You Don't Get The Nic Cage You Want. You Get The Nic Cage You Deserve.

[kingyak]

I live 30 minutes from nowhere. If anything happening, it's in nowhere, and most of my friends live in nowhere. Since I also work in nowhere and my shift ends at 3:30, I often find myself with 2 or 3 hours to kill in nowhere before people get off work or whatever event is going on that night starts. Since nowhere doesn't have a bookstore (well, there's a Books A Million, but anyone who's eve been to one knows they don't count), my options are limited, which results in me seeing a lot of movies that only mind-numbing boredom could cause a thinking human to pay money for. Yesterday I had some time to kill before our weekly game session (currently Star Wars, for the RPG geeks who care) and ended up seeing Ghost Rider 2 (despite the fact that I never saw the original, which I believe came out when I still lived in the civilized world).

After seeing it, I might need to see the first Ghost Rider. Not because the sequel is a good movie--it's objectively awful--but because it's a great Bad Nicolas Cage Movie, and therefore quite entertaining. My friend Andy has a theory that a movie's entertainment value is different from its quality, but that there is a relationship between the two: entertainment value increases the further quality moves in either direction. He usually uses The English Patient as his "ground zero." I haven't seen it, but according to Andy it's not particularly good, not particularly bad, and not the least bit entertaining. For a movie to really be entertaining, it has to be either very good (The Big Lebowski) or very bad (Immortals). I think this applies doubly to Nic Cage movies. Something like The Lord of War is kind of bland and forgettable, but put him in a great movie like Wild At Heart or something terrible like Drive Angry and you've got gold.

This all leads up to my Grand Unified Theory of Nicholas Cage, which is that Nic Cage is the tofu of actors, taking on the flavor of any movie you put him in. Cast him in something like Adaptation or Raising Arizona and he won't fuck it up and might even improve the overall film. Put him in Con Air, on the other hand, and you get exactly the kind of performance you deserve for making a movie like Con Air. I think the "Nic Cage as Tofu" theory is further supported by the fact that in most cases Nic Cage's character in nearly every movie is basically the same twitchy, awkwardly manic, slightly off-putting character. The only real variation from character to character is the frequency and extent of his (mostly ineffective) attempts to make the character seem cool and/or like a bad-ass.

Thoughts like these aren't reason I'm never invited to secret Illuminati meetings, but I think it's safe to say they're a contributing factor.

[Xooxe]

Here, I'm writing you a prescription of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

[kingyak]

Here, I'm writing you a prescription of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

That one could cause this whole house of cards to come tumbling down.

[Telarus]

http://thefw.com/nicolas-cage-clone-snl-weekend-update/

[kingyak]

http://thefw.com/nicolas-cage-clone-snl-weekend-update/

Eerie.

[Disco Pickle]

Nick Cage (Coppola, whatever the fuck his name is) and the makers of that movie have raped the dead corpse of that franchise, left behind by Marvel itself when they refused to even publish the last issue of the series they were canceling in the late 90's. 

They have proceeded to resurect it (almost) with Jason Aaron's run on the book, only to shove a hell fire shooting shotgun up its ass and unload both barrels by making a female ghost rider the main character and hiring what seem to be interns to write the god damned thing.  (it was promptly canceled)

I read Ghost Rider religiously.  It was the only book I blew some ungodly amount on to get his first app. in Marvel Spotlight #5. 
I was well on my way to completing a collection of both runs before I lost my collection.  I re-read them every two years because I really did like the entire premise.

In conclusion, Fuck Marvel Comics.  I will never see that movie. 

</end fan boy rant>

[LMNO]

Holy shit. I'm really glad I never went all out and became weird about my favorite comic book when I was a kid:

POWERMAN AND IRON FIST.

[AFK]

Mine was Iron Man, and I haven't seen either of those movies yet.  But from my recollection of those comics, it seems like they made a good choice for Tony Stark.  It made sense to have a self-important jack-ass play a self-important jack-ass. 

[kingyak]

I never really read comics as a kid (unless you count MAD Magazine). Got sucked into them during my second year of college.

[Doktor Howl]

I never really read comics as a kid (unless you count MAD Magazine). Got sucked into them during my second year of college.

I was a snob about it until about 5 years ago, when I discovered Warren Ellis.  I collect his non-superhero shit religiously.

[kingyak]

I never really read comics as a kid (unless you count MAD Magazine). Got sucked into them during my second year of college.

I was a snob about it until about 5 years ago, when I discovered Warren Ellis.  I collect his non-superhero shit religiously.

Transmet is one of my favorites. You might also want to give Garth Ennis a shot, particularly Hitman* (if you can find it--I think they've only collected one or two stories) and Preacher.

*Give it some time--it's a few story arcs before he realizes he doesn't really have to give a shit that it's set in Gotham.

[Doktor Howl]

I never really read comics as a kid (unless you count MAD Magazine). Got sucked into them during my second year of college.

I was a snob about it until about 5 years ago, when I discovered Warren Ellis.  I collect his non-superhero shit religiously.

Transmet is one of my favorites. You might also want to give Garth Ennis a shot, particularly Hitman* (if you can find it--I think they've only collected one or two stories) and Preacher.

*Give it some time--it's a few story arcs before he realizes he doesn't really have to give a shit that it's set in Gotham.

I've read the Preacher series, and it's okay...But it's not the lunacy given by Ellis.

Try reading his other work.  Transmet is one of his best, but there's lots of other great shit out there.

[kingyak]

Except for a few of the mini-series he did when he first started writing for Avatar, most of the other Ellis stuff I've read has been super-hero stuff (The Authority and Planetary mainly). The main reason I haven't read much else is because my local store rarely orders anything that isn't Marvel or DC* and I don't keep track close enough to remind them to special order. One of these days I'll get around to picking up the trades.

*I completely understand that this, since it's a small town, but I got spoiled by the full-line store I worked at back in the dark ages.

[Triple Zero]

Iron Man 1 was really good though. Dunno if it works for those who expect the comic (which I don't know--much), but Tony Stark was awesome in that one.

[Thurnez Isa]

Personally i don't think he is ever acting.
I think he is just walking around doing shit and people are filming him