Lego Marvel Super Heroes on PS4 is Excellent Family Fun!

    I knew I was going to have to get out of my comfort zone. Going back to school at the age of 35, things would be different than my last foray into higher education (when George W. Bush was still the president). But going back to study Children’s Media, I was excited to take the leap into the world of kid’s entertainment. And when we got the assignment to play and review a contemporary video game? Wow! My friends would be so impressed that THAT was my homework. The only problem is that video games left me behind a long time ago. After mastering GoldenEye for Nintendo 64, the trend in gaming (at least among my friends) went toward the more advanced gameplay of PlayStation and Xbox. By the time Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 came out, my motor functions were no longer able to keep up with the skill level required to play and enjoy games. (No comment about what may have been impeding my motor functions in the first place.)

Too much information, dude.

    So now that it was time to pick a game to write about, I had grand designs. I  borrowed my brother-in-law’s PS4 and invited my friend Mike, Cinematic Lead Animator at Ubisoft, over to teach me how to play FarCry 5, a super-complicated, ultra violent, open world game. After two hours holed up in the living room, with the kids locked out (for their own good), I was finally past the tutorial stage. That’s when I looked at the assignment again and realized that Mature-Rated games were not eligible for the assignment (OBVIOUSLY, PHIL!) So, after a visit to the local used video game emporium, I finally settled on 2013’s Lego Marvel Super Heroes, and boy am I glad I did.

    Lego Marvel Super Heroes is the best-selling Lego game of all time, outselling such popular licensed franchises as Batman, Harry Potter and Star Wars. It was developed by Traveller’s Tales, the British company that has been making Lego video games since 2005. I was surprised to discover that it was distributed by Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment (WB Games), whose parent company owns DC Comics, which technically makes them the competition. The game itself is a linear vertical-scroller, with many puzzle-solving sequences. P.O.V. is third person, and the camera angle can be adjusted by the right joystick, but only to a minimal degree. The visuals are predictably bright and colourful, and characters designs are very distinct. The game is rated Everyone 10+ for cartoon violence, which is a good fit for this game. It feels quite kid-safe, but being a super hero game there are the inevitable fisticuffs. Most of the villains are non-human henchmen, like robots and sand golems for heroes to annihilate free of guilt. However, I do think there are certain puzzles that might stump younger players, but more on that later. 

    The storyline is on a pretty grand scale, opening amidst the great expanse of outer space. The planet-devouring eternal Galactus is hungry, and he has his sights set on earth. He sends his herald the Silver Surfer ahead, but Dr. Doom has plans of his own. He blasts the Surfer out of the sky, shattering his surfboard into pieces, or since it’s a Lego game, bricks. Doom sends his cadre of Super Villains after the fragments of the cosmic surfboard, sending the heroes into action, lead by Iron Man of the Avengers. Each level is set in locations from Marvel Comics which have been raided by a super villain who must be defeated by whichever combination of heroes you’re dealt. The story is easy enough to follow, and the cutscenes look great. The polished animation is only a slight step down from that of the CG animated Lego films, and the voice work is really good. The dialogue is written in the snappy, humourous style that has been a Marvel trademark since Robert Downey Jr. first donned the Iron Man armour. I’m not personally a huge fan of that style of writing, but it works fine for a game aimed at kids. The only voice talent to cross over from the films is Clark Gregg as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson, who talks you through missions. My personal highlight was Futurama’s John DiMaggio as the cantankerous Daily Bugle Editor J. Jonah Jameson. Also, Stan Lee appears as himself, because of course he does.

But why is Stan working with the villains?

    Apparently there are 180 playable characters, drawing from the Marvel Comics universe, although I only unlocked a handful in my time playing, including Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America and Mr. Fantastic. This is actually one of the few venues that fans can see the Marvel film characters interact with characters from the Fantastic Four, X-Men and Silver Surfer comics, due to those characters’ film rights being split up among other studios. In the past few years Marvel’s licensing department seems to have shied away from using some of those characters in favour of Avengers, so I was pleased to see Jean Grey of the X-Men on the back cover of the game, especially decked out in her uniform from the ‘90s cartoon. Many fans cynically believe that Marvel has been snubbing those characters because they can’t profit off them at the box office, but whatever the reason, seeing characters like Jean and Wolverine was a real thrill for an X-fan such as myself.

    The game’s controls are pretty straightforward and easy to learn. The action buttons control jump, attack, switch players and a unique action, individual to each character — for instance, Spider-Man can use his Spider-Sense, while Mr. Fantastic merely turns into a teapot. There are constant hints and reminders of what buttons to push as you work through the various puzzles. Each character having individual skills also means that there are times you have to switch back and forth between them to get through the puzzle, which gets more intuitive as the game goes on. You can even turn from Hulk into his alter-ego Bruce Banner, as Hulk’s problem-solving abilities leave something to be desired.

My Spidey-Sense says that trick is useless.

    All games in the Lego universe follow a few rules that make for a distinctive playing experience. Everything you see is made out of Lego bricks, and most objects you come across can be smashed to bits. When destroyed, the pieces will usually fade away in a few seconds, but if they don’t they can be put back together to create a tool that will get you further in the game. For example, to get past the Sandman’s wall in the Sand Central Station level, you need to destroy a decorative globe and rebuild it as a water cannon. This is a really cool component, although I have to admit there were a few instances I was unsure how to proceed, as the pieces were obscured or among other detritus. The environments are generally quite crowded, and I can’t deny the designers’ attention to detail, but it can also be a bit overwhelming. Another problem I had was that certain objects that needed to be destroyed wouldn’t show any sign of damage after one or two hits, so I didn’t know if I was on the right track or essentially doing the equivalent of punching a wall. It was easier when I realized that as Iron Man, you can aim at objects until the crosshairs affix to them, indicating that it’s damageable. Then you simply switch to Hulk and let him do what he does best.

...which is smash.

    To be honest, there were several long stretches when I was stuck not knowing what the heck to do next. The first time the heroes face off against Sandman, he has taken on the form of two huge sand hands. The first one is easily destroyed by a Hulk-hurled hot dog cart, but without anything left to throw at the second hand, I was lost. I wandered the atrium of Grand Central Station vainly searching for something to throw, avoiding the villain at all costs. Eventually, I was so frustrated I gave in to my daughter’s begging for a turn and handed over the controller. After a few minutes of Hulking about, she ran right toward the evil hand, which crashed into some nearby turnstiles, revealing another object for the Hulk to toss. It was a good reminder that kids play games in a totally different way than adults, not afraid to get their hands dirty, as it were. While I was wandering around trying to find a secret room or something, my kid was just mashing buttons and seeing what happened. That actually helped me in ensuing gameplay, to be more exploratory and experimental.

Give the kid a hand.

    If I was going to improve this game, narratively I would lean a little bit more into established Marvel continuity. It’s kind of a grab bag of characters jumbled together and tossed against random bad guys. Although the unusual pairings can be fun, it would also be cool to play levels as established teams like the Fantastic Four or Defenders, or see classic rivalries play out. The story is totally serviceable in terms of moving the plot forward, but I don’t really care about resolving the “Cosmic Surfboard” storyline. I’d be much more motivated to keep playing just to see what other characters I could unlock (I never got to be Jean Grey). There is also a free play mode where you can go back to beaten levels as newly unlocked characters to potentially uncover easter eggs that are only achievable by characters with certain powers or skill sets. Although the Lego brand design is naturally chunky, there are moments in this game that feel clunky. Characters kept getting stuck in crevices, or unable to jump over objects. This feeling was exacerbated when they couldn’t interact with objects for reasons that weren’t readily obvious (i.e. Mr. Fantastic couldn’t slip through a grate because the grate at the other end was blocked off, though the game kept telling me what button to press to make it work).

Teamwork Rules!

    Overall this is a pretty awesome game, and I plan to continue playing. I’m a massive fan of the Marvel stable of characters, which is the element this game leans upon heaviest. Marvel is absolutely turning down money by not making a Lego X-Men game, but now that the film rights appear to be going back to them, maybe it’s more of a possibility. I would brand it as joyful family fun, with a good replayability factor. As Stan Lee would say: Exelsior!

MY RATING: * * * 3 stars (out of 5)

Tarantino in Ten

    Quentin Tarantino recently made the official announcement that he’ll be retiring from directing after his tenth film. Counting Kill Bill volumes I and II as a single installment, that means Django Unchained was his seventh, and after his next - appropriately titled Hateful Eight - he’ll have two more left before calling it a day.
    Tarantino, an obsessive cinephile, reasons that many famous directors overstayed their welcomes, tarnishing their legacies with sub-par late offerings (i.e. Billy Wilder’s forgettable late ouvre).
    Tarantino, whose first film Reservoir Dogs was an indie smash that jumpstarted one of the most prolific careers in modern cinema, in a talk with international film buyers this week said “I don’t believe you should stay on stage until people are begging you to get off. I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more. I do think directing is a young man’s game”.
    So if Tarantino is correct and a director only has ten relevant films in him, let’s look to some of cinema’s masters to see what this means.

STEVEN SPIELBERG
    The American equivalent to Señor Spielbergo’s first ten films represent some of the best movies ever made, including Jaws, E.T., The Color Purple and the first three Indiana Jones movies (I omitted his contribution to the Twilight Zone Movie, Spielberg’s Four Rooms). If he was to quit after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade however, we’d have been deprived of Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan and Lincoln, to name a few — although he would have avoided the few missteps of his career in Hook, A.I., and the dismal fourth Indiana Jones installment.

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
    Amidst a few early efforts for which he was either uncredited, or otherwise meddled with by studios, Uncle Frank’s ten ends at about the Godfather Part 2. So that means we get two of the best films ever made, as well as the underrated The Conversation, but we lose Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders, Peggy Sue Got Married and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Similarly to Spielberg  and Indiana Jones though, it turns out revisiting The Godfather for a third chapter was a misstep.

STANLEY KUBRICK
    Kubrick, like Tarantino was actually quite selective, and after his first ten (including Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: a Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange) the director only completed three more films: The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, so yeah, we’ll take ‘em.

JAMES CAMERON
    Believe it or not, Avatar was only Cameron’s eighth feature, which include The Terminator and its sequel T2:Judgment Day, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies and Titanic. If he quits after ten that means we’ll get Avatar 2 and 3, but not part 4, which might result in blue balls either way.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK
    I have literally never heard of any of Hitchcock’s first ten, which were all produced in the Hollywood heyday of assembly line film production and were made in less than five years. After such forgotten works as The Pleasure Garden, The Lodger, The Farmer’s Wife, The Manxman and Champagne (ooh-la-la!), Hitchcock went on to direct the films he’s really known for, including Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window, The Birds and Dial M For Murder, so it’s safe to say cinema as an entire medium benefitted from the old man sticking with it for the lon haul.

MARTIN SCORSESE
    Omitting his many documentaries, Marty has had an amazing career with a first ten that includes Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Raging Bull and The Color of Money. Although it’s hard to imagine the past thirty years without Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, as well as non-crime dramas like The Last Temptation of Christ, The Aviator and Hugo. Though I did think The Wolf Of Wall Street blew the big one, so I could take it or leave it.

JOEL COEN
    Perpetually in collaboration with his brother Ethan, Joel Coen is the one who technically directed most of the Coens’ flicks. Similarly to Tarantino, the Coens established their aesthetic right out of the gate with Blood Simple, and refined the black humour that would come to define their work a few years later with Raising Arizona (All Hail Nicolas Cage). While I have personally found Joel and Ethan’s work to be hit-or-miss, it would be a shame for their last film to have been the sleeper Intolerable Cruelty, when No Country For Old Men, A Serious Man and True Grit were still just twinkles in their fathers’ eyes.

MICHAEL BAY
    The Liberace of unnecessary Pyrotechnics’ first film was Bad Boys. His tenth was 2013’s Pain and Gain. I don’t think anybody would miss Transformers 4, but maybe we could just have cut him off at one?

So what have we learned? It’s easy for Tarantino to cap it at ten, considering his first film was an indie anomaly, and he didn’t have to spend the requisite years directing studio crap to get his big shot. There are definitely big-name directors who could have stood to be more choosy with what projects they took on, and revisiting early success years after the fact can be downright calamitous. But overall, directing isn’t just a young man’s game* but a craft that can take years to master and even longer to perfect. It’s easy for Tarantino to say that he’s going to leave at the top of his game when he’s essentially autistic in the way that makes great movies, but if most of today’s top directors had quit after ten, we’d have missed out on some of the most important films of our time.

Besides, we all know Quentin's not **actually** going to retire, right?

*Nor is it just a man’s game. I acknowledge that I failed to include any females, but prominent female director Kathryn Bigelow only has ten directing credits; Nora Ephron eight; while Sophia Coppola and Julie Taymor each have five. This is an unfortunate result of an outdated studio system that uses “tradition” as an excuse for suppression, but that’s a whole other article.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Reboot

Good News Everyone! Hollywood's out of ideas! Remember how there was a super-successful relaunch of Star Trek a few years ago? Well, aside from reinvigorating the whole franchise, it was actually pretty fun too.

I, however, was always more of a fan of The Next Generation, so I'm really looking forward to the inevitable series of reboots about Picard and his crew. What with the canonical changes to the timeline that took place in 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, the makers of the TNG series essentially have carte blanche on the state of the galaxy 100 years later.

We could speculate on the plot all day, but what about the cast? It would take a pretty amazing bunch of actors to step into the iconic roles of the Enterprise crew, and if I were calling the shots here's who I would pick.

Bryan Cranston as Captain Jean-Luc Picard

I have no doubt that due to his consummate acting abilities and subtle sense of humor, Cranston would be just the anchor to keep this franchise centered. While Captain Kirk's cocksure attitude translates more easily to the action genre, Picard is more of a diplomat and tactician than his predecessor. In Breaking Bad, Cranston showed audiences that just because a man conducts himself with deliberation and composure, it doesn't mean he can't be a badass. Plus, we already know what he looks like bald, so...

Tom Hiddleston as Lieutenant Commander Data

Hiddleston's resemblance to Data in Thor: The Dark World actually inspired me to write this list. While Loki is devious and ruled by ego and emotions, Data is loyal, objective and methodical. He's also one of the only Androids in known existence, which begs the question, why would Starfleet send him to the intergalactic frontline? They might see him as a weapon, but Data’s personal quest to learn how to be human and essentially acquire a soul, was and always will be one of the most important facets of the TNG canon. Oh, and please, PLEASE bring on Lohr.

Idris Elba as Lieutenant Worf

The glimpse of the Klingons we saw in “Into Darkness” brought a whole new aesthetic to the alien race that's one of the Federation’s biggest pains in the ass. With a potential war in the mix, I’d like to see Worf’s experience as Starfleet’s first Klingon officer be a main through-line of the new films. Perhaps he could even start the series off as a Starfleet spy, trying to come to terms with going up against his ancestral people. That being said, we need someone with serious acting chops, but who’s also tough as nails. If there's another actor who better fits that criteria, then may god help us all.

Michael Fassbender as Commander William Riker 

Picard’s first in command is a charming swashbuckler who's a lot more willing to get his hands dirty, all the while maintaining a certain slick charm. I don't know of another actor that more of my male friends would want to grab a beer with than Michael Fassbender, and the ladies? Forget it. I actually think it would be entertaining to see Riker as a product of a society so far past the conventions of "untraditional" sexuality that he'll get with anybody: women, men, aliens or sentient vapor clouds. Fassbender will have to grow a beard though, so as long as y'all don’t mind it being bright orange.

Chadwick Boseman as Chief Engineering Officer Geordi LaForge

In the movie 42, Chadwick Boseman played the legendary Jackie Robinson, a normal guy who found himself in a remarkable situation. He managed to remain stoic in the face of adversity, cool under pressure and good-humored among his friends. These are all essential traits for fan-favourite Geordi LaForge. Besides being an energetic and gifted actor, I think Boseman has an "everyman" quality that a lot of viewers would find relatable. Or at least as relatable as a blind spaceship engineer who wears magic sunglasses is ever going to get.

Liv Tyler as Counsellor Deanna Troi

Yes she’s devastatingly beautiful, yes she has a certain softness that pulling off a feelings-sensitive “Empath” would require, but more importantly, Liv Tyler wouldn’t play Deanna merely as “Riker’s girlfriend”. She held her own in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as an Elfin Warrior, so I’d like to see Counsellor Troi in this world more than just a expositional sounding board for the unending parade of existential crises that plague the Enterprise crew.

Diane Lane as Chief Medical Officer Beverley Crusher

While being a gorgeous redhead in an appropriate age range to be the inevitable love interest to Bryan Cranston’s Jean-Luc Picard, Diane Lane is also an amazing actor who brings an intense energy to every role she plays. Having Lane’s no-nonsense Dr. Crusher on board the Enterprise would give viewers the feeling that there’s a lot more on the line than simple consular squabbles between made-up planets. It’s a matter of life and death up there, and no one knows better than Beverley.

Dane DeHaan as Wesley Crusher

Then there’s the other Crusher… Wil Weaton’s whiny Wesley is one of television’s most unpopular characters of all time. I say we play that up in the new films and cast an actor who often plays characters you just want to throttle. Dane Dehaan is actually one of Hollywood’s most promising young talents, but man if he doesn’t have a face you just want to punch.

A few more picks:

Octavia Spencer as Guinan 

Octavia has a nice balance of poise, attitude and charisma, and it would take an Oscar-winner to play a believeable 700-year-old sage who operates a bar on an intergalactic spacecraft.

Chris O’Dowd as Tactical Officer Miles O’Brien

I know it might seem silly, but once I got the idea of this Irishman playing O’Brien in my head I couldn’t get it out.

Charlize Theron as Tasha Yar

…And she would get killed by a black tar monster in the opening scene.

Ben Stiller as Q

The villains in this show were weird.

Rest In Peace Nelson Mandela

Valentine's Day, 1990:

While most of the other children in my Grade 1 class were, in all likelihood, filling their daily journals with hearts and Cupids and "Valentimes," I had something else on my mind. My mum had been telling me about a man who was put in jail for little more than being black. She had obviously simplified it for me, but it was clearly on my mind. The result was the following bit of journalism that I am still very proud of today.

When my teacher Mrs. Hanson, impressed by my "exellent" reporting, asked where I got my information I essentially hashtagged the phrase that defined the first ten years of my life: #MYMOMTELLSME

'FORD NATION' EXCLUSIVE: Interview with the hit TV show’s creator and star

Much has been said about the supposed “Golden Age” of television drama currently taking place on cable and online streaming services, but Canadian programming has remained on the sidelines…until now.

Ford Nation on HBO Canada, which had its season four premier last month, has not only captured the attention of viewers across the country but also the much-coveted American following that has eluded Canadian drama.

I sat down with Ford Nation’s creator and showrunner Aemon Pfeffer and its notoriously reclusive star Teddy Chalmers-Headley who plays the embattled Mayor Rob Ford.

Ford Nation creator Pfeffer, left with star Chalmers-Headley

S.J. – Aemon, where did you get the idea for Ford Nation?

A.P. – The idea came to me near the end of the W. Bush administration. I noticed that, at least among my American friends, there was such a vocal loathing for the President, but still he got re-elected. No matter what fucked up shit he did -- or I should say he got caught doing -- he stayed in power and there was nothing to be done about it. I kind of just took that idea and turned it up to eleven.

S.J. – Teddy, you’ve been working as an actor in Canada for a long time, how does it feel to finally get your break playing such a divisive character?

T.C-H. – To be completely honest, it’s a mixed blessing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to finally be able to show people what I've always known I could do, but playing someone so… (Long pause) I used to be afraid that I’d only ever be remembered for playing Duncan the retard boy on Road to Avonlea, but now, no matter what I do, I’ll always be recognized as the guy who played Rob Ford. It’s tough.

S.J. – You’re a very private person, how have you dealt with the sudden attention from the media and internet?

T.C-H. – That’s all part of it. I used read the reviews and message boards, but you can only read so many negative comments about your weight, and your teeth, before it starts to affect you. But one day I said to myself, you know what? I’m going to use it. You either feel sorry for yourself, or you channel it and I think I owe a lot of my performance to those feelings.

A.P. – I think it’s really obvious that a lot of Rob Ford’s motivation comes from insecurity. That’s why we went with Teddy in the first place. He’s no one’s idea of a Hollywood lead, no offense, (Teddy nods) but he can project this stubborn, jock-like bravado that is one of Rob’s most defining characteristics.

T.C-H. – Luckily I have the support of an amazing person who has helped me a lot. (Chalmers-Headley is married to actor Jeff Wagner, who plays Giorgio Mammoliti)

S.J. – This season certainly took off with a bang, with Chief Blair (played by James Laszlo) holding a press conference to declare that the “Crack Tape” from season three was real. Was this a conscious effort to cut to the chase?

A.P. – Definitely. After watching these two characters circling each other like sharks for three seasons, we felt that it was time to throw down the gauntlet. We knew the viewers were ready to see it happen.

T.C-H. – When I first read the script I said to Aemon, ‘How are we going to get away with this?’ In my mind there was no way Rob could go on being the Mayor, but apparently there’s nothing in the City of Toronto statute that says that a sitting Mayor can be kicked out of office without actually being convicted and incarcerated first.

A.P. – It’s true, we do our research.

T.C-H. – That’s why I live in Vancouver (Laughs).

S.J. – One thing we haven’t really touched on is the show’s wicked sense of humour, especially the slapstick element. Where does that come from?

T.C-H. – There’s the age-old adage in comedy that if you’re not laughing you’d be crying, and that’s been very important to me in my portrayal of Rob Ford. If he was just being played as this villain, doing all these horrible, horrible things without any levity, I think it would be a whole different, and much less enjoyable show. Rob Ford isn’t in control of himself, if he won’t admit it verbally, I try to show that physically.

S.J. – I have to say, you’re pretty nimble for a big guy.

A.P. – He’s amazing. Half the time it’s not written in, he just surprises us all. Like in season three episode four when he walked into the camera? We had no idea that was coming.

S.J. – My favourite was the football fall.

T.C-H. – I have to admit, that was unintentional. (Laughs)

S.J. – Another favourite joke of mine is that we never see Rob’s wife Renata. Is that an homage to Frasier and Cheers?

A.P. – Yeah, I wrote for Frasier for a few years, and I always liked the unseen wife gag… But truthfully, Renata is meant to symbolize Rob Ford’s loss of humanity. I mean, at one point he must have been a normal guy, he has a wife and kids, but now all he cares about is his life in politics, which is very much symbolized by his brother Doug.

T.C-H. – That’s the thing that has frightened me most about doing this show. As time goes on I realize there are people who don’t seem to get that it’s satire, these people who view the character of Rob Ford as sympathetic, when he’s not supposed to be at all. When people on the message boards say they would actually vote for Rob Ford, I know most of the time it’s a joke, but it’s kind of scary.

S.J. – That brings me to my last question. Toronto is the fourth-largest city in North America, and by all appearances a pretty liberal city. How are viewers meant to believe people would actually vote for a person like Rob Ford?

A.P. – I don’t know, I think you might be surprised…

Phil Moorhead is a freelance writer and comedian in Toronto. Ford Nation airs on HBO Canada Sundays at 10, and is currently in negotiations for a fifth season.

The Good Things About Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage.  The name alone draws a variety of responses in conversation.  There are those who admire his body of work and his commitment to the craft.  He is an Oscar-winning actor after all.  As of late, however it seems to me that more oftent than not, his name induces scoffing laughter.  Someone usually brings up The Wicker Man.  I've never it, I heard it sucks. Why would I choose to spend ninety minutes on that?  For argument's sake I did have a look at the youtube video of the best (read: silliest) scenes from the 2006 bomb, and it confirmed its suckiness.  (I must concede though that the bees part was pretty funny.)



Cage started his career in smaller, quirkier roles.  In 1987 he starred in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona as a petty crook who kidnaps the youngest of a wealthy furniture store owner's quintuplets to help lift his barren wife's depression.  Years later, NBC's My Name Is Earl would rip this entire movie off, but Jason Lee never came close to Cage's portrayal of H.I. McDunnough, a stupid, bumbling, yet affable and endearing husband who backs himself into every corner of every room of the trailer that is his life.  Apparently, Cage modeled his performance after none other than slapstick legend Wile E. Coyote, a fact alone that is evidence that Cage as an actor exists on a different plane than most others.

After Cage won the best actor Oscar for 1995's Leaving Las Vegas, he had carte blanche to choose whatever project he wanted to do next.  He was known for playing thoughtful and often troubled characters, and he excelled at dark comedy. What he really wanted to do it turns out, was become an action movie hero. He went on to co-star in the explosive Jerry Bruckheimer vehicle The Rock with one of his heroes, Sean Connery, and overall the experiment was a success. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. Cage went on to star in the ridiculous Con-Air, and a buttload of other straight-forward action movies that mostly suck. 

It was around this time that Cage was in serious talks to play Superman in Tim Burton's Superman Lives. Anyone who knows anything about this movie should agree that the fact that this project was aborted was for the good of all mankind. All accounts paint producer Jon Peters as a tyrannical, talentless hack not to mention a complete asshole. Tim Burton (whose gothic style fit the Batman franchise to a tee) was a poor fit on a Superman vehicle.  Recently revealed production and costume designs indicate that he was planning a gaudy departure from the well-known character.  Lastly, Nicolas Cage as Superman? 

Yeesh.  The question itself is an answer to the problems that have plagued Cage's career. His turn as an action hero worked in The Rock, because he played a nerdy scientist forced into the role, keeping his natural eccenricity intact.  Picturing him as the calm, collected, godly boyscout Kryptonian on the other hand is tough to swallow.  But Nicolas Cage LOVES comics.  He's a truly unapologetic fanboy.  When Warner was getting ready to cook up the Superman franchise of the nineties Nic Cage was at the height of his fame and all those elements almost culminated in a sad-eyed, balding-yet-long-haired, neon-clad Superman.  It might be safe to say that Nicolas Cage's worst movie never got made.  It should be mentioned that Cage eventually went on to have a baby which he named Kal-El after Superman's alien moniker, then went on to live his dream of playing a superhero in Marvel Comics' Ghost Rider. I never saw it, I heard it sucked.

So yes, Nicolas Cage has obviously made bad choices and he's made bad movies.  A whole bunch of them.  Sometimes several in a row.  After the cheesy City of Angels he made the stupid Snake Eyes, and then went on to the gross 8 mm.  But of course 8 mm sucked, it was directed by Joel Schumacher, who definitely has a higher ratio of stinkers than Cage.  After those three he went on to make Face Off with John Travolta, which was decent.  If you ask me Travolta and his body of work is a million times worse.  But for some reason Nicolas Cage has become this cultural go-to joke of an actor, even though his body of work as a whole defies this label.  The argument for him being one of the most talented actors of the past ten years could start and end with his portrayal of twin brothers writing the very film in which they are being watched in Spike Jonze's Adaptation, but for the sake of argument let's throw in Andrew Niccol's Lord of War, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass, among others.

Nicolas Cage makes three kinds of movies: 1) Laughably shitty (usually action movies or Disney paycheques), 2) Middle of the Road, slightly successful fare that not too many people see (The Weather Man, Matchstick Men), and 3) Pure Nicolas Cage gold. When it comes to acting, Cage will throw anything at the wall, and when it sticks it's indelible.  His biggest fault is his biggest strength: he trusts his directors completely.  If his director is talentless, or more crucially lacks a sense of humour, then Cage is the one left to shoulder the castigation, and those instances seem to overshadow his great achievements.

So in summation, I think that for every bad Nicolas Cage flick, there's a so-so Nicolas Cage flick for each of which there's a great Nicolas Cage flick.  That's part of what makes him interesting as an actor.  Yes, there's the terrible hairpieces and wigs, but there's also the fact that he claims to have invented a new acting technique called Nouveau Shamanism. 

But the one fact that makes Nicolas Cage undeniably awesome is that of his secret identity.  He was born Nicolas Coppola in 1964, nephew to Hollwood legend Francis Ford Coppola.  When he decided to become an actor however, Nicolas decided he wanted to make it on his own merits, and not on his famous name, so he changed it.  But where did he get "Cage" from?  He borrowed it from Luke Cage, a 1970s Marvel Comics Blaxploitation superhero who went by the name Power Man and dressed like this:

Did I just blow your mind?

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

What a great video.

That's the legendary Ramones and their cover of Tom Waits' I Don't Want to Grow Up. The video's animated segments were conceived by comics artist Daniel Clowes, whose beautifully bizarre style works great with the song's content. Subtext Junkies take note, Clowes included a Tom Waits cameo - a black and white portrait of him appears on the wall at 0:34 seconds in.

Clowes is about as famous as comics artists get (not very), so you probably know him best as the creator of Ghost World, the graphic novel that became a 2001 film starring Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson, who incidentally went on to record an album of Tom Waits covers in 2008.

Did I just blow your mind?