Everything Nicolas Cage you secretely wanted to learn...and why you all love him deep down

Being the greatest actor in the world is trying on a man...

An Intro to the life of being misunderstood

     One of the hardest questions I've had to face in my life is "Why do you like Nic Cage so much?!" (usually yelled with that exact inflection). I find this to be a very good question. It is on par with the age-old questions that have perplexed outsiders like "What's eating Gilbert Grape?!" or "Where is my mind?" If you have seen the film or heard the song (respectively) you might know the answer to why Gilbert's life is so tumultuous or why the Pixies are unsure of their minds' whereabouts. If you haven't experienced the references, you won't understand the question; it is the same with the legacy of Nicolas Cage. Normally I can't respond to the person asking why I adore Nicolas Cage as if I were Miley Cyrus. I just knowingly and wistfully look upward and say "I could write a book about it" and leave it at that. It's time to answer that question as concisely as I may. Being "concise" and speaking about N.C. don't really go hand-in-hand, however, so don't be surprised if this expose' comes at you like a dark horse.

      After struggling through a flood of considerations, I decided to limit my expose' to 3 distinct reasonings for loving Nic Cage. One could say that I chose to depict him as man, myth, and legend (although the order is a rather gray area in this article). If, by the time this is finished, you don't start your own Nic at Nite™ club watching his movies every week, then I am a failure. That is a risk I'm willing to take; I like to live dangerously (disclosure: Nic at Nite is not really trademarked, but it should be).

#1: The Cage of Personality 

Aaaaaand entire blog post instantly redeemed

 

     In a world where so much goes wrong, my expectations were just fulfilled 100-fold. Yes, that is a picture of baby Nicolas Cage cuddling with baby Chuck Norris. I feel like I don't even have to write about this now...
     But I will. The first reason why Nicolas Cage is so universally and inexplicably loved is that he is universally and inexplicably loved. Similar to the legendary Chuck Norris, N.C. has a cult of personality. People get bored watching the same-old Hollywood actors go to their stuffy red-carpet events, looking air-brushed and heavily made-up and boring. Nic does go to the Oscars and what have you, but he also out-bids people on dinosaur skeletons (http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/nic-cage-2009911) or builds himself a pyramid in a cemetery in New Orleans for his burial. The guy keeps it fresh. You can't help but respect that in this society of mundane thespian cutouts. Nicolas Cage Jokes might not be almost a cliche' like Chuck Norris Jokes, but many of his movies must be construed as jokes in and of themselves. Otherwise I'm placing my love and trust in a crazy person. There is no other way.

#2: The Good, the Bad, and the Bad 

Nic Cage as the Cat on Nic Cage's Shoulder

    Time to get in to what makes the man: his movies. The cinematic journey that is Nicolas Cage's films is not a therapeutic one. This is due to the fact that he is best known for his extraordinary ability to substantially lose his sh*t at any given moment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8 disclaimer: some language). There is no conceivable way that all his shenanigans are scripted. The man ate a live cockroach twice in the filming of Vampire's Kiss. That's dedication to the ideal. That's a beautiful thing.
      Nicolas Cage has another dedication to an ideal. The ideal of making movies. A lot of movies. To date, he's been in a sizable role almost 80 times since his part in Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982. That's averaging more than two and a half movies a year for 30 years.
      Being prolific comes with its dangers, though, and the blow to Cage's reputation is real. If College Humor makes a skit on it, you know it's for real: Nic Cage's Agent
I peed a little when I first saw that a number of years ago. Still gets me every time. But I digress. The main point I want to leave you with is my own personal theory that Mr. Cage decides to make an actual good movie every five years or so. Might seem crazy but the pattern seems to hold up fairly well. I mean, the guy won an Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas. Even the most diehard haters can't take that away. In summation: N.C. is in a lot of movies, N.C. is in a lot of bad movies, watch The Wicker Man (2006).

 #3: The Life/Lives of Nicolas Coppola

So he's a vampire...what's the big deal???

     In 2011 some guy put up a picture of a man from the Civil War era on Ebay. He could have just basked in the glory of finding a Nic Cage doppelganger from a century ago, but Nic Cage fans go hard in the paint™ (that one might actually be trademarked knowing rappers these days). He winged it a bit and put it up for a million dollars saying it proved Nicolas Cage is a vampire. I mean, what would you do in that guy's shoes?!? Other accidental Nic Cage paraphernalia is probably more affordable not to mention practical:

Hey girl, I heard you like to cuddle...

  

 I kind of hope he designed it himself. 
     Nic's life isn't always a couch of roses. In 2009, tragedy struck. Upon waking late one night, Nic was startled to see a man at the foot of his bed eating a fudgsicle and dressed only in N.C.'s leather jacket. "I know it sounds funny, but it was horrifying." Cage said in an interview. I can't make this stuff up. There is just nothing left to say.

In summation

     In the interest of not being too repetitive after the cage of personality section, Nic is unique. We love him for it and wouldn't want it any other way. He's like a proverbial diamond in the rough. Or you can think of him as the rough around the diamond. Either way, the man keeps our interest in a world of the mundane. I hope this post has been both informative and encaging for all of you. If you have any comments and/or stories of conversions to love of Cage feel free to post!

~Worley

P.s: Check out niccageaseveryone.blogspot.com.