There’s a new Nicolas Cage movie out. Not that actual moviegoers would know that.
Cage — Remember him? He won the best actor Oscar back in 1995 for “Leaving Las Vegas” — was the hottest star in the business for a few years, snagging one juicy role after another. But he has become the guy whose movies come out in January, when studios unleash the dregs they know don’t stand a chance in theaters against the end-of-the-year blockbusters and Oscar contenders. And that’s if his movies get released in theaters at all.
Most of them bypass the cineplex entirely.
The latest is “Arsenal,” which opened Jan. 6 in some theaters, none of which are in Minnesota. Like most Cage movies these days, where “Arsenal” really opened is on your TV’s video-on-demand service. Like many Cage movies, its reviews have been dreadful. And, like many Cage movies, it’s a familar-sounding thriller: In this one, Cage plays a loud-mouthed mobster who takes a guy hostage.
Once in a while, a Cage movie gets a chance to find an audience — he had a small role in last year’s “Snowden,” which bombed but at least made it into a decent number of theaters. But a look at Cage’s page at the Internet Movie Database is baffling, both in terms of the huge number of projects Cage is involved with (five movies listed for last year, six for the coming year) and for the obscurity of almost all of them.
Does “Pay the Ghost” ring a bell? No? How about “Army of One”? “The Trust”? “Outcast”? “Rage”? “Stolen”? “Trespass”? Even the indistinct titles sound like they’ve given up on these movies. Although Cage once worked with the greats of the business — Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Jonze, Ridley Scott — Cage’s recent projects were made with no-name directors and co-“stars” who have some work to do to climb onto the B-list (Wendi McClendon-Covey, Gina Gershon, Selma Blair).
So, what happened that sent Cage from accepting Oscars to pumping out schlock more likely to “premiere” on an airplane than in a theater?
It’s not that he suddenly became terrible. Cage always required careful casting, because he tends to make bold choices such as eating an actual cockroach on camera in “Vampire’s Kiss” or trotting out any number of obfuscating wigs and accents. But, even if the movies he has made have not been great, his work in them has always been interesting. You may find what he’s doing baffling — shifting, for instance, from whispering to yelling in mid-sentence or laughing at moments of tragedy — but you’re never going to be bored by it.
Cage was never going to fit roles as easily as contemporaries Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise. If Cage tries to play an Average Joe, for instance (as he did in “Snowden”), it feels like he’s making fun of Average Joes. Instead of leads, he might suit supporting character parts better, the kinds of roles that Harvey Keitel has snapped up for decades, but a look at his resume suggests that he prefers big parts in lousy material to smaller roles in more interesting stuff.
The real problem could be money. Apparently, Cage needs top-of-the-line salaries, not supporting-actor salaries. He has said a money manager blew a lot of his millions and, in 2009, the IRS slapped a tax lien on him, amounting to more than $6 million. He also has expensive — and weird — tastes, which include super-rare comic books, haunted houses and deserted islands.
He may not command the $20 million salaries he earned at his “Con Air” peak, but saying “yes” to five or six movies a year seems to be enough to keep Cage in DC comic books. Who knows? Maybe there’s a master plan at work, with Cage taking movie after movie to keep his skills sharp and biding his time until Quentin Tarantino gives him a call and, as QT has done with John Travolta and Kurt Russell, puts Cage back on the A list.
In the meantime, if you’re a Cage fan, your DVR channel guide should keep you apprised of what the busy, if low-profile, actor is up to.
