Scriptreader Investigates: Nic Cage…Fucking With Me?

Up until about five years ago, i felt like I could at least partly understand what Nic Cage was doing. First (1981-1986) he was doing the parts he could get–movies that needed handsome young kids, movies his uncle made, etc . Then (1987-1992) he was doing weird shit he liked –usually because it allowed him to do a weird voice or accent. Then (1992-1995), he was trying to be a capital A Actor, either through lead roles in potential hit films, or through roles in movies that would allow him to finally win an Oscar.  Then (1995-2002) he had accomplished both of those things and so realized he’d like to be rich and look cool and handsome and young and hairy-headed in movies and did only movies that could give him those things (it’s easy to feel this way when you’ve just fallen madly in love with handsome, persuasive Jerry Bruckheimer…he is such a DREAMBOAT!). Then (2002-2004)  he was like, “Fuck. I better do a few good movies in between these bad blockbuster movies so that I don’t wind up in strictly treasure hunter kid movies someday.”

But lately, even though ostensibly he’s still running that pattern, I have no idea what is going through his head because the quality of the scripts he’s picking has gone to total opposite extremes. It’s either really good or godawful with very little of the middle ground that often is the intimate friend of the blockbuster actor who still wants respect. I’ve become aware of this at this late stage mostly because I just saw Ghost Rider and I can’t believe anybody famous would ever consent to do that to themselves any more than I would consent to be sold into a prostitution ring so dastardly that all my previous romances would retroactively be tainted and declared prostitution even if they were beautiful and pure.  But even with that ridiculous movie and Bangkok Dangerous and National Treasure 2, and even despite the craziness that is going on with his hair and teeth and face which are now colluding to make him look, basically, like a skeleton with a coonskin cap on its head and even with the fact that his new “acting” is often just a caricature of old, good acting that he’s done, he still gets offered very good projects all the time.  I have read three of the scripts he’s slated to star in or has just finished shooting, and they range from Wibberleys bad to very good.

So I guess, yes, my confusion arises partly from the fact that really good people keep hiring him, which is more about them than it is about what he’s thinking.  But on the other hand he will show up for a good movie and often do a good job.  So that tells me that a) he is still able to act and b) he can distinguish between the good movies, where he actually acts, and the bad, bad movies where he is simply a parody of his former self, making the Nic Cage of Wild At Heart and Raising Arizona cry out of embarrassment at seeing the same style applied to a Disney movie about finding a solid golden Mayan temple inside of Mt. Rushmore in order to prove one’s great great grandfather didn’t help kill Lincoln(<–actually a movie plot. no shitting!).

So my question is, is he actually smart enough to take crappy B material that is, because of the way Hollywood is run right now, being produced as blockbuster A films, and, through talent and smarts, still managing to get himself hired onto real movies?  Or does he simply say yes to anyone who meets his quote and some of the people who do happen to  be making good movies?

My feeling is that he’s doing all of this to fuck with me. Because unlike, say, Eddie Murphy, I really can’t ever write him off. I watched him scream and turn into a flaming skeleton for five minutes  and thought “How is this guy still working in anything but B Disney movies?” all the while knowing that he’s about to be in knowing a script i’ve read a few times and liked (i hear the movie isn’t perfect, but still, it’s a good project that many people would love to be on). Basically, the lower he sinks, and the more bad movies I see him in, the more certain I feel that I will still be forced to take him seriously in good movies and give the fact that he’s attached to scripts I read some kind of positive weight, even if they’re really good and all I can see when I imagine him in them is a flaming, screaming skull with weird plugs.

I want answers.  Nicholas Cage: Are you fucking with me? If so, is it because of that thing that happened at Luques? Because I didn’t mean it and i believe i apologized at the time and it really did look like a ladies room.  Please let me know.

Do you know why the Cage’d hair clings?