Peggy Sue Got Married Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Did you see any of the three big studio releases this weekend? Early box office returns indicate that Alex Proyas' apocalyptic science-fiction drama Knowing drew larger audiences than John Hamburg's bro-mantic comedy I Love You, Man or Tony Gilroy's clever Duplicity. Putting it in star terms, it looks like Nicolas Cage beat out the teaming of Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, as well as one-time box office champ Julia Roberts and Clive Owens. But did audiences flock to Knowing because of Nicolas Cage, or despite him?

I'm in the latter camp, and that's because his track record of choosing interesting projects has taken a nose dive since he won an Academy Award in 1996 for Leaving Las Vegas. As well expressed by John Anderson in The Washington Post, Cage's performance in Con Air marked the turning point, after which there have been "few detours from the action star/blockbuster track upon which Cage has trod with particularly graceless aplomb, and virtually no humor at all, except on top of his head, where his hair is continual source of mirth and mystery."

As I watched Cage as a college professor and widowed father in Knowing, I was struck by how hard he seemed to be Acting (yes, with a capital "A"), emoting with every muscle in his body vibrating, never giving a straight line reading for fear it might be considered ordinary or unimportant. Anderson wrote: "He glowers, he hunches, he looks meaningfully into the distance without it meaning anything at all."

Like Anderson, I miss the juicy, funny, very human Cage of Raising Arizona, Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Wild at Heart. He was sometimes overindulgent, but he compelled me to watch what he would do next. Not anymore. Do you still love Nicolas Cage?

Twenty-one years ago, Francis Ford Coppola made Peggy Sue Got Married. It was a strange fantasy comedy, one that scored itself some Oscar nominations and starred Kathleen Turner and Coppola's nephew, Nicolas Cage. There's already been talk of how Cage was difficult on set. The actor himself admitted last year to Conan O'Brien that he based Charlie's strange and distracting voice on Gumby, and how his uncle and the studio almost fired him over it.

Now there's more word about his behavior during that production, and he's really not happy with it. In her upcoming book, Send Yourself Roses, Turner discusses her time with Cage during the film, and while the book has yet to hit shelves, the BBC reports that a "defamation, libel, and slander" case has been filed by Nicolas in London's High Court. What has got him so worked up, especially since he already admitted to being difficult?

According to The Daily Mail (via American Superstar), she wrote that Cage was "absolutely determined to prove that he wasn't there as the result of nepotism." And followed it up with: "Oh, that stupid voice of his and the fake teeth! Honestly, I cringe to think about it. He caused so many problems. He was arrested twice for drunk-driving and, I think, once for stealing a dog. He'd come across a chihuahua he liked and stuck it in his jacket."

So -- was he just a bratty and difficult nephew on set, or was he some wacko who stole chihuahuas? Who knows? It still sounds entertaining. Turner's book is scheduled to hit shelves this month, and also features dirt on Burt Reynolds and Christie Brinkley (the latter of which sounds like Spider-Man, without crime-fighting as an excuse for no-shows).

Nicolas Cage as a parent? Variety says that Cage has signed up to play "a father who goes in search of his college-aged American-born Muslim son, who's missing overseas" in The Vanished. Cage is 43, so he's certainly old enough chronologically to play the parent of of a college kid. But maybe I'm just fixating on the buck-toothed role he played in his uncle's Peggy Sue Got Married, wherein Kathleen Turner desperately wanted to avoid having him father her child. Or maybe it's Raising Arizona, where he stole another family's quintuplets. Or Leaving Las Vegas, in which he drank himself to death, or Face/Off, where he made John Travolta's daughter think her dad was coming on to her, or the kind of fathers he played in Matchstick Men , The Family Man and The Weather Man.

In real life, Cage is probably a wonderful father to his children, but his performances tend to be all over the map, so we'll wait to see how his collaboration with director Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now) turns out. Does Cage's character in The Vanished disapprove of his son's decision to become a Muslim? I would count on it. Does he love him anyway? Of course. Will he come into conflict with racial and religious prejudice? No doubt.

The Vanished is described as a thriller, but it's being made for Focus Features. That, along with the subject matter, clearly signals the film as possible Oscar bait. (For comparison's sake, Focus's releases this fall are Eastern Promises and Lust, Caution, Reservation Road and Atonement.) Cage will next be seen in the sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which hits theaters on December 21. He starts filming Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler in January and moves on to The Vanished in April. I wouldn't be surprised if they're aiming to complete it in time for the Toronto and/or Venice film festivals next September.

Remember Peggy Sue Got Married? And how Kathleen Turner got to go back and live her high school life over again, making those changes she thought she wanted? (And how Francis Ford Coppola cast both nephew Nicolas Cage and daughter Sofia in it? Sneaky devil.) Well, it's now been all of 20 years since that particular flashback flick (the last good one, if nothing else), so Hollywood has decided it's time to hit us with another - and this one's for the fellas.

Entitled Touchback, the film tells the story of a 20-something ex-high school football star whose career was ended by a "shattered" leg during his senior season. (And if this movie is going to try to make us feel sympathy for the pathetic adults who can talk about nothing but their high school sports careers, I might turn violent. Just so you know.) Since this is a movie about impossible second chances, he hits his head and "find[s] himself back in time, a week before the big game."

Don Handfield's screenplay has been picked up by Morgan Creek, who have hired TV veteran David Nutter to direct. No word yet on who will play the football stud - I guess Dennis Quaid is finally too old for this sort of thing, huh?