Plague of Strength

This article was originally published for the Patreon members about a year ago, but after seeing Willy’s Wonderland last night I figured this bad boy could do with a little update. If you dislike Nic Cage, I’m about to shower you with reasons to reconsider your terrible life choices, and if you like Nic Cage, you’ll now have even more reason to do so. Unfortunately, this can’t be part of So and So Got So jacked because Nic Cage, like myself, doesn’t record shit and doesn’t follow any kind of a program I could find- he just goes fucking ham, as should we all.

I cannot say I have always been a Nic Cage fan- his movies are occasionally amazing and occasionally meh, and the movies about which everyone raves I typically avoid for a genuine topical reason and/or because I’ve always been assumed the movies everyone else likes suck (because they usually do). That said, I loved the shit out of Con Air and believe it’s one of the best action movies ever filmed (and with one of the greatest action ensemble casts of all time), so whenever I thought Cage might rear up and dust off the whisper quiet, wild-eyed insanity I love to see in shit like Kick Ass I will haul ass to the theater like I’m filming Drive Angry 2 (another hidden gem in Nic Cage’s resume).

Whether or not you like the man’s acting, he’s dedicated as hell to the art of kicking ass- Nic Cage has been training bjj with Royce Grace for over a decade and sorta showcased those skills in this year’s basically unwatchable Jiu Jitsu, plus he’s going to be using the wing chun he picked up while training for Bankok Dangerous and honed to a razor’s edge in Kick-ass in order to fuck up everyone in the upcoming Sion Sono weirdness entitled Prisoners of the Ghostland. Because you would not believe the plot of that film if I told you without quoting Cage directly, here’s his synopsis of this Mandy–Escape From New York–Frighteners sorta mashup:

“Cage plays a criminal who gets sent into a dark universe to rescue Poots’ character from the evil supernatural forces that lurk there.

‘I’m thrilled about it! It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It might be the wildest movie I’ve ever made, and that’s saying something. It’s out there. I wear a skintight black leather jumpsuit with grenades attached to different body parts, and if I don’t rescue the governor’s daughter from this state line where they’re all ghosts and bring her back they’re gonna blow me up. It’s just crazy. It’s way out there’” (Fisher).   

And if you think Cage is just a piker of a martial artist or gym rat, you don’t know Nic Cage- the man throws himself into roles like I want to throw people sharing their opinions on social media into a fucking woodchipper. On set during Ghost Rider, Cage’s lifting and cardio stretched to four or five hours. On the weekends he’d take his training days even longer, and then Cage used glycogen supercompensation (click these words if you don’t know what that is) for the shirtless scenes.

“I wanted the character to be really lean and look like a super-hero. One of the things that makes a comic book come to life on film is if you can approximate the physique that they draw. Eva had it too – she presented herself like a comic book heroine. She’s very voluptuous, like Jessica Rabbit, and she’s very flirty” (Carnivale).

Whatever the task or role, Cage goes far farther than dieting and lifting, however. It might give you some insight to know exactly how seriously he takes his gym time, because the non-gym shit he does is fucking bonkers.

And we’re not talking about him being a “savage who slays weights and lays their defiled corpses atop the altar of Crom, but we’re talking about a man who drops acid with his cat and had two teeth pulled without anesthetic “so he could feel it” and get more in touch with his traumatized war vet character (Jenson).

He didn’t stop there, though- he proceeded to wear bandages wrapped around his face for weeks to understand what it’s like to be utterly rejected by society. And they rejected him for good fucking reasons, because wearing soiled bandages on one’s far for over a month – his skin was infected and covered in sores and acne when he finally peeled the goddamned things off (Yamamoto).

This is not a man who hires a diet and nutrition coach, or has a personal trainer put him through whatever passes for the Gymshark crowd’s idea of “real training”- this is a man who invented his own style of mega-method acting he calls Nouveau Shamanic. It’s led him to take his Yamaha R1 up to a 150mph (they have a top speed of 174mph and do 0-60 in 3 seconds flat) on California highway at 3 in the morning while filming Gone in 60 Seconds so he could experience what that would be like for his character (Yamato). Hell- the man is going to buried in a fucking nine-foot-high pyramid he’s already purchased for his plot in New Orleans. This is a man who does things absolutely his own way at all times, fuck what ya heard, and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it or him, and everyone who looks like them.

And as to programming, I highly doubt an Excel spreadsheet goes into the ultra-ripped 180 pound physique he had in Ghost Rider or the bulker, 6′ 195lb body he rocked in Con Air. The answer to why, if the above didn’t provide enough evidence, is his mindset on taking supernatural movies over straight action and drama:

“Why does he do so many supernatural movies?: Because regular old dramas are too boring and limiting for the Cage. “I like fantasy. I like horror, science fiction because I can get avant-garde with those performances in those movies. Inherently, I’m able to be abstract and ‘modern art’ if you will because the movies are inherently out there and I can still connect with audiences. I can’t do that in down and dirty dramas. I can’t do that unless I go outside the box. Or, if I’m playing a character who’s on drugs like Bad Lieutenant, then I can get pretty out there. Otherwise I have to look at supernatural movies or science fiction movies to get more avant-garde” (Yamato).

With that, we’ll go into a couple of my favorite off-beat, unknown Nic Cage movies, of which there are a hell of a lot- after getting into some trouble with extravagant spending and tax issues, he started taking damn near any acting job on which he could get his hands.

Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

Willy’s Wonderland is the first movie I’ve seen in years that is exactly as good as advertised. Insane, completely nonverbal Nic Cage meticulously cleans, chugs energy drinks, plays pinball, changes his tshirt, and slaughters animatronic animals possessed by serial killers and child molesters in an off-brand Chuck-E-Cheese (with an homage to National Lampoon’s Vacation).

Some teenagers try to help and mostly fuck it up, and Nic Cage cuts a rad commercial for the SS Camaro. Is it haute cinema? Fuck no, but it’s the best thing you’ll probably see this month, if not this quarter. Expect it to be ridiculous, badass fun and it’s absolutely worth a rental.

Go see it in a real-life theater (I managed to see Mandy at a midnight showing and it was rad as fuck, and would do so for this if it was showing in this state) or rent it on Amazon.

Next (2007)

In a sort of Sixth Sense-meets-Die Hard style mashup, Nic Cage is a Vegas magician with two minute precognizance. After accidentally foiling a would-be fatal robbery shooting, Cage is on the run with Jessica Biel, who’s a volunteer schoolteacher on the reservation as well as the hottest person ever filmed doing anything. Cage pulls some dope Neo-esque bullet dodges as he flees the FBI (who are trying to stop a dirty bomb plot in LA) and the maniacs who are trying to pull off the bombing. It’s completely insane, and the precog aspects give the fight scenes a sort of Upgrade-style feel.

Is it the greatest movie ever filmed? No, but it’s a shame I waited 12 years after someone insisted I watch it to sit down and view the thing.

Next is free on Hulu.

Rage (2014)

This one is a very little known but super solid revenge flick also known as Tokarev (which is a far better name having seen it). Cage stars as a former mobster gone completely legit and living as the consummate family man and pillar of the community. After his daughter is kidnapped and later killed as part of a home invasion, Cage gets the gang back together for one last slaughterfest. The plot twists as they narrow down the search for his daughters are rad, the gunfights and gore are solid and satisfying, and the film suffers from little more than a lack of marketing and a terrifically bleak ending, which are likely why it flew under everyone’s radar.

Rage is free on Tubi.

Mom and Dad (2018)

Nic Cage at his psychotic best, in a film that mashes up The Crazies with Crank and Mayhem for a frenetic reversal of the Children of the Corn. Every parent in an idyllic suburban town goes berserk, filled with rage and the desire to murder their kids as gruesomely as possible. There’s some fantastic social commentary about the shit parents give up for their kids they can never regain, along with a thick layer of “mundane living makes for crazy motherfuckers” slathered over the entire film.

I’m not alone in thinking this is one of his best- here’s an entire article devoted to showing in gifs why this is one of the greatest films of all time.

Rent this. It’s fucking rad and it’s made by the guys from the Crank series.

Con Air (1997)

And though it is hardly unknown, I’d say Con Air is definitely a must-watch Nic Cage flick. If you have never seen it or only saw it decades ago, I’d recommend you give it a rewatch, because this goddamn thing has everything you could want in it from Danny Trejo to badass cars to Steve Buschemi talking about how he wore some chick’s head as a hat while driving through four states.

As Graeme Virtue so aptly put it,

“More gonzo than Snakes on a Plane, more muscular than Liam Neeson’s Non-Stop, Con Air could proudly claim to be the best aeroplane-related action movie of all time, even if it wasn’t quite the biggest of summer 1997. That honour fell to Air Force One, an equally patriotic but rather more stately movie and one that, sadly, does not hinge on requesting a bunny be put back in a box. Wolfgang Petersen’s movie eventually made $315m worldwide while Con Air stalled at $225m. But ask yourself this: which one would you like to watch right now?”

I realize renting things is an anathema to people these days, but Con Air is worth a rental on whatever service you use.

• Click these words for my review of Nic Cage’s teamup with the director of the Island of Dr Moreau in Color Out of Space (2020), along with a shitload of other cosmic horror.
• Click these words for my review of Mandy and a bunch of other rad movies, podcasts, and music that includes everything from the band Traitors to the rad transhuman scifi flick Upgrade to my love of the bland but informative Milk Street Radio podcast.

And there you have it- Nicolas Coppola, aka Nic Cage, starred in National Treasure and is a national treasure. Recognize. And yeah, he’s Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew… his sexiest nephew.

Sources:

Billson, Anne.  The wonderfully mad world of Nicolas Cage.  The Telegraph.  3 Jul 2013.  Web.  11 Apr 2020.  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10155965/The-wonderfully-mad-world-of-Nicolas-Cage.html

Fisher, Kieran.  The Sion Sono starter kit.  Film School Rejects.  12 Feb 2019.  Web.  11 Apr 2020.  https://filmschoolrejects.com/sion-sono-starter-kit/

Jensen,  K. Thor.  10 awesomely weird facts about Nicolas Cage.  IFC.  10 Jul 2015.  Web.  11 Apr 2020.  https://www.ifc.com/2015/07/10-awesomely-weird-facts-about-nicolas-cage

Virtue, Graeme.  Muscles, mullets and Malkovich: has Con Air got even weirder with age?  The Guardian.  6 Jun 2017.  Web.  9 Apr 2020.  https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2017/jun/06/con-air-weirder-with-age-nicolas-cage-john-malkovich

Yamato, Jen.  Nicolas Cage Has His Own Acting Method and It’s Called ‘Nouveau Shamanic’.  Movieline.  25 Feb 2011.  Web.  11 Apr 2020.  http://movieline.com/2011/02/25/nicolas-cage-has-his-own-acting-method-and-its-called-nouveau-shamanic/#utm_source=copypaste&utm_campaign=referral%20%20

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