Podcast: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

 

Direct download.

Your Stupid Minds returns to the well of meh Disney movies with an unfaithful adaptation of the broom dancing sequence from Fantasia. It’s 2010’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice!

In a flashback to 740 A.D., Merlin (James A. Stephens) is betrayed by this trusted apprentice Horvath (Alfred Molina) and slain by the evil sorcerer Morgana (Alice Krige). A bunch of years later, in 2000 A.D., a kid named Dave (played by Jay Baruchel when he grows up) wanders into a curio shop and is given a magic dragon ring by Balthazar (Nicolas Cage). Ten MORE years later, in 2010 A.D., they must work together to stop Horvath from freeing Morgana, who will destroy the world or something.

Some Notes:

• Jay Bachual's only Disney role to date.

Podcast: Between Worlds (2018)

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Your Stupid Minds continues its Worst of 2019 mini theme with a film that technically didn’t come out in 2019 (December of 2018) but also didn’t really come out anywhere, really. Nicolas Cage stars as another character named Joe in Maria Pulera's ghostly thriller dark comedy drama horror film Between Worlds.

Joe (Cage) is a widower Alabama truck driver whose wife and five-year-old daughter died tragically in a house fire. He comes across a woman named Julie (Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente) being choked out in a truck stop bathroom. He beats up the choker, but Julie explains the choking was consensual. She has a psychic ability to exist “between worlds” when she is near death. She needs to use her ability to rescue the soul of her daughter, who is in a coma after a motorcycle accident.

Joe and Julie start a relationship, but things are not what they seem as the recovering daughter Billie (Penelope Mitchell) begins acting stranger and hornier than usual.

Some Notes:

• Available on Netflix.
• Submitted by listener request. The listener writes: "Imagine a wealthy, cloistered Tina Belcher wrote an uncomfortably horny fake David Lynch film and had a fetish for giving Nic Cage embarrassing directions on set. That's basically this movie."
• This is the fourth time Nicolas Cage has played a character named "Joe." If IMDb rumors are correct, he will play a fifth Joe in an upcoming Joe Exotic miniseries.
• Yes, the Flop House Podcast just reviewed this movie a week ago. Let the record state we had no idea they were going to do that. We can prove it in a court of law.

Trouble, trouble, trouble...

I watched this ten times.


Also here's our Wicker Man review because why not?

What are they teaching our kids these days?

Via Adam Pecht. From a psychology textbook.

INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE REASONING COMBINED Now suppose that one of your friends invites you to see a new movie that stars Nicolas Cage. You have seen some of Nicolas Cage's recent movies and hated them. Through inductive reasoning, you have come to believe that other movies Cage stars in will be terrible. In deciding whether to accept your friend's offer, you may combine inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. Thus your belief that Nicolas Cage's latest movies are all terrible (premise based on inductive reasoning) leads you to expect that the new movie is not worth seeing (conclusion based on deductive reasoning).

More like:

INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE REASONING COMBINED Now suppose that one of your friends invites you to see a new movie that stars Nicolas Cage. You have seen some of Nicolas Cage's films and hated them. Through inductive reasoning you can conclude that you are not fun and have terrible taste, and an actor's entire oeuvre cannot be deduced through one passive viewing of The Weather Man on an airplane. You immediately rent Face/Off and Vampire's Kiss and deduce that Nicolas Cage's movies are always worth watching regardless of quality or content, because Cage is literally insane. You then accept your friend's offer and it is awesome.

Deadfall (1993)

Like the end of the month itself, we close July with a Nic Cage performance so intense it will melt children's popsicles if they sit too close to the screen. In 1993, we finally got an encore performance of a Coppola directing an Estevez, in the grand tradition of Apocalypse Now and, uh... The Outsiders. It's... not great.

A taut 90's photoshop.

Wild at Heart (1990)

It's natural for one of Hollywood's most fearless actors to team up with one of its most fearless directors. What's surprising is that it took until 1990 for Nicolas Cage to collaborate with David Lynch, only to never do so again. Cage brings his signature manic delivery, Elvis infatuation, and snakeskin jacket to Lynch's ultra violent Wizard of Oz referencing psychotic surreal romantic road movie Wild at Heart.

You! Guilty!

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

BL:PoCNO, apart from having the most cumbersome title of any movie I've reviewed for this site, also has the distinction of being maybe the best film I've reviewed here. This means it edges out Death Bed: The Bed that Eats and Kazaam. Despite its long and confusing name (which resulted in a lawsuit from another movie called Bad Lieutenant), and a long-awaiting re-uniting of Ghost Rider stars Nic Cage and Eva Mendes, BL is actually really good. It's surprisingly funny, consistently entertaining, and uses Nic Cage's trademark quiet/LOUD acting to full effect.

Not only is this woman not a suspect, she's not even a witness.

The Wicker Man (2006)

There are many things you could say about Nicolas Cage--loud, insane, unselective, brash, bird for hair--but safe is not one of them. He is never afraid to put himself out there, to commit fully to a character, and, especially in the case of Neil LaBute's The Wicker Man, look like a complete jerkwad. The Wicker Man is the story of police officer Edward Malus (Cage) who travels to a strange island of nature-obsessed pagan women in search of a missing girl. Malus's descent into madness is much like Cage's acting method: the more he commits, the more manic he becomes.

How do you even pour bees?

Vampire's Kiss (1988)

Nicolas Cage is a conundrum. Similar to Gary Busey's manic psychosis, Cage has a love hate relationship with acting. He never adequately strikes a balance between extremes; either mumbily sleepwalking through a performance (The Weather Man, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Matchstick Men) or going so bombastically overboard (Face/Off, The Wicker Man, Bad Lieutenant) as to render the entire project comical, regardless of direction, writing, intent or supporting roles.

1988's Vampire's Kiss falls into the latter category. Cage plays New York literary agent Peter Loew, a Sherman McCoy-like Manhattan asshole unfulfilled by constant clubbing and anonymous hookups with beautiful women. During one of these hookups a bat flies into Loew's luxurious high-rise apartment. From this moment on Loew undergoes a drastic transformation. He is sensitive to sunlight, becomes increasingly erratic, and fashions a makeshift coffin by flipping his leather couch upside down. Loew says it best when he runs down the street screaming "I'M A VAMPIRE" at the top of his lungs.

HOW'D IT GET BIT? HOW'D IT GET BIT?

Face/Off (1997)

With Transformers 2 steadily approaching the billion dollar mark, Michael Bay has seemingly perfected the mindless, epileptic action film. What many forget, however, is Bay made his career on ripping off John Woo. It's all there. Quick cuts. Sweaty close-ups. Slow motion walking. Nauseating rotating shots. Bay just uses fewer doves and more breasts.

When Woo left Hong Kong for Hollywood, many predicted he would become what Michael Bay is today. For all intents and purposes they would have been right, if they hadn't factored in Woo not giving a damn. While his collaborations with Chow Yun-Fat were earnest attempts at spectacle, his Hollywood efforts are more self-parody. By the time Woo entered the American market, every action director had thoroughly replicated his style. What more could he do than take such ridiculousness to its inevitable breaking point?

Thus we have Face/Off.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Part of the comic book industry's attempt to cash in on every license ever, it's the 2007 box office smash Ghost Rider that was panned by critics and forgotten about exactly two weeks after it came out!

Remember kids: don't do what Ghost Rider does