I came to a harsh reality recently. I’ve only watched 46 Nicolas Cage movies thus far (in about 9 months time) and I haven’t even made it halfway through my WATC(H) journey yet. I know that sounds impressive, but it’s also been challenging. 

To be honest, I’m not even really close to halfway (that would be 55 films). Depending on how you count each of them, Nicolas Cage has appeared in 105 different titles–with undoubtedly more on the way. 

I love watching them. They are great. He is an acting genius. I’ve come around to this truth.

BUT I’m struggling with the writing part of this (which ironically is why I started this thing in the first place.) Takes me too long to work out the reviews, slows me down from watching the movies quicker, and has started to feel like (gasp) actual work. Bad. Bad. Bad.

So screw it. I can scrap the old way for the new way (WWNCD¹), and try something completely (or slightly) different. 

I’ll just approach the writing slightly differently from this point on. 

Expect: Fewer links, fewer plot summaries, fewer images. I mean, you should be watching these films, anyways! The interweb is out there. It’s not my job to spoon feed it to you.

Anticipate: I’m going to try my best to boil it all down with less words and more Cage wisdom, while still honoring the overall connections we’ve made across the multi-Cage-i-verse so far. 

What the Hell Was the Wicker Man All About (spoilers)

Nicolas Cage plays policeman Edward Malus, a guy who’s allergic to bees and must travel to a remote island in the Puget Sound (Summer’s Isle) to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. Instead of the girl, he finds a weird feminist pagan bee cult and his estranged fiance, who convinces him that the girl, Rowan, who’s their secret daughter, is still alive but has been kidnapped by the cult.

In reality, it’s all a big double-cross and Malus falls prey to this pagan cult–who use him, as a loosely “connected” male outsider, as their human sacrifice in order to bring back the “honey” harvest. The cult breaks his legs and hoists him up into and inside a 100 foot tall “wicker man” which they then set afire to the joy of the entire community. 

Just Why? 

Why? There are so many reasons to ask this question about The Wicker Man (2007) but I’ll highlight just a few. Cage described this movie (after the fact) as absurdist–some form of subtle comedy–(about a guy who becomes a human funeral pyre to appease a pagan community? Now that’s funny.) He admitted that it would have made some sense (from a credibility standpoint) to mention this take on it prior to the film’s release, but that would somehow preclude letting the movie “live it’s own life.” I call bullshit on that, even if he believes it to be the case. But I also forgive him for it. No one (and I mean no one) plays this role, this seriously, and gets away with the absurdity of the storyline, dialogue, and script. The fact that he is so serious about it convinces you that it’s supposed to be taken seriously, which is also badly comedic.

Whatever you think about the intent of the art; it’s actually a funny movie. I just don’t think it’s funny on purpose, and neither did the critics. It’s the first movie where Nicolas Cage seems to be obviously over-acting or not acting enough. His “dramatic scenes” with his wife, betrayer, Willow, are hard to buy. His business suits and the archaic clothing on the island make no sense, especially given the movie is set here locally (for us Washingtonians).

Malus, Mike-Tyson-punches and knocks out at least three women on the island in various scenes.

He dons a bear suit at one point as a disguise. And he nearly dies of bee stings (which he swats at violently before and after getting stung in various scenes). It’s just 100% wild, weird, and wacky. 

The Original Film is Weird, Too.

I went back and watched the original film The Wicker Man (1973) starring Christopher Lee as the leader of the pagan cult on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. The plot is fairly similar to Cage’s version, except for the fact that the protagonist, another policeman named Malus, is a devout Catholic (Christian) and is horrified by all the pagan culture and rituals he finds upon first arriving on the island. This one, too, centers around the disappearance of a girl (somehow tied to the harvest celebration) and the baiting of an outsider, Malus, who becomes the sacrifice to the island’s pagan gods. 

It’s a little easier to forgive the weird hippy vibes and musical numbers in this old version, as the 1970s had their fair share of movies that felt similar to this, but still, it’s a weird watch. It just makes you wonder what prompted Nicolas Cage to ever remake it in the first place, and then to play it the way that he did?

What Can We Learn From The World According to Cage as Edward Malus?

• Sus behavior should be sussed out. If your fiance leaves you out of the blue, without explanation, and then reaches out to you many years later on a remote island (without infrastructure) where she  then expects you to come and help solve the disappearance of a young girl… Maybe, just maybe, be more suspicious. Trust, but verify, dude.
• Write back. If the above happens, I’d say a snail mail reply would be the best course of action. Zoom call preferred. If no address or wifi (as was the case in the film) just ignore it. Harvest time will come and go and you’re no worse for the wear. 
• Trust issues are OK sometimes. Not only did Malus seem not entirely pissed off that Willow had left him years and years before without explanation, he kept trusting and forgiving her again and again (without any justification) when the evidence suggested he should do otherwise; and at some point he even left his gun with her. I know this because when he needed to fire that gun at the approaching mob of pagans to even have a chance, she had all the bullets in her palm. He was shooting blanks (unlike the last time they were together evidently.)
• The honey from Summer’s Isle is worse than blood diamonds. If you see this brand of honey in your local supermarket, just ask yourself how many Edward Malus’s had to die so that you could spread that delicious nectar on a toasted bagel? Sure, the privileged white man may be open season these days, but can you sleep at night with that kind of sacrifice on your conscience?
• Pac Northwest pro tip: wear layers, not three-piece suits. I’m not sure what prompted Malus to come to the Puget Sound, but he obviously did not understand the culture or the dress in this foreign land. You need rain gear, hoodies, North Face jackets; not tweed and professor patch suits. Plus, who was he trying to impress, anyways? He was caustic with the locals from the get-go. So not those broads. Why tailor his appearance to their “faux-Amish” sensibilities? I guess he was dressed for success, and still failed, epically.
• When you have bad allergies, do your research and understand your environment. A guy with a bee allergy should not be hanging out on an island where bee-keeping and honey production is the primary occupation and industry.  Just common sense, bro. Maybe your sacrifice was merited after all. Too dumb to live.

Firsts for Nicolas Cage as Edward Malus

• Motorcycle cop (also, see Recurrences)
• On a Washington State ferry 
• Dousing himself in cologne / aftershave
• Kills a bee (because “he’s allergic”)
• Almost killed by bee (because “he’s allergic”)
• Wearing professor’s elbow patch coat
• Knocks out three woman in hand to hand combat
• Wearing a bear suit
• Being burned as a human sacrifice to a fertility god (inside a giant wicker man)

Recurrences

• Role of police man (It Could Happen to You, World Trade Center)
• Scoops up child’s item from a moving vehicle (Raising Arizona)
• Retrieves a doll (Con Air)
• Popping pills (Matchstick Men, Kiss of Death)
• Looking for kidnapped person in a barn (Guarding Tess)
• Hanging out with pigeons (Birdy)
• Losing touch with a woman and then discovering maybe he’s a father with her (Matchstick Men)
• On screen with a “bar maiden” that looks similar to the Swiss Miss (The Weather Man)
• Appearing in a movie with James Franco (Sonny)

Top 5 Quotes:

“What’s in the bag? A shark or something?”

“I’m…I’m lost” (This was also my thought watching this film, Nic.) 

“Breeding? Sounds like in-breeding to me!’

“Something bad is going to happen, I can feel it.” (Genius at work here.)

”And you’re doing it for nothing! Killing me won’t bring back your goddamn honey!” 

---

OK, that felt a little better and more manageable. Maybe if I can cut back on the too tedious commentary and plot summaries, I can actually finish this journey before I completely burn out.

Excited for the next movie, which is Nicolas Cage’s first foray into the world of the comic book anti-hero Ghost Rider. Rev it up!

1. What Would Nicolas Cage Do? ↩︎