Nicolas Cage, restrained.
Nicolas Cage, bonkers.
We live in weird times, so why not embrace 2021 as the Year of Nicolas Cage?
The Oscar winner, who once anchored big-budget action epics like Con Air and The Rock, has remained the hardest-working man in show biz, while not always getting a whole lot of respect for it.
Cage has churned out a LOT of movies in recent times — 17 in the last three years, to be exact — but he’s not just stumbling forward, grabbing a paycheck and mentally checking out like other former big screen icons like Bruce Willis.
Some of the movies have been great — Mandy, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Color Out of Space — and some, well, let’s hope they at least had good craft service.
But Cage, unlike a lot of other A-listers who have landed in the hazy world of what used to be called straight-to-video movies, fully commits.
He brings it each time out, often going to vintage levels of weirdness, and his name on the poster is a guarantee he’s going to be in there swinging for the fences, always.
Cage may never regain his ’90s headliner status, but he’s still The Man, something on full display in two of my favorite new films from the year about to end.
Pig and Willy’s Wonderland, both available to watch on Hulu, couldn’t be more different, and yet they both scratch my movie junkie itch.
In the former, Cage is ultra-restrained, a man plumbing the horrors of lost memories as he tries to reenter society while in pursuit of his kidnapped pig, who had a nose for finding tasty, and expensive, truffles.
The duo lived a quiet life off the grid, with the human half of the pair still able to cook a mean risotto, but also so scarred by his past he can’t bear to play a cassette tape recorded by his now absent wife.
A former chef of great renown, Cage’s deeply-hurting hermit is spurred to action when a pair of tweakers burst into his cabin and make off with his only companion.
But, if you’re expecting a John Wick-style revenge movie, this ain’t the one.
Instead, it’s a melancholy journey, with some bizarre side touches and a profoundly sad finale, as Cage burrows deep into his character.
Slouched at a table in an ultra-ritzy restaurant, blood staining his face and grungy clothes, he completely breaks the owner/chef — a man he fired for constantly overcooking pasta back in the day — by asking him, “Is this really what you wanted?”
It’s not, and the ensuing conversation, quiet and emotionally-shattering, is as powerful as anything on screen in 2021.
If, and it’s a big if, Oscar voters actually see Pig, Cage should reclaim his front-row seat at the awards shindig.
And then, just because he can, the man who memorably wailed “Not the bees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” delivered another winner with the low-rent horror comedy Willy’s Wonderland.
In which he plays a drifter stuck in a small town, forced to clean up a broken-down Chuck E. Cheese style restaurant … in which the animatronic robots are possessed killing machines looking for their annual sacrifice.
And did I mention Cage never says a single word in the entire film, despite being the lead?
Oh, it’s true. It’s all true.
Slamming back energy drinks at a dizzy rate, demonstrating primo white boy kung fu moves while wielding a mop like a katana, he’s a silent killing machine.
Now, you probably could have made this film with any actor, since there’s no dialogue, and yet, without Cage, I swear it wouldn’t have worked.
It’s grungy, gross, darkly funny, always-entertaining, and gets off the stage in less than 90 minutes, just like a quality B-movie should.
In a year where the pandemic continued to throw release schedules haywire, our TV’s largely replaced movie screens.
Heck, even Hollywood heavyweight Warner Brothers put its entire theatrical output — from Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie to Dune and Matrix: Resurrections — directly onto HBO Max.
Pig and Willy’s Wonderland, so different in style and content, yet anchored by the funkiest star still blazing across the cosmos, fit perfectly into that re-sized world.
From beneath my blankies, while nestled into my recliner, thank you, Mr. Cage.
Some other good 2021 films (and where to find them):
Disney+:
Cruella
Far From the Tree (short film)
Jungle Cruise
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
HBO Max:
The Little Things
No Sudden Move
Reminiscence
Suicide Squad
The Super Bob Einstein Movie
Hulu:
Boss Level
Censor
Shadow in the Cloud
Summer of Soul
Netflix:
Fear Street: Part One – 1994
The Guilty
I Care a Lot
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Power of the Dog
Coupeville Sports 
Leave a Reply