It is once again time for the shitty movie blog ring! This month’s theme is shitty Nicolas Cage movies. I realized when selecting a movie at the very last minute under the influence of a good deal of wine that my ovaries and I clearly had no say in this theme selection because fuck you I LOVE CITY OF ANGELS. You can read my underwhelming drunk thoughts on Bangkok Dangerous over at Ginntastic. I get to host the fearless leader of shitty-movie-watching, Nugalicious from That Aint Kosher. (Speaking of which, I will see this girl — and this one — in New York next weekend during my never-ending birthdaymonth extravaganza, and I’m sure absurdity will ensue. Best party month kick off ever. Get excited. Or probably just get sad because you won’t be there.)
But seriously, this post makes me feel a little guilty for sending poor Ginny that bullshit.
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So I still don’t have a name for this movie review ring. But that apparently doesn’t matter, because word spread, and a bunch of new people are actually willing to get in on this trainwreck with me. This month I get to post for Nicole Sweeney who is super amazing and drew this picture of me taking over the universe:
Not only that, but if you click here, you’ll be taken to ThatAintKosher where you can read a review from Nyx, who I would be totally in love with if it weren’t for that whole no-penis deal.
I might explode with joy.
So. Movies. Usually I come up with something really clever (according to me) that ties in with the month in question, but this time, as voted by you guys, we’re all reviewing Nicolas Cage movies. Normally I would insist on a much more appropriate theme, but I have no beef with this whatsoever because Nicolas Cage is just awful. I mean, really, horribly awful. I have this one friend who can’t even hear the words “Nicolas Cage” without twitching and going into a murderous rage. True not at all exaggerated story.
I used to kind of enjoy Nicolas Cage movies, actually. He did some pretty funny comedies back in the 80’s- if you haven’t checked out Raising Arizona or Valley Girl, you should. Then in the 90’s he did Face/Off, and I really hope none of you chose to do that one because that’s one of my favorite movies and anyone who has anything bad to say about it gets a crotch stab. This was accompanied with an Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas, which I personally find to be boring as shit but at least made it seem like he had marginal talent and wasn’t just landing roles due to his family (his real last name is Coppola- the director is his uncle). We’re on to you, man- we know what’s going down.
Then it started to get worse. I can’t remember the last time I felt angry, nauseous and violated just from sitting in a movie theater until I saw Snake Eyes. Seriously, I don’t even know what that shit was about. The Wicker Man remake was… I don’t even know. I kind of want to see Season of the Witch because it was released in January and already is supposedly the worst movie of the year. That is quite the accomplishment. I think it was one of those movies he made because he’s bankrupt now and his salary requirements are a free download of Angry Birds and a bag of Skittles.
Anyway, when faced with the laborious assignment of choosing which Nicolas Cage film to ridicule, I have to admit it took me a while. Ninety percent of them are terrible, and just hearing “Starring Nicolas Cage” is pretty much a given that I’ll pass. However, after scrolling through the list of his projects on IMDB, I concluded that I would review Ghost Rider because… wow.
Also according to IMDB, they are currently threatening a sequel of this. No, Ghost Rider. No.
I will admit that I was actually excited for this movie because I am a total loser when it comes to comics/graphic novels and hey, at least it wasn’t Tim Burton’s Superman.
I saw this movie without realizing until afterward that it was unleashed upon the general populace by the same guy that brought us Daredevil. Had I known that, I probably would have stayed away. Unfortunately, this was 114 minutes that I could have spent much more productively, like sleeping. Or plotting a sniper attack. Or doing ANYTHING ELSE.
Basically, the plot is this: Teenage Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the devil to save his dad from dying. But of course, it’s Satan, so he’s a lying little scamp, and Dad dies anyway, and Johnny is now Ghost Rider, who is now tricked into a life of servitude. Haha! Sucks for him. I was kind of going in and out of this, and not really paying much attention, but luckily I’m a fan of the comics, so I could still follow the story. I could not get past the dialogue, though. It was PAINFULLY unfunny, only you could tell the writers thought it was hilarious. You almost wanted to walk into the screen and be like, “Dude, just stop. Stop now. Save yourself.”
Excluding Nicolas Cage, the cast is pretty impressive, which makes me even sadder because this whole film is a bevy of wasted talent. Eva Mendes is the requisite cleavage (and that is pretty much all she does), American Beauty’s Wes Bentley is the under-used villain Blackheart and Peter Fonda (REALLY???) is Mephistopheles, which sounds like a character in that musical Cats but is actually supposed to be the Devil. Does Peter Fonda really need money that badly?
Anyway, I’ve decided to rate this movie on a scale of Nicolas Cage’s Hair, which seems to be its own entity and gets weirder with every project he takes on. So a 1 would be Face/Off which is his best movie and one where he doesn’t actually look that bad; and a 10 would be The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, where just seeing him made me nervous.
On my NCH scale, Ghost Rider comes in at a solid Con Air.
It’s atrocious, but at least you can laugh.
If you want to participate next month, shoot an email to [email protected] by April 20th. We already know that we’re doing Pop Star movies, and Mandy Moore is making her debut, where she tackles that bitch who’s trying to push her out of the limelight. It should be epic, and I’m tempted to rig this thing. But I won’t.