Vampire's Kiss vs Mandy

Lauren Freman and Christopher Fields engage in the fun (?) this week in discussing 1988's Vampire's Kiss and 2018's Mandy. Join us while we get a little drunk and a little horny to learn the pleasures of Cheddar Goblin and Eggo sippin' cream. If you're a horse and you're listening: fuck you. This is Cage Match.

Intro music by: Bill Panks

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Episode Transcript

(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's case is between a man with a penchant for heavy metal and really bad Eric Estrada jokes, and a man who knows his alphabet a little too well.
Oh god.
Oh my god.

(00:37):
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Fuuuuuuuuck.
Perfect. Sean, I think your audio sounded great last episode too. I don't know if you listened to it, but...
I have touched nothing.
Great. That's exactly what we want then.

(00:59):
That's how I prefer you live your life. Touching nothing.
Touching nothing and no one.
No hearts, no spirits, no bodies.
Especially no spirits.
That's fucking why I skipped town.
Well, welcome back Lauren.
Thank you.

(01:20):
Yeah, thanks for being our last minute filth.
Yay, woo!
Oh great, I'm so glad I'm a ringer.
Yeah, well it's kind of funny too because we've never had the same person in the same part of a bracket come back.
So you are a special case here.
So you are twice in the slicks team.
Double, double slick.

(01:42):
Yes, slide right off your chest.
Gross.
You made that phrase up. This is it. Your words, your words.
It's true, we did. I mean you can thank Nick for any naming conventions.
Not Nick's team though. I think I said this last time too.
Yeah.

(02:03):
Well, I mean, the way we're collecting Knicks, we'll eventually be able to do this again, but with Knicks.
It's true. I would have liked to have pulled in at least one more Nick this run.
Oh, I see. I think we could probably do a Knicks team.
Yeah, part of the stipulation of being a guest on your podcast should be that you legally change your name to Nick.

(02:24):
That would be good.
Yeah, that's reasonable. I mean I was supposed to name either of my children Nicholas Michael Gearhart.
Tennessee.
Yeah, exactly.
Noonan Nesvig.
Yeah, right.
Nunesvig.
Nunesvig, right.
Ooh, hi Noon.
Yeah, there you go.
Nesnan.
One of these days somebody is going to name their child Nicholas Michael Gearhart.

(02:46):
Tennessee.
Thank you for remembering Poonin Q Noonan.
Poonin, forgot about Poonin Q Noonan.
Thank you for putting your respect on Poonin Q Noonan's name.
To this day, the funniest, the hardest I've laughed out in public.
Wasn't that like just a random letter? Just like a weird mail?

(03:09):
Yes.
Speaking of weird mail, fucking government came after me for fucking thousands of dollars this week.
Oh, lame.
Probably we should kill a CEO about it.
It worked for health care.
Yay!
When I first called they're like, your wait will be 35 minutes. Would you like us to call you back?
I'm like, yes. And then I called them back and they're like, cool, we're going to transfer you the billing.

(03:32):
Then the machines like your weight is going to be 65 minutes.
Please hold.
Oh, did they have like that one 10 second loop of like bad jazz too?
Sounds like it was recorded in a dishwasher.
Yep.
Oh, no. The absolute worst one is anyone here at USAA.

(03:54):
Have you ever seen the USAA commercial with their little jingle?
It's just that on loop.
A USAAAA.
That's like how low V and like now I will treat like now I will train every listener to absolutely hate this sound and like want to punch something every time they hear it.

(04:15):
Speaking of annoying noises that waste your time. Welcome back to Cage Match.
Yay!
I'm Sean, my co-host.
Nick.
And our producer.
I'm Nick.
Peter, hello.
And our last minute save returning guest.

(04:37):
Lauren Freeman.
Welcome back.
So Lauren, you had the delightful realization that the Vampire's Kiss movie is the one that all the memes are from.
Oh my God.
Had you never seen it before?
I hadn't. No, most. Okay. Literally most of these movies like I hadn't seen before.
So you have given me the gift of having having to watch them.

(05:02):
I didn't end up watching Mandy, by the way.
I wanted to. And then I saw a review that was like this movie is not for the faint of heart.
And I was like, well, that's me then.
It was like dark out and I was like, it sounds like a scaly movie.
But I did watch a shit ton of like YouTube trailers and clips and like him talking about it.
There's like analysis videos everywhere.
So I feel like I did my homework.

(05:23):
Yeah, that sounds like you did a good job.
It is kind of like a creepy movie.
It's a little unsettling.
I am I am terrible with scary movies.
I do this thing like if a scary movie is interesting to me and I want to see it, I will just do the like just see as many clips that are allowed on the Internet or like analysis videos that are allowed on the Internet or just like reading plot summaries.
So I feel like I got the experience.

(05:44):
This is also how I consumed like mid-Somar and like hereditary.
Like I'm like, oh, that sounds scary.
I'll just watch some little clips on my phone so it's not like immersive.
If I watch it small, it can't hurt me.
The scariest part about Mandy is the Cheddar Goblin commercial.
Cheddar what?
I love Cheddar.
Oh, you don't know Cheddar.

(06:05):
If you haven't seen them, you would.
Fuck.
I'll watch it while it's daylight.
It's a Goblin.
Yeah.
Cheddar Goblin is they made a commercial for like a mac and cheese is sponsored by a Goblin.
Yeah, it's Cheddar Goblin brand and it barfs mac and cheese on children.
Yeah.
Oh, Jesus.

(06:26):
I just love the idea that they were on set and they were doing this like, you know, very arty kind of scary movie.
And then they're like, what if we have a dumb Cheddar Goblin commercial in the middle of it?
Why the fuck not?
Do you guys know a puppeteer?
I know a puppeteer.
I just love Nicolas Cage staring at it and then being like Cheddar Goblin.

(06:47):
That was a really good Nicolas Cage.
I assume you've all worked up a really good impression by now.
You know, what's kind of amazing and very disappointing is when we do the tabletop RPG, I'm going to have to do Nick Cage voices and I'm just they're all going to be this.
So.
Or just like every like speaking of speaking of all the means you just have to like recite everything in the like alphabet recitation voice.

(07:12):
Exactly.
Give me a perception jack.
I like that.
I think I can handle that.
Peter Lowe, I think I could probably channel weird affectation.
That's like unhinged to you.
I was a little drunk and I was horny.
Oh my God.
It's like halfway to Zoolander.
It's like just like a little it's like what Zoolander became.

(07:36):
But it's like never go to Zoolander.
It's fucking accent.
So this was sight unseen for you.
What was your takeaway?
Like, I mean, it's a it's a real wild movie.
It's a wild fucking ride.
Oh my God.
I didn't realize like I thought that my interpretation of it was like, oh, well, that's I mean, maybe this is how everybody works.

(07:59):
But it's like, oh, well, I'm obviously right.
And I know what it's about.
And then I like watch this like commentary.
There's like, you know, the commentary track with the director and Nicholas Cage on Vampire's Kiss is like a commentary track on like the DVD or whatever.
There's several, several times of them being like, well, we don't really know what it's about.
Do you know what it's about?
I don't know what it's about.
And we made it like fucking like I thought that I was like I had this like elevated like, oh, it's obviously about addiction.

(08:25):
It's not cocaine.
It's not some way that like misery is about like, oh, she's your biggest fan.
And like and then I'm like looking online to see, like, confirmation that like this is what they intended when they made this movie and like nobody else, nobody else.
Well, what's interesting is everybody's had a different take.
You know, our first guest, Gary and Rocks, they were like full on, he is an actual vampire, you know, Sean's take is a little more like he has rabies because he probably got bit by a real bat.

(08:54):
I think he was just a little drunk and a little horny.
Yeah.
Who amongst us hasn't been?
I think business just kind of broke him.
It's that middle management, like throw yourself out a window moment.
Well, it's like, and it's also about like just being lonely and isolated.
And he wants clearly wants a part of some relationship.

(09:15):
Yeah. Yeah.
He wants some relationship.
I like at this point watching it, I was my kind of takeaway this time was just like,
is this therapist even real?
Like is any of any of those scenes real or is that just hallucinations?
Yeah. Yeah.
Because we have clear proof that it's a hallucination later.
So like, right.
Yeah. It makes you sort of reflect back and go like, was any of this fucking.

(09:39):
But then he hallucinated her with that like beefcake.
Because at least she has a scene where she exists outside of him.
But he could be imagining it because he's still calling her.
And like the one woman in his life who gives him like all the attention,
like does he imagine her with another man or is that real?
Because that just seems like such an odd like detail to throw in.

(10:00):
Right. And that would be his worst case scenario.
Yeah.
Like if he's in crisis, her being with another like much hotter,
much younger man with a towel around his neck would still be his like worst.
You know, like, no, you're supposed to prioritize me only.
Sure. No, ask. It's a look that I'm not sure I could pull off.
I'm sorry. No, sure.
As God.
I think you're currently pulling off the look of Sean's just out here living like shirtless.

(10:27):
As got life.
Oh, yeah. There you go.
Wish there's a guy in my office who pulls up and has got and it upsets me.
No. Yeah. Fucking great.
And I, you know, I'm just like, I just since just moving to Portland, I'm in the office more.
I've gotten like hard on like wildfang apparel because I'm like, I need I need to have something
and I got to compete with Ascot guy and I want to be the fanciest fanciest lad here.

(10:51):
The fanciest boy.
I just I'm not I'm not confident enough for an Ascot.
I don't have that Freddy from Scooby Doo confidence.
We all have an Ascot within us, Sean. You can get there.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
Within every person, there is an Ascot waiting to come out.
I think there are two Ascot's.

(11:16):
I do like the idea of just getting more and more confident and Ascot just sort of like blooms.
Like it starts out as like a like a thread, just like a little string.
No one can see it. And then, yeah, it just slowly like blossoms.
I think you should misunderstand the assignment and go dressed as a mascot.
Oh, or what if you just get like a mascot costume of your coworker with a bigger Ascot?

(11:41):
So you could be an Ascot mascot.
Oh, this this I want to do.
Unhinged.
But with a big felt head.
All right, Lauren. So give us the quick summary of this movie.
OK, so let's see. So Peter Lowe played by Nicolas Cage is a arguably high powered

(12:01):
executive literary agent in Manhattan, who's somehow raking in an insane amount of money
as a literary agent.
But since he's in a suit and lives in New York, that means he's a high powered corporate executive fellow
with an assistant who he cannot help but abuse at every opportunity.

(12:25):
He's a womanizer.
He's a womanizer. He on one of his dates, a bat flies in through his window and he gets super
horny up about it, tells his therapist who's like, that's nothing. Don't worry about it.
Goes on, goes on, goes at the bar to pick up a different woman

(12:49):
and meets question mark. Maybe she's real.
A lady named Rachel, who he takes back to his place and she immediately bites his neck,
which he's also super horny up about.
And then that's maybe the first 10 minutes of plot.
And then everything else is just absolute unhinged unraveling of Nicolas Cage, the

(13:13):
inventing the caricature of Nicolas Cage so early in his career, fresh out the gate,
fresh off a moonstruck, he just went bonkers. Just the dissent like the rest of the movie is
just absolute dissent into madness.
It is a terrific little spiral that he sends himself down on. And I think with my watches,

(13:36):
I assume that the time he meets Rachel, that's like his first like open, like breaking moment,
like mental break. I really like when he's just talking to her and it's so I think he's middle
middle management, not super high powered because of the quality of his kitchen.
His kitchen is like really bad.

(13:58):
There is notably a roach in his kitchen.
Yeah, a water beetle.
Right. But what were you going to say?
Oh, and he's just like holding that coffee over the bed. It's like, oh, man, your bed's going to
have like such a gross stain when you spill all that coffee on it.
You're going to have to like try to have sex on top of that coffee stain.

(14:19):
I'm pretty sure he doesn't have sex again in that movie.
Well, he gets bitten again and they reuse the same footage from the previous bite.
Well, part of that is because he was really not hornt up for Jennifer Beals, like not into her at
all. Just super soft.

(14:39):
Not that we needed to see anything beyond faces in the shot.
It is important, though, like it breaks the immersion if I know he doesn't have at least.
Yeah, just so it's semi.
Yeah.
I mean, that kind of works, though, for the fact that she's not real, like it's just reusing the

(15:00):
same footage. So like I always assume like he met this woman and then started fantasizing about her.
And then when he meets her again at the end of the movie and she has no idea who he is.
Yeah, yeah.
Because none of it was real.
And at the point where he meets her again, he's.
That's crazy.
He also killed a woman.

(15:20):
Also killed a woman.
And I those two things.
Yeah.
But I absolutely love the little detail of him putting the fake plastic teeth back in his mouth
after he bites the woman.
After barfing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Also, like in the in that scene, like I feel like I've heard people debate about like,

(15:41):
well, those like those stupid teeth, like he couldn't have possibly done any damage.
Like, obviously, he took them out and like you can do damage even with human teeth,
biting somebody in the jungle.
But like it's clear, like the makeup effects is like for like human teeth marks.
Like they made sure to do like for, you know, like dull teeth marks.
Right.
Yeah, like.
And there I mean, it's there is the very like slow like he turns around face covered in blood.

(16:06):
And you just seem like pop the teeth back in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They were paying attention.
Right.
I love I love that.
I mean, I truly can't imagine why how you could come away from the movie thinking that he did,
in fact, turn into a vampire because I feel like the movie is so clear, like so fucking clear.
Like this man is just insane.

(16:27):
He's just insane.
Insane, he's just insane, like the like reflection moment where he's like, where am I?
Oh, Christ, where am I?
Like, like with like seven different reflections visible in the shot, like six different like
reflections of reflections is like, no, you're right there, buddy.
Hey, bud.
Hey, bud.
We can you're there.

(16:48):
I think this movie really suffers from its reputation and people just saying how like how bad it is.
Because if you have to watch it critically, which I've had to now four times, it's got it's got it's
got a through line start to finish.
It's not a long movie.
So it's a pretty it's a pretty tight film.

(17:10):
So yeah, I think that people are just like, oh, he's a vampire.
Oh, this movie is terrible or like unhinged.
It's like you're only watching the means you're only watching like that the performance side of it.
You're not actually paying attention to the whole movie holistically, which yeah, I don't think
it's a hard film to follow.
And I don't think it's difficult to like understand what's going on.

(17:30):
No, and I think I think that's a benefit of it.
So I watching it like it was like, oh, this is this is basically like parallel to American Psycho.
Like this is just like high powered executive in Manhattan is bad to people and goes down
just descends into madness and violence.
And, you know, because because who he is, like somehow he just goes off the deep end.

(17:53):
But I think so, A, this came out before American Psycho.
So this potentially inspired it.
But B, I love the fact I feel like in a world where people can take Fight Club seriously
or take Joker seriously and go like, yeah, that's my guy.
Like, I'm supposed to root for this narrator.
I'm supposed to identify with this man.

(18:14):
Like in a world where people can do that, I appreciate I appreciate the fact that in
this movie they're like, he's an insufferable man, baby.
You are not allowed to like him.
He is objectively unlikable.
Like, do not root for this man.
He's awful.
I think they want you to relate more to the character and maybe think about what that

(18:35):
means for you as a person.
But most people can't think critically.
Whereas with Peter Lowe, you just have that great scene of I'm a vampire.
I'm a vampire.
I'm a vampire.
I'm a running.
Also, I heard that like that.
So those all those shots like in public.
This is incredible.
Fucking insane is like those are long shots.

(18:55):
Those are like the camera was way far away and those are real bystanders.
And I feel like having so having moved to New York a couple a couple years ago,
that shit is so true.
Like, yeah, someone could be trucking down the street screaming, I'm a vampire.
And you just go like, not my problem.
I didn't see it.

(19:16):
Yeah, it's Tuesday morning.
I'm going to work right now.
Right. Like I didn't see I'm not a snitch.
I didn't see nothing.
Like, yeah, fine.
You're a vampire.
Holy shit, though, he is really like terrifying.
I'm just imagining being Alva in those situations.
Like my favorite scene, I think, is him.
He starts his head is down on his desk.

(19:37):
Alva.
Oh, my God.
Alva.
Oh, my God.
Alva.
And then he runs up, leaps onto the desk.
Holy shit.
There you are.
It's like, holy fuck.
Fucking terrifying.
I mean, yeah, I do feel like like there's like so many failures of bystanders in her orbit.

(19:59):
Like even even as she's getting like chased into the bathroom and there's an old lady
who's like, what the hell is going on?
Like, sorry.
What is he doing in here?
Do something.
What?
And like Peter Lowe throws that other secretary's shit on her floor and she's like, he's so eccentric.
It's like, oh, God.
But even in that bathroom scene with the old lady, Alva says, I have a gun.

(20:23):
I will use it.
And she's just like, what the hell?
It's just like no concern whatsoever for a man being in the bathroom and a terrified
woman saying she has a gun.
Well, it's a man's world.
Yeah.
I mean, I think Nick has the point of it.
Yeah, I think that's what they were trying to say, like, because immediately after that
bathroom scene, it's like the boardroom where they're like, she asked me for a raise.

(20:45):
You know, which I think is like, thank you for being so unsubtle.
Like, thank you, movie, for beating us over the head with the fact that we are not on
these people's side.
Like, lest they, you know, lest the audience take away the idea that this man is somehow

(21:06):
someone to aspire to.
He knows his alphabet, though.
Oh, he sure does know his alphabet.
Very good, Peter, you know, your alphabet.
So, OK, now that you've seen the movie, is there like a context for a meme that you like
the most or?
Gosh, I mean, you know, the big eyes, the.

(21:32):
Tilty face.
Yeah, big eyes, tilty face.
I mean, obviously, like, that's the classic.
That's the one.
But I actually did feel sort of a thrill going like, oh, this is the context for the yelling
the alphabet, because like every time I'd seen that clip, it was like, what could possibly
trigger someone yelling the alphabet at a sitting down woman?

(21:53):
Like, what could possibly make this circumstance occur?
So it's a filing issue.
All right.
I mean, it's not making a goddamn sense, but like, all right, I mean, I mean, I mean,
all right, here's the context.
Now I understand.
Yeah.
What a bonkers, what a bonkers movie.
OK, no, I do want to talk about I want to talk about what y'all think is happening

(22:17):
because I feel so certain that it's about cocaine.
Cocaine makes you an insufferable man, baby.
Like every problem he has is of his own making.
I'm like, like every problem he has is of his own making.
Like even the way he dies, he's like, do it, do it, please, please, please kill me.

(22:38):
Yeah, I mean.
Mescaline.
I'm still convinced he has rabies because like I love that.
I love that.
Like there's the bat and then like.
Descent into madness and bite somebody physically bite somebody.
It's all like that's all there.

(22:59):
But it's just like I think he's just lonely and clearly nobody cares about him,
probably because he's an insufferable prick, but he's clearly having some type of mental break
and just nobody seems to care.
And I think he just wants any type of connection whatsoever.
But then, like even when he gets even in the midst of his psychotic break,
even as he is fucking talking to the corner of a building and thinking it's his drink,

(23:24):
as as he gets set up with this imaginary perfect woman,
instantly he starts being an absolute prick to her, too.
Yeah, it's like he can't even not abuse his imaginary girlfriend like seconds later.
Like he's not the victim here.
No, he's not.
I think my first read of it from the first time we watched it was just like

(23:48):
that guy you see on the street corner just talking to no one like this is that story.
Like this is how that guy got there.
Yeah, like had.
Right, right.
Like he started somewhere and he had an arc downward.
Well, I was I always think about like at the end when he's like dragging like the large chunk of.

(24:10):
I'm just like, how come no one's concerned about that?
And then last night I'm I'm in just hanging out in Portland,
just standing on the street waiting to meet someone.
Guy's just taking his axe for a walk and I'm like, that's not my problem.
Because if you make it your problem, then it is a problem.
Probably competitive axe throwing.

(24:30):
That seems like something Portland would be into.
This was an American psycho type like that axe is being put to some use.
I mean, you could you could throw that axe to you, but.
You can throw any axe if you put your mind to it.
Or was it axe body spray?
Axe body spray, because that's also concerning to see an adult man walking down the street carrying his axe body spray.

(24:58):
What what are your favorite scenes from this movie?
Oh, my God.
I mean, I think the ones that specifically just dunk on the character as soon as he makes an assertion about who he is.
Like, I feel like the movie is not on this man's side, and that is deeply satisfying to me
because I think that they're specifically trying to make a movie about,
you know, I keep saying this phrase insufferable man, baby, but like, you know, like, like they've set up this awful person that I don't want to root for.

(25:26):
And then the movie just had a dunks on him, and I appreciate that.
So like the scene where like all of the things that he thinks or all of the moments he thinks he's turning into a vampire.
And then the movie immediately goes, no, you're not.
Like, I think those might be my like just like the sunlight, you know, reaching his hand into the sun.

(25:46):
Light and like making it like sound as if it burns him and then immediately like disproving that or like, you know, when he's like in the mirror, like touching his teeth and like checking to see if they've lengthened and then like, no, they have not.
And then he goes to buy some fucking teeth.
Another another Nick Cage movie where he doesn't have enough dollars.

(26:09):
He's often very broke.
Yeah.
What about you, Sean?
Favorite scene?
Oh, I'm still so impressed by him doing the standing leap onto the desk and loafers like I'm just so from no running, no running start just from standing two feet on the ground to suddenly two feet on the desk like that's Olympian right there.

(26:33):
Yeah, his box jump skills were pretty good.
Across all of the like unpredictable vampire like scenes, I probably still like the scene where they're in the the cab and he's telling Alva like she's the one who's going to do the job.
She's the one who's going to do the job and like he has those like little power trips, which I I just love him sitting there like even if you were even if there was one other person who worked here for one day longer, I'd still make you do it.

(27:10):
He's such a fucking asshole.
He's such a shit.
And I love when he just kind of leans into that shitness.
And you're right, Lauren. I think that the big key to this is that like he isn't likeable and they don't make it like, oh, you're kind of rooting for him. It's just like you root for him failing.
You are like, yeah, this guy sucks. It's kind of fun watching him just absolutely eat shit and the tortures of the dead.

(27:33):
Yeah, oh my God, that fucking line.
There's one thing in this movie I noticed this time that I never grok down before and it bothered me and I want other people's opinion on it when he takes when he goes to the museum with the girl he was out with.
Yeah, Jackie.
Jackie, she's wearing a wide brim hat.

(27:56):
Oh, yeah.
Like her hair sticking out the top wide brim hat.
It's a style.
It's a visor.
Yeah, it's just it's a really fancy visor.
And I'm like, this is weird. I don't know that I dislike it, but I don't understand it.
Okay.
It's the late 80s.
Fuck the ascot.
Crazy.
Do that now.
Yeah, you're now going to be the hat person.
Yeah, and like the poof out the top.

(28:17):
Put your hair out through the top.
Yes.
I like this a lot.
This is your vibe now, Sean.
I've worn weirder.
So good. Embrace it.
Yeah.
No shirt, though.
Get the hat.
Never a shirt.
Yeah.
No.
Just shirts are for cowards.
Yeah. Let it be free.
Oh, you know, I really like the part where he runs up to that guy at the church and he's like,

(28:42):
pull out your rosary.
Show me the cross.
Burn me with it.
And the guy's like, I don't speak English and like turns away.
It's every time I watch the movie, something happens and I'm like, oh, I wasn't expecting
that even though I've seen it so many times and I know what's going to come.
It's like, ah,
I know the scene that always cracks me up and I always forget about it until I see it again
is when he gets he gets the fake plastic teeth, he puts them in his mouth and he just.

(29:07):
Hands and knees crawls off the cat out of the.
That's so good.
Toward some pigeons.
So the commentary also reveals how much of that movie is just Nicholas Cage doing an insane
thing on a take and the director going, yeah, all right.
Wait, click.
So much of the commentary is just them is just them admitting to the fact that they were like,

(29:28):
and what exactly is this?
And the other one being like, I don't know.
Like, yes, I think the reason that it's so iconic is that they just gave him a free reign to like
fucking do whatever and it stayed in the movie.
Like they're just like, yeah, all right, like your reflection burns you too, I guess,
or like putting in teeth means you crawl like what?

(29:49):
All right.
Yeah, all right.
Go for it.
It's such a wild movie.
I just I don't think it could work in any other city than New York City.
Like it you see crazy people in other cities, but there's something about New York City.
And I agree with that, too.
It could not be a different actor.
I don't think there's any other movie that could do this either.

(30:14):
Like this amount of just like absurdity that's unscripted and unlike practiced,
just like open the floodgates and let something happen.
I don't think any other movie could capture the same kind of just appeal and allure
in doing this and like still work as a cohesive thing.

(30:36):
Yeah.
Lauren, if you could just give like your thesis why this movie deserves to go on,
you know, what's your argument?
What's your push?
From what I've seen of Mandy, like, you know, pitting the two against each other,
like obviously the auteurship.
Without seeing Cheddar Goblin.
Without having seen Cherry Goblin.
So like.
So you're a pain in me.

(30:56):
Take it with take it with a grain of cheddar.
Yeah.
I think the auteurship of the director and the writer of Mandy,
it's clear that there's an artistic vision and I fucks with that.
Like that's great for me.
I love that.
However, if the criteria for moving forward in the in the bracket is quintessential Nicholas

(31:19):
Cajerry, like this is it, this is the one like this is the one that's going to go to the end.
Like this is this is the most Nicholas Cage he's ever been and shall ever be and was allowed to be.
I think other movies got in his way of being the batshit insane
over the top fucking clown that he is and must be.

(31:42):
It's really just this and G-Force.
Get fucked, Sean.
Don't make me think about boom boom pow ever again.
Yeah, the Avarice case is quintessential.
Like it is it is it is the the alpha and the omega.
It is the birth of the Nicholas Cage identity that we all think of when we think of Nicholas Cage.

(32:07):
Like that's the one like no question, no question at all.
Everything like the other the qualities of other films that are like good films,
they're good for for other people's influence.
But this one is good because of Nicholas Cage.
That's awesome.
I was just sitting here thinking like, oh man, if it hadn't been for Vampire's Kiss,

(32:28):
if Vampire's Kiss never happened, we never would have had Face Off or.
Yeah, it's true.
I mean, that's a really good point.
So Lauren, at this point, do you want to pitch anything?
Thank you for being on, by the way.
I don't I don't have anything to pitch yet, I unfortunately.
But I've got an Instagram account that you're welcome to follow me at.
It's freeman.band, f-r-e-1-e.

(32:49):
Like the Fremen.
Like the Fremen.
Yeah, I had recently read Dune when I changed my last name and.
That you can do that.
They let you do that.
You can just change it.
You can just pick one.
Two court dates in the state of Washington.
You can just be.
You can your first name can be Nicholas Michael Gearhart.
Oh, yeah, Nicholas Michael Gearhart.
Michael Gearhart.
Michael.
Michael or like McCauley Culkin Culkin McCauley.

(33:13):
Yeah, exactly.
What is it? McCauley McCauley Culkin Culkin.
Yes.
Yeah, that's so good.
That is a really good middle name.
McCauley McCauley Culkin Culkin.
Almost as good as Dunan Q.
Noonan.
You all can be Q.
Awesome.
Thank you very much.

(33:34):
Yeah, thank you, Lauren.
Sorry for the weird time confusion.
This is so fun.
Chris, you still working for the college?
Yeah.
They brought me back after the pandemic and instead of doing maintenance stuff,
they decided to put me as the undergraduate services coordinator for the psychology department.

(33:58):
What?
It's the weirdest shit.
Like, so I don't know how much time we got, but I can tell you the story of how it happened.
That's mostly our podcast.
So yeah.
Like straight up year one of the pandemic, they go through like, all right, we got to sit down

(34:20):
to college, everyone who's not essential or whatever, we're laying you off.
And the entire time I'm like telling him, hey, so I get it.
But there are I've been there for at that point, I've been there for about maybe 13 years
and had held several positions.
So they have a rule at SFSU where if you get before you get laid off, they put you in a position

(34:42):
that you were in previously, you know.
So basically, they call it retreat rights.
They ignored this rule that they wrote in their own book and just cut my head off.
Right.
So I'm sitting on my ass for like most of the year.
SFSU calls me, the union calls me and says, hey, so we made oopsie poopsie.

(35:03):
We weren't supposed to lay you off.
And you have two options.
Take us to arbitration and you're most likely going to win because we shouldn't laid you
off or you can have your job back.
And I'm thinking like, well, I don't really like driving these computer cars and I want
some benefits.
So I'm like, yeah, sure.
I'll take the job back.
Right.
The union person is like, for real?

(35:24):
You want the job back?
You like, I just told you that you can sue us and you're going to win.
Win.
No, I think I'll take the job back.
Right.
And they're like, OK, I'm thinking like, I'm going to get my old position back where
I'm just like the guy with the hammer.
Right.
And they say, well, that position doesn't exist anymore.

(35:44):
We've literally dissolved it.
We've outsourced hammers.
Basically.
Yeah.
They outsourced the hammers on me.
And the position that the position was created for me because there was no training in this
department.
It was like nobody to train me on anything, basically.
I had to learn everything all on my own.
I mean, it's pretty chill.

(36:05):
I'm almost certain that the game plan was stick me somewhere where nobody will bother
me because the time limit on me taking in arbitration is like like a 10 year window.
Oh, shit.
OK.
Yeah.
Just leave them alone.
Let them do what everyone.
Love that.
Yeah.
So it's pretty cool.
Yes.

(36:25):
It's cool to get tenure over like a threat.
Basically.
Right.
Just the implication.
I'm literally Ralph Wiggum here like I'm in danger.
Welcome back to Cage Match, colon, a roundabout way of meeting Nicolas Cage.
I'm Sean here with my co-host Nick and a producer Peter.

(36:46):
Hello.
And special guest and one of my oldest friends.
I think we figured 21 years.
Chris Fields.
Hey, man.
Yeah, I'm going to say 15 because I don't want anybody to know exactly how old I am yet.
You know, still kind of struggling with the mortality.
You don't want to know that we're we are very much middle aged.

(37:06):
Well, the stories we have to tell suddenly have a different color to them
when they realize the actual age we are.
Right.
Wow.
That was like literally three years ago and you're still that stupid.
Yeah.
Yeah, I haven't gotten any smarter.
Nah.
Luckily, I have some sipping cream in the mini fridge.
So if I bust that out, don't mind me once in a while.
But yeah.

(37:28):
Sipping cream is only half and half.
Just got that joke.
A half and half.
Yeah, that joke at half and half, man.
I don't know if you guys are sponsored by anybody,
so I don't want to say exactly what kind of sipping cream it is.
But it's definitely a me kind of drink, Sean.
Tell me about your cream adventures.
All right.
I'm going to show it to you guys because you have the camera,
but because it needs to be like part of the whole setup.

(37:51):
It is a jar of egg or waffle sipping cream.
I saw this when it came out.
I have not tried.
Well, it tastes like an egg or waffle.
It tastes like an egg or waffle.
Judging by last night's sipping test, it definitely passes the mark.
Absolutely recommend it.
This is not a sponsor gig.

(38:12):
This is just me as a alcoholic connoisseur telling you that this is probably
one of the best sipping creams I've ever had in my life.
And I've had quite a few.
What is a sipping cream?
I've never heard this term.
It is so upset.
It's mood side, bro.
Okay.
It's just.
It is very creamy.

(38:33):
So it's got the mouthfeel of milk.
The mouthfeel of milk.
Yeah.
The mouthfeel of milk and the flavor of egg or waffle and the kick of a shot of bullet bourbon.
Oh, this is the perfect intro to discuss the movie Mandy,
because this conversation is just as unhinged.

(38:55):
I'm still waiting for hot dog water flavored ice cream.
Full tilt.
One day.
Yeah.
I would love to be licking down on a creamy hot dog water cone.
Oh, God, that really yucked me out.
Real quick before we start discussing Mandy.
Chris, what is it you do?
Like, who are you besides a guy I met right after high school?
You mean besides the guy you met after high school

(39:17):
and the current undergraduate service coordinator for SS State University's psychology department?
I am also.
I love when people just straight up dox themselves on our podcast
because I'm about to get into some really fucking gross shit to talk about.
I already told you they can't touch me, guys.
In addition to that, I am also an e-sports analyst,
particularly focusing on fighting games.

(39:39):
I travel the world commentating and basically talking about video games for a living.
I most recently was spotted at Tokyo Game Show in October,
basically being a booth babe at the SNK booth for their upcoming release of Fatal Theory,
City of the Wolves.
Holy shit.
Yeah, man, they're making another Fatal Theory.
It's crazy, right?
I know.

(40:00):
I'm fucking so excited.
Yeah, it's awesome.
No, SNK invited me out.
They we hung out in Japan for a couple of weeks and
they paid me to basically stand in front around the booth, teach people how to play the game.
I'm glad one of us made it.
Did I?
Did I make it?

(40:21):
I mean, you're doing it.
I don't know.
You're doing stuff, too.
What are you talking about, man?
I'm talking about Nicolas Cage for.
Oh, that's true.
Yes, you are talking about Nicolas Cage.
I'm talking about the two people.
We've got more than 12.
Oh, that's right.
I was thinking about the toilet cams again.
Chris, have you seen Mandy before this?
I can't remember.
No, I hadn't seen it until you told me that we were going to do this show.

(40:45):
Because this seems something that would be up your alley from
our old getting trashed with Kevin and watching bad movies at 3 a.m. days.
Absolutely.
You know, like I mean, if if it had been in my normal circle of streaming platforms,
I probably would have seen it already.
But it's on the Amazon platform, which is like a 50 50.

(41:06):
It's on Amazon or it's on Amazon as another subscription option.
Basically, right.
Right.
So I just it just kind of slipped under my radar because it was a pay option,
which is weird because that other cage movie that was basically
Five Nights at Freddy's was free on Amazon.
Will is Wonderland.
Yeah.
The superior of the films to like.

(41:29):
Oh, versus Five Nights.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I have to agree with that.
And I didn't even see Five Nights with my daughter.
Then she was like, yeah, it's kind of kind of ass, you know.
Well, show her Willie's Wonderland.
That's a bad phrase.
Yeah.
Words that shouldn't come out of Sean's mouth.
You say hold on a second, brother.

(41:50):
That doesn't work for me, brother.
Yeah.
So what was your takeaway from Mandy for your first viewing of it?
I mean, it's this fucking wild movie.
It is extremely wild.
The first thing that I saw, first of all, I'm going to say I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.
I'm kind of biased, though, for a couple of reasons.

(42:11):
One love Nick Cage movies, good and bad, two huge heavy metal fan.
So the entire vibe of the movie was like, oh, yeah, we're doing it.
Fuck. Yeah, bro.
I'm right there all the way.
Is it heavy metal, the music or heavy metal, the animated film that you're a fan of?
The music mostly.
I mean, the film is.

(42:31):
Yeah, I like the film, too, but mostly just like the the the imagery and the vibe
that is created by most of the bands I listen to was kind of represented well in this movie.
And you get that right out the gate.
Like it's a very light, dark and like sludgy kind of opening.
And it felt like I'm listening to like some stoner metal band

(42:53):
in a rusty barn somewhere in Tennessee, basically, as I'm watching this movie.
My takeaway, though, is that I actually don't know why they called it a horror movie.
I felt more John Wick than I felt like slasher flick, you know?
Yeah, it's got the revenge vibe for sure.
I mean, an hour of the movie is revenge cycle, you know?

(43:14):
Right. For a two hour movie.
I guess you could say like the first act is about as horror as it gets because the vibe
is entirely just like tense.
Everything is just I guess the only way I can describe it as something feels off the entire time.
Like they seem happy.
The couple seems happy, but something seems off.
And I know something bad is going to happen.

(43:34):
But at every moment, almost every scene, it feels like it could happen at any moment.
Is it going to happen now?
Is it going to happen here?
And ultimately, it felt a little on the nose the way the incident occurred.
And we can get into that later.
But I don't I thought the movie did a good job of like building that tension.
This is definitely one of those movies that I don't really I don't feel really fits into

(43:57):
any singular genre, which is probably why it's some weird artsy film made by a director
who's only made two movies.
Of weird artsy films.
Right. Both artsy weird movies.
What was the other movie he made because I did some research.
Rambo. Yeah.
Yeah, that was like I have to I still have to watch that.
But I just remember reading about that thing and like, OK, this guy definitely doesn't

(44:20):
just make movies to be making movies, right?
Which is funny because he's working with Nick Cage, who makes movies to be making movies.
Something out of his system.
Yeah, exactly. Something is moving through this man.
Nick Cage does the working actor thing, but every once in a while he'll he does stuff like
this too, because he genuinely like wants to do weird shit.
Absolutely. And it's a spectra vision, too.
So it's tied to Elijah Wood and, you know, he and Elijah are both like horror movies

(44:43):
and that kind of stuff.
So I don't think it was like doing a favor necessarily.
I think he really genuinely wanted to be in something like this.
He really chewed the scenery and like the role he plays is it.
At first, I was kind of like.
He's a little too mild mannered for me, so I couldn't really believe the unhinged.

(45:03):
I was I knew he was going to have the transformation eventually, but I was not sure I would believe it.
And then it happens and I'm like, oh, yeah, he's he's nailing it.
That man's falling apart.
That brain is falling off the bone, bro.
How did you like his knock knock joke?
Bro, just knock knock.

(45:27):
Who's there?
Erica Strada.
Erica Strada who?
Erica Strada from chips.
It was from she is.
She is.
I'm like, put some horny on that.
Every time I hear that joke, I'm like, this is just absurd.
Yeah, I think so.

(45:47):
I've got like mixed feelings on this movie just in general.
But the thing that I struggle with most is feeling anything about Mandy, the character,
like she's just kind of nothing to me.
And then he's also to your point, Chris, he's also kind of nothing to start with.
Right.
Like they're just sort of this like tame couple having a bland dinner and then like talking

(46:10):
about planets for a little bit and then falling asleep.
You know, it's like.
Cool.
They seem super happy, man.
They do seem happy.
I will give you that.
I will give you that.
I think it's less about the character, Mandy, and just like, you know, it's like, you know,
very milk toast, like safe couple gets their entire world fucked up and guy just snaps.

(46:36):
Yeah, I think you care more about Red and Red's like pain in losing Mandy.
Like Mandy doesn't have to mean anything to us, but it's what she meant to him that you're
supposed to care about.
Right.
That's fair.
I appreciate that she laughed at Jeremiah's penis.
Me too.
Yeah. So I was not super impressed by Jeremiah as a villain.

(47:00):
I pretty much called in my mind.
I called it immediately.
Oh, this is a guy that is absolutely paper thin, fragile, marshmallow.
No, he's a cult leader.
Right.
Not only laughing at his penis, but his music.
Oh, man.
Like, like, Sean, Sean, we know if you laugh at the music, you can't come over no more.

(47:21):
You and I know that I just love his immediate reaction to being laughed at was just to fucking
angrily jacket.
Yeah, it's like, knock it off.
I'm going to get real bad soon.
Starting to get upset.
Yeah, Jeremiah Sands album would be terrific.
Do you think they made I mean, they made fucking Cheddar Goblin for this.

(47:42):
Do you think they made a whole album of his music?
Cheddar Goblin is amazing.
Cheddar Goblin is amazing.
I thought there was should have been there should have been at least 80% more Cheddar Goblin.
Honestly, like I absolutely love this film, and there's like a slow like there's a slow
build to the horror that, you know, the revenge aspect of it for the first hour.

(48:04):
Small attention to detail.
And then at a certain point, the movie just says, fuck it, we're done with the plot.
We're going to kill him.
And that is when for no reason, he is in a cave, smelting an actual monster.
Smelting an axe.
There are several points in this movie where I didn't fall asleep at all.

(48:25):
I was watching it all the way through it.
And there's several points in this movie where I'm like, wait, how the hell did we get here?
I'm still not sure how he flips the truck.
Right. Like that one.
What the heck?
The hellraiser dudes are just like extra strong.
I don't know.
I mean, a famous man once said cocaine is a hell of a drug.

(48:46):
So yeah.
And they were on some what?
That super meth or something.
Yeah. That weird gray Vaseline.
Super acid.
That the guy with the tiger made, I assume.
Yeah. The chemist.
Yeah. Because that's how he gets to the chemist because he
he has the vision after tasting it.
So yeah.
Which apparently unlocks your GPS powers.

(49:09):
The other 80% of the brain like guy just had like the most intense strength
that he never knew he had.
I was a little I was kind of hoping that the bikers were actually demons, though.
Like I kind of felt like they really sold like this guy's got fucking claws, bro.
Like he's touching his face.
He's got these super long claws on his fingers.
Like he's got to be an animal.
And it turns out now he's just on meth.

(49:30):
Right. Doesn't cut his nails like, oh, OK.
But they are summoned by the horn of a Braxis.
They are summoned by the horn of a Braxis.
They have superhuman hearing.
Which is an ocarina.
Oh, I love the horn of a Braxis.
It's so fucking dorky.
Yeah, I love the just like world of supernatural that exists around this film.
And you just buy into it because you're in the shadow mountains in 1983, I suppose.

(49:54):
Yeah.
But the horn of a Braxis and the the pale blade of whatever the.
Oh, man.
What's called a strobe lights.
But yeah, and I like the like lighting cues that are just so like, I don't know,
they're very over the top, but it's like, oh, here's the.
Horn of a Braxis green supernatural light like flickering.

(50:16):
It lends something really interesting to the film for me.
So this is my first time watching this film in my new place.
I have a better set up where my TV is, where there's not a bunch of like outside light.
And I got some backlights from my screen so I can actually see better details in dark now.
I never noticed in the scene where Mandy's getting burned in the sack that like you can
see bits of her face through the sack through the fire.

(50:38):
Oh, shit. Really?
Well, you see, like, it's just like any of the things that you see in the film.
It's so much like it's so much worse, like actually seeing like aspects of a human body
in there. Yeah, that's that's fucking gnarly.
There's so many more little like details I noticed on this watch.
And I fucking I just love this movie.

(51:00):
It's weird and it's gross and I love it.
It's a weird, fun movie.
I will say, though, the way she died kind of felt like I mean, that was the way it had to happen.
Right. If you're going to set this man off, you make him watch her die
and they pick the most horrible way to do it.
But I also felt like, yeah, it was anticlimactic.
There was it was obviously supposed to be the trigger point.
And they they kind of rushed it, I guess.

(51:22):
I felt like I wasn't really like we were we mentioned earlier, we didn't really care about
Mandy, but it's not about us caring about Mandy.
It's about how Red chose about Mandy.
And I feel like they were really trying to hammer home that she's a plot device, guys.
Don't get attached. She's going down.
Even if you didn't read the synopsis, you know, it's coming.

(51:42):
Like one of the most like one of the most upsetting and triggering points of the film,
like the trigger point for the film is when Mandy dies.
That's immediately juxtaposed with Red in his tighty whities,
just screaming and stomping around.
That is so that was the part that sold me when he's just having the mental breakdown.
Hits the hits the bottle goes right to the rod.

(52:05):
It's not helping hits it again.
Gets that bathroom hooch that bathroom hooch.
He just immediately grabbed this.
He's like, I'm gonna need this for a while.
Yeah, man, like I felt like that was like probably one of the most human performances
I've ever seen from Nick, honestly.
That's actually a really good way of putting it.
I mean, for like a real over the top fucking movie.
Yes.
Human ass scene, right?

(52:26):
Yeah.
Like, do people really think about how would I act if the person I love just got killed
right in front of me?
Like, what is the response to that?
And I don't think anyone has an answer other than like cry, pray.
I don't know.
But there's no way to capture that unless you're you've been through it, I guess.
And he had also like just been through some real shit, too, like being tortured and like

(52:46):
bound up with barbed wire and having to like free himself from that after seeing this incident.
So there's a lot of trauma that gets unpacked in that moment of bathroom vodka.
Yeah.
And you know, a lot of movies use this.
A lot of movies will use that plot device to turn the hero into the hero he needs to be.

(53:07):
But they never really focus on the transformation.
They're just like, the hero's mad.
He wants revenge.
He now has superhuman strength and he's suddenly good with like every type of weapon known
to man, essentially.
Right.
I mean, that's basically John Wick.
They kill his dog.
All of a sudden, I'm back.
I felt like it was just about him becoming the monster.
Like he becomes the monster.
Yeah.
The transformation is really the center stage here.

(53:29):
Like I really enjoyed watching him go through that moment, come out of it, not really OK.
Goes to Bill Duke, rather Carruthers.
By the way, shout out to Bill Duke.
Love him.
Goes.
Bill Duke is like way more unhinged than he is.

(53:49):
And I think the transformation is it's still happening in that scene.
It's happening after that.
It's happening all the way up to the point where he's like,
it's happening all the way up to the point where he's in the car at the end.
Probably the only scary moment in the movie happens where he smiles at the camera and
he's got super white teeth.
I'm curious to hear what you guys think in terms of like what what happens to Red now?

(54:12):
Does he like does he just be is he the monster now?
Does he like go and kill people like because he's not coming back.
Like he's not just going to like drive off into the sunset.
I mean, his whole worldview now is just he sees monsters and alien landscapes.
Everywhere like what does that person do?
Does he fashion his own like penis knife?

(54:33):
I still strongly believe that Red goes off and now he is the janitor from Willie's Wonderland.
So he drives off into the wilderness and now he's just an ultimate badass
defeating other evils in the world.
Supernatural evils.
I really do like that theory.

(54:54):
It kind of makes sense.
I mean, having seen both of those movies, it's like because his character is the janitor
in that movie is like what?
Why is he mute?
Why is he anything?
It's like, oh, right, because he's seen some shit.
Do you have a favorite a favorite death in this film?
A favorite murder?
Mine hands down is always going to be the mouth breather.
I'm getting the.
The best.

(55:15):
Yeah, there are so many really good ones that are like so fun, but him polishing the car
and like really just having a moment there.
It's like, I, I, I, I, I, it's not the death specifically, but like the bald guy who like
deep throats, the pointy.
Oh, yes.
When he gets pulled out of the car, he just goes, you're hurting me.

(55:38):
Yeah, that's so good.
Honestly, the third biker that he takes down, not the one that is taking a piss outside on
the car, which I honestly didn't even realize that dude was there the whole time.
I thought there was.
I feel like there was three of them, but all of a sudden there's four.
I don't know the movie.

(55:59):
It does a bad job of explaining to you exactly what these guys are and how many there are.
So the one that's watching the TV, I think that was my favorite on the sequence.
Knife deck.
Yeah.
You know, I've never done a bunch of coke and watched porn.
I wonder what it's like to just be that high and looking at porn.
Like, would I be super excited?
Well, it was a little, little high and a little horny.

(56:21):
Yeah, a little bit high, a little bit horny.
We all appreciate the mouth breather dying after polishing his car.
Yeah, just the axe spinning through the air and so good.
That's a great death.
I think the visual of that one is my favorite.
So simple.
I really appreciate the aesthetic of the beast, the axe.

(56:43):
And I think it's so beautifully like 80s metal, like it's shiny, it's chrome,
it's got a weird asymmetrical build.
It's got a point.
That's still in the front runner for my Nick Cage theme tattoo right now.
I can't I haven't thought of anything else visually that except for the fuck you fish.

(57:08):
Fuck you fish.
The tuna, the fucking fish.
When they go to fucking.
Oh, big tuna.
There's just the like metal fish on the outside outskirts of town.
So, yeah, OK.
I forgot about that.
I forgot it said fuck you on it.
But yeah, big tuna.
Hell, yeah, that's a good idea.
I like that.
Fuck you fish.

(57:29):
I don't know which one would be harder to explain to people who see me naked.
Well, get the fuck you fish as a tramp stamp.
Perfect.
That would be nice.
That totally works, actually.
Yeah.
Overall, I feel like this movie is one of the more tamer cage films I've seen.
I'm from an era where he I guess you could say I was watching his slump in the 90s.

(57:53):
And those a lot of those ended up being some of my favorite movies, honestly, like the slump movies.
Obviously enjoy face off.
But to me, Nick Cage overacting is kind of my favorite cage.
That being said, didn't leave a lot of room for that here.
And I still enjoyed it.
I could tell he enjoyed making the movie.
That was the best part for me.

(58:15):
I think there were moments where he really just lost himself in the scenery, which I'm sure he does often, but literally felt like he was the guy.
You know, he's not Nick.
He's red for the next 90 minutes.
One of the best things that this movie does is it eliminates a lot of dialogue, you know, until you get to see that kind of himself, like him engulfing himself in a character.

(58:41):
You get to see that happen in real time rather than him telling you, oh, yeah, I'm red.
I'm red.
I'm red.
I hate these guys.
They killed my wife.
Blah, blah, blah.
You know, he's showing you the entire time that he is not a well man.
He will never be well again.
He will never be well again, and he does it without saying anything.
In a way, it's a lot like the what was the Five Nights at Freddy's knockoff.

(59:05):
It's a lot like that where he just doesn't say anything.
Really wonderland.
There we go.
Whoever wrote this film was like, you just there's not a lot of dialogue we're going to be showing you with emotions and with violence and just basically raw, visceral shit.
Yeah, man, like I feel like this is about as artsy as it gets for Nick Cage.
So like they could have had some more louder guitars.

(59:26):
They kind of had one in that one fight scene where he got the chainsaw and the dude just had a bigger fucking chainsaw.
I don't think that's something we've touched really touched on a lot talking about this movie as many times as we have is like there is humor in it.
There is comedy.
There are comedy beats that I don't think we give enough credit to.
And like, yeah, like, dude, like him showing up with the chainsaw, like trying to rev it up and just that big fucker just being like, yeah, bigger chainsaw.

(59:51):
This is a chainsaw.
Do you call that a chainsaw?
Little evil dead moments kind of sprinkled in throughout where it still totally serves the purpose of the story and the film doesn't suffer for it.
But you get that break in the tension and a little bit of a laugh, a little bit horny, a little bit horny.

(01:00:13):
I think it's because of the of the evil dead vibe that I kind of expected some more supernatural shit, a little more on the nose stuff.
I mean, it didn't hurt that it wasn't there, but I was kind of like, man, it'd be really cool if this Jeremiah dude was actually what he's fucking said he was.

(01:00:33):
Yeah, instead of just being kind of a whimpering little fucking cuck.
Basically, yeah, I felt like at the end I'm like, no, I called it immediately.
He's a little pussy.
I get it.
But what if he wasn't?
What if like in the middle of begging for his life, he sprouts fucking shark teeth and bites his dick off?
Well, because you're right.
There's that moment where he's like, I'll suck your dick, man.
And then he's like, no, wait, you bow before me.

(01:00:55):
And it's like that would be that power moment.
But it's not.
I would be in that moment.
Right.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, shit, here we go, guys.
And no, he's just a pussy.
I felt like he portrayed a fragile villain really well.
But I was just like, man, what if he's fragile and ego, but not in body?
Those are the best kind of villain, in my opinion.
You saw his dick.

(01:01:15):
There's nothing hard there.
I don't know if we can end on a better note.
Thanks, Chris.
Do you want to plug anything?
You got anything coming up that you want people to know about?
So I mean, other than pitching Fatal Fury City, the wolves by it, play it.
I'm going to be probably one of the main commentators for that.

(01:01:38):
So you'll be seeing a lot of me if you're watching streams for that.
You can also catch me weekly on twitch.tv slash game goons,
where I stream video games of all kinds, try to do it weekly.
But you know what real life gets in the way.
And other than that, you know, yeah, stay in school.
Drink that Ego sipping cream.
It's OK for him to goon with the games and not us for goon.

(01:02:00):
Listen, man, gooning is different.
Gooning is different now.
I've been hearing it for the last three years.
I go to an event in Vegas annually called EVO.
It's a fighting game tournament.
And every night before it starts on Thursday night, I have a suite
where all of our fans and followers can come and play and hang out with us.

(01:02:21):
I can't call the goon suite.
I've been doing it since 2016.
The last three years, people will be calling like people will really message me
and say, it's called the what suite?
It's the word changed, people.
It's the goon suite.
It's where you go to come.
I hate this language.

(01:02:43):
Ben, don't chew my toe.
Yes, I know you got to go outside.
Give me give me 15 minutes.
Ben's into some freaky shit.
He's up here shrimping.
I forgot about shrimp.
Oh, man, I'm always thinking about shrimp.
Boo.
Now, these I think we had two really good guests for two really good movies

(01:03:04):
and both made great fucking points.
Yeah, I agree with you.
And this was one of those that I was kind of like dreading because, you know,
I mixed feelings on Mandy and I think I finally got my finger on why
I don't love it as much because I should.
Like it's it's visually stunning.
It's interesting.
It moves at a clip, even though it's long.
And I think what it is for me is it makes me feel like a little embarrassed.

(01:03:29):
And it reminds me of being like 10 and looking at my older brother's like
cool, dark comic books about like, you know, sorcerers and shit and like
making up my own dumb stories without actually reading any of it
and just looking at the cool art.
And I think that's how I feel about this, where it's like it's a series of
beautiful paintings with like a loose story that's kind of tying it all together.

(01:03:55):
And I'm like, it feels like I could have written that story when I was younger
and it would have been stupid and I would have felt embarrassed about it.
So you would have had some boob drawings and then I don't know, there's a tiger
and drugs, drugs, drugs.
That's interesting because so I mean, that's I I get that and I like that.

(01:04:16):
And it's but it's one of those things where I'm like, there are movies of when
I was younger that like kind of had this metal aesthetic and this like
the hyperviolence, the boobs and all that stuff that I would cringe at now.
I'm thinking of fucking the crow as one of those era of films.
But like this because of the cinematography, because of the intensity of the character

(01:04:44):
and just how much it actually just leans into not trying to be a studio film.
I think it this this holds up better and this has much more like weight behind it,
where I don't feel that kind of awkward, like adolescent, like first boner shame.

(01:05:05):
No, I think you're spot on.
It's a better representation of it.
I think that's just what I was finally tapping into because I've thought about like
what makes me uncomfortable about this movie every time I've watched it.
And at first I thought it was because it was grimy.
And then I was like, I don't like violence that much.
But I don't know.
So anyway, I think that's my my final feeling on it is that it's like
it just makes me feel a little bit dorky.

(01:05:27):
Yeah, I think there is just something incredibly dorky about this film.
Like there I that might be just a side effect of the like kind of fantasy pulp novel
sort of kind of exists in it.
That's an interesting take that I hadn't considered that like this there is the trope
of like the revenge, like the revenge fantasy, the revenge thriller, like, you know,

(01:05:53):
normal guy gets revenge on those who wronged him.
But this movie pushes that to the point where it's like, like Chris said, you know,
like you see how that transforms red, you see like, you know, there's the John Wick,
like, oh, he's going to be a bad ass because he was wrong.
It's like, no, he's broken.
That's why he that's why he murders because they broke him.

(01:06:15):
And now there's nothing about red that I think you want to be at the end of this.
He's not the cool guy.
He's just a monster now.
He's just sad.
Yeah, I think you're spot on.
And then, I mean, on the other hand, speaking of cartoonish, you have a very cartoonish
performance in Vampire's Kiss, too.
Right.
They're both like kind of absurd and kind of silly.

(01:06:38):
And in response to like what performance stands out more, I definitely feel more
inclined to say Vampire's Kiss in that it I mean, it was a film of performance choices
and it it highlights Nicolas Cage, whereas like, well, as Chris said,

(01:07:00):
like you could have put somebody else in as read.
Keith Urban, who I think is a country singer.
Car.
Didn't you say Carl Urban?
Isn't he the guy?
He said, Keith Urban.
He said, Keith Urban, which is a country singer.
You could probably put Keith Urban in there.
I don't know.
But he met Carl Urban, I assume.
Yeah, undoubtedly.

(01:07:21):
Although I don't know.
I'm not going to put words in his mouth.
It could have been Keith Urban.
We'll find out.
Yeah.
Chris struck me as like a big country pop person.
Yeah.
Vampire's Kiss just has like such a could only happen once sort of element
and feel to the film sort of like Mandy.
So they both have to exist as white whales, great white buffaloes, white jags.

(01:07:45):
White Jags.
They're all these are both white jags.
We got there.
Like both Chris and Lauren both kind of pointed out for both these films is just like these
movies cannot be remade.
These movies cannot exist now.
I think in terms of comparing the two, Vampire's Kiss is very much sold on Nick Cage's performance.
Be that performance good or bad, like it there are performance choices and the movie is that character.

(01:08:14):
Whereas I think Mandy as a whole is a much better film and is much stronger.
Like the some of its parts is much better, but it's not sold on like maybe Nick Cage gets you in the door,
but that's not what's going to keep you there.
Vampire's Kiss is the far more approachable film to people are going to be put off by Mandy.

(01:08:40):
Peter is put off by Mandy and like that's a it's totally fine.
It doesn't detract from the film.
But in terms of our experiment here, too, it's hard to ignore the fact that one of them is very niche.
And the other one is very niche.
Alice Cage and I mean, I you and I talked about this briefly that I can't recommend Mandy to most people.

(01:09:11):
No, certainly not like on a first date.
Wait, didn't your date like watch Mandy before you guys?
She got. Yeah, I I'd asked her.
We were texting and asked her if she'd ever watched Mandy and she said no.
And I'm like, that's a fucking trip.
And I like sent her a photo of the scene I was watching, which is him in his tighty whitey's in the bathroom.
And she laughed and she's like, I'm going to put it on right now.

(01:09:33):
She's like, I'm falling asleep.
So I don't know how much I'll get into.
And when I asked her last night how far she got into it, she's like, I got to her crying at the stillborn deer and passed out.
I'm like, that's probably the safest place to fall asleep.
That's a good out. Yeah.
I don't know. I've been going back and forth on both of these films in terms of what I would want to see go forward.

(01:09:57):
And I put on Vampire's Kiss this morning and for him alone, I think that's that's my vote.
I'm definitely in the it was a hard decision, but Vampire's Kiss for me.
Not only is it just a compelling film to watch because you don't know what's going to happen next, it's just so interesting trying to think how he got to the point of making these choices.

(01:10:28):
Like how many of them were just spur of the moment things that he did.
It's I don't know. Like I am just completely captivated by this performance.
It just holds me and I'm like, there's nothing else like it. I love it.
When I put it on, I just started smiling.
I was like, this fucking movie.
Yeah, it is one of those things.

(01:10:49):
It's like, oh, I get to fucking watch Vampire's Kiss tonight.
And when I was watching these, I watched them in a hotel room on traveling for work.
And there wasn't even like a thought of which one am I going to watch tonight?
It's just like I booted up the the old iPad and Vampire's Kiss.
And it's like, oh, OK, well, I mean, that's a pretty strong and strong.

(01:11:10):
These movies are both.
These are both movies like we get to watch it.
Like we're at the part of this record where we get to watch the movies we like.
I think for me, I will probably wind up watching Mandy Moore over the course of my life, like start to finish.
Whereas with Vampire's Kiss, I'm probably like I'll watch it again.
But I mostly when I'm getting that itch, I'll probably just look up scenes from it as opposed to watching the whole piece.

(01:11:37):
Make it official.
It is decided.
I did not hear that at all.
Interesting.
Well, tap it on the microphone.
No, nothing.
Weird.
Clippity clop, cloop clop.
I'm a judge.
Did you hear that?

(01:11:57):
Yes.
Also, that is now the sound of him decide of it being decided.
I agree.
We're going to I mean, we're going to piss off some horses, but fuck them.
Fuck those horses.
Oh, man.
All right.
Thank you all for listening.
If you want to chat with us on social media, we're at Cage underscore match underscore pod.
Or if you want to support us on Patreon, we are cage match pod.

(01:12:17):
And thank you to our Sparkle buddies, Josh, Sean, Josie, Rico, Matt, Adam and Bill.
And to our cage dancers, Ira, John, Freeman, Lance, Nathan and.
Cameron and yeah, clip clop.
Clip clop.

(01:12:44):
And you get really into I need to learn how to like make like foam costumes, like proper
mascot costumes.
Oh, that's an investment.
I'm going to go.
I'm going to be on YouTube for the rest of the day, like learning how to like a felt.
I should start with I should start with a more scaled head.
I'll make a I'll make a one to one head of neck that I can wear.

(01:13:08):
One to one.
Yeah, my giant melon.
You still can fit in.
Yeah.
Shots fired so so gently.
Wear it like a motorcycle helmet.
Yeah.
I'll take out an additional home loan or whatever just for the felt because you're going to
need a lot of felt to cover this dome.

(01:13:28):
So there's always a white elephant gift exchange.
And last year I took home like this golden hand and an eight inch black dildo with a
suction cup.
Fucking awesome.
Yeah.
And I think the welcome to pound town sign also that's above our bed.
We kept that.
And this year I gave back the hand and the dildo, but sitting above those and concealing

(01:13:54):
that I put in a Chuck Tingle book.
So but again, the final days of pounding ass and found out that one of my friends is one
degree of separation away from Chuck Tingle.
They were asking me questions about who Chuck Tingle is.
And they're like, what does he look like this and that?
And I was like, oh, well, nobody knows because he wears a pink like sack over his head.

(01:14:17):
That just says love is real on his forehead.
And they're like, wait, that's Chuck Tingle.
And apparently one of their friends is friends with him.
Cool.
Can we get him on the podcast?
That would be an interesting episode.
Yeah, we would have to do Chuck Tingle's podcast as well.
I would I would be OK with that.
I would go on Chuck Tingle's podcast.

(01:14:38):
Let's talk about how love is real.
Yeah.
Buckaroos and.
Yeah.
How my ass can butt fuck my other ass or whatever.