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CAGE UNCAGED: ASSMAN AND ROBBIN’ **BONUS EPISODE**
Manage episode 296550648 series 2854826
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CAGE UNCAGED: FILM FLAM FATALE
**BONUS EPISODE**
Another bonus episode covering a corner of Cage's career that has been under-represented thus far in Cage Uncaged!
This week we tackle the fertile cinematic era between Moonstruck (1987) and Leaving Las Vegas (1995), when Cage would appear as often in quirky indies as studio fare before he became a superstar Oscar Winner. This week we look into a few so-called neo noirs, a popular trend at the time before Tarrantino came along and made every crime story ironic and referential. The trend may have begun nine years earlier with the film debut of the Coen Bros., BLOOD SIMPLE (which we will cover as a double bill with Raising Arizona next episode!).
RED ROCK WEST (1993) is directed by John Dahl from a script by Dahl and his brother (or a guy with the same last name). Cage plays an everyman drifter with a bum knee who is mistaken for a hired killer in a speed bump of a town in rural Wyoming. Twists and turns ensue with Dennis Hopper showing up with a knife and fork ready to cut up and chew scenery. Lara Flynn Boyle, JT Walsh and Dwight Yoakam round out a small, but crack, cast that ooze a definitive sense of early 90s style.
Two years later in Barbet Schroeder's remake of KISS OF DEATH (1995), Cage plays the villain to David Caruso's career as Caruso haplessly attempted to be a legitimate A-list leading man. With a screenplay by pod fave Richard Price and a supporting cast that includes Helen Hunt, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Rappaport, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Corrigan, Hope Davis, Phillip Baker-Hall, and all-time fave Cage costar Ving Rhames, this movie had the look of a brilliantly cast, high end studio classic. But... it has since disappeared so deep into the memory hole that certain members of the pod *may* have had to resort to pirating it to even be able to watch it in 2021. Pirating hurts artists, don't forget. Was it the movie itself or did 1995 audiences get it wrong? How can we blame Tarrantino? Find out! We actually disagree a LOT on this movie.
REMAINING CAGE FILMS: PIG, RAISING ARIZONA, WILLY'S WONDERLAND, MANDY.
DEEP BACKGROUND FILMS: BLOOD SIMPLE, UNDER THE BLACK RAINBOW.
THEME SONG: HOWLING FANTODS.
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