#CageClub: The Nicolas Cage Podcast

It's time to visit the apocryphal gospels with The Carpenter's Son, which marks our return to "fully caught up on Cage" status! After exploring why Nicolas Cage wanted to do this movie (including the "insult" he suffered before this and how this whole thing seems to have backfired), we talk about some new Nicolas Cage news, including a release date for Madden (Nov. 18 on Amazon Prime!) and a movie from the director of Stolen that was... stolen... from Netflix?! Then, we shift our focus to The Carpenter's Son. Joey offers Mike some context for other actors in this movie, while Mike wonders whether this movie was mismarketed. We discuss the film's strong start as well as its struggle to match that height again. Why does it seem like there's such little story here? We try to figure that out. We also highlight the elements we like from the movie, as we want to bring some positivity to it. We then turn our eyes to the future and look at Nicolas Cage's IMDb to see his eight (!) upcoming projects.

We're continuing our journey through Nicolas Cage's recent filmography by talking about The Surfer, which premiered at Cannes! After talking about how critics loved it (but fans didn't), we share our favorite details and moments, like: it's an Australian Christmas movie... it's the summer! We heap praise on both Nicolas Cage and Julian McMahon's performances, and talk about how it feels like this is a return to a Vampire's Kiss-esque character for Cage. So much feels like a dream... but isn't... and we talk about what that does for the movie. Joey praises it for being a really tight film with such clear wants and needs, Mike compares this surf crew to the one in Point Break, and we both talk about the rat being an item in old point-and-click PC adventure games. We look ahead to The Carpenter's Son and talk about showing off Cage's lesser-known films. Joey shares the level of artistic impact he has achieved on behalf of #CageClub.

We’ve made it to the end of Spider-Noir — at least its first season — and it’s time to talk about its finale: “The Man in the Mask.” We talk about how, it turns out, there was never (really) a big bad. With 11 Emmy Award nominations under its belt (rightly recognizing the craft of this show!), we wonder: are people talking about this show? Watching this show? Or did all of that happen 8 weeks ago? We discuss how the finale balances the noir and comic book elements with almost an exact 50/50 split, heap praise on Lamorne Morris as Robbie doing a multi-layered impression of Cage doing Jimmy Stewart as Ben, and explore the idea that this episode really needs us to care about Cat and to fear Megawatt. We get a return to Spider-Man’s New York transportation roots (for action!) and receive a surprising happy ending. (Importantly, Ben gets that hot dog.) Will this show continue? Do we want it to? It’s behaving how every new show must behave: leaving the door open for more while also offering a conclusion.

We've entered the home stretch of Spider-Noir! Today's episode is about "Nobody's Hero," the seventh in the season and the first of Greg Yaitanes's two episodes. We talk about how quickly the episode sets up its stakes (good!), has a bunch of fun stuff in the middle (great!), but ends in a strange place (not great!). We lament the lack of cumulative buildup and discuss some different ways this could have been fixed and try to connect the style of this show's creation to the way comics are written. Drunk Spider! Fighting Tombstone! There's so much to love, and we give "Nobody's Hero" its praises. Joey shares some details from the New York Times hour-long video interview, including what television means to Nicolas Cage and what, exactly, he was going for in The Gunslingers. We get a bit existential with the future of properties and the tenuous nature of 2026 media.

The first season (?) of Spider-Noir is wrapping up, but not before the show goes full horror in its sixth episode: "Nightmare on a Gurney." After Joey explains why the episode was a bit of a lowlight for him (but why this criticism is sort of a compliment to the series overall), we discuss the fact that we have cleaned up the thread set up in the last episode... so now what? Do we have unanswered questions left to answer? Is Silvermane the villain of this show? If he is... what's his plan? We discuss the episode's horror elements and nightmare sequence, what Ben will do with the antidote, and what his real name may be. We heap praise on the comic book split screens and rain, wonder whether or not this show was storyboarded out, and try to make sense of when this show takes place based on its references to new movies.