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Tag Archives: Nicholas Cage

Valley Girl

Posted on August 29, 2022 by LizLocke
Image credit: Valley Girl, 1983

This week, let’s stop the world and watch a totally rad slice of SoCal life, Valley Girl (Disc/Download). If you ever wondered whether Nicolas Cage was a teen heartthrob, I am here to tell you, YES he was, and NO, his onscreen chest hair was not normal. But we love him anyway.

I thought I’d heard all the high school slang worth hearing after repeat viewings of Clueless, until I watched its 1980s precursor. As the “Juliet” of this Romeo & Juliet-inspired love story between Valley Girl and a Hollywood Punk, Julie loves to use choice phrases like “Gag me with a spoon” and “Like, fer-SHUR” during trips to the mall, the beach, and meals at the local diner. When she meets her bad-boy “Romeo”, Randy (Cage) at a party, he’s everything she shouldn’t want—he doesn’t wear pastels, he’s not likely to be voted Prom King any time soon, and his hair has a lot of product. But god, can he kiss. Seriously, young Nicolas Cage knew how to do a Hollywood Kiss, and forty years later, it still affects me.

But back to the slang. The language is what makes this film so endearingly funny, and I can’t help but think of how I’d use these words in my own life. These days, I’m in desperate need of a chill pill, but alcohol will have to do. You might think using a whole egg in a cocktail is grody, but I say that’s bogus. I use egg whites frequently, so like, why not a yolk? While watching Valley Girl, I recommend drinking this My Parents Are Gonna Flip! cocktail.

My Parents Are Gonna Flip!

2 oz Silver Rum

1 oz Pineapple Juice

1 oz Coconut Milk

1 oz Lime Juice

½ oz Simple Syrup

1 chopped strawberry

1 Whole Egg (yolk + white; no shell)

Strawberry Garnish

Muddle chopped strawberry in the bottom of a metal shaker with lime juice and simple syrup. Add ice, rum, pineapple juice, coconut cream, and egg. Shake vigorously for at least one minute to emulsify. Strain contents out into a separate glass and dump out the ice in the shaker. Put the liquid contents back into the shaker and shake hard again for 2 minutes to make it extra frothy. Strain into a glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with a strawberry.

Another standout element to this movie (beyond Nic Cage’s make-out skills) is the soundtrack. With hits from The Psychedelic Furs, Men at Work, The Plimsouls, and Modern English, the track list will transport you to a time when popped collars were all the rage, and peanut butter sushi was served as an hors d’oeuvre. One more time, for emphasis—Gag me with a spoon!!!

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Adaptation

Posted on March 21, 2022 by LizLocke
Image credit: Adaptation, 2002

If you follow me on social media, then you know I’m an orchid mom. That’s right, I enjoy caring for one of the most delicate plants in nature, all for the promise of a few blooms. I like to watch as they die and resurrect themselves, over and over, like a superhero franchise. They’ve been a joy, a distraction, and an inspiration as I revise and write and revise again, hoping maybe this time, the right words will magically fall into place. Thus I can say with absolute certainty, Adaptation (Disc/Download) is a perfect film for the orchid-obsessed, and for anybody who’s ever struggled to make a story “work”.

Loosely based on The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, Adaptation is Charlie Kaufman’s wild meta tale of a screenwriter’s quest to turn this book into a movie. Nicolas Cage plays Charlie, and he also plays Charlie’s fictional twin brother Donald, who stumbles into screenwriting like a NaNoWriMo newbie. Charlie writes smart, character-driven stories, while Donald’s are mostly plot-driven, using the formula he learned in a ridiculous workshop. Where things get weird is when the script Charlie is writing (which we see in cuts to Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean and Chris Cooper as John Laroche, subject of The Orchid Thief) slowly morphs into a “Donald script”, going completely off the rails as Charlie loses all sense of his own voice, and what he was originally trying to say. It’s a strange, bizarre twist, showing the audience what happens when people follow the formulas: we get crappy movies that focus more on outlandish plots than character development. One wonders if Nicolas Cage has exclusively been picking “Donald movies” for the past decade, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Now, back to the orchids. I love watching John Laroche wax poetic about the beauty and struggle of his obsession, and Orlean’s look of wonder at all the rare varieties mirrors my own. While watching Adaptation, I recommend drinking a Flower Show cocktail.

Flower Show

1 Egg White

2 oz Gin

1/2 oz Crème de Violette

1/2 oz Cointreau

1 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

Fill a shaker with ice. Add all ingredients and shake until frothy. Strain into a cocktail glass.

One thing the movie never discusses (and I wish it did) is the rebirth of this plant. An orchid can appear completely dead, stripped of all its beautiful blooms, but with enough care and attention, it’ll start to grow again. There’s something comforting in this, knowing that even when all hope seems lost, the thing you loved might not be gone forever. Maybe, like a writer huddled over a keyboard, it can just be… temporarily blocked. Cheers!

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Face/Off

Posted on July 17, 2017 by LizLocke

Face Off

Image credit: Face/Off, 1997

Man, they don’t make ‘em like they used to. I never thought I’d see the day where I long for a movie like Face/Off (DVD/Download), but I’m officially there. Big-name stars making a high octane thriller with an ORIGINAL script, that’s not a sequel to or reboot of something else? Just doesn’t happen too often in mainstream Hollywood these days. Nicolas Cage keeps throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, but will there ever be another film that showcases his talent for lunacy (and, I admit, pretty good acting) quite like Face/Off? God I hope so.

This movie might not work so well if it weren’t for the combined performances of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. As the Joker-like domestic terrorist Castor Troy (remember when movie terrorists were angry American white males?), Nicolas Cage is batsh*t crazy. Parading around in a priest costume, groping choir girls, waving around his golden guns- this is a part Cage was born for. But then, THEN he falls into a coma, and family-man FBI agent John Travolta is compelled to have Cage’s face put on his body to foil a bomb plot. AND THEN- Cage wakes up, sees that he has no face, and puts the iced Travolta face on HIS body. I swear, even the best soap opera scribes couldn’t make this stuff up. Now Travolta is forced to turn up the creepy, and Cage has to act like John Travolta doing a bad Nic Cage impression. Mistaken identities and slow-motion shootouts ensue.

One little gem that’s always stayed with me from Face/Off is Caster Troy’s claim that he could eat a “peach” for hours. Damn if that line doesn’t run through my head every summer when peach season hits central Texas. Welcome to my nightmare. While watching Face/Off, I recommend drinking a Peach Shandy.

Peach Shandy

1.5 oz Deep Eddy Peach Vodka

1 bottle peach-flavored beer (I used Ballast Point Peach Kolsch)

4 oz sparkling peach soda

Build drink in a pint glass, stirring gently to combine. Garnish with a peach slice.

Peach Shandy

Image by @pop_up_cobra

Where Face/Off falls short for me is the flimsy explanation of how the voices and bodies of the two actors could be manipulated so easily to match the new faces. Sucking the skin off of someone’s head and transplanting it seamlessly with no scarring? Yeah, OK. Lasers. But the idea of Nicolas Cage’s wiry Leaving Las Vegas body suddenly being able to pass as a beefed up Travolta? Now that’s Hollywood magic. Cheers!

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Honeymoon in Vegas

Posted on July 1, 2014 by LizLocke

Image Credit: Castle Rock Entertainment, Honeymoon in Vegas, 1992

Image Credit: Castle Rock Entertainment, Honeymoon in Vegas, 1992

A recent trip to Las Vegas has prompted me to re-watch some of the better movies set in Sin City, including Casino, Oceans Eleven, The Hangover, 21, and my personal favorite (and this week’s Cinema Sips pick), Honeymoon in Vegas (DVD/Download). This film gives a bit of an outdated view of The Strip (prompting my mother and I both to wonder- Is Bally’s even there anymore?) but even without Cirque du Soleil ads and trendy restaurants, it’s still a delightful romp about the dangers of gambling, the dry heat of the desert, and the timeless hilarity of Elvis impersonators.

Honeymoon In Vegas is one of the better films to come out of Nicolas Cage’s weird-n-wild oeuvre, only because in this one, his intense, slightly insane mannerisms really work for the character. He plays private investigator Jack Singer, a man terrified of marriage who nevertheless proposes to his longtime girlfriend Betsy (played by Sarah Jessica Parker). They run off to Vegas to elope, but before they can get to the chapel, he enters a rigged poker game set up by mobster Tommy Korman (played by James Caan). Of course Jack loses, and instead of paying money that he doesn’t have, he agrees to let his girlfriend spend the weekend with the mobster. James Caan takes SJP to Hawaii while Nicolas Cages runs around like a chicken with its head cut off, and hijinks ensue. Some great cameos to look for are Pat Morita (aka Mr. Miyagi) as the Hawaiian taxi driver, as well as little baby Bruno Mars singing his heart out as a child Elvis impersonator. The story is ridiculous, but it always gets me excited for Las Vegas, and hopeful that one day I’ll actually spot an Indian Elvis wearing a turban. It’s like seeing a Yeti.

On the cocktail front, I had the good fortune of attending some great Texas Tiki Week events last week. I always look forward to the last week of June because it means Austin becomes a sea of rum drinks in commemorative tiki glasses. How appropriate then to mix up a classic tiki drink to enjoy while watching Sarah Jessica Parker flaunt her perfect body on the beaches of Hawaii. When watching Honeymoon in Vegas, I recommend drinking a Mai Tai.

Mai Tai

1oz light rum

1oz dark rum

½ oz lime juice

½ oz orange curacao

½ oz orgeat syrup

Maraschino cherry and fresh lime for garnish

Pour all of the ingredients except the dark rum into a shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well, then strain into an old-fashioned glass (or Tiki mug if you have it) half filled with ice. Top with more chipped ice, then add the dark rum.  Garnish with a cherry, lime, and a drink umbrella.

mai-tai

As much as I love Vegas, my favorite parts of this film are definitely the Hawaii scenes. Watching Nicolas Cage shout Kapa’aa into a pay phone just makes my year. And let’s not forget the South Pacific sing-along with Peter Boyle’s island chief. As a child I often wondered how the parakeet brandy they drink was made- crushed feathers? Beaks?  To be on the safe side, stick with the Mai Tai, and never forget- if you’re about to jump out of an airplane dressed as Elvis, it’s yellow, then red. Kabluna, and Cheers!

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