You may have seen this a couple of days ago on the front page of Reddit, which is where I first saw it, but it didn’t get much traction with the celebrity blogs and I wanted to talk about it. Apparently there’s a mini film festival dedicated solely to Nicolas Cage, because he churns out a sh-tton of movies, good and bad, to fuel some of his expensive habits. Since 2013, the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, Texas has had a film festival dedicated to Cage called Caged. They pick out five of his films and screen them to an audience, and given that he’s made about 80 movies and has five more coming out this year, the festival could continue indefinitely. Apparently the organizers have invited Cage every year to date but he hasn’t acknowledged the event until this year when he showed up and was awesome. Cage even helped pick the films, none of which I’ve watched or even heard of, but that’s the case for most of Cage’s moves.
Film programmer Greg MacLennan has tried to arrange for the actor to bless Caged (stylized C4GED) with his presence for the past three years with little luck.
The fourth iteration of Caged was held over the weekend in Austin, Texas, and this time Cage himself crashed the movie marathon by surprising his fans onstage. He even crafted the lineup himself, choosing to screen “Bangkok Dangerous,” “Joe,” “Bringing Out the Dead,” “Army of One” and “Lord of War” back-to-back.
“This is and will always be the greatest day of my life,” MacLennan said in a statement, according to Entertainment Weekly. “I apologize to my unborn future child.”
And yet, things got even more strange when Cage decided to recite Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” for the audience because, at that point, why the hell not?
The guy who runs that festival is hilarious. Cage also did an hour long Q&A with attendees which you can see here. The theater posted a segment to their instagram page in which Cage is asked if he has anything to say to his haters. He said “You just don’t know what you’re missing.”
Would you sign up to watch ten hours of Nicolas Cage movies? I think I could do about six hours but more than that would make me batty. There aren’t enough snacks to keep me glued to a theater seat for more than three movies in a row. Good on Cage for doing this. In the video below of his dramatic reading he explains that he was inspired as a kid by Tell Tale Heart and that’s how he decided to read it at the festival. I tried to google “Nicolas Cage Edgar Allen Poe -Heart” to see if Cage had an additional connection with Poe (maybe he bought something rare of his?). All I got was this face swap thing and also the late great Roger Ebert’s review of the 2012 biopic of Poe, The Raven, starring John Cusack. Ebert wrote that Cage would have been more suited to the role. “It is a melodramatic Poe, calling for the gifts of Nicolas Cage.” Given this excellent reading, I would agree.
LOOK THERE WAS A PROPOSAL!!
Words can not explain how much I love Nicolas Cage. He’s talented, but also manages to be just the right amount of crazy, which is hard to do.
I love him too, in a cheesy way.
Me too! He’s definitely a nut job but he’s fairly innocent and scandal free.
I love him SO much! I’m his “number one fan,” haha, and he has the most beautiful, expressive eyes. That he crashed the fest and performed for his fans was awesome! I watch Adaptation whenever it’s on. It’s his best role(s) IMO.
Lord of War is actually a really good movie!
Joe and Bringing Out The Dead are great too, and Bangkok Dangerous is horrendous, but kind of entertainingly awful to watch if that makes sense. Not ‘so bad it’s good’, but ‘so atrocious I can’t look away for a second even though not doing so is pure insanity’.
The other one’s just his most recent film, which looks like crap.
This is reminding me of the Community episode where Abed goes crazy crafting a unified theory of Nicolas Cage. I love Community, and now I think better of Cage for showing up and giving his fans a good time!
Bringing Out the Dead is a pretty good Nic Cage movie, worth watching. My bf is a giant fan of Nic Cage and I got him this awesome Brandon Bird shirt years ago with an illustration of Nic Cage and his hair turning into a dragon. TSA agents love it.
Lord of War is an EXCELLENT MOVIE
Yes, it doesn’t surprise me that he picked Lord of war, it really is pretty good.
lmfao, he’s a good sport and yet why is this a thing that actually exists? he’s a remarkably bad actor.
He isn’t actually. Some of his performances were amazing. Some of them were atrocious. At least he isn’t boring.
i think he always overacts. for certain roles it works, for others it really doesn’t. his performances are funny for all the wrong reasons, so no i don’t find him any good or credible at all.
i often still laugh at this beauty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pe4GzksYI8
Nic Cage movies are my guilty pleasure….like the worse they are the better they are?
I like it when famous people hang out with their fans. Super chill
yeah this is really sweet of him. he definitely made that one couples day by officiating (thats what he did right?)
I think he was a part of their proposal.
put the bunneh down
He’s actually been in some pretty decent films, going back decades now. Wild at Heart & Raising Arizona anyone ….? Leaving Las Vegas, Birdy – god, loads of them.
I’ll happily watch him in anything – somehow, however dire or abysmally cheesy, he’s entertaining enough to make it bearable for a couple of hours. & I have a pretty short fuse for truly crappy films.
he’s actually a great actor. he just makes so many crappy films they dilute the goods ones. the weatherman is fantastic as is lord of war, leaving las vegas, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED!, kick ass, national treasure, adaptation, the family man, gone is 60 seconds, face off, CON AIR, the rock, and so much more.
and lest we not forget – MOONSTRUCK – quite possibly the sweetest and funniest movie of all time.
the man had done lots of great movies but, like someone said above, he has eccentric, expensive habits. like johnny depp. but cage can lower himself to pay his debts whereas depp only does pirate movies.
This looks like it was so much fun!!!
I love Moonstruck. Also as a kid, some f my favorite films were Con Air, The Rock and one of his with SJP that was shot in Vegas. Forgot the title but it was funny and romantic
He is a good actor when he picks the right project; I’m just sorry his career cratered after he won the Oscar. I’ve always liked him.
He is a good actor and has made some very good movies but i like him. My guilty pleasure Cage movie other than Face Off, is Drive Angry (its quite funny and Cage should do comedy more as he is good at it).
I watch The Family Man every holiday season with joy. Nicolas Cage is a permanant part of my family tradition. Hilarious but true. Also, Peggy Sue got Married is one of my favorite movies. I’m a fan.
Omg, we do the same thing every holiday with family man, love that movie,it’s so cute.
Face off is my favorite movie ever, not ashamed to say it!