Knowing Less and Less

I have the great fortune of living in a town where we still have a cinema. Not a multiplex with all the trappings of modern movie-going like "sound" or "working projectors" or "popcorn all the time", but that romantic relic from days long past, where the floors are sticky and there are too many unaccompanied minors, and everyone in the back is pretty much frenching the whole time instead of watching the movie because the owners are too broke to afford any kind of security personnel and every time you go there you're afraid of either getting mugged by a band of street toughs or sprayed with errant bodily fluids. It's the kind of experience I'll be nostalgic for when I'm too senile to remember it, is my point.

So why go? You would be right to ask. I live a mere 20-minutes from a gigaplex, multi-theater, ultramovie-townorama. They always have popcorn even. (but to be fair, there will always be some degree of frenching going on, because that's a principle our founding fathers were all down with, and it's in the Bill of Rights or something. No really. Look it up.) I don't know why...It was a nice night for a walk? I wanted to embrace the inherent Americana of sitting in a theater with a balcony and curtains and the soft house lights that are thrown up onto the ceiling from the appropriately appointed faux-Victorian sconces? I hate enjoying myself?

Mostly it was because I was testing Nicolas Cage.

You see, Nic and I go way back.  He was in the first rated-R movie I ever actually paid to get into by using a complex combination of subterfuge, trickery and sleight of hand... and also the guy in the ticket booth didn't give a shit ...but mostly subterfuge. The film was Raising Arizona and it remains one of my favorites. He was goofy and awkward and bewildered in it, and of course ...brilliantly directed, as only a Coen Brothers star can be. So okay...Nicholas Cage...good actor. I'm not saying the day I categorized him as such was more prestigious than winning his Academy Award for Leaving Los Vegas, but it totally was, and if he doesn't recognize what an honor it is, then he's just stuck up and all Hollywood now and I don't even want him to acknowledge the years where I wrote him dirty letters EVERY day until that nosy D.A. with his so-called "restraining order" messed up my beautiful love affair.

He went on to do Wild at Heart and Moonstruck and the wonderfully fucked-up Vampire's Kiss, which if you haven't seen, it's pretty much because your brain is having some kind of social revolution where "good taste" and "awesomeness" are the ruling Bourgeoisie class and "being stupid" and Jerry Bruckheimer are the Proletariat who want socialism and to overthrow the government and to make your head a communist.  I was trying to make that metaphor deeper and more clever but I think it's painful enough as it is and also I needed to get a sandwich and Hey! look what's on TV!, so there you go.  Oh... and go rent Vampire's Kiss. I liked it. That's what I was saying.

But then Jerry Bruckheimer got involved and it's all The Rock-s, and The Con Air-s, and The National Treasures-es and that makes Nic think he is an action star and from there it's a direct line to being dressed up in a bear suit and punching women and being stung in the eyes in the bee helmet. And if you don't know what movie I'm talking about then hooray for you because I saw it and  I'm now taking part in a class action lawsuit to get those two hours of my life back, and the attorney totally thinks we'll win because all he's going to do is show the judge the part where Nic is all "Not the beeeesss!!" and the judge will be all "Award goes to the plaintiff. Cuff him, Rusty*" and then all the reporters will run to the bank of phone booths outside the court and so what if they have cell phones, they're trying to get the story into that night's edition and there will be a spinny newspaper that comes out of a black and white image of a printing press and it will say "Nic Cage Sucks Now". And I will shake my attorney's hand with gratitude and I will use both hands in that super-awkward hand sandwich move like you see at funerals and maybe I cry a little. Shut up. It's a great victory for the American film-goer.

So now it's Knowing and it's directed by Alex Proyas, who did The Crow and the brilliant Dark City but then went on to do I, Robot so he's got some explaining to do. And Nicolas Cage's crazy face is looking at me as I stand there on the sidewalk and it looks like his whole head is a planet on fire and I have this horrible Bangkok Dangerous flashback, and I realize then just how far apart Nic and I have drifted and that makes me sad because we used to have so much fun together, but now all he does is sit in the kitchen and eat cold cereal in his suit whilst I get the kid's ready for school and we hardly ever talk and he doesn't even notice my pretty new dress so he can go to hell and then I totally start frenching the milkman. Out of SPITE.  And then I realize I'm still standing on the sidewalk and the movies about to start and I have a choice, because the other movie that is playing is I Love You, Man so now it's up to me to decide if I want to maintain my compassionate, fair and balanced, journalistic integrity by sitting through another ridiculous (although Rotten Tomatoes is giving it a 31% at the time of this writing. Score!) Nicolas Cage movie, or if I want to not hate my life when this night is over.

Paul Rudd is hysterical.

* True fact:** All Balliffs are names "Rusty". It's like how Kleenex© are synonymous with "facial tissue" or how I am synonymous with "awesome"

**In my posts, "true fact" is synonymous with "completely made-up"

Comments

[Kim]

If it makes you feel any better, you are not alone. I have been a Nic Cage fan since Vampire's Kiss (and retroactively since Valley Girl) and named my cat after him. OK maybe that was going a little far, but it was 11 years ago, ok???

[shine (the artist formerly known as meshealle)]

Nicholas Cage makes me want to burn my eyes with acid...and stuff radioactive cotton balls in my ears. While I'm at it, I might as well go ahead and fry my brain in a skillet. That way I will never again have to see/hear/even think about him saying, "Put down the bunny" or whatever his ridiculous line in Con Air was and my life will be better.

I hate Nicholas Cage. Except for Raising Arizona. Well, I still hate him, but I love that movie. Though Fargo is still on top. Mostly because it doesn't have Nicholas Cage.

[Martha]

But...you didn't mention Face/Off!!!! I LOOOOOOVE that movie.

Nicolas Cage at his hammy best. He even outhammed John Travolta, and THAT, my friends, is hard to do.

[Vic]

It was all downhill from 'Raising Arizona'. You are my courtroom hero.

[baltimoregal]

Everything he did after The Rock was junk. But The Rock had some really funny moments! Plus it had John C. McGinley and Michael Biehn in it. I'd watch those two play chess.

Oh and I hated Peggy Sue Got Married AND Honeymoon in Vegas.

But and all those amazing movies you mentioned especially VALLEY GIRL and Raising Arizona (which I believe was PG13 because I saw it when I was 13) and Moonstruck were so great- I just wish that Nicholas Cage would come back!