May 14, 2025 • 7 mins
Our movie guy Ben O'Shea has reviewed the Nicholas Cage movie that was shot late last year in Margaret River. It's called The Surfer and he told Clairsy & Lisa some of the behind the scenes things that happened during filming including a very interesting story about Nicholas Cage and a pothole.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Beno.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Well, Ben, we've all been looking forward to this because
we're all a bit parochial.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
And this was filmed in yelling At. It was a
couple of years ago. Everybody will remember Nicholas Cage flew
into Perth Airport and it's fair to say Western Australia
lost its mind. Certainly the media did. We We papped
Nick Cage everywhere he went. He went to a I
G A I think in Bustleton on the way down
(00:31):
to yelling Up. He had his wife and his little
kid with him. He bought a bag of oranges, if
I remember correctly.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
They followed him into A and A.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
You know the as ye were followed him, We followed
him there he was. We got pictures of him going
for a surf as preparing for the movie. We took
pictures of him walking through the bush in a wetsuit,
whether whether he wanted it or not, and look like
remember bring back to that time. I can say categorically
(01:02):
this is a bit of behind the scenes information for everybody.
So I can tell you categorically that the producers were
not happy. I got a call from one of them
at one point I didn't have anything to do with
the coverage personally, but I had a relationship with the
with the producers and they said, look, you got to
try and do something here because Nicholas Cage is going
to leave Western Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
He's going to He was very he was always very polite,
very polite, you know the situation and when people met him,
he was very courteous, happy to have a chat, but
the very private guy.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But they got the movie made in the end, that's
the important thing. And so it's a real throwback to
a previous era of Australian filmmaking that some listeners will
be familiar with. It's called osploidation or the Australian New Wave,
and it was around about the nineteen early nineteen seventies
when the R rating first came into a movie classification
(01:56):
in Australia. So it just allowed us to make different
types of movies than what we will make before nineteen
seventy one. Mad Max Goes to the Beach yep, exactly,
and yep, totally like Mad Max is one of those
films from that era. Wake in Fright, Alvin Purple, Yep,
there's a whole bunch of those movies that were made
in the seventies early eighties, and all of them were
(02:16):
kind of like some sun baked movies set in the
Australian our back very Oz Jack Thompson. Jack Thompson was
in half of them, Brian Brown was in the other half.
And movie like Waken Fright is a good example that
is probably the closest to it's a classic closest to
this particular film where You Got the You Got you know,
(02:37):
the main character played by Nicholas Cage, who's an unnamed
character so you never know what his name is. He
has lived in America for a number of years, but
he's coming back to this coastal town where he grew
up in and his dream is to surf the surf
break that he did when he was a boy and
buy his childhood home, which is perched up on top
(02:57):
of the cliff in this town, overlooking the beach. It's
the primo house, primo house in this town. And so
he wants to do that and get his life back
on track after he's kind of, you know, gone off
the rails a little bit. But standing in the way
of fulfilling that dream is a group of local surfers
called the Bay Boys, and they are so parochial in
protecting their local surf break, so locals only, they say,
(03:19):
and any interloper that comes in trying to serve their breaks,
basically they'll threaten to bash them. But get out of here.
You don't live here, don't surf here is their mono
away and exactly very brah boys. And so along comes
Nicholas Caseon, even though he grew up in this town.
Now he sounds like a sepo, so they don't see
him as a local and they just tell him to
(03:41):
rack off. But he's but he's he's very stubborn. He's
very stubborn. He's waiting for the for the call from
his mortgage broker to come through with the finance on
this house, and so he refuses to leave the beach
car parks. It's perched up on a hill overlooking the
overlooking the ocean and the surf break, so he can
look down and see these bay boys and what they're
up to. But he's there in his kind of lexus,
(04:02):
waiting for this call from his mortgage broker. And he
stays there for a couple of days, and he's getting
sun burnt and his phone's run out of battery, and
he's running out of food and water, and he's having
to drink water out of the you know, sort of
the public toilet block, which is maybe not so healthy,
and so things start to unravel for him as this happens.
It becomes a bit of a psychological thriller as he
(04:23):
engages in this conflict with the Bay Boys. And as
an audience member, you're watching it, and you're going and
because it's Nick Cage as well, and look, if you
need someone to really sort of flirt that line between
you know, sort of being with it and being a
total looney, Nick Cage is your guy. And so as
an audience, you're watching and you going, is this actually
happening or is this all in his head? Is he
(04:44):
just got sunstroke? And so it starts to get a
bit surreal. And so the director, Irish director Lorcine Finnegan,
who I don't know if people saw the film from
a couple of years ago, Vivarium, which had Jesse Eisenberg
and Image and Poots, that was a trippy, trippy movie.
And so that'll give you a sense of how trippy
this film gets as well. And Honestly, that's probably where
(05:07):
it does go off the rails a little bit. You
kind of when you've got Nicholas Cage and you bring
him to Yelling Up and you've got what is basically
a pretty good, simple story, you maybe don't need some
of those surreal of you know, sort of affectations around
the edges. They kind of take you out of the
drama a little bit. But one of the great things
about this film is that is the villain of the piece,
(05:29):
the leader of the Bay Boys. He's sort of a
masculinity guru who sort of takes these classes to help
men rediscover their sort of masculinity in this modern world.
Played by Julian mcmah Oh my gosh, I tell you what.
He has aged like a fine wine. He's got a fade.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
He's that plastic exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
But I was watching him. I was watching him in
the Fantastic Four movie, which must be I don't even know,
fifteen years old, and he it's incredible how good Julian
McMahon looks these days, Like he is so ruggedly handsome
in this film. It will take your breath away. That's
a man right there. He's that stuff. Paul he's fantastic
and he plays it so well, so it's a bit ambiguous,
(06:14):
so you're never really sure if he is the villain
or he's he's actually a good bloke who's who sees
Nicholas Cage as sort of a project. He's trying to
help him or is he trying to hurt him? You
don't know, and and so that's it's it's kind of interesting.
Some people will find that very frustrating that you sort
of don't really know what the heck is going on
and what it all means. At the end of it,
(06:34):
he's probably left questioning, you know, was there a point
to some of this stuff that happens? And there's some
pretty and Nicholas Cage, as always, he is a one
hundred percent committed to the role like he's he's apparently.
I was talking to the director about the movie and
Nicholas Cage said, you know what, like during the film,
when I'm going really mad, like let's have me drinking
out of a puddle of water in the car park
(06:56):
and the director's like, oh you sure, He's like, yeh know,
that'd be great, great. I just like I'll just down
on my hands, knees and I'm like, like a dog,
I'll lick, I'll lock at the water out of this pothole,
and the dredges like all right, And so the day
the day came to shoot that particular scene and they
set up like this silicon rubber in the pothole so
it was completely sanitary. So filled it up with water
and put in like fake cigarette butts and stuff like that.
And the dress is like, okay, Nick, you're ready to go,
(07:18):
Like we're going to get you to drink out of
this pothole. That's a cool action. And Nick Cage is like,
I'm not drinking out of the pothole joking. He's just
total ye' yes. So he's an interesting cat. Nicholas he
was Daniel d Lewis from a moment and he goes
four one hundred percent Nicolas Cage in this just quickly.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The surfer doesn't get a name, the kid doesn't get
a name, and that bum.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Like they just even in the credits, it's just like
the surfer played by Nicholas Cage. The only one who
gets the name is Jillian mc mar's.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Caster in that theme, how many chips raffit is he.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I'm going to give it a very solid three, very good.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Thank you guys.
Great per flick with Beno.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Well, Ben, we've all been looking forward to this because
we're all a bit parochial.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
And this was filmed in yelling At. It was a
couple of years ago. Everybody will remember Nicholas Cage flew
into Perth Airport and it's fair to say Western Australia
lost its mind. Certainly the media did. We We papped
Nick Cage everywhere he went. He went to a I
G A I think in Bustleton on the way down
(00:31):
to yelling Up. He had his wife and his little
kid with him. He bought a bag of oranges, if
I remember correctly.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
They followed him into A and A.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
You know the as ye were followed him, We followed
him there he was. We got pictures of him going
for a surf as preparing for the movie. We took
pictures of him walking through the bush in a wetsuit,
whether whether he wanted it or not, and look like
remember bring back to that time. I can say categorically
(01:02):
this is a bit of behind the scenes information for everybody.
So I can tell you categorically that the producers were
not happy. I got a call from one of them
at one point I didn't have anything to do with
the coverage personally, but I had a relationship with the
with the producers and they said, look, you got to
try and do something here because Nicholas Cage is going
to leave Western Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
He's going to He was very he was always very polite,
very polite, you know the situation and when people met him,
he was very courteous, happy to have a chat, but
the very private guy.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But they got the movie made in the end, that's
the important thing. And so it's a real throwback to
a previous era of Australian filmmaking that some listeners will
be familiar with. It's called osploidation or the Australian New Wave,
and it was around about the nineteen early nineteen seventies
when the R rating first came into a movie classification
(01:56):
in Australia. So it just allowed us to make different
types of movies than what we will make before nineteen
seventy one. Mad Max Goes to the Beach yep, exactly,
and yep, totally like Mad Max is one of those
films from that era. Wake in Fright, Alvin Purple, Yep,
there's a whole bunch of those movies that were made
in the seventies early eighties, and all of them were
(02:16):
kind of like some sun baked movies set in the
Australian our back very Oz Jack Thompson. Jack Thompson was
in half of them, Brian Brown was in the other half.
And movie like Waken Fright is a good example that
is probably the closest to it's a classic closest to
this particular film where You Got the You Got you know,
(02:37):
the main character played by Nicholas Cage, who's an unnamed
character so you never know what his name is. He
has lived in America for a number of years, but
he's coming back to this coastal town where he grew
up in and his dream is to surf the surf
break that he did when he was a boy and
buy his childhood home, which is perched up on top
(02:57):
of the cliff in this town, overlooking the beach. It's
the primo house, primo house in this town. And so
he wants to do that and get his life back
on track after he's kind of, you know, gone off
the rails a little bit. But standing in the way
of fulfilling that dream is a group of local surfers
called the Bay Boys, and they are so parochial in
protecting their local surf break, so locals only, they say,
(03:19):
and any interloper that comes in trying to serve their breaks,
basically they'll threaten to bash them. But get out of here.
You don't live here, don't surf here is their mono
away and exactly very brah boys. And so along comes
Nicholas Caseon, even though he grew up in this town.
Now he sounds like a sepo, so they don't see
him as a local and they just tell him to
(03:41):
rack off. But he's but he's he's very stubborn. He's
very stubborn. He's waiting for the for the call from
his mortgage broker to come through with the finance on
this house, and so he refuses to leave the beach
car parks. It's perched up on a hill overlooking the
overlooking the ocean and the surf break, so he can
look down and see these bay boys and what they're
up to. But he's there in his kind of lexus,
(04:02):
waiting for this call from his mortgage broker. And he
stays there for a couple of days, and he's getting
sun burnt and his phone's run out of battery, and
he's running out of food and water, and he's having
to drink water out of the you know, sort of
the public toilet block, which is maybe not so healthy,
and so things start to unravel for him as this happens.
It becomes a bit of a psychological thriller as he
(04:23):
engages in this conflict with the Bay Boys. And as
an audience member, you're watching it, and you're going and
because it's Nick Cage as well, and look, if you
need someone to really sort of flirt that line between
you know, sort of being with it and being a
total looney, Nick Cage is your guy. And so as
an audience, you're watching and you going, is this actually
happening or is this all in his head? Is he
(04:44):
just got sunstroke? And so it starts to get a
bit surreal. And so the director, Irish director Lorcine Finnegan,
who I don't know if people saw the film from
a couple of years ago, Vivarium, which had Jesse Eisenberg
and Image and Poots, that was a trippy, trippy movie.
And so that'll give you a sense of how trippy
this film gets as well. And Honestly, that's probably where
(05:07):
it does go off the rails a little bit. You
kind of when you've got Nicholas Cage and you bring
him to Yelling Up and you've got what is basically
a pretty good, simple story, you maybe don't need some
of those surreal of you know, sort of affectations around
the edges. They kind of take you out of the
drama a little bit. But one of the great things
about this film is that is the villain of the piece,
(05:29):
the leader of the Bay Boys. He's sort of a
masculinity guru who sort of takes these classes to help
men rediscover their sort of masculinity in this modern world.
Played by Julian mcmah Oh my gosh, I tell you what.
He has aged like a fine wine. He's got a fade.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
He's that plastic exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
But I was watching him. I was watching him in
the Fantastic Four movie, which must be I don't even know,
fifteen years old, and he it's incredible how good Julian
McMahon looks these days, Like he is so ruggedly handsome
in this film. It will take your breath away. That's
a man right there. He's that stuff. Paul he's fantastic
and he plays it so well, so it's a bit ambiguous,
(06:14):
so you're never really sure if he is the villain
or he's he's actually a good bloke who's who sees
Nicholas Cage as sort of a project. He's trying to
help him or is he trying to hurt him? You
don't know, and and so that's it's it's kind of interesting.
Some people will find that very frustrating that you sort
of don't really know what the heck is going on
and what it all means. At the end of it,
(06:34):
he's probably left questioning, you know, was there a point
to some of this stuff that happens? And there's some
pretty and Nicholas Cage, as always, he is a one
hundred percent committed to the role like he's he's apparently.
I was talking to the director about the movie and
Nicholas Cage said, you know what, like during the film,
when I'm going really mad, like let's have me drinking
out of a puddle of water in the car park
(06:56):
and the director's like, oh you sure, He's like, yeh know,
that'd be great, great. I just like I'll just down
on my hands, knees and I'm like, like a dog,
I'll lick, I'll lock at the water out of this pothole,
and the dredges like all right, And so the day
the day came to shoot that particular scene and they
set up like this silicon rubber in the pothole so
it was completely sanitary. So filled it up with water
and put in like fake cigarette butts and stuff like that.
And the dress is like, okay, Nick, you're ready to go,
(07:18):
Like we're going to get you to drink out of
this pothole. That's a cool action. And Nick Cage is like,
I'm not drinking out of the pothole joking. He's just
total ye' yes. So he's an interesting cat. Nicholas he
was Daniel d Lewis from a moment and he goes
four one hundred percent Nicolas Cage in this just quickly.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The surfer doesn't get a name, the kid doesn't get
a name, and that bum.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Like they just even in the credits, it's just like
the surfer played by Nicholas Cage. The only one who
gets the name is Jillian mc mar's.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Caster in that theme, how many chips raffit is he.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I'm going to give it a very solid three, very good.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Thank you guys.
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