#48 - The Wickerman (A Nick Cage Masterpiece)

[00:00:00] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:25] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like the show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

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[00:01:03] effects may include a deeper understanding of Dragon Lore, a hardened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book fire in blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Well, now you're gonna cry. Why not not cry, Nick? Please do it!

[00:01:14] Welcome to Properly Howard, a podcast that reviews classic films and other pulp fiction. Today we take a look at the remake of the lauded folk horror tale, Wicker Man, starring Nicholas Cage as a detective who punches and kicks women, steals bicycles, and is allergic to bees.

[00:01:52] With me to discuss this film, as always, is Dr. Anthony Ladon. Steve, what is your relationship with Aaron Eckhart? Um...I mean, I've seen him. Do you like him? Um...I don't think I've ever disliked him. Did you like his depiction as Two-Face in Batman? In Dark Knight?

[00:02:19] In the Dark Knight, yeah. Um...you know, so Dark Knight...I mean, Heath Ledger does an awful lot for that movie. I think it's good. I think it's... It's almost universal...he's almost universally loved. So well, you know, not making anything bad lately helps.

[00:02:41] So you're saying that Eckhart is not as good as Heath Ledger? Well, let me...let me do...you've introduced new concepts here. Um...so I think there are people from the specifically Joker standpoint that will say Jack is the best Joker, right?

[00:03:02] I mean, there are people that say Jared Leto is the best Joker and those people shouldn't have access to the internet but there are those that are like, no, no, in terms of if you wanted out of the Joker, right? Or the depiction of the Joker.

[00:03:15] That said, I think that it's pretty close to universal that everyone knows that Heath Ledger did a great job. Whether he's your favorite Joker is a different conversation than he was the best part of that movie.

[00:03:27] Um...and I watched it, you know, not too terribly long ago and I got right in the middle of it and it was no Heath Ledger and I'm like, I don't know if this is great. I mean, it's good. It's a Batman movie.

[00:03:39] I'm like, okay, this is, you know, the dialogue is trying to move. Right, then Heath Ledger comes back on screen and you're like, oh, this is great. Yeah, and everything is elevated, right? So then I think we look through the dark night through Heath Ledger colored

[00:03:50] glasses and everything is elevated. Um...if Aaron Eckhart's two-faced were the only villain in this movie, I think it would be good but it would certainly not be amazing. Well, I mean, look, I mean, look, Heath Ledger has to follow Jack Nicholson, right?

[00:04:08] Um...whereas, Aaron Eckhart only has to follow Tommy Lee Jones. Well, sure, right? Exactly. So I mean, there is that. Maybe though. I love Tommy Lee Jones's A Few Things but his depiction of two-faced was comically bad. Tommy Lee Jones is in a lot of movies.

[00:04:26] I have seen probably a minority of them. I can safely say that his version of two-faced is the worst thing that him and anybody named Tommy has ever done. I catch out the citizens of Pham. Okay, alright. And I'm including Tommy Morrison in Rocky Fox.

[00:04:57] So when I see Aaron Eckhart as two-faced, I think, well, there's no Billy D. Williams but pretty good. Pretty good. And we never got Billy D. Williams as two-faced. We only got him as one face. That's the trouble. Now that would have been...

[00:05:17] They should have done the right thing. They didn't do the right thing. I feel like it's not too late, right? I think it's too late, yeah. Well, I mean he has now the second face only. So alright, so I like Aaron Eckhart in that role.

[00:05:31] Did you ever see Thank You for Smoking? Yes. And it's a weird movie but I thought he was pretty good in it. Yeah, I liked the movie and I liked him in it too. Alright, so do you know why I'm asking you about Aaron Eckhart?

[00:05:49] Was he the Wicker Man? Like was he the actual Wicker statue? Because if so, he was amazing. Not only is Aaron Eckhart in this movie, the Wicker Man, the remake with Nicholas Cage, he's the first person you see on screen.

[00:06:12] He's a trucker who has no lines sort of at the truck stop. He finishes his meal, he gets up and he walks away. They show a close-up of Aaron Eckhart. So he's an extra in this movie. I'm surprised you didn't note that he was here.

[00:06:31] This movie comes out a year after Thank You for Smoking. It's a weird thing where clearly Aaron Eckhart has not blown up yet. He doesn't have a single line and this sort of reminds you that just because a movie is

[00:06:53] a year later than another movie doesn't mean that the actors performed in the movie a year later. Clearly he was an extra in this movie before he was the lead role in a critically acclaimed movie. And then two years later, he's in The Dark Knight.

[00:07:13] So it's kind of funny to see him in that first scene because he's a big deal. And I thought he must be a plant. This guy is going to come back at the end. He's going to explain the movie after the credits.

[00:07:32] He's going to explain why this movie actually makes sense. Why it got green lit. So I thought it was kind of funny to see him as an extra. But it did fool me because I was like, wait, no that's Aaron Eckhart. I'll look it up.

[00:07:51] Yep, it sure is. Oh, this came out a year before Thank You for Smoking. He can't just be an extra. Can he? It turns out he's maybe the best actor in this entire movie. No lines. There was a doll at one point.

[00:08:15] Did you watch the unrated version or the theatrical version? Oh, I don't even know. I'm thinking that it was probably theatrical guy. Because the unrated version is important. I watched the theatrical version as well. And then I was like, wait a minute, where's the memes? Right.

[00:08:30] Like I'm aware are the memes. So I did a little research and almost every meme from this movie is from the unrated version. Oh jeez, alright. So now I feel like I've been fooled. I've been bamboozled. And these are well worth the watch. Alright, alright. Well, let's see.

[00:08:48] We'll get to that when we discuss this. This is an important film and I want to do justice. Oh, absolutely. Do not short strip. So here's my sense, Steve. What Nick Cage knows that the rest of us don't know is that yelling earnestly is a high art form.

[00:09:17] And he's perfected it. Yeah, this is Picasso phase. Yes, right. So he yields a lot in this piece of cinematic art. Yes. This hurts. Tell me! Yes, I think it's, yeah. How to get burned. How to get burned. How to get...

[00:09:40] I think that if you just look at it as a film, as a movie, it's not good. But if you look at it as a medium to showcase Nick Cage yelling, it might be perfect. God damn it! Yeah, I know. I think you're right.

[00:10:04] And that's, I think that's... A lot of people went into this thing because they were sawed like in a movie theater. A lot of people thought they were watching a movie. Automatically assumed. Oh yeah, this is, this is, I didn't realize this was like a scream sash.

[00:10:17] And once you get that, you're like, oh okay. Like you just, you treat it almost like kind of like soft core pornography. I just would fast forward to the screaming. Do you have an elevator pitch for this movie? Are you hard of hearing?

[00:10:46] Yeah, I mean, so did you watch the original? No, I thought about it, but I decided instead to watch this movie twice. So I haven't, I have not seen the original.

[00:10:58] I did, I watched this and then I watched like, like I said, I watched the unrated scenes and then I watched more of this again. I haven't watched it. I will watch it again today.

[00:11:09] So I did, I did do it rather than like rent and I was kind of late.

[00:11:13] So I was like rather than really watch the whole original one, I did a little bit of research and I watched a couple, like there's a few things on YouTube like best scenes or like most important scenes from the original.

[00:11:24] And it's a very different vibe. I mean, it's not like, I know it's considered like a beloved and well regarded vocal. Oh, the 1973. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a, it's a bit of a musical. Oh.

[00:11:43] I mean, at least a majority of the scenes that I saw that people were posting people are singing like Christopher Lee is leading everybody in song and okay. And there's a song around the Maypole that's a while I can get Sarah to watch that then.

[00:12:00] Yeah, she would love this. Yeah, there's like pub singing. A little bit of like kind of like looks like Irish dirty dancing involved a little bit. Well, you got all of those ingredients. That's like a savory treat.

[00:12:18] A conservative Christian police officer heads to a remote village to investigate a missing child. Okay. All right. And from what I can tell, much more subdued performance. Okay. That is surprising compared to Nick Cage. I'm kind of shocked to hear that.

[00:12:43] There's some dialogue in this movie that I don't think you can say without screaming. Right. All right. Since where you mentioned the where do you even begin? All right. It's a great talk about the plot a little bit. How do we talk about the font?

[00:13:00] The font of this movie, it's aggressively papyrus. This might as well have been designed by whoever was designing cool churches in the early 2000s. So we could just start with the font. Welcome to Living Water, man. It's not going to be your typical sermon.

[00:13:24] I want to tell you I have a long and complicated history with papyrus. And I feel like that's as good a thing to talk about as anything. Yeah. So when I first saw papyrus, I thought, hey, that's cool, man. I mean, that's sort of like mid-90s.

[00:13:42] This is something cool we've done with technology, but it feels a little bit old-timey. Sure. I thought, yeah, this is good. I'll use this for like flyers and things like that. Back when the flyers were a thing.

[00:14:01] And then Avatar came out, a film that they spent a billion dollars. I don't know what they spent on the movie, but it was a very, very expensive film. And they used papyrus to do the sometimes.

[00:14:19] They couldn't afford any more font when you put so much energy into blue people and they're like, well, geez, we didn't even. Could we download? No, no, no, no, no. We were spent. All right. So at that point I thought, I don't understand.

[00:14:34] Like, not only was this the wrong font to use, you've ruined the movie and you've ruined papyrus now. Like, you can't use that font anymore seriously. Now papyrus is kind of a joke. So much so that there was a whole SNL sketch about papyrus. Right.

[00:14:55] Yeah, papyrus is now like, I mean, Comic Sans is so grateful for papyrus. So to see papyrus used in this movie straight off, I thought, oh, that tell, I know what I'm getting into. Yeah. All right.

[00:15:10] The choice of font tells you almost everything you need to know about this. Well, you realize that papyrus has been overacting the whole time. There you go. All right, so you saw some deleted scenes, right? Oh, baby. Okay.

[00:15:26] So maybe one of the scenes that I had the most trouble with, which is pretty early on, maybe the deleted scene explains this a little bit to me. So Cage, I don't even know his name. What's Nick Cage's name in this movie? Does it matter? It's John Wicker.

[00:15:50] So Nick Cage goes into the police station to get help from his former colleague. He gives Officer Pete. He's Edward Malus. Okay. He's Edward Malus. He gives Officer Pete a letter. The letter notices, the letter is giving notice that there is a missing child.

[00:16:21] Officer Pete's response is to be surprised that Nick Cage once liked a girl. Right? Is this a police station or is this like third grade? The whole thing, that scene was, you want to talk about just setting the tone of at least how people are going to act.

[00:16:44] I wrote down a note that said everybody really needs you to know that they're acting. Well, on top of that, this letter is in calligraphy. That in itself should be a warning sign, right? Yeah, because calligraphy in a papyrus world just seems odd.

[00:16:59] You got a letter in calligraphy that your ex-girlfriend's daughter is missing. Well, it was my point of release. You're going to blow this off, right? I mean, you're not going to really take this seriously. He asks about her and he says, well, we were close.

[00:17:13] And then like within seconds, we were engaged. Like, well, which one is it, bro? Well, also Officer Pete says why didn't she ask her father? Why didn't she ask the father for help? You're a policeman. Right, there's a missing child. Ask her father for help.

[00:17:30] Somebody went through the effort to ask for help in a very stylistic way. Clearly this matters. So Officer Pete is a monster. I mean, that's pretty clear. Why is he surprised that Nick Cage had a girlfriend at one point?

[00:17:54] I mean, I know he's super charming in this movie. I'm not sure if he's hard to believe. I was surprised. Until the end when you realize it was just a con job, no one would ever actually be attracted to Nick Cage. That makes sense. Yeah. Check that.

[00:18:16] So did you? Here's what I like about Nick Cage. Nick Cage is simultaneously the best and the worst thing in every one of his movies. What is your favorite Nick Cage movie? Probably my favorite is... So as far as movie goes, I would say it's Raisin' Arizona.

[00:18:33] Oh, that's a good one. He's fantastic in it. I was gonna say Moonstruck. I think he's hilarious in Moonstruck. He's great in Moonstruck. But you're probably right. Raisin' Arizona is his probably best one. But I mean, I'll watch Con Air a bunch.

[00:18:50] I think I only ever saw it one time. Nick Cage is like America's guilty pleasure, right? Well, you and I have a little history with Nick Cage. I guess we do. I mean, we do have some history with Nick Cage. Not that we'd ever met him.

[00:19:08] I don't think I could get over that. I think I'd be scarred for life. But back when Leaving Las Vegas was first out, I was really into prestige drama. You were kind of interested.

[00:19:28] But you were maybe not as sort of interested in the cinematic narrative as I was. I was kind of really fooled by critical film reviews as a young man, early 20s. Yeah, and I took a look at this and I thought, I don't think this is for me.

[00:19:47] So Leaving Las Vegas was coming out and we were gonna go see a movie together. And I said, let's see Leaving Las Vegas. It's supposed to be amazing. There's Oscar buzz about it to back then that meant something to me.

[00:20:04] And you were like, this is gonna be dog shit. Yeah. And I said, I'll bet you, I will bet you $5 or $10 or whatever it was. It was a single bill. It was a price of the movie. It was a price of the movie.

[00:20:21] You will pay for your ticket if you don't like it. Right. And we saw it together and you did not like it. You knew right away you didn't like it. And immediately after the film was done, you held out your palm, your empty palm as if to say.

[00:20:41] I didn't even look at you. Give it to me. Give me the money now. And you were ready. I was giving up a certain amount. But I will say, I'm not really interested in re-watching the movie, but he did win the Oscar for that movie.

[00:21:01] So I think I didn't misjudge Nick Cage as much as I misjudged you in that moment. There wasn't a single scene in Leaving Las Vegas where he was in a bear costume. In the most climactic scene of this film,

[00:21:27] Nick Cage is in a bear costume from the neck down and he's hiding behind a tree while hundreds of women are chasing him. Right. This movie is rich. It is just... I mean, I... Alright, I have another question for you. Yeah.

[00:21:55] And I'm really hoping that one of these deleted scenes might explain it. So, Kate... Nothing really gets explained by these things, by the way. This one has me perplexed. I've been thinking about this a lot. In fact, it's been on my mind for probably three days now.

[00:22:11] I re-watched the scene like ten times to figure out what the hell was happening. Nick Cage shows up to this weird island and immediately encounters like an Amish-looking grandmother, or several grandmothers, right? And then they have a bag, like a burlap sack.

[00:22:35] And clearly there's a person inside this bag. Right. It's dripping. Dripping blood and Nick Cage is a police officer. And he's trying to make small talk. And so eventually they just laugh at him and they show him what's in the bag.

[00:22:59] But somehow the camera doesn't reveal what he sees and he like jumps back like he's seen something horrifying. But we never find out what's in the bag. And then he forgets the experience in like two seconds and walks into this little pub and asks for a room.

[00:23:25] What's in the bag? What are we supposed to make of that? Is there a deleted scene that shows what's in the bag? No. Why don't we ever see what's in the bag? I'm not even sure he sees what's in the bag. Well, then he's a horrible police officer.

[00:23:45] I think they do a thing where I got my impression of that scene was they like go and I give him a little spooky noise and then they laugh at him. And because he feels he was mocked, he's like, well forget it. You guys are just bullies.

[00:23:56] That's either a dying child or a wounded chimpanzee in either way. In either case, you're a police officer here to investigate a possible disappearance. Why don't you find out what's in the bag?

[00:24:13] And you're telling me that there's no deleted scene that like shows some sort of gory image of like... No, I don't think anybody... Yeah, I'm reading something right now. He just gets spooked. He just gets spooked? Unless they walk away. What?

[00:24:31] Because I mean what if that was the child you were looking for and you're already like ready to close the case immediately. Right? Right? Because his next cage is character in this movie too stupid to live. I think so. I think that's the idea, right?

[00:24:52] I mean he brings two EpiPens only. To an island that's known for bee production and you know you're allergic to bees. Yeah. A key plot point in this movie. I need a whole carry on of that.

[00:25:12] A key plot point in this movie is that he's allergic to bees. So they instead of like making him a conservative Christian and sending them to a little Satanist conclave, they made him allergic to bees. Yeah. And sent him to an island that has lots of bees.

[00:25:31] You know what I mean? It's not going to bring back your goddamn honey. It was this murder. It was this movie before. It was this movie before it was the end. You know that is, I mean, I'm stumped because,

[00:25:50] so we're doing remakes right now, right? And this is an important discussion, right? Like so we did the departed doing a remake of Infernal Affairs, an Americanized version. That makes sense to me, right? When you see a remake of something that's from another country like that,

[00:26:06] there's logic to that. It goes all different directions, right? Yeah. Like Robocop, like Robocop is such a iconic movie that spawned sequels and TV shows and video games and toys and blah, blah, blah. And it's just, and it's quotable forever.

[00:26:23] So remaking it is like, okay, but you got to, it's beloved on a few levels. One as a movie, but also for like, it's a tyrical sense. And so if you remake that, you kind of got to nail it.

[00:26:33] And if you don't, you come up with something that's like, it's fine to look at, but it's like we don't... Well, you're updating technology as well, right? You're updating technology, but at the same time it's like,

[00:26:43] yeah, but this movie sort of stands beyond that to some degree, right? And it's got such a following. So Wicker Man is one of these movies that, you know, 1973, it's considered a great folk horror film in that genre. People tend to hold it to high regard.

[00:27:01] So movies like that are like, okay, well maybe like, so for those fans, they probably don't necessarily want an updated version of it, right? Because if you're a big fan of it, you're probably geeking out on it.

[00:27:11] Maybe, maybe you're like, well, I'd be curious to see what you would do today. You know, you don't necessarily even have to modernize it because the whole point is that you're like, it's kind of a guy going to a spot that's sort of outside of time, right?

[00:27:24] So that concept is a little bit evergreen in that way. But then you say, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to follow the same sort of notion of sort of this ritualistic kind of hidden away, cultish type environment.

[00:27:43] We're going to take a police officer who's trying to, you know, he's trying to do his modern day version of investigating. But he can't really get anywhere because there's this major culture clash and there's a lot of this unknown, right?

[00:27:57] And so you can really dig into the bizarre and you don't have to explain it, right? It just, that's one of the advantages of a movie like that when you're dealing with folk horror and whatnot,

[00:28:05] you can kind of create a lore that goes, sort of suit your narrative, right? So there's a lot of opportunities there. So this doesn't do a lot of what the first one does other than just sort of create like a similar bare-bones setting type situation.

[00:28:27] So they created a new kind of reason behind everything and a new, like, because the other one is not like, you know, the matriarchal society is different for this. That's unique to this one. Oh, that's interesting. And the other one... I should say it could be interesting. Sure.

[00:28:55] But there is like similar, like the other guys, like he sort of is in disguise at one point and one of their ritualistic costumes. Again, I did not see the whole thing. I've just seen, you know, significant scenes. So I think your ending is relatively similar.

[00:29:12] I don't know that there's a relationship with the missing girl and this police officer and the first one that I can't speak to. So they kind of complicated a little bit there, which I don't know that you need to.

[00:29:23] You know, I don't know. I don't know that that helps. So it's like, so when we go back to your earlier question, who is this for? I have no freaking clue because if you're a fan of the original, this doesn't feel...

[00:29:32] I mean, it feels like it's kind of following the same notion, but it's not improving on it. I mean, and it's... Oh, no. I have not seen the 73 version. I can guarantee you this is not improving on it.

[00:29:47] And so then if you're not a folk, if you're not a fan of like... Because it's a pretty specific type of horror. I mean, there are plenty of examples.

[00:29:57] Probably the most recent that comes to mind is Midsummer, which by the way has a lot of 2006 Wicker Man DNA in it. I don't care what Ari Aster has to say. Like, oh, I tried to divorce myself of it.

[00:30:09] It's like, yeah, you definitely may have been inspired by the original Wicker Man. But for sure, like there's a significant bear. There's a dude shoved into a bear carcass in Midsummer. All right. I've heard good things about Midsummer. What are you saying? I haven't seen Midsummer before this.

[00:30:29] I was like, bro, this is very Midsummer. Like there's a lot of Midsummer. There's a lot of Wicker Man 2006 specifically DNA in Midsummer. And I know he's trying to like probably distance himself from it because it was such a slaki remake.

[00:30:43] At the same time, I almost wonder if there was an inspiration to be like, you know, this movie could have been good. And it almost feels like a wink and a nod in a way. Like I'm going to take this and elevate it to high art folk horror.

[00:30:58] That's really interesting. And I don't think there's a problem with that. I haven't seen Midsummer and that makes me interested. Well, in the same way that I think Punch Drunk Love is Paul Thomas Anderson's sincere attempt at making an Adam Sandler comedy.

[00:31:12] But because he's Paul Thomas Anderson, he doesn't. He only sees what that what those comedies look like through his artistic lens. And that is, yeah, angry guy screams a bunch and gets the girl. But as Paul Thomas Anderson, he can't make a bad movie.

[00:31:32] It's like impossible for him to make a bad movie. So if you look, if you read the script of the Punch Drunk Love and the cues and you read, say like Billy Madison, they're not different. In many ways. That's fantastic.

[00:31:44] There's ridiculousness, but it's like this is his version of it, right? Like this is all like because he can't make it. That's the kind of hot take you're going to get on properly, Howard. Minute 31 of a Wicker Man remake podcast. I like Molly Parker.

[00:32:04] I think she's a great actor. I mean, here's my feeling. She's such a good actor that even in this movie, I was kind of drawn in on the scenes that she's in. So she plays what sister sister Rose and sister Thorn. Yeah.

[00:32:25] That's never they never do anything with that. Normally, if you get an actor to play twins, that's going to have some kind of barrier on the narrative, but could just be they ran out of money and they were like, what can you play this other person to?

[00:32:45] I love Nick Cage when he he goes. He's talking to the teacher, you know, sister Rose. And like he walks five minutes and he sees someone that looks the same wearing different clothes. And his immediate thought is, oh, your sisters, his immediate thought is, didn't we just talk?

[00:33:10] And it's not it didn't he didn't say, didn't we just get in a massive argument where I be rated 20 of your students and call them little liars? He acts like, like he just met her at a coffee shop or something. Right. Yeah, yeah. We had our thing.

[00:33:30] He has amnesia this guy. Like from one scene to the next, he's got no idea what just happened. Well, it's almost like they filmed every scene out of order and he only got the script for that scene.

[00:33:41] Like he didn't read the whole thing. So the next day is like, oh, you didn't tell me I was young. Here's what happened. They seen all the scenes where he was going to yell first because they thought we want peak Nick Cage yelling.

[00:33:54] And then he was just tired and then they recorded the beginning of the film. He was just exhausted. That's that's the only way that I can explain it. So this so this so this movie

[00:34:11] was you did not win the Razzies like you would think definitely nominated, but it was very fortunate that basic instinct to existed apparently. And he also lost best actor or worst actor to Marlon and Sean Wayans for the movie little man.

[00:34:28] I mean, there must be a number of Nick Cage movies that have won the Razzies, right? Yeah, he was nominated for worst onscreen couple him and his bear suit. I think I mean, so this movie is gloriously bad though, right?

[00:34:58] Well, I'll just say I will just reveal right now that I was tinkering with a Howard minus 15 on this. But I will say that I watched it twice and the second time was just for fun.

[00:35:14] Right. So it's it's a movie that has received the lowest counts, the lowest Howard rating I've ever given it. And yet I kind of feel like if you're willing to watch it again, then right, it was certainly entertaining. Maybe I don't know.

[00:35:33] I'm not not that the Howard scale is the tell all here, but I did. I did. No, I'm two things could be equally true. Right. I mean, this could be well below Howard's abilities and still worth a rewatch for all the wrong reasons.

[00:35:48] And that's one of the reasons why I chose this one was the memes, which is we'll get to those in a sec. And and then I think the and I knew it was going to be bad.

[00:36:02] And I had a feeling it was going to be like very watchable bad. Which I'm really grateful for. Look, Nick Cage has a certain charisma. And I mean, don't take that in the wrong way. I think that Donald Trump has a certain charisma too.

[00:36:23] So but he it's not like he's uninteresting. Right. So if you put him in like a great movie like Raising Arizona, I'm really interested. And if you put him in a really bad movie like this, and this this could be like I didn't see the left behind stuff.

[00:36:43] But this could maybe this could be the worst movie I've seen him in left. Yeah. And left behind was certainly on my my short list of movies to remakes to watch. And you know, you know, I'm a soccer for faith based flick.

[00:37:03] And I think the hardest part of the left behind with Nick Cage is that he just he does the whole thing subtle like he's just subdued cage. Oh, he's he's Nick caged.

[00:37:17] And it's and it misses something right like I mean you're talking about a rapture movie and he's not going to freak out it just sort of it's an unfortunate thing.

[00:37:26] I mean a movie like this is pretty fascinating too. Because like you said, I mean like I feel like he can rise to the occasion whether or not I liked leaving Las Vegas.

[00:37:37] I mean, you know how you feel about Oscars. I mean his performance was critically acclaimed by people who watch a lot of movies. So I so that has to count for something right.

[00:37:51] And he's he he rises to the occasion of the film, even if the film and he sings to the occasion, I think too. Right. I mean, I think that I think that's what makes him so interesting as an actor is that in a in a raise in Arizona he's like almost pitch perfect right.

[00:38:08] And then you see this and you're like, what else was he going to do. Right. Like, if you look at this movie and go well, if you put a better or like maybe a better but like just a different type of dramatic actor in this that you consider, you know also like a great

[00:38:27] performer, but Leonardo DiCaprio in this role. Oh, it makes the movie worse for sure. But it does make the movie worse, right? Because he'll try in a movie that doesn't deserve it.

[00:38:39] But when Nick Cage does something different, he gives this movie exactly what it deserves. You know what I mean? Like I think he has a he has an instinct for this. It goes, Oh, those movies horseshit.

[00:38:48] It's like putting it would be kind of like putting Dijon mustard on like a like a McDonald's cheeseburger. Right. That's not what this is. That's not what this you've just mixed things that shouldn't be mixed. Whereas Nick Cage is the perfect French's mustard.

[00:39:05] Oh, yeah, he's he's a yellow mustard packet that you have to smear on with the packet.

[00:39:12] Now, when you do the packet for me, whenever I use one of those packets, which is not often, but whenever I do, I'm I'm thinking about the amount of ketchup or mustard or relish or whatever it is that's touching the exterior of the plastic. Mm hmm.

[00:39:34] And I'm thinking this is not sanitary. This is probably been touched by 14 people. Right. And I do it. I do it anyway. I did too. Does that thought cross your mind? Does it disturb you?

[00:39:47] I think that's, I think this will keeps us our immune system going. No little decisions like that. Okay. All right. Okay. Can we talk about the car crash in this movie? The entirety of it. Yeah, no, I think so. Yeah, what's

[00:40:06] What the hell is up with the car accident? What's up? What's up? What's up car crash? Did the did the pagan women stage it?

[00:40:16] I mean, that's so that's the thing, right? So this movie gives the impression and not suddenly so right like me because at the end you get another glimpse into like they're out there right they got these little sleeper agents.

[00:40:30] Oh yeah, they're infiltrating every major city of America to sacrifice to this be God. And is it working?

[00:40:38] So but one of the things that they decide to do like did they need the car crash? I feel like if you get a letter from your ex-girlfriend who you still like and say my daughter's missing you'll probably get the guy to come to the island. Yeah.

[00:40:52] Why is the car crash necessary? Are they trying to drive him insane? How do they get the mother and daughter out of the car crash or is he like hallucinating this? I don't think anyone has any idea.

[00:41:14] What is I mean he's traumatized by the car. I get that. But then his colleague, his police colleague comes to his house and says yeah bodies were never found. Guess we'll never know. We're done with that one. I've done that major thing that just happened in your life.

[00:41:35] Police houses in California are just really bad in this movie. No doubt. Are the bees complicit? That's a great question. This whole thing is all it's all been designed by the bees. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

[00:41:56] I love this movie a lot. It's really bad. I mean it's, I love it because I think it, I mean, I feel like Nick Cage feels like he's the only one that gets what this movie is.

[00:42:11] I mean, he's like, no, didn't you hear me yelling about a bike? When he pulls his gun out and screams at it and then just pedals away. It's the funniest freaking thing. Step away from the bike. Take your stupid mask. Why is he on a bike? Unbelievable.

[00:42:42] What does he think he's going to accomplish? All right. So you were just in Salem recently, right? Yeah. I wish I'd seen this first. Does this movie make you rethink the witch trials at all?

[00:42:58] I mean, I'm not pro witch trial but I will say that I can kind of see both sides after this movie.

[00:43:09] You know, having been, it's interesting that there's no, I didn't see every inch of Salem but I saw a pretty good portion of it and there was never like, hey, Wicker Man was shot over here. Never, never a mention of it. So you didn't see the bee helmet?

[00:43:29] The bee helmet? I mean I saw people wearing like bee masks to keep the bees out. So where Nick Cage's head gets put into a helmet with a funnel on it and then the poor bees down it. No, I have not seen this.

[00:43:45] So when this is over do yourself a bit of a favor. Okay.

[00:43:50] I think there's two significant scenes that are not in the, because if he doesn't, if I'd recall correctly, he doesn't scream at his ex fiance holding a, while holding a burned doll screaming why is it burned? Why is it burned? Why is it burned?

[00:44:07] That's a great scene too. So do that. Watch that. So we see, so when he is getting surrounded and about to be taken to the Wicker Man. We hear him yelling and we hear what we sound like legs crunching. My legs, ah my legs. It's just murder.

[00:44:34] The other thing is you see that in the alternate version and the unreaded version. So they surround him, you watch them snap his legs. And that's when he screams my legs, my legs. That makes sense. And then they put a helmet on him, a clear helmet type thing.

[00:44:54] Like kind of like caged. I know it's amazing. And then it goes on his shoulders and then on the top of it is a funnel and they just dump bees into it so that his face is surrounded and he's just like, ah bees, bees. Bees in my eyes.

[00:45:13] And so he's just going, he's freaking out. And then they take it off after like just a few seconds, just enough to sort of like just to just sort of treat it like a little fear factor, you know, thing and then and then they get his other EpiPen and they give him the EpiPen because they want him to be alright so they can drag him.

[00:45:29] Oh, interesting. Now, why would they delete any of that as my question? My guess is they were wanting to shoot for a PG-13 and maybe the leg break was too much. But I don't know why you wouldn't have at least the bee helmet. Because I did feel like.

[00:45:47] Like, like, did they think that part was too ridiculous? Yeah. Like where they're like, this seems like it takes me out. That's, that's otherwise. Cogent narrative.

[00:45:58] You know what would really class this up is get rid of the bee helmet and let's just put him in a bear suit. When he reveals his face in the bear suit, it's it's it's insanely comical. But what does he say? Like I told you to wait.

[00:46:16] I know. I had to come. What are you talking about? I mean, when he kicks. I had to come to the human sacrifice. I'm not gonna miss that. He just really. Dude, it's like once a year. I'm not gonna miss the human sacrifice.

[00:46:32] He kicks the young woman in the chest into the picture. All right. So there's a lot of women punching, punching and kicking, I'll say. But I was not, I really didn't see it coming because when he comes down. I can't even say it when he comes downstairs.

[00:46:56] The bar keep basically says you look a little worse for the where and it's almost like that's too much like. Like lock me in a lock me in a tomb lock me underwater make me feel like I'm going insane lie to my face.

[00:47:15] Show me a bag that's clearly got a wounded child in it. But if you're gonna mock me when I feel tired, I will punch you in the face. That's right. Where was my wake up call? Just cold coxer. Hold on.

[00:47:36] Was there a tweak that you'd make to this movie to improve it? I would add like another 20, 30 minutes. I really want to know what's in the bag. I don't know. I mean, I can't stop thinking about it. I don't understand why he reacts the way he does.

[00:47:59] What's in the bag? A shark or something? I don't understand why he forgets it two seconds later. Yeah, because that's your first. This is a horror movie. What are you doing? What are you doing?

[00:48:12] I feel like I need to write a letter to the writer or director of this. What that scene was supposed to be because clearly they botched it. Right. I agree. Was there a half the battle when the girl went? Let the local police take care of it.

[00:48:38] Just mind your jurisdiction. You can only trust hippies so much. I would trust hippies to make me a good honey, right? Right. But at what cost? I love that they don't give them the honey. They're going to... It would be lost on him.

[00:49:00] So they give him like store-bought honey that he can't get out of the little plastic bear. He's really trying hard. I really want this honey. Was this better, worse or on par with a Ron Howard film? It's a non-Houard. It's a non-Houard. Yeah, there's...

[00:49:24] You brought up a new... A new access on the scale. Yes. This is a non-Houard. No, I feel like... I think it would be Howard minus 15, but I think I'm going to instead go with the Howard minus 10. Simply because I liked it enough to rewatch it. Right.

[00:49:50] I mean there are movies that I just can't stand. There are Ron Howard movies I've never rewatched. I will never watch The Knowth's Guy again. I hate that movie so much. I've never seen it. It's so stupid and bad and makes no sense at all.

[00:50:09] As opposed to this. It should be good. It's Cameron Crowe. I mean it should be good. It's so bad, so bad. So I'm not going to rewatch that, but I'll rewatch this under the right circumstances. You just did. I just did.

[00:50:28] I don't think I'll ever pay for it again. I think this time I paid 3.99 or whatever to watch it. But if it is on offer for free and I want to see my son's reaction... I would have liked to have seen this in the theater with people.

[00:50:51] I mean Heather, I don't even know if he got to the island by the time she tapped out. Oh no. I just went into the bedroom and was like, I could hear it. That's plenty. Steve, you and I are writing a screenplay together.

[00:51:10] Is there anything from this movie that you would like to incorporate in our film? I don't know if we have any screaming so I think we need to go punch some stuff up. You know Nick Cage is only ever a lead actor now.

[00:51:28] He's one of these guys who's like... Well at Renfield, even though he's Dracula, he's sort of... He's a supporting role you're saying. A little bit more so. Have you seen that movie? No, I haven't. Abigail and I watched I think someone in the neighborhood of 20 minutes of it.

[00:51:46] And we're like nope. Just a series of misfires. He's kind of like at that earnest level of acting. Like earnest goes to camp? Yeah. Ernest is not... He's not A-lister, he's not a B-lister. You're saying Nicholas Cage is in his Jim Varney period?

[00:52:04] Yes I think so because look, if you're going to put Jim Varney in a movie, it's going to be an earnest movie and he's going to be the lead character. He doesn't do other kinds of roles.

[00:52:18] He's either a lead character or he's not in the movie at all. Would you remake the earnest movies with Nick Cage? I would love to do Ernest Goes to Jail again. But it's a Tarantino version. I would love to see P.T. Anderson do Ernest Goes to Jail.

[00:52:37] See that's what I just... I wish it was almost like jury duty where every director at one point has to make an earnest movie. I'm like, well I'm retiring. Not so fast. Still owe us one Ernest. You cast whoever you want as Ernest.

[00:52:57] I like the new designation, the new non-Howard. That's good. I do feel like though that every movie that's not Howard is non-Howard. To me there's a Venn diagram here and Howard movie Circle never meets the Wicker Man Circle.

[00:53:19] Curious to see James Freco in the final scene of this film? Setting up Wicker Man 2. That still not as unnecessary and upsetting to me as the rat in Departed. You'd rather see James Franco than a rat is what you're saying. I would rather see a rat.

[00:53:50] That sequence didn't do anything to make anything more interesting. There was no like, they're at it again. Like, oh now I get it. I do like that the, I don't know what James Franco's filmography was at this point.

[00:54:11] But I do like that they did bring in sort of a similar type at the end of the film. You got a cop. Yeah, but he's younger. He's more impressionable. James Franco kind of presents as kind of like handsome and stupid as well.

[00:54:32] And so he is without trying. Right, yeah. So he kind of has that Nick Cage vibe to him. Although is, alright so now I'm questioning that. Is Nick Cage handsome? I mean... He has a watchable quality for sure. Yeah, I mean he's a step above Woody Harrelson.

[00:55:01] He's a flight of stairs.

[00:56:33] Okay David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:56:51] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:57:02] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option and Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive,

[00:57:16] plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot but probably positive takes.