Epsiode 19: An Ode to Nicolas Cage’s Mullet in Con Air I think over time this podcast is slowly The answer I think is ‘No’, objectively, but morphing into a meditation on various lockdown has been long and the nights types of guy – action guys, renaissance have been cold. The second outcome, is men, guys who love their wives even that I’ve now watched just an obscene though they’re divorced, guys bonded amount of Nicolas Cage movies in rapid by the light homoeroticism of male strip succession and I think I know what I want tease, guys trying to move on from to talk about. their careers as boy band guys, big strong guys who I would like to lift me I’m Alex – this is Pop Culture Boner, the in their powerful arms, and perhaps podcast edition, and today I’m thinking most importantly, weird guys. I love to about Nicolas Cage in Con Air. read a Wikipedia page on a guy and go “Jesus… is this allowed?” So, unlike Steven Seagal, whose film history can really be held up against I did an episode on Steven Seagal earlier the continued Western appropriation of this year and I learned a lot about Eastern genre cinema into things that are Japanese martial arts and the rise of barely recognisable, there’s no coherent Kung Fu cinema. To be clear – I learned a starting point for Nic Cage. He’s done lot about each of these things separately. everything from Oscar-winners, to totally I know they’re different – it’s unclear forgettable action cinema, to iconic camp if Steven Seagal does. Anyway, that action cinema, to rom coms, to children’s episode was prompted by a conversation films, to unhinged indie cinema. Where with notable friend of the pod, Jamie the question “What’s Steven Seagal Preisz. At this point, he’s essentially co- up to?” has a fairly definitive answer producing with Wesley, and I’m paying of “something offensive probably, neither of them. And now that Sydney is just based on his personal brand”, the in lockdown, he’s done it again by being question “What’s Nicolas Cage up to?” like “You should watch the film Next has a variety of responses which include starring Nicolas Cage. What’s he up to?” large goth sons, films about truffle pigs, Which is a great question that prompted crow domes and tax debt. There’s a lot on me to do a deep dive on Nic Cage’s his plate. chequered film history, strange personal life and the invention of the crow dome. Hollywood has always loved an eccentric This journey has had two major outcomes – or maybe it just consistently produces – the first is that at various points I have them and so they just have to turn it into said to myself out loud “Is Nic Cage hot?” a charm point. It’s unclear. Either way, I’ve fully bought into the narrative – I But then I was forced to say the plot of have an entire shelf of books dedicated Con Air out loud to my dad, to remind him to the various scandals, murders, of the fact that we’d watched it together. affairs, addictions and eccentricities of And as I said the words “but then Steve Hollywood’s Golden Age and beyond. Buscemi doesn’t dismember the child And look, 90% of it is probably made up, who sings ‘He’s Got the Whole World In but I think the number of rumours flying His Hands’ and disappears into the Las around often drives further oddball Vegas night, which we are happy about”, behaviour. Like, do I think Joaquin I thought “I should probably actually just Phoenix is a bit of a weirdo? Yes. Do write about Con Air.” So here we are – I think that he deliberately inflates we’re going to use this episode to look his own eccentricities to allow him to at Nick Cage’s Hollywood reputation at maintain an air of mystery? Also yes. Do the time of Con Air’s release, his bizarre I think Ben Affleck is a grubby little ass- performance in the film and unpick the man who loves ice coffee? Yes. Do I think completely unhinged plotline. Let’s get his relationship with Jennifer Lopez is into it, shall we? real? Yes. Do I think the recently staged paparazzi photos where he is touching If you have not seen Con Air before her butt in direct imitation of photos taken and now think that it might be about a of the couple circa 2003 are the most murderous Steve Buscemi finding Jesus genuinely unhinged and beautiful thing through the power of not murdering in the world? Absolutely. Everything is a children, allow me to elaborate. That is circle. Weird begets further weird. only a small portion of the plot. Nicolas Cage plays Cameron Poe, an army ranger Cage is a good candidate for this angle. in prison for manslaughter after he breaks He comes from storied Hollywood a dude’s neck in a bar far fight. He’s family, famously changing his name ostensibly defending his wife’s honour, from Coppola to Cage in an attempt to but the guy also said “Pussies like you prove he could make it on his own as an are why we lost Vietnam”. Which I think actor. (Of course, that’s definitely how is maybe the only time I’ve seen this that works. No one’s ever seen of heard specific approach to the Vietnam War on of you before, wink wink.) But like… I film? Not to get too side-tracked but like, think growing up in any family that’s the I realise that it was an unpopular war equivalent of American royalty makes and that negative public opinion resulted you a little weird to begin with, and then in some pretty difficult circumstances for rumours of your eccentricities begin to some veterans... but I don’t think it was make the news and then that’s how you cos anyone thought the Army Rangers end up with a stolen Mongolian dinosaur were pussies? I thought it was cos people skull and a geodesic crow dome. And kept seeing children – Vietnamese and initially, this episode was going to be American – blown up on TV in a war effort about the idea of a Weird Guy Spectrum that was getting nowhere and doing in Hollywood, and Nic Cage’s place in the nothing? Am I wrong? Americans… if I’m canon of Weird Guys. incorrect, please let me know on Twitter or something. Explain to me this can of worms. It’s a lot of trouble because one man wants to save a diabetic, and he doesn’t Anyway, they give Nicolas Cage 10 years care how many casino-goers he takes because his Army Ranger training makes down in the process. him a deadly weapon – again, this is a direct quote. But he’s well behaved in If that all sounds completely batshit, it’s prison because he’s actually a nice man because it is. When I started watching Con at heart, and he writes to his wife and Air, one of the notes that I wrote down daughter every day. He’s finally paroled, was “who would put every single bad but first him and his buddy Baby-O guy in the world on one plane?” (and have to take a flight to a new supermax then in brackets I wrote “John Cusack”) prison, from which he will be released. – the script even acknowledges it too, Unfortunately for Nicolas Cage, he’s when Cage says to Baby-O that the guards about to be put on a plane with the so- had somehow managed to get “every called worst of the worst, a plane full of creep and freak in the universe on one predators. Again, these are lines taken plane”. This is explained away through a directly from the script. These predators new supermax facility that conveniently include Oscar nominee John Malkovich, needs to be populated. Now, I didn’t national treasures Danny Trejo, Dave know much about supermax facilities, Chapelle and Steve Buscemi, and aside from hearing them as a buzz word Marsellus Wallas himself, Ving Rhames. on crime procedurals. The Wikipedia The unfortunate thing about putting definition of a supermax prison facility every criminal mastermind in the world is as a “control-unit” prison, or a unit on one plane is that they’re probably within prisons, which represents the gonna mastermind some stuff. Which most secure levels of custody in the they do, and lo and behold they hijack prison systems of certain countries with the plane. Nicolas Cage has a chance the objective of providing long-term, to escape but decides not to because segregated housing for inmates classified Baby-O is diabetic and needs his insulin as the highest security risks in the prison shot, which has been destroyed during system and those who pose an extremely the hijacking. Nic Cage spends the rest of serious threat to both national and global the movie being thwarted in his attempts security. In movies, that usually means to find a needle so Baby-O can have his serial killers (Hannibal Lecter types) or insulin. Meanwhile, John Cusack is on criminal masterminds (guys who pull off the ground trying to work out what’s big heists). In reality, the majority of happening. He gets the hot tip when Nic people who sit in supermax prisons in Cage attaches a note to Dave Chapelle’s our current climate are people being held corpse and drops it on an elderly couple.