russians.
And there's nothing more to it.
He just sits down, we get kind of a close up on his face and we see the Russians coming
in and then he dies.
And then there's a very boring credit roll where they're just taking his body out on a
gurney and then they make his poor wife, they make that actress do yet more crying work
right as she's seeing his body come out of the house.
So that's about it.
All right.
Where do you guys think this falls on the Venn diagram?
Bad Cage, bad movie.
Yeah, this is one of the few times I really feel like he completely phoned this in.
And apparently he did this because he really liked the director's first movie.
Neon Flesh.
Yeah, I think that was it.
I didn't look into any of it.
Yeah, they appeared.
Sexy killer.
Spanish movie.
Bon Appetit.
Neon Flesh again.
Yeah, I think it was Neon Flesh.
Wait, there's a movie just called Spanish movie.
Yes.
Cool.
No idea why this movie exists.
Nick Cage, like he says he's never phoned in a role, but this role seemed fairly found in.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I don't think the role didn't offer a whole lot for sure for him to, you know,
sink his teeth into.
I read one good quote about this movie.
It's from Chris Cofell at a film school rejects and he said, Rage isn't terrible,
but it's pretty bland.
It's like cooking, but failing to use salt.
Yeah.
For a movie with a title that has such an intense emotion, it's like, yeah, Nick Cage
gets like angry and stuff in it, but I don't think I ever feel like he's just overwhelmed
with rage.
Like if he had just gone completely off the deep end, that'd be cool.
Gone ham.
Yeah.
Oh, man, here's what I wanted.
And I didn't know until right now.
I wanted the movie to start out as it did.
But then when Nick Cage goes and gets his crime jacket,
then it becomes like a horror like movie where he's a like a predator stalking everybody
and just coming out insanely enraged, like some feral animal and just like tears through
the Russian mob and then give us the thing from like everybody else, like from Danny
Glover's perspective as this wild rabid Nick Cage.
I give this movie one mall kiosk knives out of seven.
Okay.
I don't know why that top number seven adjusts.
No, that's that's correct.
That's the correct number of mall kiosk knives.
If you own more than seven, then you're then that's just your personality.
How many drunk teenagers do you give this movie, Philip?
Oh, yeah, this is a this is a solid 10 drunk teenagers, 10 out of 10.
It's yeah, swept up.
Man, those are some dumb teenagers.
I would probably say nine out of 10 because we did leave one in the creek.
Oh, God, that's a very good point.
All right.
Do you guys have any quotes from this fucking movie?
I do not.
Just my imaginary quotes.
Yeah.
Philip, did you get anything?
Oh, hell yeah.
This is the best quote in the movie is from Danny Glover.
So Detective St.
John, they go in to clean up the mess after the crews like shot up the meth house.
And there's a guy dying dead on the floor and his Danny Glover's partner is like,
Oh, who's this?
And he goes, meet Sasha Borat rap sheet as long as my dick.
Yeah, Danny Glover did have the best line in this film.
Why is he in this film?
He pops up in the weirdest things now.
Like he's one of those actors that I always think is dead
just because I haven't seen him in anything in forever.
And then he just shows up and shows up.
Roll.
Yeah.
Danny Glover rest in peace.
At least his career.
Yeah, I don't think I have a quote for this either
because I really didn't watch this movie, but I did like him yelling rat at
his buddy before he accidentally quote unquote kills him.
Oh, yeah.
He did yell rat a lot.
It's not that great of a movie.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to be like, it's bad.
It's not it's very a rampant in the middle.
Like bland without salt is very apt.
Is it just one giant gun safety PSA?
That's basically my takeaway.
Kind of is.
Or maybe just like birth control PSA.
Like don't have stupid kids.
They'll get drunk and shoot each other with your like crime guns.
I thought we did that last week with mom and dad.
OK.
Now that was a reason to have children.
So you could kill them.
Yes.
It sounds like a big investment for something like that.
Why don't you just have a child and I'll come by and.
No, you can't kill.
You can't kill someone else's kid.
You have no desire for it.
Yeah.
Boo.
You don't know me.
You didn't see what it was wearing.
All right.
Let's talk about so much of this.
Can't air.
Not OK.
Some of it's gold.
I'm fucking hitting on everything.
Con Air.
All right.
So as we discussed last week, this was my first time ever watching like
the film Con Air and not just like clips from tuning in on TNT.
First time with the film.
Con Air.
Very familiar with the novelization.
So yes, I wrote my dissertation on the novelization of Con Air.
OK.
Well, tell us what you thought of it.
Also, what is this movie for all the other people in the world who've never seen.
Con Air.
So you'd seen Con Air, right?
Oh, yeah.
Back in the day.
Yeah, I got a lot more out of it watching it now.
Now that we're kind of that much further away from the 90s and all the weird kind of like
you just know the way that they depicted, you know, law enforcement and, you know,
criminals in the 90s.
It's super campy.
But it was interesting watching that.
So, yeah, this is a Brockheimer film.
So it starts off with a big hurrah.
The Army Rangers, you know, first in last out.
You know, we kick ass.
We don't leave any men behind.
Nicholas Cage plays Cameron Poe.
John Cusack is Agent Vince Larkin.
John Malkovich, Cyrus the virus.
And then my personal favorite character actor in anything,
Cole Mamini.
I love Cole Mamini.
Cole Mamini is amazing as Agent Duncan Malloy.
He's a real piece of shit.
Danny Trejo is in this.
Ving Rhames plays Nathan Diamond Dog.
Dave Chappelle's pinball for a brief period.
So, yeah, this movie, Nicholas Cage gets home from the from the Rangers to see his wife.
They have a brief moment in the bar she works at where one of the regular
rednecks chuckle heads who sexually harasses his wife on a regular basis
tries to sexually harass his wife while they're dancing, like throws like throws a five dollar
bill and Nick Cage is facing like, go get drinks from me and my buddies.
Yeah. Yeah.
This guy was very aggressive towards somebody who was in Army Ranger uniform.
It says it right on his arm.
It's piss.
He's a Ranger.
It's piss and soldiers like him that lost us the Vietnam War.
Yeah, this guy knows a lot about like military action.
But yeah, there's like an active like oil pump that's just shooting fire into the sky
next to the bar, like in the parking lot, because that's where Redneck and his buddies
decide to in the rain.
Also heavy rain.
Heavy rain tries to tries to murder Cameron Poe because he didn't fight with them earlier.
And she's like, get in the car and he fights them off.
And then one guy pulls a knife.
And as the guy with the knife comes at him, he like smacks his nose bone into his brain
and kills him and his friends grab the knife and run away.
He takes a plea deal.
But because of his military service, you know, he is a dangerous weapon.
The laws don't apply to him the same.
So he gets seven to ten minimum.
So yeah, Cameron Poe in jail seven, eight, no, eight years.
And he's corresponding with his daughter the entire time.
He's finally going to get out.
But he has to be flown on the jailbird to where he's going to be released.
But with a bunch of other convicts.
Yeah, he has to be flown back to Alabama.
The jail that he was taken in through.
It almost doesn't matter the logic of it either, because like they just kind of
set up everything really quickly and are like, OK, this is the exposition.
Here's what this movie is going to do.
Go. Yeah.
Yeah. So then he's on a plane with, you know, criminals, murderers, rapists and.
The cream of the crop.
They break out led by Cyrus the virus and take over the plane.
And that's the rest of the movie.
So Nick Cage is like cellmate and buddy. Baby.
Oh, it's diabetic.
I like how you said that hyphenated instead of like with a space.
Well, you said baby.
Oh, it's hyphenated.
It is. Yeah.
Because they call him baby.
Oh, baby.
Oh, so baby.
Oh, needs his insulin.
But there's no.
He needs his insulin.
But there's no syringe.
I've been needs his medicine.
There's no syringes left on the plane because they get smashed in the break.
Out.
I'm sure one of those convicts has something to stick him with.
Penis joke.
And then the one lady guard is being harangued by Danny Trejo.
Johnny 23.
Johnny 23 because he's raped 23 women.
Yeah. Also, how hard is it to not write rape into movies?
Yeah, I imagine they made him a rapist because.
Because he looks like Danny Trejo.
Well, that's racist.
And I'm sure it's because.
I'm talking about the man's face.
He's got a real rapist face.
Just look at him.
It's pretty.
Look at what he was wearing.
It's weird how young Danny Trejo is actually like a fairly pleasant looking human being.
Oh, you got to go way back, though.
Yeah, it's not 1997.
Danny Trejo.
Like you got to go like 1975.
Danny Trejo in this movie, he was reminding me a lot from
his role in From Dusk to Dawn.
He just like had that kind of like creepy vampire look to him.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Nick Cage has a way to get off because they need to get they're doing a transfer,
which is where we're introduced to the criminal who actually has the plan and has the jet that
they're going to connect to later.
Cindy, no.
But in the breakout on the plane, three convicts are killed and they are three that have to go off.
So they need three white guys.
So the diabetic black baby can't go.
So Nick Cage is eventually says he'll go, but can't because they're going to gag him.
So he won't be able to say anything.
And he doesn't want to leave the lady cop to be raped because he's a good guy.
Because he's a good guy.
I don't think that was ever really a motivation for him.
Like he says it, but like he was about to get off the plane until he found out that he was going to be
like gagged.
Yeah.
Have duct tape over his plane to get off the plane was just as soon as he got off.
He was just going to start screaming.
Yeah, I think he doesn't want to leave baby.
Oh, behind because like once he was that he's going to get these.
The female guard serves no purpose in this film other than a rape subplot.
Like that one could go.
That could completely go and it could just be like his buddy is going to die because he's not going
to get his insulin.
Yeah.
Well, oh, I think what I was trying to get at earlier was like they made him a rapist because
of diversity.
Like you just needed.
Who's racist now, motherfucker?
I'm saying diversity in crimes on the plane.
Yeah, but you could have him just like you could have that conversation with.
No, but that conversation with Cyrus, the virus or Cyrus is like, fuck you.
Like, I don't I don't fuck around with rapists.
And then that could be it.
Danny Trejo could have been one of the guys who died when, you know, the first part of
the incursion started.
You know, it's like you didn't need him to be like a weird predator for the rest of the movie.
I mean, they do have him come in at the at the end when when Poe comes in and actually
saves her, saves Bishop, the guard.
He does.
They have that like unnecessary line where it's like, don't do that to women.
And it's just like, Jesus Christ, this whole thing is cringe worthy.
Yeah.
Yeah, like I think we already knew that.
The worst line in this movie is Danny Trejo.
Like he's like, I'm going to use your whole body to make me feel good.
As a pickup line, it's terrible.
As a line in the movie, it served a good purpose.
Every line reads like that.
I love it.
Like everybody is perfect in this film.
Yeah.
Except for Steve Buscemi.
Oh, I love Steve Buscemi.
What is his purpose?
So when they do the prison transfer, they there's a late edition and Steve Buscemi,
who is this crazy, supposedly psychopathic, he's a serial killer,
who's worked his way all up and down the East Coast.
The one crime we've heard him do is when he talks about when he wore
a little girl's head as a hat across three states.
I don't know if it was a little girl.
It was a lady's.
Yeah, I think he said a woman's head as a hat, which I mean, he's getting into semantics.
I think but no, he was talking to Poe and I think the point was like
he was talking about like a child because Poe was like, it's my daughter's birthday.
Don't talk to me.
Yeah, maybe.
And then we see him later, like being creepy with a little girl who doesn't die.
Well, he talks about how most like murders aren't like crimes of passion.
They're like killings of necessity.
Like, oh, well, that person was too close.
Narratively, there's no reason to have him in the film.
And I totally agree with you.
It was weird having him just dropped in there and then like, what is his plot line?
He gets I mean, he is like a redemption arc kind of like he learned compassion
from a little girl and then now he's gambling in Vegas at the end.
Did he?
I don't think he did.
I think he's just a serial killer.
And like he wasn't going to kill the girl because the little girl's not.
Well, like just because you're a serial killer doesn't mean you're going to kill everybody.
Are we supposed to be rooting for this guy at the end or what?
I think that's the thing that was confusing for me is that it does feel like we're supposed
to be rooting for Bushemi for some reason.
And like, I don't know why.
I don't know why you can't just let him exist in the movie and require something of him.
Because this movie is long.
Yeah.
And meandering.
And you could have saved time.
And again, it doesn't cut out all of his like lines.
You would save two minutes tops.
You're not saving anything by cutting him out.
But what you're not adding anything by having him there.
He offers like insights and stuff like I mean, it's not critical, but you get like just a
it's again, diversity and criminals.
You're seeing like he's a more intelligent criminal the way he talks about like that.
So I already know Cyrus isn't Cyrus is a different kind of intelligent.
The kind of criminal who's going to like he's a mastermind.
Yeah, he's a mastermind.
Steve Bushemi is just like a creature.
Like he's supposed to be like a Hannibal Lecter style.
Like they bring him in in the mask.
Yeah, they go through all the pomp and circumstance with that.
But I don't know.
But there's no like there's no bill to him doing anything.
I it's because he doesn't do anything.
It's it's that episode of The Simpsons where the mob and the Yakas are fighting on the
front lawn and Marge like come inside Homer and Homer's like, but Marge, that little guy
in the corner hasn't done anything yet.
You know, when he does, it's going to be good.
And then nothing happens.
There's no payoff to his character being there.
I enjoyed his character.
I'm not sure that's clear.
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy his character.
I'm just like I'm befuddled by why he's there.
I'm befuddled by why there's a lot of people in this movie.
Yeah. What do you think about Dave Chappelle in this?
Oh, I thought it was great, too.
Pinball. Yeah.
A lot of his lines were improvised.
So all those like racist things he says are just Dave Chappelle racism.
Oh, God. Yeah, that was tough to get through when he's sitting next to the Native American guy.
He's just like, oh, God, 90s movies.
Here we go.
Oh, speaking of 90s movies, the obligatory queer character.
This is interesting.
I did a little research into this character.
She I was like, OK, this is a typical like 90s bad stereotype of what it's like to be gay.
But I noticed that actually everybody was always referring to her as a woman.
And nobody ever used anything but she her pronouns.
And they all called her like sis or like like sister or like they called her lady.
You know, lady stop right there when she's coming off the plane.
And so I was looking into it.
And it turns out that her name is Sally.
Let me hold on.
I got to pull up the Sally can't dance.
Exactly.
So Sally can't dance.
And I was reading some different articles about this.
And apparently Sally can't dance is one of like Lou Reed's albums.
His fourth album was called Sally can't dance.
And it's supposedly referring to Sally Maggio, who was a trans woman,
who was a manager at this club that Reed and a bunch of other people went to.
And I think they they had a romantic relationship or something.
So this is clearly like a self conscious choice to have a like actual trans woman
character in Con Air, which just kind of like blew my mind.
And like, you know, I was reading some other commentary from people on my.
It's like maybe, you know, obviously it's like 1997 or whatever.
It's not the best representation of a trans person, but just the fact that the writer
decided to include her in the script is kind of wild.
And I was just not expecting that at all.
And writing aside, I mean, nobody was ever derogatory or demeaning towards the character.
No. So they treated the character like a person.
I mean, it just happened that they were very flamboyantly.
It's just an era of filmmaking where I just assume none of it's done in good faith.
Yeah, I know. That's exactly what I was thinking, too.
You hate the characters. You hate everything about this movie.
Oh, I loved this movie. I don't know.
I could be I can love something and still be critical of it.
Yeah, it was it was I thought she was an interesting character for sure.
And like you notice that it's definitely a 90s film because like she's she's a woman.
So she also gets the other side.
She gets like the misogyny side of thing because like Nick Cage won't.
Poe doesn't hit her.
He doesn't want to punch her because she's a woman.
So he open hand slaps her.
And it's like this whole fucking thing.
You know, yeah, it's just it was a trip.
I don't know how I forgot to mention this, but John Cusack's in this film.
That's where I was going.
John Cusack wearing his like talking heads, you know, massive jacket.
Holy fuck. Yeah.
Suits they they really were wearing some big suits in 1997.
And his jail sandals.
Those are like literally the sandals they gave me when I got sent to jail.
It's like, oh, oh, yeah.
His mandals. Yeah.
It's like the first thing I saw was like, why is he wearing?
Why is he wearing those?
Yeah, that was his choice.
He like as a character choice, he wanted to add that in.
When Cole Meany made the joke about him, like saving the rainforest
and recycling his sandals, that cracked me up.
And like we also like are sold as Cole Meany just being this complete asshole.
Like he shows up in his sports car, like cuts off John Cusack made convert
made introduction just to like park in a handicapped spot.
Yeah, with the license plate as kicker.
Yeah. Like, God damn it.
That whole sequence where they connect the the he connects the convertible
to the back of the plane was awesome.
I love that. That was a great little set piece.
But there's a lot of good pieces.
Yeah, no, this is a film of like, you know, like, you know, like,
like, I love great set pieces with very little narrative flow in between.
John Malkovich didn't have a great time in this film
because they were pretty much rewriting the entire script during filming.
Yeah. So he never really got a grasp on like what his character was going to look like,
which, I mean, I understand that'd be shitty having your role
rewritten throughout an entire movie.
Well, this also might explain why, again, Bushemi doesn't really have an arc
and his character isn't there for.
God, you're so hung up on Steve Bush.
Let's move on from Bushemi.
I'm on Steve Bushemi too.
How is this not like just.
I don't know why you're so concerned about the plot in an action movie.
I want to critique this. I want to critique art.
I went to art school. This is how I think about art.
Like, I want to know the reason behind the reasons behind things.
And if there's no reason behind it, it bugs me.
Philip, which character did you hate the most?
Oh, which character that hate the most?
Definitely the DEA agent kind of bugged me, but he was just so,
just so arch, you know, and just kind of like he's he just is an asshole.
He's just a, you know, a dickhead.
And I just didn't think that there was much depth beyond that.
And I could have done without Chappelle's character, probably.
I mean, it goes without saying fucking Danny Trejo's character is a nightmare.
So, yeah, I think between three of them.
One thing that was nice about Chappelle's character, though,
was the fact that they had to make a Dave Chappelle corpse puppet.
Yeah. Why couldn't he just lay in the landing gear?
Like, we're going to do one shot. Just lay here. Don't breathe.
OK, we got it. That was probably my favorite.
One of my favorite, like just little scenes in this film is he's caught
in the landing gear so they can't get it up.
So they have to get him out.
And Poe uses him as a way to get in touch with Larkin.
So he just writes a note on his shirt of like, you know, Marshal Larkin.
You know, we're going to this airstrip and then just takes him out of the plane.
Yeah. And smashes into like old white couple's car.
That causes a huge backup. That was good.
OK, so we have covered the trip to Carson City, the loading of unnamed passengers,
the well, and then the one important one who is Cyrus's connection out.
Yeah. Right. The one that has narrative purpose.
Yeah. Swamp thing.
Oh, and the pilot and the pilot swamp thing.
I do love swamp thing. Yeah. MC Ganey.
What was the other movie we saw him in with Cage? Stolen.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
The better version version of Rage. Yeah. Yeah.
You know where I recognize him from?
Did you guys ever watch Lost back in the day?
Oh, damn, I thought you were going to bring up sideways and talk about his dick.
Oh, no, I never saw sideways.
No, he was one of the like leaders of the the other group of people
that had been on the island.
And that's the only thing I know from.
But no, now I know I can see his dick.
I definitely going to watch sideways.
When you see it, do you see it like front on or do you see it?
He was he was.
Is it is it wafting in the wind?
Does it have sweet chops just like he does in this movie?
Yes. Nice.
We've loaded on in Carson City, and then we're now headed to the
Lerner Airfield base where they're going to swap planes.
The way they get the day off their back is by putting the transponder
from the plane in like, you know, a tours plane.
Yeah, so there's this prolonged chase of just like sightseeing pilot.
Yeah, it brings Kulmini's character out
and chases him off in the opposite direction.
And then there's like, you know, fun and gags as they're like
in the Grand Canyon or some shit.
And it's like, oh, no, these attack helicopters are going to take down
Bob's scenic tours.
Like he reads it so slow.
It's like you're next to the airplane.
You can read it.
I mean, I'm a pretty quick reader, but I don't need to like
spelling out the words.
One thing that I thought was interesting about this movie.
So it's a Bruckheimer production and he, you know, usually,
particularly with Michael Bay, it's very much a masturbatory exercise
about military industrial complex.
And this is one of the few times where they like
they kind of make them seem dumb.
So this movie ends in Las Vegas.
I do appreciate like there's a chase at the end.
And as the fire truck goes by, there's two like motorcycle cops.
And as they like get into action and like drive off,
a donut just falls into frame.
Yeah. Yes.
That was good.
Cops love donuts.
The ultimate plan is virus.
Cyrus, the virus is going to get on a jet to Mexico or something with.
Cindy, no, no credit family. Yeah.
But that's a bust.
So they take the plane and it they wind up having to like crash land
in Vegas, like on the strip, destroying a casino that was being demolished anyway.
Yeah. The sands was scheduled to be demolished.
So they were like, yeah.
They also like when they were filming things,
the scenes with like low flying airplanes over the strip
was just freaking people out in Vegas because nobody knew what was going on.
People were calling the cops.
You would have thought that they would like flyer the city a little bit.
Yeah. Like, hey, there's going to be some weird low flying planes.
Nick Cage had a really weird two years in Vegas.
Yeah. All the movies he's done in Vegas and New Orleans really kind of tips
his hand in what his favorite cities in this country are.
Yeah. Or possibly just where he lives.
Those two cities. Yeah.
But Cyrus.
So after the plane crashes, Cyrus, Swamp Thing and Diamond Dog
all like get away on a fire truck.
And instead of just being done with all of this because friends dead.
Yeah. Because he got him the insulin.
But then he gets killed anyway.
Well, no, baby. Oh, got shot. Baby. Oh, got shot. Yeah.
But he makes it off the plane.
But he's like, he's done and they're running off.
Yeah. Cyrus said he was going to like come for his, you know, wife and kids.
But Cyrus needs to get out of the country. It's probably fine.
So Nick Cage hops on a cop bike
with QSAC and then the chase ensues, at which point, once they catch up,
Nick Cage kills Malkovich like five times.
Yeah, it was so good.
Like he gets on the Jerry style, like cartoon, like death montage.
Oh, yeah. The piece of wood.
Yeah. He like spears his leg through the ladder on the ladder truck.
And then like they fight and get that core strength.
And then like he raises like handcuffs Cyrus to the ladder
and then raises it up and like slams him into a thing.
And that throws him into like some kind of smelting.
No, like on his way down.
He so he seems to know he hits power lines.
Yeah, he hits power lines and then drops into like some kind of forge.
Yeah, it's like slamming.
Why the why the fuck is that there?
Yeah, right. Why is the slamming factory right there?
City planners in this universe are terrible. Yeah.
Yeah. Despite what Nick thinks, I did thoroughly love this movie
that has yet to be seen.
This movie was fucking awesome from the word go.
All right. We got it.
We got to talk about we got to talk about cage just in general, like
hair, the body.
No, this is where we get the great like him just like wafting
is like Maine in the wind.
And it's so good because you get to see the mullet grow.
Yeah, it's like he's arrested.
He's got like cool, like tight army hair.
Then like when he's getting ready for court, it's a little bit longer.
And he's just like slowly growing a mullet through the movie until like
when he's put in prison, it's like almost a shoulder. Yeah.
And now it just fucking.
Also, can we talk about his accent?
It's really bad. Love it.
So he's got some some absolute zingers.
I think one of the best ones is when he's
so Diamond Dog tells him to go down and check the landing gear,
where, of course, he finds Dave Chappelle's characters,
you know, dead and kind of stuck on there.
And he's like, so he's been told to go and he goes,
oh, then I'll get to see some nice scenery whipping by down there.
There's a beat in the trees and stuff.
I can look at that line. It's a good one.
Yeah. I mean, his sarcasm is so good and dry in this movie.
I love the way he just like talks back.
But the accent is bad. Yeah.
Oh, it's so fucking bad. Yeah.
Yeah. There's like a back and forth where he's writing like his
like his daughter's writing in prison.
Her letter from preschool is like very well written.
Yeah, that doesn't make any fucking sense.
My teacher is nice and I love my teacher.
It's like, girl, you are not writing this.
Yeah, no. Your mom wrote this in like her left hand.
Yeah. Not Alabama public schools.
Like, yeah, the daughter says, like, you know, I like my teacher.
We get to go outside for playtime, but we we hold hands when we walk out.
And Nick Hader responds with their Casey.
It was so good to read your letter.
I'm glad you like your teacher.
We don't exactly have a playtime like you do.
We do go outside, though, but normally we don't hold hands,
which implies that sometimes they hold hands.
Listen, man, you build friendships.
You know how it goes.
We're holding hands right now. Yeah.
That's how we always podcast.
I thought that was just how jail gangs like exchanged members.
Like they do a big red rover.
It's like Red Rover, Red Rover.
So Sean on over.
I don't want to join the Latin Kings.
Oh, yeah. I got the power bill over.
Yeah. Do you do send white power bill?
As he's running over.
I mean, again, it's the Latin Kings.
They don't really want to.
But as he's running over, like to break it, someone just pulls out a shiv.
Yeah. That's how you handle beef.
Yeah. Nice game of Red Rover in the yard.
Just play tag. Yeah.
I feel run through a couple. Yeah.
So I had this other one
that I love where he's talking to Diamond Dog again and Diamond Dog comes over
and he's like, Yeehaw, what's on your mind, Hillbilly?
And pose like, Oh, what was I thinking?
Oh, yeah. Yeehaw. That's right.
Such an amazing character.
It is. Yeah.
He just wrote him beautifully.
I love it.
What about you, Nick?
My favorite quote is like after Garland has gotten on the plane
controversially and.
I know you're just staring at me.
John's going to kick you in the dick.
So after Cyrus has gotten on the plane and
Billy is like going off being a dickhead about something.
Baby Oh and Cage are sitting there and Garland like just like without being
asked to just psychoanalyzes Billy for them.
And Cage and Baby Oh just kind of turned back.
And Baby Oh is like, what is wrong with him?
And Cage just says, well, my first guess would be a lot.
This might be one of my favorite Nicholas Cage characters.
Yeah, the character is just top notch.
I mean, and like the roundhouse kick, as Philip mentioned earlier,
like all that kind of shit like he it's so fun.
He like dives through a window to get away from a gas station blowing up.
Yeah, this is like peak.
I mean, I think this is the start of Action Cage.
Like this is the buffest he's ever been.
Well, yeah, he was working out between scenes.
He would like pump iron just to keep that physique.
And it was the same month that Face Off came out.
Like they were filmed back to back and then Face Off came out
three weeks after this movie.
So, Philip, do you have some some additional thoughts on this?
Oh, yeah. I want to talk to you guys about Diamond Dog.
I love the way that Diamond Dog is introduced into the movie.
You know how they're doing the sort of like rundown to
so this is Ving Rhames character, they're doing the rundown of the different cons
that are coming off of the boss and like, oh, who's so and so?
Oh, he murdered his his wife's family and blah, blah.
So they get to Diamond Dog.
And I don't know if they intentionally made this made him such a badass.
I liked his introduction.
I'm like, I get his I get the cut of his gym.
I was in the same boat.
I was like, oh, shit, this guy is based.
We like him. He's like, you know, because the whole thing is that I don't know.
I've seen my students.
It's the youth.
I love the gen Z slang.
No, but the thing is, he like they're like, yeah.
So he got locked up because he basically he blew up an NRA meeting,
you know, because they're like the basis, the basis representation of
of like the white race.
I was like, oh, hell, yeah, man. Good.
Yeah, I was rooting for Diamond Dog.
I mean, he's very much just a black power response to the movie.
But this is the third Nicholas Cage Ving Rhames movie that we've watched.
It was bringing out the dead this and Kiss of Death where he played Omar.
Yeah. But in an interview after bringing out the dead,
when asked about working with Nick Cage, he said he's a natural.
It's a good natural actor.
And he says, look, Ving, whenever whatever you do, I will respond to it.
It's like a good tennis match like Agassi versus Sampras.
We hit well together.
So that's nice. You know, that's cool.
And that they enjoyed or at least he enjoyed working with Nicholas Cage.
You have to find someone who has something negative to say about working
with Nicholas Cage. Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah, it's it's always been pretty glowing reviews.
Except for that one person who said he was a little intense.
Peggy Sue got married. Oh, yeah. OK, that's Peggy Sue got married.
She hated him.
He was like, yeah, really.
That's early Kate. And he was still getting his sea legs.
He was figuring shows just the worst character to play.
Did he pick the worst voice that he could have?
Not the worst character play, but he played that character.
I was thinking Zonda Lee in the painting scene because she did not appreciate.
Yeah, there was some consent stuff on that one.
Much like Joss Whedon.
All men like working with Nick Cage.
Yeah, that's fair.
I don't know, Philip. Any final thoughts on Conair?
Yeah, I wasn't sure when the right time to share this is, but I did look up.
I found an article with it was an interview with the director.
So this is from Den of Geek.
I was reading an article over there and it was saying that like,
this was obviously a joke, somebody was asking Simon West about Conair 2.
And he was basically like, well, I think the logical conclusion
is that we would do Conair 2 in space.
He was like, it'd be a satire about commercial space travel.
There'd be like, you know, a private space travel companies have like hired
convicts to work on their flights and like, you know, they'd be taking pot
shots at like Musk and Bezos and everything.
And he said this crazy thing about he was like Garland.
So Bushemi's character not to bring it back to Bushemi, but he was like, yeah.
And you know, Garland, Garland would be running for president if not
already having been elected because he has, you know, all the hallmarks
of bouncing back and surviving, which is just another like weird twist
in the whole like, what the fuck was going on with Garland in this movie?
But yeah, I just wanted to hear your guys thoughts about Conair 2 in space.
I love it. I want it. Do it. Yeah.
Poe will be he'll be on like the commercial flight, like him, like with his daughter,
his grown daughter, his grown daughter.
And yeah, you know, he'll see Garland there.
And he's like, who's I can't remember who survives in this film from the bad guys.
Yeah. Mm hmm.
How does Diamond Dog go? Motorcycle to the face. That's right.
Oh, yeah. No, yeah. Motorcycle. He got motorcycle to the face.
Swamp Thing gets ejected.
He gets from the front of the fire engine when it crashes.
And then and Cyrus, the virus gets killed eight times.
The smashing, the smashing, the electrifying, the re smashing.
Right. Johnny died in the plane accident
and then lost his arm with all of his tattoos.
Oh, yeah. That was gnarly.
I did like when the cops walk up and they're like, yeah, this one's dead.
And they like take him away.
But then the arms still hang in there. That was that was really good.
That was a good shot.
And we should talk about the ending when he like finally meets his daughter.
She was actually eight.
I was going to surprise when people play their actual age.
Yeah, I was going to get a haircut.
What? She should have been 30.
Well, I don't know. Yeah.
I expect children to be terrible on film sets, even when they don't have lines.
I was going to get a haircut before I before I met you.
But something came up and it gives you this really gross rabbit
that he like got from the beginning and wipes it on his like bloody dirty shirt.
Oh, like, oh, he's a southern boy. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Also at the end,
Cole Meany and Qsac are just buds.
But let bygones be bygones, man.
Like this movie knows when it needs to rap.
Yeah. It's like, all right, we're done. Bye.
All right. This movie knows when it needs to rap is a bit of a misleading thing.
I think it could have ended about three times in the last half hour.
And it just keeps going. It does.
It's a long movie.
It's two hours and 15 minutes or something like that.
Yeah. Flew by for me.
It goes quick. I watched it twice.
I didn't mind it at all.
I mean, it's the most recent action film I watched.
This is up there for me in terms of just the most fun. Oh, yeah.
It's a fun movie for sure.
If you put it against like the quote unquote Nick Cage, Holy Trinity,
this is definitely my favorite of the three.
Yeah. Which would be face off this and the rock. Yes.
Yeah. Also great use of the like name of the movie in the movie.
There were a lot of really good self referential moments like that,
like with the Cyrus doing the welcome con air.
Did you get the bit where they're all he's talking to Poe is talking to Baby Oh.
And he's like, I just can't believe that they, you know, put all of these,
all the craziest motherfuckers in the world on a single plane.
And then we somehow ended up in the middle of it and blah, blah, blah.
So I think the movie like they knew what they were doing.
I think it's oh, yeah.
I hope that it was supposed to be this campy even back when it came out.
I just can't remember.
Like we're all action movies that like campy and and kind of like satirical
or self referential. I don't know.
They were a little more self serious.
A lot of the movies were a little more self serious.
But this is, you know, I mean, it's it's kind of the lethal weapon era of thing.
If you look at like action movies that came out in this year,
the tone of the movie tracks well.
I mean, you've got like Speed 2 Starship Troopers,
hmm, Fifth Element. Oh, yeah. OK.
I'm hesitant to say Beverly Hills Ninja is an action movie,
but for some reason, Google says it is well in the tough guy category.
There is the Holy Trinity.
Two of these might go to the end.
And but all of this, all of the Holy Trinity, they're all two plus hours.
Yep. Like I just want a tight action film.
I don't know if you want a tight action film.
You should I could recommend Rage to you.
It's riveting.
Did that come out? Oh, we're losing connection.
Crippled Masters. Watch it.
I will. All right.
Venn diagram.
Philip, what do you think?
Good movie, bad movie.
Good cage, bad, bad, good, good performance, bad.
Damn good, good movie, good cage.
It is entertaining.
It is like eating candy or a bag of popcorn.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
You don't have to think too hard about it.
And Nicolas Cage has some of his best one liners that I think I've seen in
and in his career. So, yeah.
Yeah, I'm going to also sell great film. Great cage.
Great movie. Great cage.
It's a full go for me.
I fucking love it.
We should probably decide what's going to go forward.
Oh, yeah.
Rock, paper, scissors.
Sure. Tight.
Well, one, two, three.
Conair. Conair.
OK, great.
Hooray. I can't wait to watch this movie again.
Yeah, it's fun.
That's going to be a good one.
All right. Here's my here's my closing thought on this film.
There's a lot.
He learns a lot of skills in jail
that you think like Chekhov's origami.
Chekhov's Spanish is going to come into play.
Now, the only thing we the only payoff we get is Chekhov's rapist.
Danny Sayho says he's going to rape in scene one
and he tries to do a rape in scene three.
It's true. I'm probably going to.
I don't know if that qualifies as Chekhov's rape, though,
because it's like it is just declared rape.
Yeah, that's just like failed intent.
Yeah, right.
Failure to launch.
All right. We got it.
We got it. Yeah.
An erectile dysfunction story.
All right.
Peter, Peter, why don't you wrap this up?
Yeah. So thank you, everybody, for listening.
Philip, thank you for being here.
Thanks for being my brother.
Yeah, thanks for having me. This was a blast, guys.
Please rate, review, subscribe.
We are on Instagram at Cage underscore match underscore pod.
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And we are at Cage match and special thanks to our Sparkle buddies,
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Ira, John and Freeman.
Thank you all for supporting us and listening to us.
Yell about Garland Green, Steve Buscemi's character.
I'm going to get a shirt made with his face on it.
Fine.
I don't hate the character.
I just didn't see the point in the movie.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
What's consistency of storytelling?
I want tight storytelling.
I'm just going to leave it with you yelling and Nick laughing in the background.
It's great. It's perfect.
It's perfect. Bye bye, everybody.
Well, actually, you're wrong.
You're right. Stupid.
And I don't like your face.
I'm going to I'm so glad you're over here because now I can just turn you down
whenever I want. I can mute you.
Oh, yeah, that's your one.
Yeah, fuck it.
You're one you dumb fuck.
Ha, now I learned I'm number one on this podcast.
There you go. Nerds.
Why do you do anything sober?
Yeah, what a lame.
In a world full of all these substances, why do you do anything sober?
This is the one thing I do.
Sober's watch these films so I can fucking talk about them.
The only thing I do sober is masturbate
because I want to feel the full gravity of the situation on my body.
That's a.
Well, that's definitely staying in.
That's our that's our outro thing. Right.