The Wicker Man vs Wild at Heart

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What you are listening to is real. The participants are not actors. They are real people with a case pending in Podcast Court.

(00:10):
Hello, I'm Producer Peter and welcome back to Cage Match, a roundabout way of meeting Nicolas Cage, Podcast Court.
Today we'll hear arguments for a deadbeat dad with a true love of personal freedom and a cop with no authority who wants to know how to get burned.
Oh, God.
Oh, my God.

(00:37):
I mean, I'm surprised after two years of this, more than two years, that outside of the time your house got broken into, we've never lost an episode due to just poor recording like practices.

(01:02):
Yeah, that's true, which is kind of amazing. I mean, we so we lost that one. We've never missed a release, which is also kind of wild because we absolutely should have some good stats.
Yeah. I mean, you've been doing this for fucking forever. Have you? How are your stats?
All right. They're not too bad. The only I think the only time we've had a bit of a blunder is me and Petros did a sort of a Patreon first thoughts episode on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

(01:34):
And then the second we finished recording Petros immediately accidentally deleted his half of the recording. So we had to do it again.
I bet the jokes about it the second time.
I hope so.
Did you record the whole thing again or did you just play back your end and let him react?
Yeah, live reactions by all accounts. I made him grovel, but we recorded the whole thing again.

(01:58):
Oh, that's a nice idea.
But you'd never know. We found it to be perfectly fine.
Yeah, that was my takeaway.
Yeah, I've heard either like it's OK or real love. So I don't know. Yeah.
Hey, OK and up is still pretty decent. Yeah, turn us.

(02:19):
I've never gotten that kind of review on myself.
The self love starts from within.
So are we talking like one knuckle, two knuckles? How far within?
What if it was comfortable at start and you got to work from there, you know?
Oh, don't press it. OK, I feel you. Right. That's nice.

(02:43):
Well, welcome back, Darrell.
It feels like it's been too long and somehow feels like it's been no time at all.
Yeah, exactly. You miss spider season, though.
No, it's happening right now. Well, there's a there's a big boy like right at the bottom of my stairs.
Yeah, I haven't gotten them in my face.
No, they've been keeping they've been staying out of the walkway this year so far.

(03:04):
Cowards. Yeah. Or we are planning.
Sean, with you moving and this being your last spider season here, I'm absolutely going to bring spiders into your house.
You're not allowed in my house anymore. Spider boxes.
Definitely bringing spiders. Why would you do that? We're friends. For now.
We still have to finish this podcast. Yeah, but not like next to each other.

(03:27):
Don't bring spiders into my house. You're not my dad.
The friends of the spiders we made along the way. No, they're not.
OK, I won't bring spiders into your house.
I'll put some in your car and you can take them to Portland.
Then Portland can have spider season. Yeah. Portland does have spider season.
Yeah. I mean, you're not that dissimilar from here. Yeah, their spiders suck, though.

(03:49):
They do. They've got like the bad spiders. Yeah.
We've got like benign big house spiders. Helpful spiders. Yeah.
Bug eaters. They've got like people biters.
I was in Portland once for a Road City Comic Con and a spider touched my peen.
OK, I need to hear about that.
I was very exhausted. Flew from Virginia to Portland.

(04:15):
My bag got lost, which had all my stuff for the continent.
And I was staying in my at a friend's house, which wasn't like the most savory part of town.
So I'm waiting for my bag to show up.
And the guy's like, yeah, I'm just doing rounds.
I'll be, you know, getting there in a couple hours.
I'm like, cool. So naturally you get your hog out.

(04:36):
Yeah. Were you like bored and trying to clear cobwebs or something?
You know, just knock them down. I'm just trying to stay up.
Waiting for the fucking guy to show up with my bag.
Three hours go by. You got to keep it up while you wait.
Three hours go by. I call him and like, where the fuck are you?
And he's like, oh, I just have one more one more delivery in Portland, but it's in southeast.
And I got to head two hours north first.

(04:57):
And I'm like, yeah, who do you think that last delivery is, motherfucker?
So I can't sleep till my bag gets there. Otherwise, I can't do the convention.
So I'm just I'm at about 26 hours of not sleeping.
I go into the bathroom and I get my dick out to pee.
And I'm just standing there like woozy.
And I like open my grubby ass eyes and there's a spider just dangling in front of my face.
I like instinctively like swipe and I feel something bounce off my deck.

(05:19):
Oh, OK. I wanted more.
I want to I want to scramble a scramble spider.
Yeah, I wanted a spider to like just kind of reach out like Arcadian style and just like brush the head.
Use its head of health. Yeah.
Eight arms reach out from the dogmas and fucking crank you.
That actually probably wouldn't be too bad.

(05:41):
So much stimulation. Oh, yeah. There you go.
You guys been reading my dream journals again.
So welcome back to cage and apparently scanning them and emailing them to Darrell.
I see why you send them to Darrell. The spider had the face of Willem Dafoe.
We've got a whole separate group chat with all of our guests on it.
We just don't invite me. Yeah, that's fair.
Rip into your weird sex shit.

(06:02):
I mean, you guys, there is there are there is the cage match like fan chat that I do not engage with whatsoever.
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's good shit in there because they're beneath me.
Oh, yeah, I'm definitely leaving that in.
I love you, John and Freeman.
You're the two people in a group chat. Yeah.
The ones who actually engage. Is there anyone else in that chat? Cameron's in there.

(06:24):
Hi, Cameron. I appreciate you, too.
Welcome back to cage magical and around about way meeting Nicholas Cage.
I'm your host, Sean, here with Nick, your co-host.
Oh, perfect. Fine. Nick.
And our producer, Peter. Hello.
And again, our special guest, Darrell from cage something.

(06:45):
Yeah, three times.
I wouldn't expect you to remember on the third time.
Why would you? Hello, I'm back.
I'm from cage rage and Nick, this cage podcast.
And I'm also from getting to foe you a dedicated to foe podcast covering the works of Nicholas Cage and Willem Dafoe respectively.
There may or may not be hog chat more in one than the other.

(07:08):
So we're all in good company in hog chat today.
Darrell, I hope you don't mind, but I've tagged you as part of our episodes on IMDB, which I still think is hilarious that we can be on IMDB.
I did wonder why I was showing up on IMDB. And now this all makes sense.
We can just add people to IMDB.
I mean, IMDB is a lot like Wikipedia where kind of anything goes and then they audit it eventually.

(07:31):
No, sick. It's a wild, wild west. You guys want to be in some movies?
I'm going to start some wild, wild west.
Flat Earth or IMDB shit. Good. Yeah, I like that.
Lots of trivia about movies. Do you know the world is flat?
The core. There is no core. Look at the film.
Who was recording it? Oh, God.
And you start making like one of the flat earthers going to start like making like flatters films kind of like, you know, left behind.

(07:58):
But like for flatters. Oh, yeah. Like we're going to go to the edge to the ice wall.
Yeah. What's the opposite of left behind right here?
Yeah. Just nothing of consequence happens.
You just can't. There's just no slopes and it's never addressed.
No inclines, no slopes, flat filmmaking.
Easy walking. I mean, that would make biking a lot easier and boring.

(08:21):
Can you imagine just biking all the time and always having to pedal, never getting to just roll down a hill?
Yeah, that's no fun. Put your arms up like it's a roller coaster.
You can't do that anymore. No, not on flat ground.
Flat's boring. Yeah.
Can you imagine celebrating riding on flat ground?
Yay, I'm having so much fun.

(08:42):
But I went fast for a bit and now I'm just going to raise my arms.
I'm not into it. No, that's boring.
You could be the Renegade who invented the ramp and then you would try to The Hague.
So, Darrell, did you feel more connected to us watching The Wicker Man because it takes place in our area?
In the Puget Sound. Is that correct?

(09:06):
This is you are basically Wicker Man adjacent. We are.
Yeah, we're close to the island. We're right next to that CG island from Mist.
Yes, exactly. I mean, of course, it was recorded in Vancouver, Canada, but you know, which is north of here.
Yeah, it's also Seattle adjacent. Yeah.
So on this podcast, we take 64 Nicolas Cage films,
Bracken them up Final Four style and we'll eventually whittle them down to what is the cagiest film of all as decided by Nick and me.

(09:32):
I'm just giving it Peter more work to edit this so it makes sense.
I don't care. You've really let this podcast go downhill.
The edits get looser and looser.
Flat ground all the way.
Oh yeah, we can't talk about hills anymore. I'm not going to do this with my arms because I'm not having fun.
Listen, if you want to introduce what the podcast is halfway through, then that's your prerogative.

(09:53):
I don't know how to run your own podcast.
Thank you, Daryl. You understand.
I get it. There's no rules. No rules on flat ground, baby.
You just see from ever.
If it weren't for trees, we could probably see Daryl.
Get a big telescope, get the right angle.
Let's get rid of all the inclines, the declines, the slopes, the mounds.

(10:15):
I could do with less mounds. I have no time for a mound.
And Italy. Fuck that.
And one of us could be a rapper called Flatman Scoop.
I'm just saying there's great potential for flat merchandise.
Oh, we could have our own signature set of flatware.
Exactly. Now you're starting to get it.

(10:38):
I love it. I'm in. I love marketing.
Untapped potential. All drinks would have to be flat tires, flat. Very, very literal.
Uncarbonated beer across the board. Fantastic.
The Brits really went out on that one. They get their way.
We went to war over this. We won.
You can keep your flat, your flat country, country as flat as my goddamn ass.

(11:02):
You can keep it. So the Wicker Man.
So Wicker Man. That's what we're here to talk about.
Daryl, you've seen The Wicker Man before. How many times have you seen this movie, do you think?
I feel like four or five.
I feel like I see it the way most of us see it, and that's through Nicolas Cage compilation clips.
That's the only way to see it. So obviously we'll get into it.
It sets up like it's going to be this big crazy thing.

(11:24):
And for like 80 percent of it, it's really not. It's just actually quite boring.
An interesting story about The Wicker Man for me is when I was at university.
Is it University of America? Could you call it college? You have like five stages of everything.
We call it a waste of time.
Hey, for future Americans.
For future dead. I went to art college, so I'm doing great.
Extra future dead. Yeah.

(11:47):
Actually, me doing a Nicolas Cage podcast makes a lot more sense right now.
Yes, it does. But anyway, yes, university.
All flat roads would lead here.
So there was, you know, like a long story short, like a friend of mine that's in The Wicker Man.
We'd all sourced in The Wicker Man.
And it was known that I was the Nick Cage guy in like our friend group.
And then some thing happened to me and my friend had like a falling out.

(12:10):
He was the year above me.
So he's been to his final year stuff, dissertations, all this kind of business.
But as an apology gesture, he went on his his his Mac book.
He took the Wicker Man film and somehow edited it down to his only Nicolas Cage's scenes,
gave that to me as a DVD.
And I said, you can never hurt me again.

(12:32):
This is the greatest gift I've ever received.
And then he punched you like Sister Beach.
And then he pushed me into a wall of picture frames.
I got all caught up when he ran off in a bear costume.
But if you think The Wicker Man of its own accord or 100 minutes is pretty wild,
you haven't seen the Nicolas Cage only cut.

(12:53):
It makes less and more sense.
I don't know. I'd have to ask if he still has it because in various house moves,
like I've unfortunately lost the disk, which I'm still absolutely devastated about over the course of the last 10 or so years.
But the memory remains is the main thing.
And I remember just going from it's like a lot of it is the embodiment of a fever dream.

(13:17):
And I really recommend someone makes a Nick Cage only cut of all of his films.
Peter, this might be my magnum opus.
We'll see. I was put on this earth for some good.
Now's your time, coward.
Let's do this. Seize life by those big flat balls.
Yeah, no one's talking about girth anymore. It's all about that flat hog, baby.

(13:41):
Flat and wide.
It's all about that 16 pixel flat fucking Gallagher dick.
Whatever do you want?
But to answer your question, yes, I have seen The Wicker Man.
I think I watched it earlier.
It was my partner's first time watching it as well, so she had some thoughts.

(14:02):
It was interesting. All of them fantastic.
The first, obviously, because she does some like design work here and there.
The opening credits to see fucking Papyrus in the credits.
She was on points.
She was like, this is the enemy of the designer.
And she on principle didn't watch like the first 10 minutes, which I get it.
I respect it. We've all we all have our lines in the sand.

(14:24):
To be fair, the first 10 minutes of this movie do not matter.
No, they're pretty inconsequential.
OK, one thing I do want to talk about in the first like 10, 20 minutes.
So I think we hit on this in the first time we talked about this movie.
His cop friend, not Pete, but the lady cop.
Yeah. Is she on the island at the end?
There's like this big reveal where one lady takes off a mask and it's like a tall blonde lady.

(14:46):
And I'm like, is that the same fucking person?
No, it was either Sister Beach or Lili.
So it was neither. I just watched it this morning.
It was neither of them. It is.
I just I'm telling you, it's a different clip because after that clip is when it's
Sister Beach and Lili Sobieski.
I'm going to turn this movie on right now.
We're going to walk Darryl over the screen. We're all going to all going to watch this.
No, I just keep looking at it. I'm like, I think that's supposed to be her.

(15:08):
And it's supposed to be this big reveal of like everyone's been in on it.
But like they don't spend any time on it.
And it isn't like she's a really remarkable looking person.
I mean, they do say the letter did get there without a stamp and she did deliver the mail.
She did. She seems like weirdly obsessed with him.
For all of those two minutes, we see them together. Yes.
And she was playing in blonde. She was playing in blonde.

(15:30):
That's true. I wanted the twin thing to still be more back to twin sest again.
Right. Yeah. OK. Did that make it into the final cut?
Oh, yeah. Nice. You know about twin sest, right, Darryl?
Yeah, you guys got the Internet, right?
We're all looking at the same shit, right?
We're all on the same VPN here, right?
We're all sharing the same Internet history.

(15:51):
Yeah, I don't believe in incognito because I'm very proud of everything I've ever searched.
You know, you've got to have you've got to be smart by what you search.
Some flat twin sest. Yes, please.
Flat twin sest.
The second flat tower has been struck. You're going to keep that in there, don't you?
Nick doesn't believe in it, so we can keep it in.
I mean, just just like a Paper Mario 9-11 image just hit me in the head.

(16:18):
It was like, oh, it's beautiful.
I mean, it's not beautiful, though.
It's beautiful. Paper Mario is a great game.
Paper Mario is a beautiful game.
It is a beautiful game, you're right.
The 9-11 ending was just wild.
Kind of out of Westfield, but even when flat 9-11 happens, it's still a beautiful world.
That's what happens when you like Koopas on airplanes.
Yeah, I said it.

(16:39):
I'm racist against turtles.
I think to your point, though, is if that lady was the same person, I don't know,
because he he does make a comment later of that.
Is it like Sister Rose, the teacher is like, did I speak to you earlier?
She's like, no, we've never met before.
He's like, are you sure?
So he does see people who may or may not be the same person.

(17:00):
Well, that scene is right after he leaves the schoolhouse, I think,
because that's why I want the twin thing to be like more relevant.
Well, and also, I mean, because I'm sure they were like, it's too tricky to film two people
who are the same person at the same time in a scene.
So like they never tried with her.
But like Sister Rose and Sister Thorne literally are never on screen together.
Which ones are they? Are they that lady?

(17:21):
That's the teacher, the teacher.
And then like the bitchy lady that he runs into at some point.
Well, I feel like Lili Sobieski, when he meets her in the tavern drink hall,
then goes right outside and she chopped into wood like that's always been a weird cut to me as well.
There's a lot of fucking red herrings in this movie that go nowhere.
So I think I'm sure remember Sean, did we watch this together the last time?

(17:44):
Yes. OK, so last time we watched it, I like had a really fun time with it for some reason.
And then I watched it was my winning personality.
Well, thanks. That's helped. That helps a lot.
And then this time when I was watching, I was like, God, it's so boring for like a huge portion of this movie.
There's like little funny goofy bits like the Is that a shark in the bag?

(18:06):
You know, like that kind of dumb shit.
You know, it helps to look at the picture.
All that kind of stuff is really like these little snapshots of funny shit.
But then the rest of it is like a very dull procedural until all of a sudden he's just running around the island like like a man who is definitely like 45.
You know, yeah, I think two things would have really improved the movie.

(18:27):
And it's like if there were more scenes of him riding the bicycle, like literally if he was a great every time he went from one location to another, you mandated the bicycle come out and he rides the bike.
I love that dorky ass bike. Yeah.
And then to put like some Benny Hill music under the bicycle scene.
Like or some like just goofy be jazz. I love when he's done talking to summer's aisle the first time and she's like, you're transport.

(18:58):
It's just that one dude like rolls the bike.
I feel like this movie needed everyone who wasn't Nicholas Cage to try acting 20 percent harder or 20 percent less.
There's just this. I mean, 20 percent harder.
There's just this like milieu of like they don't care, but they care enough for a paycheck.

(19:19):
And I need them to care a lot less or a lot more. Yeah.
I think Nicholas Cage is the only person giving this film the acting it deserves.
I think a lot of the blame on this is that like Neil LaBute, however you say his last name, obviously as a man and as a director and a writer does have the charisma of, oh, where vegetables.

(19:40):
He's got just nothing about him. There's no sauce.
Obviously, they've stripped away the whole, I guess, like religious kind of thing of the original one.
Like what they've really done is they've said, Nicholas Cage, you come to an island of women and you're about to disrupt an entire community's thing by just being really rude, aggressive.

(20:02):
And I don't know exactly how American laws work in the sense of crossing state lines. As far as I'm aware, he's not an inspector or a detective.
He's just a guy on a motorbike on a highway who got a commendation for letting a girl explode.
I don't know how that works. And then he's talking about himself to go to an island, insult everyone, ass all everyone.

(20:25):
And really, even though, yes, he's been kind of bamboozled to go into the island, he is really the villain of the piece.
And guess what he deserves?
It really is the most effectively Americanized version of a movie ever.
Like he just comes in, he's ignorant of the situation, he imposes himself on everybody, he assaults somebody, there's a gun involved and women were harmed generally.

(20:55):
I'm going to fucking go home and eat some ribs. I like this so much.
Ruins a way of life.
Yeah, well, when he's saying, like, look, there's a missing girl on this island. I think you said it, Pete, it usually helps if you look at the photograph.
Right off the bat, okay, you're not supposed to be here. You've crossed state lines. You have no authority.

(21:19):
No authority.
You have no power. There's nothing to suggest that he's got any kind of rank in the police force that he's with.
He's a highway cop.
He's just highway patrol.
He's got speeding tickets. That's it.
I do like when he's that little montage of him, like when he's giving people tickets, he goes to the long guy, he's like, you know, I pulled you over and the guy's just like, yeah.

(21:45):
Yeah, I kind of liked at the start where he's pulled over with that mother in the door, she keeps throwing that doll out and then that truck plows into him from nowhere.
Funny every single time.
Absolutely.
One thing I always enjoy is that like for the first time watching this, you never know when that truck's going to strike that little girl again. It's not over for her.

(22:06):
Every time he's on, when he wakes up from the nightmare on the dock, I always just want a truck to just run him over real quick and then he wakes up again.
Yeah, the double dream sequence.
My favorite bit is that he's just sat on the dock and he's just had a daymare. He just drifted off. He's like, oh, so you're looking for a missing girl and he just stops to have...

(22:28):
Just a small stop for a nap.
You just stop for a horrifying thing, a nightmare in the day. You've had a daymare. You keep getting hit by the truck. When he was trying to get the girl out of that truck as well, he's smashing that rear windscreen with his helmet and he tries to prize it apart.
He's like, take my hand. And she's just staring at him. So when she explodes, deserved. But at the same time, he was just going to pull a kid through shards of broken glass.

(22:55):
It's safety glass. It's fine.
That stuff don't cut.
I don't know, is children's skin the weakest of skins?
I mean, would you rather be mildly cut up or exploded?
The kid obviously chose exploded.
I wish she just gave him like double fingers and like right when it explodes, like fuck you.

(23:16):
So I didn't realize it, but I wound up watching the unedited version.
Oh, yeah, OK.
The extreme version, which is the exact same movie.
But you see the hobbling, don't you?
You see the hobbling. Yeah.
And then the B scene is actually in there, which looks terrible because CGI is a better.
The only other difference is they cut the end.
They cut like the ending of the girls hitting on James Franco.

(23:42):
Franco and he was Dipper and Gravity Falls. Yes, he was.
He's also the son of John Ritter, Jason Ritter. Jason.
We got there. Yeah, nice.
Good work. Way to use your brain.
But I thought watching that when they do the whole beast thing, he goes into like anaphylactic shock or whatever shock it is.
Anaphylactic. Yeah, that sounds right.
But he like passes out. I'm like, this is actually kind of nicer that they like knock him out before like they burn him alive.

(24:08):
And then the doctor like shoots him up with adrenaline.
And EpiPen. Oh yeah, EpiPen.
It's B. Epi. Yeah.
I don't know why I thought adrenaline.
But like an EpiPen and she's like, I'm going to keep you alive for the next part.
And I'm like, oh, this is meaner now.
I like how they load him into the chest cavity by like dragging him up from between the legs.
So he hangs down like a little Nicholas Cage wiener for a minute.

(24:32):
And then they load him in.
It looked like the Wicker Man had a huge dong.
Just the best dong.
This is all I watch for.
Oh, that could be a dong.
Yeah, it's a shame that no one no one who was like participating in the crowd was like, who Wiccan they man right now?
Just like a high five in each other whilst Cage is getting like just dragged by his lapels.

(24:54):
They should have played like Nelly Furtado's I'm Like a Bird as he was getting dragged up.
And I think that would have we need to make the ultimate cut of this film.
I mean, it's been redone once.
Let's do it again. Yeah.
Now it's more bicycle. More bicycle flat.
One hundred percent. Be the men.
Be the people that you want to be that you would like to inspire.
You know, the 2007 YouTube poop editors out there.

(25:16):
I remember. I remember YouTube poop.
I never forgot.
I think one of the things about this movie is it seems like it tries really hard to be full of mystery,
but literally none of the mysteries that they put out there ever pay out.
Like there's no explanation of anything.
You see the weird like bee stung dude in Summer's Isles house.
You see that one lady getting, you know, like bees crawling all over her in a bee beard.

(25:39):
It's like, what is the what is this for?
Nothing. Nothing. It's for nothing.
Why are there so many twins? I don't know.
Doesn't matter. Don't ask questions.
What's in the fucking bag? Is it a shark?
It's like you just need nothing ever pays out.
Like there's no explanation of anything.
You know, why? Why does fucking Dr.
Moss have like all these weird jars of deformed babies?

(26:01):
Those are the boys. Are they?
Well, probably if they had little boy parts, I'm assuming could have been bee stings.
It's just a strange movie. It is.
There are so many things that I'm like, oh, OK, you know, this could be
the Shutter Island or something where it actually really does pay out.
And it's like, no, no, you just don't find out.

(26:23):
No. John would turn to me every once in a while.
I'll be like, I'd be like, mm hmm.
Yeah, with no real positive resolution or Cage's character,
it doesn't feel like anything mattered.
Like, OK, it's still going to be, you know, midsummer or whatever.
It is kind of just shitty midsummer.
Like the only thing that makes this movie palatable is just Nick Cage's

(26:47):
Nick Cage hamming it up for the whole film.
Him going into the classroom and like erasing all this stuff in that one little section
and just writing Rowan, whatever on the board.
Woodward Rowan Woodward.
And then all the kids are like, we don't know her at all.
Yeah, just running around ripping masks off kids.
What about the fucking line through on her like ledger for her name?

(27:09):
It's like good way to bury it. Yeah.
But the like fucking crow in the desk still gets me.
It's like, oh, and then the girls get them again later
and with the girl pretending to be dead in the closet.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
You've never had a dead desk crow and it shows.
You haven't lived.
It's better than a spider bouncing off your dick.
Well, yeah, spider crow, some horrible flat spider crow thing.

(27:33):
But my partner is a teacher.
When he went into that school and started rubbing all like the
that one of the pros off the board, she was like,
you just don't go into someone's classroom mid less than just wipe it all down.
Just to scream at the children.
I mean, you know, to be fair, they're all gaslighting him.
It's a room full of gaslighters.
And he he had more restraint in me.

(27:54):
And I think I outright said this to my partners.
I like I would have at least punched the twins because they were freaking me out.
Oh, the old ones.
All of them. Oh, young.
Oh, yeah. You know, you know,
you know, see the best part about twins, you just get to.
Oh, yeah. Head bonk.
You assume that they're two separate like parts of the same whole.
So you're trying to put them back together.

(28:16):
The twin twin magic thing you punch one, the other one feels it.
So, you know, it's twice the twice the payoff.
Have you ever watched the movie?
This is related.
Have you ever watched the movie Sorceress, Old Sword and Sorcery?
Like, no, I don't think I have lots of boobs.
So there's there's two characters.
They're twins. See, and they feel all the same things.

(28:40):
One of them, like they just discover that they're girls.
They always assumed they were boys because their dad told them and never told them the difference.
That's that's something.
But like when one of them realizes that they're a girl, they finally get laid.
And the other one is just like at camp.
And the dwarf is just standing there and she's just getting off on the ground and the dwarf watches.

(29:02):
And it's just really weird and creepy.
So I've been watching a lot of sword and sorcery movies lately.
And the. Yeah.
You got to get your twin says to fix.
Yeah. You freak.
So this is going exactly how I expected a Darrell episode would go.
I won't let you have a standard conversation.

(29:23):
It's not in the contract to do. That's perfect.
Yeah. Your writers, it's going to go fucking crazy.
We're going to make it weird. There's going to be flat theories.
There's going to be flat nine eleven. There's going to be twin zest.
It might be flat. That's not for me to say.
I'm not doing myself.
I don't dictate where the flat conversation goes all of the time.
I can tell you one thing. It's not going off an edge because they don't exist.

(29:46):
That's right. Wait a minute.
You're a plant. No edges exist.
I get Thanos from existence.
It's just too risky. Black holes.
We go back to our old episodes. It's just us talking to no one.
No one. Yeah, exactly. And our guests dare.

(30:07):
Can you edit together like a package where it's you've actually been listening
back to all my episodes and I get hit by a truck in every single
I just put my black holes on over it like a turn to do the whole thing.
Seasons worth of payoff. So good.
I can't wait to go back and have Peter re edit all of our previous content.

(30:28):
Absolutely. It's worth it for one joke.
That's for the fine group. That's for the group, isn't it?
Oh, yeah, exactly. They'll really appreciate it.
You get the long term. Yeah, John and Freeman.
And maybe Cameron.
Cameron, the one I met outside the bird that one time, apparently.
Yes. Yeah, you got us a supporter.

(30:51):
Good work. So, OK, I know I love the bicycle scenes the most out of this movie.
Yes. What are like your most nonconventional favorite parts of the film?
I still love when he just sucker punches sister beach.
Like, that's just the best part of this film.
Slow walk down the stairs, the whole building.
It's like a fighter coming down to the ring.
He knew exactly what he was going to do. Yeah.

(31:13):
I do like that at the end when she does take the thing off,
she does have like a big red spot on her face to I was like, good continuity.
Someone was paying attention.
Someone on that business was paying attention. Yeah.
I kept getting distracted at the last scene when like the reveal happens.
There's this one woman and she's a little out of focus because she's in the background who looks like she's in blackface.

(31:35):
But when you get a close up on her later, when they're like, you know, face, it's be face.
Yeah, but it's like really dark colors. So like you don't see the stripes from far away.
I'm like, that was a bold decision. Not a good not a good look.
Are you doing B face and buzz buzz?
I think summer's Isles house is probably my favorite.
Yeah, like very weird. And then he's like walking through the gardens and he's swatting bees off.

(31:59):
It's like, dude, get the fuck out of there. Yeah.
Yeah. He's magnetized to danger and walking through bees running into bees.
Cycling is real cocky.
Of all the things that don't make sense about this film,
them killing the pilot who like brings them all their supplies still always bothers me.
Why they give him wicker hands like that's a lot of work.

(32:21):
To fuck with Nick.
Again, that's the one part of the film that I mean, there's a lot of parts of the film that don't work.
But like that one's the one that's just like just pointless to fuck with him.
They completely fuck up their entire like ability to get shit.
Well, he did betray their trust.
But that was the whole point. That was to get out there.
Hmm. He's a man.

(32:43):
Men are expendable in this society, so it's fine.
Yeah, they're all drones.
They can't say anything. All they do is harvest and drink and drink the beer.
That's all they do.
How do you think they choose which boys to keep alive?
Strongest stock.
I believe that's what they established.
So like just from Sister Beach then?

(33:04):
Yeah.
Yeah. Whoever can fight Sister Beach may go on to the plantation of honey and secure the harvest.
That's when you can get stung by a bunch of bees and just be in bed.
Homestove you has the strongest boy with the flyest hog.
He will lead us into the next harvest.
This movie is so dumb.
I love it. I still love it.

(33:25):
I do too.
I'm so glad it made it to the slicks team.
As it should.
Yeah. I mean, it really does have a place.
So actually on that note, Darryl, like why do you think this belongs in the echelon of like tough weird cage?
I think this is kind of a film that I guess if you look at it in terms of the cage's performances came along at just the right time.

(33:47):
It was like 2006.
So YouTube is still very young.
It is still a boy yet to be stung.
And this is like the time where I think every other channel is some film review channel.
Everyone's being angry for the sake of being angry because no one's reviewing nice stuff in 2006.
Everyone's being a piece of shit.
So it comes along around a similar time with the Nicklaus Cage losing his shit compilations.

(34:11):
And it's just kind of like a gestating part and he just builds and it has this whole lore about it.
It's like, oh, this is one of the worst Nicklaus Cage films.
All the best ones, depending on how you view Nicklaus Cage.
It's one of the cages to the cage films and for like out of context scenes.
And if you know, we've probably all seen an out of context meme from this film of him in the bear costume, punching a woman, blowing a horn.

(34:34):
Who amongst us hasn't?
Who amongst us has not fantasized of that moment?
But this is just, I think, where I don't know if there's a better word for this.
Some of the downfall, I'm going to use that in our quotes, of Nicklaus Cage may have started here.
Because what was 2006, is this the same year he did the Twin Towers movie, which is speaking of Flight 911?

(34:59):
It was. It was right around the same time.
He was doing this. I think, did he do the Ant Bully this year as well?
An absolutely insane year for Nicklaus Cage output.
You start your year as an ant wizard. You end your year burning in the torso of a Wicker Man.
So I think a lot of people will say like, oh, you look at a film like this and this is why Nicklaus Cage is insane.
But this is what we've been talking about though, because like most of this film, it's a little rough around the edges.

(35:25):
It's a little directionless. It's very absurd.
And even though they claim to have used 80% of the exact same dialogue as the original film,
and then they claimed whenever I was like, this sucks, what have you done?
And then they had the nerve to wreck on history and say, oh yeah, we did that intentionally.
It should be viewed as a black comedy. So the joke's on you if you didn't get it, which is some grade A gaslighting.

(35:50):
Fantastic stuff. Good marketing team.
On that merit alone for the marketing of blaming everyone but yourself, Neil Labute,
I think it deserves to be in the Criterion collection. It deserves to be studied.
None of it makes sense. But this is one of those things.
And I sort of talk about this even with films that are a bit duller and not as great.

(36:13):
There's a thing with Nicklaus Cage movies is that, you know, you don't remember half of what happened here because it's kind of not interesting.
It's very boring. But my God, do you remember a Nicklaus Cage performance?
And this, for better or worse, is one of his most memorable because you almost know that because he's a producer on this as well.
So he's like, well, I think I'm going to do it this way.
And I think Neil Labute, the only way his direction in this and he's very boring, get it?

(36:39):
He makes sense for me is that any time he should have been doing his job, he was rolling around in a circle trying to suck his own heart.
That's the only way this makes sense for me.
They called they called him Rolling Neil Labute on the set.
Oh, Roland Neil.
Old Rolling Neil, he was Sonic the Hedgehog, he's way around the set.
Just spraying his rings all over the wall.

(37:00):
Just spraying rings everywhere.
I don't know what he sounds like, but in my head, he's like, I swear I was close to his game as I can nail what days behind schedule.
We're going over budget here.
Is this a trapped in paradise situation where Nick Cage just takes over the production?
I have to assume so. Honestly, I haven't seen the original Wicker Man.
So for all intents and purposes, as far as I'm concerned, this is the superior Wicker Man.

(37:22):
This is the only Wicker Man that we've seen.
So on principle, I'm not going to watch the original.
Yeah. Were the bees in the original?
Don't care. Don't know.
Oh, no way to find out.
Doesn't exist.
Well, they couldn't have had bees. Bees are a new world crop.
There were no bees in 1973.
That's right. Just just that store bought honey.

(37:45):
How did it get there? We don't know.
We don't know. All things a damn conspiracy theory.
But I got thoughts on Winnie the Pooh.
Yeah, just being pantsless all the time.
Major honey producer.
I think honey consumer.
A little bit of both.
Getting honey in and honey out.
Honey in and honey out.

(38:06):
I don't know why that grosses me out so much, but it really does.
I like to imagine Winnie the Pooh.
Definitely came out the last time I was on this podcast.
It did. Yes.
And I think Winnie the Pooh flew into the Twin Towers the last time I was on this podcast.
Yes.
There is a recurring theme here.
Honey can't melt steel beams, I believe.

(38:28):
Yes.
Put it on a T-shirt.
You know what? I still believe that.
I don't know how long it's been, but honey cannot melt steel beams.
We should get the Mythbusters on this.
I can't remember, because we're talking about all the movie bears, because we're talking about Paddington.
Oh God. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.

(38:51):
I guess if you replaced Nicholas Gage's character in this, exact same dialogue, maybe the exact same intonation, but with Winnie the Pooh.
It's Edwin Mayless. It's Winnie the Mayless.
Winnie the Highway Cop.
And then he's just saying stuff like, bitches, you bitches killing me will bring back your goddamn money.

(39:13):
And then he's getting his little Winnie the Pooh knees smashed him with a hammer.
By somebody in a Tigger costume.
It's very nice. I like this new edit. Get on it, Peter.
Yeah, no, I'm glad about this.
Do you guys have any last thoughts on this one?
I still I still thoroughly enjoy this film for how bad it is. I have fun with it every single time.

(39:38):
It's terrifically entertaining if you've got time to get through the boring parts.
It's one of those things where it does have that.
You mentioned the Wicker Man was like, oh, that's the worst movie.
I'm like, it's fucking not. Yeah.
Sadly, there's a lot worse.
I mean, gladly, there's a lot worse.
Someone recently told me, it's like, oh, that's like the worst movie ever.
I'm like, it's not like, well, it's worse than a cage. We're definitely not.

(40:01):
We have a bracket that proves it.
Yeah, we did the work. Yeah.
You haven't watched 64 Nicolas Cage movies. You don't get to talk.
You wouldn't last five minutes in my world.
Is this where Winnie the Pooh keeps coming up with you because you didn't do the impression.
You have a very good Winnie the Pooh voice.

(40:22):
It shouldn't be as sinister as it is, but you know, there's Winnie the Pooh horror films out now, so it feels right.
That's true. Yeah.
Oh yeah, we can use as much of this as we want.
That's true. Public domain.
Absolutely.
Yeah, come at me Christopher Robin.
Exactly. He's public domain.
He did a 9-11. He was on the stormed beaches of Normandy.
But on the wrong side.

(40:44):
He stormed them from the land side.
Yeah.
English is nished.
That's fucking French or something.
Amongst various other war crimes.
I'm going to say, I don't know how much is going to make the cut.
Everything.
When the FBI is listing, I need you to know this is all satire and.

(41:05):
Yes, we'll put that at the top.
Anytime the Darrell comes on this podcast, there will be a mention of atrocities.
There will be a mention of 9-11.
Winnie the Pooh will come up.
I'm surprised you don't mention come yet.
I feel like we've not hit all the infinity stones.
Well, we did have sprain rings, which I think was.
It was implied we had honey in honey out.

(41:27):
I like it. You like specified atrocities like you separated atrocities and 9-11.
It's his own thing.
We are talking fact and fiction.
Thank you for talking about. Are we talking about thick 9-11 or flat 9-11?
There's two 9-11s.
Full thickness 9-11.
Always fun to be here.

(41:49):
Thank you very much.
Do you want to plug your shows or anything else?
So when I'm not inventing completely fictitious atrocities, you can find me in one of two places.
I am over on cage rage and Nick this cage podcast in which I am on the journey to true cage Nirvana.
Just like the gentleman you're listening to here going through all the Nicholas Cage films.

(42:10):
And only when I've seen all of them can I be at the tippy top of Nick this cage and mountain dumb.
And that is the purest place you can be on all the streaming services and the interwebs.
Go find him.
How to find also you can find me and previous guest of this podcast also Mr.
Petros Pat Sylvus over on getting to foe you a dedicated to foe podcast where we are covering all the highs all the delos and all things Willem de Faux.

(42:39):
Currently in the midst of recording season four.
It is an absolutely delightful time and you can find us in all the usual places and that's a defoe you pod.
There is mandatory to foe hog chat in every episode as well.
So naturally ticking all the boxes.
I mean, what was he?
His hog was described as too disturbing to be on screen or something.

(43:02):
Yeah.
For Antichrist is just too big.
So he is not able either in flat theories.
No, unfortunately, he is living proof that we live in a thick world.
Keep it thick, baby.
Was a beautiful wingback snakeskin cut chair.
It was the best chair I've ever seen.
That's nice.
It was a really high.

(43:23):
What was the hotel?
It was Hotel Chicago.
It was a real scumbag fucking hotel.
It was a terrible hotel.
But unless you want to watch your wife get fucked.
Yeah.
Good chair.
Yeah.
Unless you got a great bowl with you.
It's so funny like that, that's mainstream knowledge.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I like to see my wife just get really underground thing.

(43:44):
It was like, that's the chair you sit in while your wife gets fucked by a stranger.
Until the last like people your fingers and lean in five years or so.
I always assumed that was like the true lies chair.
But now it's now it's the cucking chair.
It was the cucking chair.
He was kind of cucking himself.
Kind of kind of it was kind of a metal way.
Yeah.
True life is a great movie.

(44:05):
It is a terrific movie.
He's terrible.
Like there's not a good person in that movie.
We watched I watched it recently.
I was like he's never been manipulating his wife the entire time.
Kidnaps her.
Basically tortures her to a certain degree.
Who's that?
Is it Dan Aykroyd that's with him in that?
No, it's Tom Arnold.
Tom Arnold.
Tom Arnold is right on.
The best part is that whole movie is it's what Paxton is the whole reason to watch that movie.

(44:28):
He's doing his spazzy.
That's like a 10 year old boy.
How did that line make it?
Who knows?
Just screaming.
He's great.
Wow.
It's been a long time.
I used to love just throwing on just shit ass Schwarzenegger movies.
It's a that's heat.
So red heat.
Yeah, red heat.
It's a different movie.

(44:49):
Yeah, that's a better one.
Yeah, it'd be definitely better movie.
Yeah, that genre is just I guess Fast and Furious is the spiritual successor to like
the big 80s and 90s action movies.
But they're just not the same.
There's a point in True Lies where like two dogs jump at him and like he bonks their heads
together.
And like, amazing.
I got to rewatch that movie.

(45:10):
Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty ridiculous.
I'm thinking I don't know how to start.
You know, you're doing it.
Yeah, this is it.
And our friend Tank Nick.
Yeah, yeah.
No, we finally outnumber.
Yeah, like we're the dominant species now.
Gross.
Well, white dominant nomenclature.
Finally, the Nick vote counts for two.
This is me putting what has been an otherwise lucrative career at risk by talking about

(45:37):
a difficult movie.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, we have a big listenership.
So hey, at least you don't have to talk about eight millimeter.
I don't know.
I feel like that one's probably an easier approach.
That one has like a sort of at least a moral standpoint.
Whereas this one just does not seem to know what good and bad is, which is a very like
lynch and kind of thing anyway.

(45:58):
But by the end of the movie of eight millimeter, do you think like what is good and what is
bad is the same as it was in the beginning?
Because like now he's just like vengeance killing.
Sure, sure.
But I mean, like at least it's on the side of like this thing that I am killing for against
is like well established and it's wrong.
But like by the end of Wild at Heart, like who has really turned into a better person

(46:21):
or even like I don't know.
I don't think it's a point.
There's no arc.
Right.
Oh, like obviously, that's better.
Sailors better.
Sailors.
He calls those guys faggots and then he's like, I'm sorry for calling you homosexual.
He grew so fast.
That's right.
Like Lynch does tie up the entire moral arc in like two minutes.
He's like, oh yeah, we forgot to like put a bow on this.

(46:42):
Yeah, let's have this unprompted thing we've been flirting with a reference to Wizard of
Oz, like let's just go way out over the top, bring it down.
The thing that occurred to me coming in was like, in a way, it's strange because Nicolas
Cage is probably the most reserved in the entire movie, which is a very odd thing to
say, especially given like the fact that it ends with him singing Elvis on the hood of

(47:07):
a car and that and he's the most reserved performance through the entire thing, I think
is a testament to this movie.
Yeah, I fucking love every performance around Nicolas Cage.
And yeah, in that, in that sense, he is definitely kind of the straight man in the show, even
though there's so much about the character that is incredibly large, like his dancing

(47:30):
techniques, his sick backflips out of cars, cars.
Yeah.
Fucking sexing.
He seems like a real lover.
No need for the cut chair.
Or push it right up against the table.
Everybody's in.
Yeah.
Come on, Bobby Peru.
That was not those teeth.
No, I was, I was talking to my wife about this last night and she's never seen.

(47:54):
I was like, I don't recommend like, let's not go there.
But I was kind of walking her through it and I was like, all right, this is Nicolas Cage,
Laura Dern, Laura Dern's mother, right?
Diane Ladd plays her mother.
Like I think she got best supporting actress for that or nominated, nominated, nominated,
which is crazy to think that that was a nominated role because it's just that.
And then you go on that tangent of Crispin Glover as a schizophrenic Santa Claus for like

(48:16):
a minute for like a minute.
Just pushing a black glove around on the ground and screaming and making sandwiches.
Cockroaches on his butthole.
Weird little like dance he does in front of the fence.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Harry Dean Stanton.
And then you have Willem Dafoe.
Like that's it's a is that is that the best indie alt casting of all time?

(48:40):
Maybe.
Yeah.
I mean, it really is.
It's an absolute banger of people.
And then you have the usual like hodgepodge of random David Lynch sort of bizarro characters
to character actors.
Yeah.
But yeah, nobody puts together a castless quite like David Lynch and Wes Anderson.
And they come in a completely different tones.
Also, there's a similar players in each one, like like Dafoe.

(49:04):
Dafoe is the common thread between Wes Anderson and David Lynch.
There's a world in which Willem Dafoe, David Lynch and Wes Anderson have coffee at some
point in their life, which I think would be a really fun conversation.
Well, David Lynch can't leave his house anymore, so it hasn't happened.
It won't happen now.
Why doesn't he leave his house?
He's from smoking his whole life.
He has severe emphysema and pretty much a cold will kill him.
It's nothing to have sympathy over.

(49:27):
Like the guy is very enthusiastically pro smoking.
Yeah.
I told the story about it.
You did do it to yourself.
But he's also like 80 something.
There's no way or there's no reason he should be that fucking hot, though.
Like, God damn.
Like, that's a good looking man.
Is a good looking dude.
Yeah.
How do you smoke all the time and are old and sick and look that good?
So he started smoking.

(49:48):
He does have cigarettes made you cool.
Right.
Like he's from that generation.
So it just carries forward that he would continue to look cool.
He's the inspiration for that saying.
Yeah, right.
But, you know, and then in the 80s and 90s, it didn't no longer age you cool.
Just, you know, kill your baby or whatever.
And then, you know, under cool.
But what if you smoke too at the same time?
Oh, yeah.
Very difficult.
And it hurts.

(50:09):
Yeah.
Good to know.
In fact, too much cigarette at once.
I did try the cartoon thing where you have like five cigarettes in your mouth.
You just smoke them.
And it is a it's like that's how you die.
It's a mistake.
Yes, it is.
Cartoons, again, have not provided me with proper guidance on how to live my life.
You're telling me I can't slice a single bean into wafers in layers and then serve it up.

(50:30):
Well, that's where the
yea
weird.
Yeah, he's going to come out small and probably have a podcast.

(50:53):
When you meet the kid, he's essentially like from Newsies.
Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah.
Oh, man. And he does that stupid.
He's wearing fucking braces.
Yeah. So this is the third film in which Nick Cage gets out of prison,
meets his child and brings him a stuffed animal.
Yes. The parallels between this and Conair is and stolen.

(51:14):
Is the other one.
So he knew his daughter stolen was the other one.
But he brings her to that big fucking.
I thought it was a bunny, but you know, you're ready.
It was. Yeah, it was.
Yeah, we were trying to figure out how many movies Nick Cage has been to prison.
So a lion, a bear and a bunny.
Nice. Whatever like dialect coach taught him that southern accent
deserves a bonus because he uses that thing from like 1985 to like 2005.

(51:38):
Oh, yeah. He's like when he discovers Boston.
Yeah, right.
Right. He transitions in the next phase.
Wait, is the Boston the problem?
That's his dark times.
It could have been.
Maybe they only paid for a Boston accent.
I like to think that H.I. and sailor are like brothers.
Yeah, this is seems like a shared universe to a certain degree.

(51:59):
Just like one's a darker side than the other.
And they both have the same vibe, the same kind of energy.
They're both like live action cartoons.
Just one came on after nine and the other one was out of prime time.
So thank you.
Had seen this movie in the past, right?
Like a long time ago, back when I was like into endurance cinema and stuff, you know,
I think that like a lot of Lynch is kind of ruined by the fan base.

(52:22):
And what I mean by that is that people tend to over rotate on him
being a genius versus like he's quirky. He's fun.
He does a lot of great stuff.
But like, I don't think he was I don't think he designs his movies to be like
deeply thought about and talked about and written about.
I think he's very much an experiential person.
Would you like show up, experience it if it changes you great.

(52:42):
But like the amount of people who just like fan over Lynch,
that's what I grew up with.
And it kind of ruined him for me for a long time until like I got a little distance.
And now I can go back and watch and really enjoy kind of like his career.
The movie that always stood out to me from Lynch was Eraserhead.
Like in all of Lynch's movies, with the exception of like Dune and The Elephant Man,
which is kind of where he tried to go super mainstream and it didn't happen,

(53:05):
are like adolescent young male or adolescent male fantasies.
Right. So Eraserhead is about what is it like when like you finally have
responsibilities and you have to deal with the fact that like you're this giant,
like sack of hormones that is getting himself into trouble over and over again.
And then you get into Wild at Heart and like Wild at Heart is fundamentally
just a fantasy from like it's like a person who buys swords in the mall

(53:29):
kind of fantasy.
Like I want to have a snakeskin jacket and I'm going to kill this guy
because his because my girlfriend mom tried to have me killed.
And like there's a scene where it really pops where he's telling the story
to Lou about, I guess, the first time he had sex or person he had sex with.
Right. Is the dark haired lady.
And at one point, he said she was like on the bed bent over

(53:51):
and there were there were semi automatic guns and stroke mags or something.
Yeah.
I was like, this is exactly like a 16 year old imagining being a cool.
And he's what fucking is constantly defending her honor.
They go to like a heavy metal show and he breaks out and sings Elvis
after like beating up a guy who like, I mean, it's just it is just an adolescent

(54:11):
male fantasy, and that's all like Lynch movies are until about Lost Highway.
And then it begins to like transition into like later years.
But overall, I mean, it's more fun.
I can go back.
I can't really watch too much of it in a row.
It's very melodramatic.
But but otherwise, like I think you give yourself distance
from the group that thinks he's the greatest thing to ever create film.
And he becomes a really enjoyable watch.
He does a lot of interesting stuff.

(54:31):
I think he also informs a lot of cinema that comes after.
And so for that, I really enjoyed it.
I like this watch.
And as I mentioned, I watched this in the I watched this
from the Toronto airport into the airplane.
I sat next to a lady and I apologize in advance.
I'm like, look, I'm going to watch something.
I forgot, you know, I had seen a lot of my.
You forgot about Texas style.
I forgot about it.

(54:53):
Luckily, you have headphones.
It would have been much worse.
But like I told her, like, hey, look, if you look over
and you don't like what you see on my tablet, I will be happy to turn it off.
She's like, I get it. It's fine.
I'm like, OK, just let me know.
Did you tell her you're doing it for a podcast?
Yes, I did. But I don't think that helps.
No, that's probably true.
That's like an extra red mark.
I don't know.
So he's funnier than people give him credit for.

(55:14):
He's goofier.
Like, it's not as serious as serious as he kind of gets made out to be.
But just the fact this movie won the Palmdale or the fact this movie was a nominee
for Academy Awards is considered his like biggest commercial success up to that point.
I think Elephant Man was probably the biggest one.
But it's crazy to me that this was a movie like in 1990
that ran in theaters and like had big name stars

(55:36):
and like propped into like the like the consciousness the way it did,
because it is super, super sexual, is incredibly violent.
And those two things merge constantly through the whole movie.
And like, you just don't see that.
That is not stuff you see anymore.
Right. Putting sex up against violence so much.
Yeah, I guess like euphoria kind of did it. Sure.
But not like this.
This whole movie, like and I think all this period of Lynch,

(55:58):
almost all Lynch movies feel like you walked into a room
you weren't supposed to be in your scenes like, you know what I mean?
Like you're again, like you're a young person and you get it like
I'm going to be a dangerous, sexy person.
And you walk into a room full of dangerous, sexy people and you're like,
this is a lot worse than I thought it was going to be.
I was not prepared for the consequences of this.
Yeah, I do not believe that I am ready for this.

(56:19):
I do have one question in regards to your assessment of the film
about being a 16 16 year old mall sword owning a.
I'm sorry to. Disappoint your feelings.
No, I'm curious.
What what kind of sword did adolescent tank own?
Because we've had this conversation. We all had swords.
So so I never I never had a I had a I had a pocket knife.

(56:40):
That was it wasn't a switchblade, which is kind of a pocket knife.
I carry that. I feel kind of cool.
I never I never had a sword, but I was definitely sort of Jason.
Many of my friends had so staff.
Buddy of mine had like a big claymore brain.
Oh, he was into that kind of world.
Yeah. So you feel like a katana guy to me for some reason.
I don't know why. I don't know. I come off like that.
Yeah, I got that vibe, but maybe you're not.

(57:02):
I had if I had to, I would want it to be like probably in the
not a sword like the Mace territory.
That seems fun.
Very medieval weapon.
Yeah, it would be would be good.
The Japanese style. God bless it. Good for them.
But like, it's just not me.
I'm more of a cudgel. You know.
I want to meet a flail person.
Like somebody who legitimately just has a stick with chain

(57:23):
and like a spiked ball on the end of it in their closet.
I just sitting on the floor because how do you support a flail
and make it look cool on the floor?
It has a hang. Yeah.
That chain in there. Yeah. Right.
This movie has nunchuck energy, though.
It does. I mean, although like.
I was listening to Power Mad on my way over here today,

(57:43):
and it was very difficult not to just like stomp on the gas
and like punch out my windows.
Stab it and steer. Stab it and steer.
I fucking love that line.
The language in this movie still excites me.
Like just the way they talk about things is like I don't hear
anybody ever say things like that.
Because like the whole thing, you're right, Tank.
It's like very melodramatic. It feels so poppery.

(58:05):
It feels like this could be a TV show.
You know, not shocking with David Lynch.
But like there's something about the language
that really does drive the entire thing
and keep it moving in a fun, interesting way.
I think it's the fantasy thing. It is a fantasy.
And some of it's by the way, some of it's really, really sexy.
That's the thing about the show.
Like Laura Dern is on fire. Oh, yeah.
Like if you only know Jurassic Park on Laura Dern,

(58:26):
you would never have known that she had this whole.
She's like four time buttoned up mom and that.
And this is the total opposite.
Yeah, like she's just manic.
But she she owns every scene she's in.
Like the chemistry between her and Cage is it's insane.
Outstanding.
Like I just not seen to like performance
have like that kind of sexual chemistry.
And I think that's what it is.

(58:47):
It's like it does fall into a very fun place.
It rockets. It moves forward.
It's kind of pulpy. It's kind of new.
Are you like Lynch likes that kind of stuff?
And they hit really like the line that always got
other than the jacket, right? This makes it.
I could have.
Yeah, we he says, honey, you're giving me a boner with a capital O.
Like the capital.
Oh, that's the detail.
Oh, yeah. It's a moaner.

(59:10):
Yeah, I mean, it does make sense with that accent.
And it's just so much fun to say.
It's interesting, too, because everybody in that movie, no matter how,
like Willem Dafoe is maybe one of the most horrible people to ever walk on screen.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, he's rough.
He is the teeth alone in the teeth.
But he is pain with the door open.
Yeah, that's just coming straight in.

(59:32):
And he's he's deplorable.
You think? But but like he's really having fun with the character.
Like he's really like in it.
And he hits that that line between like real and melodramatic or like caricature.
And that's kind of where everybody sits in the whole movie.
So we got to talk about the Mr.
Reindeer of it all.
You you fixate on this character so much.

(59:52):
It's a really weird character.
It's a weird movie.
It's it's like the wolf.
He's a fixer. You know what I mean?
But he doesn't actually do anything.
He just like shits while some lady dances topless for him.
Well, I mean, you got to have like a nice dinner party.
I feel like you need that guy in between you and your contract killer
so that you have it's just interesting to actually see him.

(01:00:14):
Usually you see the contract killer, the more interesting angle.
Instead, you just see this fucking strange dude.
It sounds to me like Mr.
Reindeer is the more interesting angle in your brain. Maybe.
Well, I that's actually maybe the point is I kind of want more
with Mr. Reindeer and I want more resolution around it.
Like a Mr. Reindeer spin off series. Kind of.
Well, so like more would ruin it.
What happens if the hit doesn't work?

(01:00:36):
Like is sailor just free to go now?
Like the fucking silver dollar got paid.
I mean, he kind of was free to go.
Certainly, that's how it played out.
But like, why?
Because Bobby Peru blew his own head off.
Isabella Rossellini went to jail.
I don't want to cop out, but like I think it's unimportant.
Right. He is a deeper layer in this disgusting world.

(01:00:57):
Yeah, fair enough.
And so like at the very top, you probably have Lula. Right.
So Lula is probably of anybody the most sort of I don't say good.
But I got the cleanest conscience.
Yeah, it's the cleanest conscience.
Right. So it's in the right boat of sailor.
Weirdly enough. Right.
Sailor has done some bad things, but he recognizes.
OK, then you have like probably Diane Ladd's character.
Pretty. No, I mean, Harry Dean's standing.

(01:01:17):
Yeah, you probably got Johnny first.
And then it starts to go down.
It's just like the layers of like.
And then when you get to reindeer, it's just animalistic.
Like the hit people that reindeer pulls in are like, like lunatics.
Right. Maniacs. Right.
So he's like the layer between.
So it's like Santo Santos. Yeah.
Santos is right there above reindeer.
But reindeer is the translation later down into like the real primal dark.

(01:01:42):
The character I'm obsessed with is the one who has the least to say in this movie.
And it's the one who kind of looks like Bono, one of the contract killers.
Every time I see him, I guess that's it looks like Bono. Yeah.
Looks like a young Bono.
Kind of wish it had been. I did, too. I did.
I am. It's not like an uncredited Bono.
It seems like not.
If it was like 1984, maybe it was Bono with a capital O, though.

(01:02:04):
Yeah. Bono.
Bono. Bono.
But I think like the mechanics of like how that world works is less about like
because like I was thinking about it because I watched John Wick recently
and they do the whole coin thing. Sure.
I was listening to another podcast and they were talking about
what's the currency exchange rate for the coin?
Because it seems like it's like killing a person is a coin and then also

(01:02:27):
tipping your doorman is a coin.
So like, what's the coin?
And I was like, same thing with this is like it's just the mechanics don't matter.
It's just kind of a cool flourish.
And it's a way of like just showing a transaction is happening.
There's rules in this world.
But also, again, you walked into a room you're not supposed to be in
and you're not going to understand.
Yeah, it's also just like a timeless way of showing something's happening.
Like Austin Powers, Dr.

(01:02:49):
Evil wants a million dollars.
Like that means one thing at the beginning of the movie versus the end of the movie.
It's like one million dollars gets left out of the room.
Yeah, fair enough. So the coin is a coin.
But two silver dollars for two lives seems I don't know how that would
inflation would affect that.
But it seems like not too bad.
They do seem to be living very expensive lives.

(01:03:12):
And I doubt that, you know, the people who run the giant mansion
with all the women take a coin.
They know they have rent to pay.
The electric company is not going to take a coin.
I think what I really want, though, is like the secret life of Mr. Reindeer.
I want that like TV series, you know, where it's just like
whatever the fuck that dude is up to.
It's never going to be as interesting as you think it is.
Of course not.

(01:03:32):
That's kind of one eye jacks in. Sure.
And 20, right?
It's like this. It's not him.
It's the world, right?
Because he would be ultimate. He's uninteresting.
He'd just be taking craps and watching women's dance.
Poppets, right? Right.
So that show wouldn't be all that good.
Great. It would be great.
The old lady, I guess, is a brothel.
The old lady that runs the high end brothel, she would be a really fun character
because she has like one line and she just nails it.

(01:03:54):
Just you're here to make him happy or whatever.
So it's like, what is that world like?
I think is what he kept continuing to explore.
And he kind of touches on it in Blue Velvet.
Again, there's this Frank, this really dark world that has its own logic.
There's its own people and you get to touch on it.
And then in Twin Peaks, I think he goes a couple of layers into it.
I give you a little bit more of what would it like to be like,

(01:04:15):
not just to walk into the room, but like live in that space for a period of time.
Yeah. Unpleasant, by the way, is the answer.
Yeah, it's like absolutely.
It's a cautionary tale.
David Lynch movies.
Mother's hug, your children.
I thought that was going to take a Nick turn.
I was hot on the button here.
I was like, I'm you.

(01:04:37):
Nope. No.
It was just a genuine nice thought.
It's weird.
How do you not wind up in a real life David Lynch film?
I was thinking about this.
It's kind of the last point open on that kind of world.
So I when I was 16, I loosely had a lynching experience in real life.
So I was going to be a dangerous kid.
I was like, I'm going to sell drugs and get to know dangerous people

(01:05:00):
and I'm going to be a dangerous person.
So a friend of mine had a friend, a friend of a friend, and his
he was going into that world.
He was like 17.
So he's like, I'll go find you like an ounce of weed or whatever.
Like that's that's as dangerous as I was going to go.
I was going to sell marijuana to high school kids in Oklahoma.
So that's living on the edge.
It is. So we had this like long night of like trying to find an ounce of weed.

(01:05:21):
And we I just kept going into places with this guy.
And every time I was like, I want to do this.
So I went into one room with this like short stubby guy who was red haired
and he had like a big enforcer looking dude behind him.
And the short guy just said, you shouldn't have brought him in here.
Get him out of here.
And then like he stayed and talked.
And then we went to this guy's mother's house.
And it was like we walked in. It's 11 o'clock at night.

(01:05:44):
There's a lady who has all the furniture in the middle of the room
and she's painting and she's like tweaked out of her mind.
And the mom is upstairs with like her boyfriend and like two children
that are not there is like watching Mr.
Giggles like it was like it was again.
I touched into this world.
That's the whole time I'm watching this movie.
I'm like, and even like Blue Velvet, like like you want to be a dangerous person.

(01:06:04):
This is what dangerous people are like.
And like, I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want it.
Yeah, it's like, oh, this is actually pretty scary.
This is very gross.
And I think the question always makes me think of the scene in Community
where Troy gets kidnapped by air conditioning repair.
Yeah, it's like, why is there a spaceman making paninis in the corner?
Because we don't want anyone to believe you.
Isn't that right? Black Hitler.

(01:06:25):
Have you seen the movie that's going up against Wicker Man?
I've not seen the Nicholas Cage version of Wicker Man.
So you're the only person that's seen the other one.
I have. And all I can say is that agrarian life in England
seems very, very complex and difficult.
You have to kill a police officer in order to make the corn crop.
You got to do what you got to do.
Listen, farming, small sacrifices.
Farming is hard. Farming is hard.

(01:06:46):
We'll need to eat.
Yeah, I mean, that's such an old culture.
I'm sure that there are very few nutrients left in the soil.
So what's a cop here and there? Sure.
Just to make the corn grow. Yeah.
Also, you're welcome, England, for corn,
corn and tomatoes.
You're welcome. Yeah. And bees.
They didn't have bees in Europe. He had bees.

(01:07:06):
You're welcome, Darrell. Bees are a new world crop.
No flowers, just tubers and all.
That's tubers and gourds is already just a bunch of dick shaped shit.
That's all you need.
This explains so much of the Catholic Church.
I mean, if you think about it, like,
does anybody give a shit about Nicholas Cage Wicker Man?

(01:07:27):
Like, like if you're like, if you had to delete one movie
from the existence of like the world, it was Wild at Heart
or Wicker Man. You keep Wild at Heart.
I mean, I think we're going to debate that.
But I do think to your point, like one like one has a much more
cultural effect on the cinematic landscape.
Like if the Library of Congress was like, hey, we're full.
We can only let one of you in.

(01:07:50):
Have enough room for Wicker Man or Wild at Heart.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one because the memes alone.
Good point.
Could could we exist in a world that didn't have not the bees?
Well, also, the memes sort of do that back to the future fade out thing.
And we just have to watch them go away.
No, no.
And you remember them, but you can never point at it again.

(01:08:10):
Exactly. So empty.
So I think maybe a heart.
I think it probably is a lot more means that we think it does.
Like it just is so old and it was pretty sure.
So maybe my job leaving here,
if I think about why I was brought in, is to start bringing Wild at Heart
memes forward.
So I think there's just enough and there's probably 50.

(01:08:31):
I could cut out really, really easily.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
And the guitar sound.
Certainly, you know.
Yeah. Brown, brown, brown, brown.
Choke, choke, choke, choke, choke.
Incredible. What a great soundtrack. Absolutely.
When I'm always going to talk about it because I fucking love it.
When they're at that first Power Mad show and

(01:08:53):
like you guys got some real good energy,
just like Big E, Big E.
Let me know if you follow this one.
And like one note into the song, they're like, Oh, yeah, we know this Elvis song.
Yeah, it's just wild.
The thing that I asked Peter and I watched this last night and I was just like,
OK, Peter's like, it's weird that this band knows it.

(01:09:13):
And my thought was, it's weird that the people who paid money for this show
are into it.
Well, they're screaming like it's Elvis show.
It's like that is that girl scream like the Beatles got.
And it's yeah.
So that's the fantasy thing.
Like that is a totally that is a that is a 16 year old sitting in a trailer
smoking cigarettes he stole from his mom.
Playing with his guitar, fantasizing about singing Elvis

(01:09:36):
and everybody being way into it.
Yeah, just breaking down the show.
Oh, yeah. And like the show and just lying to his friends about it.
Like that was that was the whole movie.
Yeah. Next thing you know, he's having sex on a bed with the assault rifles
and skin bags and skin, which OK.
Now, I've never like specifically fantasized about that.
But part of it sounds pretty cool.

(01:09:57):
Yeah, I know. That's the thing.
It's like, well, I mean, like he's not wrong.
Yeah, like, sure. OK.
But like maybe two or three assault rifles and like they don't be loaded.
Sure. Actually, probably best if they're not.
I mean, you'd want to move them off to the side, wouldn't you?
No. How do you go and check that clip before we do this?
No, I want to like have to rearrange shit mid sex.

(01:10:21):
Your gun is digging into my hip. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, that's fine.
It's just just fancy. It's so much fun to this is like that.
That's what that's what gives it its permission to be as dark as it is,
is that at some point, it's just that this is all in like the like the id.
And it's just this like flow and it can't stop.

(01:10:41):
You know, it's just like a fantasy that's building on itself.
And then the good witch comes down for some reason.
Yeah. Oh, she's a bad actress.
Do you hated her in Twin Peaks?
I don't know why David Lynch likes her.
I think it's because she's a bad actress.
I think David Lynch just wants oddities to.
Yeah, like he loves an oddity.
Person. She just looks like a normal girl.
Pretty odd. No. Well, fair enough.

(01:11:03):
There is probably just a rolodex of people who are like,
Oh, yeah, I'm free on Thursday. I'll come on down.
I mean, yeah, that was to do this.
I was we're not going to really fit you for this dress.
You're just going to put it on.
We're going to we're going to put you on some wires
and you're going to say these lines.
Yeah. You're going to read these from a cue card.
You're a wild at heart.
Yeah, the inclusion of the Wizard of Oz stuff

(01:11:26):
still kind of gets me because it's not in the actual stories.
Right. And it's just sort of out there.
Like, what makes that the choice?
Well, it's just so heavy handed, too.
It's not like it's like a subtle like homage to the Wizard of Oz.
They just keep mentioning it and just pulling the rules from it.
It has nothing story.
Well, that is to connect it.

(01:11:46):
It's not like they're on the way of a way and ending.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think the only tie in to like the real thing
or the rest of the movie is Bobby Peru mentioning Toto.
I think it was Bobby.
No, it was the guy who played a racer head.
Oh, that's right. Yeah.
When I said I had a dog, you pictured a dog.
So that's that's like a beautiful lynch moment.

(01:12:10):
Or like all the Texas people sitting out there having conversations
like nobody's talking to each other.
They're just like speaking past each other for everything.
It's yeah.
The characters on the side of the movie,
like everybody in the background just really, really tickles me throughout.
From, you know, the Texas size porno being shot.
Yeah. The guy who just like squawks at the bar. Del.

(01:12:34):
It definitely feels like a lived in world
and where there's just more going on than the immediate. Yeah.
They it's fun because like Roger Ebert hates David Lynch.
But although he came around near the end, I think, but he like
he hated this movie like, but he calls out a scene.
And I when I watched it this time around, I really paid attention.
It's where they blow the guy's hand off near the end of the robbery.

(01:12:54):
Oh, yeah. And they're like just comic amounts of blood.
And they're kind of like sloshing around in it.
And the other guy's going, they can sell them back on now.
They can do that. It's going to be OK.
And the dog has it in his mouth
and like runs off, which apparently is like a reference to like a
a Japanese film or something like that.
But like, it's just of course. Yes.
But it's just like I like I that is the type of thing

(01:13:18):
that I'm looking for out of his movies, which is like cutting the tension,
cutting it because I mean, right after Willem Dafoe, like blows his head off.
And I got an incredible.
So that almost got this movie a an X rating. Oh, yeah.
So it was right. It's pretty graphic.
Yeah, it is pretty gross.
That was the last moment.
But the the MPAA, they added smoke post and post production.

(01:13:40):
So you didn't see it come off.
Apparently the original is much more violent.
You just saw it pop right off, right off.
And they were like, X rating. You did it, buddy.
And they're like, all right, we'll put smoke there.
Apparently that was like the.
I do love this stocking trailing behind.
Yeah, yeah. It's all.
I would love to like take a movie and push it right over the edge

(01:14:00):
and then just get the censor's notes and be like, all right,
what can we do that has the least impact on the wildness of the film
to get it just into like mass marketing?
I mean, I think you need to see the new Toxic Avenger film.
Dude, apparently that's unreleasable.
The guys who created the first American pie, the director of that,

(01:14:20):
he was talking on the blank check podcast and he was talking about how
they had to get down to like remove one thrust from a pie fucking.
And they're like, that'll do it.
That'll put you back to an hour. So awesome.
But this is the South Park story, too, like the original South Park movie.
I don't I don't remember what the title was, but there's a bigger, longer on cut.
Well, that was the one that was the compromise.

(01:14:41):
They had another one they submitted like absolutely not.
It's too sexual.
And they came back with this one and they were like, well, bigger, longer
and uncut significantly.
So they were like, this is much worse.
They're going to give us the first one.
They were like, perfect. Nailed it.
It's like, this is so arbitrary.
Yeah. Well, they had trouble with the fractured but whole also.
Yeah, true. It's a great game.

(01:15:02):
Yeah. You can soft lock that game really easily.
Yeah. What does that mean?
Where you were like, you can't get you don't get soft.
I got to stop agreeing with stuff so quickly.
Wait, what?
There's a when you get like your second power, if you if you go the stealth route
or like the ninja route,
the when you're supposed to use your like super move to like finish the tutorial,

(01:15:23):
it doesn't give you enough power to do it.
And you cannot complete the tutorial.
It just breaks the game where you can't get out of the tutorial section.
And if you say right before there, your entire game's gone.
So take note, listeners.
Yeah. Don't get soft locked.
Don't get soft locked in only get hard.
Hard luck. Hard luck all the time.
This movie is still really, really tickles me all the way through

(01:15:44):
just because every scene seems very full.
Like there's an amount of content that you just consistently get throughout it.
And so much of it is just also jarring.
The transitions from scene to scene are something
catching fire or somebody screaming or like everything is just like
and we're somewhere else and we're somewhere else.

(01:16:06):
And with my aggressive ADD, it's incredible because it keeps me focused down.
So it's like, oh, I can't look away.
I can't get like lost in a thought.
But the characters are weird and they keep my attention.
It it turns me around and I like it.
Peter and I were talking about it before, like we started watching last night about
it's like neither one of us is super into David Lynch.

(01:16:28):
And I've enjoyed this movie every time I watched it.
And I'm glad we watched in the theater the first time we watched it.
But kind of going back and watching it for the
I mean, I guess my fourth time now, but I forget so much of this film.
Like I remember the large the broad strokes.
I remember the like through line, but I forget all the little vignettes
and all the little characters.
And I'm always surprised and happy to see those again.

(01:16:48):
Crispin Glover, who I always remember is in this movie,
but I always forget how weird that scene is.
And it does have the energy of a car crash.
It actually seems more has the energy of the car crashes in the Blues Brothers
because it just keeps coming and it doesn't stop.
And when you think it's finally done, the one cop car falls from the sky
and I'm here for it.
So why do you think this movie should go through

(01:17:10):
where it sits as like a film itself is like it's like a hugely significant movie.
You know, it kind of ushers in.
It's part of that group that ushers in like the next wave of like 90s movies,
you know, so we're getting out of the Spielberg
80s big movie kind of like popcorn movie blockbuster.

(01:17:30):
And we're like, we're kind of getting sick of that.
There's a bunch of corporate films.
And then like at the end of the 80s and 90s, you get like Wild at Heart,
true romance, you get natural born killers,
then Reservoir Dog shows up, Pulp Fiction, then we're off.
Then we're like firmly in the violent grungy 90s era.
You know, we're making Fight Club.
We're doing all that kind of fun stuff.

(01:17:52):
So as a transition, like this is like Nicolas Cage
as a part of an ensemble cast, like ushering in an entire
like new genre of filmmaking.
It's also maybe on like a cultural level, like again,
because how it showed up at like festivals and ultimately how it like
made its way into the consciousness.
It's one of the most like impactful things I think he's ever been a part of.

(01:18:13):
I don't think it's the best Nicolas Cage performance,
but I think him being able to be like layered into such an erratic
and insane movie and be the straight man essentially, or like the
the heart of it to a certain degree, like is is fantastic.
Because he's usually the wild card or, you know,
he has all of it on his shoulders.
And then this one, he's just part of this like massive bouncing chaotic machine.

(01:18:36):
And he anchors it really, really well.
It's funny.
It's very physical.
Maybe physicality wise, it's one of his best.
I think he's in that lately, like when he gets like, I guess the rocker
when he goes super action movie, it's not as much fun
like when he's wiry and spastic.
So, you know, he's doing karate kicks while listening to
that heavy metal music and all that kind of fun stuff.
So I just to summarize, it's a major transitional moment

(01:19:00):
for film making in general to be pretentious about it.
But it's also a a thing where he could have gone really, really far,
but pulled it back to let everybody else go really far.
So it showed that, you know, he has he has kind of layers and different modalities.
Go watch weird movies again.
You know, like there's so many like we got the polished like big film blockbuster.

(01:19:22):
Like it was crazy to me that you said that you watched this
in a theater with the other human beings.
I cannot imagine, you know, when this came out,
like as I worked in a movie theater for a while and people would just go to movies,
especially 1990, when you couldn't really find out what a movie was about.
You know what I mean? You just would go.
You would just go and be like, oh, this I like Nicolas Cage and Diane Lange.
She was my favorite actress when I was a girl and they would just go in.

(01:19:44):
And like, I cannot imagine what it was like to just get hit in the face
with this movie, you know, and like so if anything, it's like plugging the eye.
It's really fun.
It's kind of inspired me to go back and like start rewatching,
especially the Lynch stuff and a lot of like the more complicated directors
from the 80s and 90s, especially.
So that would be my plug is like get back into that stuff

(01:20:05):
because it's super, super weird.
But it's also you can see how it informs the big stuff that we all like.
You know what I mean?
Like there's a lot of there's a lot of things that happen here.
And this is a genre they don't make anymore.
They don't make like Bonnie and Clyde, like violent kids on like fucking
on the edge of the world movies anymore.
But they seem to make them every two years from like 88 to like 98.
And so like, yeah, have fun. Go back.

(01:20:27):
There's a bunch. Watch True Romance.
Watch Natural Born Killers.
These are not great movies all the time, but there's some excellent.
There's a great moments in almost all of them.
And so, yeah, shit. Well, thanks, Hank.
Thanks for being here. Thanks a lot. It was fun. Sure.
If you want to get weird, this is a good movie to get weird on.
I do thoroughly enjoy the weird category of this bracket. Yeah, me too.
All right, so that was some pretty good conversations there.

(01:20:49):
I think there's a lot a lot to be said, a lot of merit in both arguments.
It seems to come down to me for a movie that has like a really bold
performance by Nicolas Cage and a very lackluster world surrounding it
to a very bold world with not a lack of

(01:21:10):
luster, but a more reserved and directed Nicholas Cage.
I mean, this goes to I think what we keep going back and forth on.
What's the metric?
There is no metric, though.
Unfortunately, we screwed ourselves on that one every time.
Is it about like how cagey Nick Cage is or is it about like the film itself?

(01:21:32):
Yeah, some of that also is like, oh, which movie would you like to see?
Yeah, some of that also is like, oh, which movie would you rather show somebody?
And they're both great.
Comfortably, I could show more people with her man.
That's actually a fair point.
Like it is a more boring movie, but I would feel safer showing.
It's a more boring movie, but it's also hilarious movie

(01:21:54):
if you go into it with the right expectation.
Yeah, for that, like 20 percent.
Yeah, like I'm never going to show someone the Wicker Man.
I mean, you're going to love this movie.
It's going to be outstanding.
You're like, I'm like, this is going to be weird.
You're going to go for a ride and you're going to question things.
And I'm like, don't just just watch it.
Yeah, Caged Dancer John watched both of these movies with me this time.
And last night, after watching Wild at Heart said,

(01:22:16):
Well, those were both pretty boring.
Oh, ouch.
Every movie has its own kind of audience that I would advise watching it.
I would probably recommend Wicker Man more to the people.
I'm unsure of like how cool they are.
Yeah, they don't have a snakeskin jacket.

(01:22:38):
But if I wanted somebody to see something
that was just going to blow their minds, I would be more inclined
to recommend Wild at Heart.
Yeah. And if you don't want your mind blown,
I don't know why I'd be talking to you.
I mean, I would say Wild at Heart is definitely the better film,
better directed, better written,
and is the better performance by Nicolas Cage.

(01:22:59):
It's much more consistent and good.
Right. You just are outside of those like
the jokes that are on the Internet.
Yeah. So that's the kind of like a trade off you're getting for that.
Do I feel like either movie holds more weight than a
you have to have seen this movie to appreciate Nicolas Cage?

(01:23:19):
No, I don't think the couple of jokes we make about Wicker Man
need anybody to like watch it.
That's a movie that exists outside of itself, like in the zeitgeist of his own
because we've had the conversation with people like that's the worst movie ever.
And like, have you ever seen it?
Well, no. Then you don't know.
Yes, it's far from the worst movie ever.

(01:23:40):
It's far from his worst movie.
It's far from the worst.
It's far from his mid is either.
Yeah, it's existing in that like sweet
43 percent approval rating.
Well, I think it has like a 15 percent.
But well, I think that's from people who haven't seen it.
It's a 43 for us.
I think what and Darrell kind of pointed out is just like that was just kind of

(01:24:03):
the stamp or the start of like that very mid era of Cage.
And I think this movie gets unfairly lumped into that
because I expected so much worse from the film the first time I saw it.
And I've enjoyed it every time I've watched it.
What I'm saying is it's not a bad film and it doesn't deserve to be shat on
as much as it gets.
Well, yeah, it's not a bad film, but it's important to remember.
It's not a good film.

(01:24:24):
I didn't say it was.
I just need everybody on the outside to know that we understand.
It's a film.
They understand it is a film.
It's one of those films of all time.
I think that Wild at Heart will elicit a much more extreme response
to it from any viewer, whether they like it or not.
And they will either love it or hate it.

(01:24:46):
There is no I don't think there is a middle ground on that film.
That's true.
Yeah, I don't think many people walk away from it being like, oh, OK.
Yeah, like I kind of think about it now as we're getting closer
to the end of this, you know, we're going to do a head to head
viewing of these movies, a double feature somewhere locally
and have people come watch these movies with us and thinking about like
would Wild at Heart get audience reaction versus Wicker Man?

(01:25:10):
I think it really does.
I think it's a more interesting one to stage a screening of.
Actually, to tie what you said about it being
what Daryl said about it being kind of like that
pivoting point in Nicolas Cage's career, where things went to the mid
and what Tank said about being a pivotal point in film

(01:25:32):
where a lot of film was changing into this kind of like
hyper graphic, like fantasy testosterone driven stories.
One of those outcomes is more interesting
if we have to talk about like impact impact on cinema in general.
Yeah, I think my bias is clear.

(01:25:52):
So, yeah, like Tank said, it's a much more kind of sedate
and grounding role for Nicolas Cage.
I think we forget over time.
Most people have forgotten how good an actor he can be.
I mean, Pig isn't a over the top performance.
It is a very, yeah, down to performance in a weird world.

(01:26:13):
Not as weird as this, but it still kind of has that.
It has its own rules. It has its own rules.
So, I mean, by that metric, I think it's a better performance.
And I think Wild at Heart deserves to be in the final
the final rounds. The Master Eight.
Yeah, obviously, I agree.
Sorry, Daryl.
Yeah, I know. I mean, like I appreciate Daryl's efforts, but.

(01:26:35):
We fought a war to not have to listen to that accent anymore.
I love those conspiracy theories or truths. Yeah.
Those deep truths.
Wild at Heart is just such a terrific film.
It's a terrific ride to go on.
And if you want to like see film

(01:26:56):
that's not produced the way you watch film now,
this is a good piece of cinema to go back and be like,
people did some weird ass shit.
Maybe if there's enough interest in it, we see some weird ass shit again.
I mean, I would love to see weird shit done by modern.
I mean, like, look at Mandy.
That's some weird shit. Yeah.

(01:27:17):
And that's modern. And that's good.
I would love to see more shit like Mandy.
Yep. Yeah.
I feel like there's a real issue with the industry right now.
We don't need to get into this too deeply, but it's just like
everything has to make a billion dollars.
It's got to be an avatar. It's got to be a marvel.
You know, it's got to be all these things.
It's like there should still be a space for a buddy comedy.
There should be a space for this kind of thing, you know, where it's like,

(01:27:41):
that's weird.
And I spent, you know, 90 minutes or whatever it is,
having a great fucking time and I'm thinking about it.
Well, I feel like Nick Cage is at a point in his career again,
where that's what he's doing, because I'm just looking at the poster up there.
Pig is weird. Mandy weird color out of space.
Weird, not big box office films, but, you know, someone out there

(01:28:01):
still making these movies and they're casting Nick Cage in them.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. He's tied to it.
You're right. And that's a really cool fucking thing.
You know, you think about this guy who's been a megastar
and he's he's hitching his horse to what we're talking about,
which is like, let's make movies fucking fun and interesting again.
They don't have the weight of massive talent.
Long legs, dream scenario.
All these things. You're right.
About long legs.

(01:28:21):
It's incredible how much of a lasting impact.
Like, I still talk to people online who are like, yeah, I love it.
I keep going back to watching it and it's like, fuck yeah, dude.
Yeah, it's great. It's weird. It's a weird choice.
It's a weird performance.
And we don't get a lot of film for that niche.
I'm glad Nicholas Cage is doing it.
It's cool to have someone with clout like he has backing that kind of stuff.

(01:28:44):
It's like, here's hoping we get more of it.
All right. Wild at heart. Wild at heart.
Very enthusiastic. Wild at heart.
Yeah. If you want to support us, thank you for listening.
We are on social media at Cage underscore match underscore pod.
We are on Patreon at Cage match pod.
If you do want to give us money, which is a wild thing to do,

(01:29:06):
we will put this in your heart. Yeah. Trust your heart.
I'm going to make a T-shirt, I think.
Well, I'm going to make a couple of T-shirts.
Some of them are going to be more appropriate or inappropriate than others.
But special thanks to our Sparkle buddies, Josh, Sean, Josie, Rico,
Matt, Adam and Bill, and to our cage dancers, Ira, John, Freeman,
Lance and Nathan and Cameron. Sorry, Cameron.

(01:29:26):
I almost fucked it up. I don't have anything else.
Bye. Bye.
Bye. Bye.
Oh, here we go.
Who knows?
It just needed to go for all the listeners.

(01:29:49):
The the the hum or the crackle
that's been in our ears for the last 45 minutes just stopped.
So I kind of miss it. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like when the hiccups go away. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly.
Shake the table.
All right.
Now I'm concerned that the humming's left our headphones
and just entered the recording.
Stop everything. Check the recording.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Wicker Man vs Wild at Heart

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

The Wicker Man vs Wild at Heart

Stuff You Should Know